It has been nearly two centuries since the American author Washington Irving, while lodging in the riverside retreat of Orford, remarked, “In all my travels in this country and in Europe, I have seen no village more beautiful than this. It is a charming place – Nature has done her utmost here.” Today, with its peaceful, tree-shaded drives, its famed ridge of mansions and promenades laced in purple lilacs, and its sprawling expanses of green along the Connecticut River, there is little wonder why.

Named for England’s first Prime Minister, the Earl of Orford, Orford was settled in 1765 by Connecticut farming families who’d migrated north and saw possibility in the rich soil and the rushing waters of the river and local streams. By the early 19^th century, Orford had emerged as an agricultural and manufacturing mecca for western New Hampshire, the local waters irrigating farms and powering more than 50 mills and factories, producing everything from furniture and musical instruments to wheels, doors, shoes and shingles. Orford’s population would swell to nearly 2,000 and the town’s location, unique road system, and bridge across the Connecticut into neighboring Vermont made it a regional hub for transporting goods and livestock to market. It was also a haven for innovation as the home of Samuel Morey, a son of one of the town’s founders, whose tireless tinkering produced the earliest prototypes of what we now know as the steamship and internal combustion engine.

Morey’s name today graces the bridge that spans the Connecticut from Fairlee, VT, into Orford. While the whirring of machinery and clip-clop of workhorses have long since faded from earshot, to cross the bridge is to walk back in time to a place where folks still wave as you drive past; the general store, open since 1804, still serves soda with a smile; and camps with names like Moosilauke and Pemigewassett after more than a century still commune hundreds of splashing youngsters each summer with nature.

No visit is complete without a stroll through Orford Village, a National Historic District, with its seven stunning mansions, side-by-side in wedding-cake white, considered perhaps America’s finest examples of Federal-style construction. While there, you’ll want to say hello to Julia Fifield, who at 105 is the proud holder of Orford’s Boston Post Cane and still tends some of its loveliest gardens. Follow the mooing and clanging of cowbells just up the road, meantime, and you’ll arrive at the Bunten Family Farm, where Christine and Bruce Balch turn out some of the region’s finest farm fare in their shop and reservations-only restaurant, from pot roast, produce, and fresh cheeses to ice cream that’ll never make that trip to the supermarket freezer case the same again. With special thanks to Eva Daniels and Carl Schmidt.

• Population of 1237 (2010 census)
• Located in Grafton County, Orford is a small rural community set about 18 miles north of Hanover and Dartmouth College, along the scenic Connecticut River Valley, and a short drive from some of NH’s most scenic areas of the White Mountains, Franconia Notch State Park, the Kancamagus Highway, and Lake Winnipesauke.
• The main village of Orford, located along the banks of the Connecticut River includes the town’s schools and post office. The town hall, which served as the Orfordville Schoolhouse until 1990, is located in the smaller village of Orfordville, several miles east of the river.
• In 1998, the Rivendell Interstate School District was established, linking Orford to three Vermont towns with the first K-12 inter-state school district in the United States.
• Notable residents of Orford have included: U.S. Senator and Congressman Gilman Marston; U.S. Congressman Jeduthun Wilcox; Jeduthun’s son, U.S. Senator Leonard Wilcox; Noted economist Milton Friedman, a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences; Novelist and hiking enthusiast Daniel Doan; NH Governor Meldrim Thompson Jr.; Actor Jameson Parker.