History

The Township of Northumberland, originally named Stonington, was first granted by King George III of Great Britain on October 20, 1761. It was granted to John Hogg and more than forty other men as Incorporators. The first eight settlers, consisting of Thomas Burnside (with his family of four) and Daniel Spalding (with his family of two), arrived in June of 1767. These brave pioneers, who established an early settlement in the trackless wilderness filled with wild beasts and hostile Indians, aligned with the French. The history of the area, however, can be traced further back to 1755, when the Royal Governor of the Colony of New Hampshire ordered Joseph Blanchard’s New Hampshire Provincial Regiment, including Robert Rogers, to build a fort where the Upper Ammonoosuc River and the Connecticut River came together in present day Northumberland. It was named Fort Wentworth after the Royal Governor of New Hampshire. This area was in the middle of a struggle between  two great 18th century superpowers, France and Great Britian. Fort Wentworth would be visited by Rogers Rangers after a raid on Saint Francis in Quebec.  It was found abandoned. They had to travel further south to Fort #4 in Charleston, NH for supplies. The Fort was then re-garrisoned from 1776 to 1778 by Jeremiah Eames’ company of rangers. By the 1780’s it had been abandoned.

A charter for Northumberland was regranted on January 25, 1771 and incorporated by the New Hampshire legislature in November of 1779. It would soon see the building of gristmills and sawmills along the rivers. Farming also flourished in the rich soil of the Connecticut River Valley. Bridges were built between Northumberland and Guildhall in 1791 and across the Ammonoosuc River that same year. By 1852 the first international railroad, the Atlantic and Saint Lawrence (which ran from Portland, Maine to Montreal, Quebec), came through the small Village of Groveton. That event triggered both an explosion of growth and an increase in population. In 1872, Northumberland Falls boasted the presence of starch, strawboard and shoe-peg mills. In Groveton, leather, clapboard and shingle mills sprang up. That same year, the Concord & Montreal Railroad (Boston and Maine) also came to Groveton, making a second connection to the outside world.

The Village of Groveton was named for a large grove of maple trees located where the railroad station presently sits. Hotels, stores and banks followed the arrival of the railroads to the area. The Lowe Opera House was built in 1898 and could seat 1,200 people. It was called “the largest and best building of its kind in the state!” In 1891, the Odell Pulp and Paper Company was established and a genuine boom came to Groveton with the building of sixty houses. The Odell Paper Company became the Groveton Paper Company in 1919. The Wemyss family purchased the mill in 1940 and renamed it the Groveton Papers Company, becoming the home of Vanity Fair products, fine grade papers and corrugated boxes. Please visit the Northumberland Public Library to read more on the Town’s rich history. You are welcome to stop by the 1799 Meetinghouse and Museum which houses our many historical artifacts and is open seasonally each Spring and Summer.