Latest listings to NH State Register of Historic Places span 200 years of Granite State history

The New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources has announced that the State Historical Resources Council has added eight properties to the New Hampshire State Register of Historic Places.

The brick First Freewill Baptist Church in Ashland was constructed as a simple Federal Style building in 1835; late nineteenth century modifications added distinct Victorian period architectural elements that are still in place. A wooden addition, built in 1899, connects the church to a brick vestry that was built in 1836 and originally served as Miss Perkins High School. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, the church and vestry are significant for their social and educational roles in the community as well as for their association with the abolitionist movement. 

Bartlett Union Congregational Church was built in 1897 using specially ordered steel girders brought by train from the west. The two-and-a-half story building’s Queen Anne Style features include a mix of clapboard and wood shingle siding as well as a steeply pitched front-facing gable roof, and a porch with turned posts, a spindle frieze and a pediment with partial returns. After serving the community as a church, village library and gathering space for the first half of the twentieth century, it is currently the only church in Bartlett Village and continues to be used for community events. 

Located in Gilmanton Corners and built circa 1840, the Gilmanton Corner Public Library throughout the nineteenth century was a home, school, milliner shop, harness shop, printing office and Ira Pennock’s Cobbler Shop. Purchased by Gilmanton Academy in 1902, it served as the boys’ clubhouse for students until the academy closed in 1910. It has been a year-round volunteer-run library from the time it was purchased by the town in 1912 until today. The one-story clapboarded building has a hip roof and a curved wood-paneled door that was reused from a house that burned in 1827. 

The Rogers-Pressey House in Hanover is architecturally significant both as a Greek Revival cape and as a rare example of a plank-constructed house in the Connecticut River Valley. Constructed circa 1835, the one-and-a-half story home was built as a square-ruled timber frame with vertical planks mortised into the sills and top plates. The house is finished with wood clapboards, simple corner boards and rake boards. Original windows include nine-over-six sashes on the first floor and six-over-six on the second. A screen porch was added in the early twentieth century. 

Built near the site of bridges dating back to 1782, the Edna Dean Proctor Bridge spans the Contoocook River. A stone bridge constructed on the site in 1835 was claimed to be the first double-arched stone bridge built in New Hampshire. After that bridge, built from local stone split in a Henniker quarry and brought to the site by oxen, was washed away in a flood caused by the Hurricane of 1938, a new double-arched stone bridge, made of reinforced concrete, was built on the site, incorporating original quarried stone salvaged from the river bottom. 

A fairly typical late Victorian side-hall single family dwelling, the Samantha Plantin House is reportedly the home of the first Black landowner in Manchester. The daughter of a formerly enslaved mother, Plantin (circa 1827-1899) moved from New Boston in 1844 to work for the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company. She purchased land from the company in 1870, later selling it for a profit and using those funds to construct this home circa 1890. The house’s exterior as well as a barn added soon after Plantin’s death have been largely unaltered since the early twentieth century. 

The Rochester Fairgrounds have contributed to the agricultural, mechanical and social history of Rochester and Strafford County for nearly 150 years. Created as a racing park in the late 1870s and fully developed into a fairground starting in 1882, the 63-acre site has a historically significant racetrack, midway, campground and 16 buildings ranging from exhibition and animal barns to a race betting office, concession shed, grandstand and beano hall. The exhibition barns have eclectic Victorian design, including fanciful cupolas and dormers, variegated shingles and bargeboard, while mid-twentieth century structures are simple concrete block construction.

At a time when preventing free-ranging farm animals from harming crops and gardens was crucial to protecting an agriculture-based economy, town pounds were required by New Hampshire law and used to hold stray horses, sheep, pigs, cattle, goats, geese and other livestock until their owners could claim them. The Sandown Town Pound (1793) is a fairly well-preserved example, constructed of dry-laid naturally shaped fieldstone along with larger pieces that were likely hammered from ledge and glacial boulders. Closed by the town in 1885, it is one of 73 town pounds still left in the state. 

Anyone wishing to nominate a property to the New Hampshire State Register of Historic Places must research the history of the nominated property and document it on an individual inventory form from the New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources. Having a property listed in the Register does not impose restrictions on property owners. For more information, visit nhdhr.dncr.nh.gov.

New Hampshire's Division of Historical Resources, the State Historic Preservation Office, was established in 1974 and is part of the NH Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. NHDHR’s mission is to preserve and celebrate New Hampshire’s irreplaceable historic resources through programs and services that provide education, stewardship, and protection. For more information, visit us online at nhdhr.dncr.nh.gov or by calling 603-271-3483.

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