With its historic homesteads, stone arch bridges and miles of gently winding tree-lined drives, the hidden Monadnock gem of Hillsborough is an easy place to get lost both in time and charm.
For centuries, artisans, nature lovers and New Hampshire’s only U.S. President have called this rustic rural retreat their home, drawn by its wooded back roads, friendly neighbors and simple pleasures. Prized for its rich topsoil, Hillsborough has enjoyed numerous incarnations, from the tilling of its farmland to the whirring of textile mills along the Contoocook River during the early 20th century.
While weaving has long since given way to the buzzing of headlight-making equipment at the town’s largest employer, Osram Sylvania, Hillsborough remains a town deeply prided in its past. No visit is complete without a stop by the Franklin Pierce homestead and museum, where the nation’s 14th President was born in 1804 and lived until his early 30s. Nearby, the mansion of former Gov. John Butler Smith, an ornate gabled Victorian of stained glass and ceiling murals, has housed the town’s public library since the 1920s.
Up the road, Hillsborough’s original town center showcases 18th and 19th century chapels and homes, the town’s first one-room schoolhouse, and Gibson’s Pewter, a restored home and barn where the same family has handcrafted museum-quality tea sets, tankards and oil lamps for the last 42 years.
A museum of a different sort can be found a few minutes away in Kemp’s Truck Museum, a jaw-dropping collection of vintage Mack trucks lining both sides of River Street along the Contoocook.
For fresh air seekers, Hillsborough boasts more than 25 miles of untouched woods, brooks and peat bogs in Fox State Forest, while the serene waters of Contention and Loon ponds and Gleason Falls still draw vacationers, the latter featuring one of the town’s five remaining stone bridges – the most of any town in the state.
Town Facts
by Michael DeBlasi
Hillsborough, NH
• Population of 5,462 (est. 2006)
• Area was first granted as “number seven” in 1735, as the seventh of nine towns set up as defense barriers against Indian attacks
• Hillsborough consists of four villages: Hillsborough Bridge Village (downtown); Hillsborough Center; Hillsborough Upper Village; and Hillsborough Lower Village
• Benjamin Pierce, father to Franklin, settled in town and twice served as Governor of NH.
• Thompson Hill, at 1,768 feet above sea level, is the highest point in Hillsborough
• The town is home to Fox State Forest, which boasts more preserved stone arch bridges than any other town in N.H.
