New Hampton Town House

86 Town House Road - Also known as the Center Meeting House, Old Meeting House

New Hampton, NH was incorporated on November 27, 1777. By 1797-1798 the townspeople were already considering the construction of a meeting house. At the annual town meeting in March of 1798, the voters of New Hampton decided to erect a meeting house. Two more town meetings in April and September were required to settle all of the details of the building project. But, the building was ready for use by the next annual town meeting in March of 1799. It is believed that the architect/builder was Samuel Kelley, one of the town’s first settlers. The New Hampton Town House began as the meeting house for the Town of New Hampton, serving both for religious services and town meetings. The Town House stands on the town common on a 5.5 acre town owned lot at the northeast corner of Town House Road and Dana Hill Road, considered to be the “Center”. This location was referred to as the “Town Common”, the “Center” and is now known as the “Old Institution”.

Click here for more on its history.
Click here for some interior and exterior photos.

Stage Curtain Restoration, 2014

A hundred years ago, grand drapes and painted backdrops were the primary artistic feature of the cultural life of almost every village and town in Northern New England and were found in town and grange halls, theaters and opera houses.

Click here for further information including photos of the curtains and biographies of the artists who painted them.

Click here for the Survey & Treatment Proposal for the Ives curtain - the Grand Drape Advertising Curtain depicting the covered bridge that once spanned the Pemigewasset River in the vicinity of the present Route 104 bridge.

Click here for the Survey & Treatment Proposal for the Thompson curtain - New Hampton Town House.

Supported in part by a grant from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts
and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Other Connections to our Town's Rich History....

"Did Someone Say Snow?"
1828 - When the Town House Hosted New Hampton School Events
Personal Library of Judge Stephen Nash
Fritz Robbins on Ambitious Sap
St. Clair's Orchestra Comes to Town
When Ralph Waldo Emerson Spent the Night in New Hampton
Graduation on Main Street - Circa 1900
A Different Kind of Social Distancing - 1883 Schoolhouse in Village
Students Make Excellent Use of the Library
New Hampton - GET OUT the VOTE! – in 1810
A Futuristic View of the Village – from 1909
Life in the “Western Territory” of Ohio in 1816 - a Native Son’s Perspective
New Hampton's First Library Was Not Named Gordon-Nash!!!
NHS Students Petition for Music in the School Program...195 Years Ago!
The Village Fountain - Thanks to the W.T.C.U. and New Hampton Garden Club
Celebrating Sarah Dow MacGregor: A Most Generous Friend of New Hampton
New Hampton Had a Train Wreck?
Main Street - U.S. Cavalry enroute from Fort Ethan Allen VT to Portland ME
1798 Receipt for a Town House pew