Goffstown is a
town in
Hillsborough County,
New Hampshire, United States. The population was 18,577 at the 2020 census.
The compact center of town, where 3,366 people resided at the 2020 census, is defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as the
Goffstown census-designated place and is located at the junctions of New Hampshire routes
114 and
13. Goffstown also includes the villages of
Grasmere and
Pinardville. The town is home to
Saint Anselm College (and its
New Hampshire Institute of Politics) and was the location of the
New Hampshire State Prison for Women, prior to the prison's relocation to
Concord
Concord may refer to:
Meaning "agreement"
* Pact or treaty, frequently between nations (indicating a condition of harmony)
* Harmony, in music
* Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other ...
in 2018.
History
Prior to the arrival of English colonists, the area had seasonally been inhabited for thousands of years by succeeding cultures of
Native Americans; its waterways had numerous fish, and the area had game.
The town was first granted as "Narragansett No. 4" in 1734 by New Hampshire and Massachusetts
colonial Governor
Jonathan Belcher as a
Massachusetts township (the area then being disputed between the two provinces). It was one of seven townships intended for soldiers (or their heirs) who had fought in the "Narragansett War" of 1675, also known as
King Philip's War. In 1735, however, some grantees "found it so poor and barren as to be altogether incapable of making settlements," and were instead granted a tract in
Greenwich, Massachusetts.
The community would be called "Piscataquog Village" and "Shovestown" before being regranted by Masonian proprietor Governor
Benning Wentworth
Benning Wentworth (July 24, 1696 – October 14, 1770) was an American merchant and colonial administrator who served as the governor of New Hampshire from 1741 to 1766. While serving as governor, Wentworth is best known for issuing several la ...
in 1748 to new settlers. These included Rev. Thomas Parker of
Dracut and Colonel
John Goffe, for whom the town was named. He was for several years a resident of neighboring
Bedford
Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest settlement in Bedfordshire, behind Luton, whilst t ...
, and he was the first judge of probate in the county of Hillsborough. Goffstown was incorporated June 16, 1761.
A large part of the town was originally covered with valuable timber. Lumbering and fishing were the main occupations of the early settlers.
The village of
Grasmere was named for
Grasmere, England, home of the poets
William Wordsworth and
Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
A
Congregational church
Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs i ...
was organized about October 30, 1771, and the town made annual small appropriations for preaching. The majority of residents were Congregationalists; residents in the south part were of
Scots-Irish descent and were
Presbyterian.
A meeting-house was erected in 1768; but it was not completed for several years. The first minister was Rev. Joseph Currier, appointed in 1771; he was dismissed August 29, 1774, for
intemperance, according to the town records. In 1781, the Congregationalists and the Presbyterians organized separately; the former called Rev. Cornelius Waters, who became their pastor, and continued till 1795. The next minister was Rev.
David L. Morril, who began March 3, 1802. He was supported by both congregations under the name of the Congregational Presbyterian church. Morril was elected as a representative of the town to the
state house, as a
U.S. senator
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and power ...
for the state, and in 1824, as
governor of the state, serving until 1827.
The
Piscataquog River, which bisects the main village of Goffstown and was spanned by a covered bridge, provided
water power for industry. In 1817, Goffstown had 20
sawmill
A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...
s, seven grain mills, two textile mills, two
carding
Carding is a mechanical process that disentangles, cleans and intermixes fibres to produce a continuous web or sliver suitable for subsequent processing. This is achieved by passing the fibres between differentially moving surfaces covered wit ...
machines, and a
cotton factory. Its textile industry was an example of the economic ties between New England and the
American South
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
, which was dependent on
slave labor for production of its lucrative cotton commodity crop.
The town was described in 1859 by the following:
In 1816, the Religious Union society was organized. A new meetinghouse was erected in the
west village
The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City.
The traditional boundaries of the West Village are the Hudson River to the west, West 14th Street to t ...
. Meetings were held two thirds of the time in the new house, and one third in the old house at the center.
In 1818–1819 residents were deeply interested in the preaching of Rev. Abel Manning, as part of the
Second Great Awakening. 65 persons joined the church that year. Other ministers were Rev. Benjamin H. Pitman (1820 to 1825), Rev. Henry Wood (1826 to 1831), and Rev. Isaac Willey (1837 to 1853). A
Baptist
Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul com ...
church was formed in 1820.
The town annexed islands on the
Amoskeag Falls in the
Merrimack River in 1825 and part of
New Boston in 1836.
In the early part of 1841, a female commenced preaching here, and shortly more than half the voters in town came into her support. She professed no connection with any church. The excitement created by her preaching, however, soon died out, the result of it being the organization of the existing
Methodist church.
The
Uncanoonuc Mountains
The Uncanoonuc Mountains are two small mountain peaks in Goffstown, New Hampshire, United States. The north peak, the highest point in Goffstown, has an elevation of above sea level, and the south peak rises to .
The name may be derived from the ...
in Goffstown once featured the Uncanoonuc Incline Railway, founded in 1903. It first carried tourists in 1907 to the summit of the south peak, on which was built that year the Uncanoonuc Hotel. The -story building provided 37–38 guest rooms, and a dining room that accommodated 120. It also offered outstanding views of the surrounding valley, including
Manchester, connected by electric
trolley to the
railway's base station. The hotel would burn in 1923, and the train was later used to transport
skiers to the top. The railway peaked during the 1930s and 1940s, but was essentially abandoned by the 1950s. The summit of the south peak is now the site of numerous television and radio towers.
Grasmere Village straddles the Piscataquog River in the eastern region of Goffstown. The Hillsborough County Railroad Station was located at Grasmere on the southern side of the river. Rail-borne freight for Grasmere and other surrounding locales was delivered to this station during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Another rail station in Goffstown was located to the west closer to the town center, and a third was Parker's Station to the west of the town center.
The railroad line which passed through Goffstown was built by the New Hampshire Central Railroad and was later acquired by the
Boston & Maine Railroad
The Boston and Maine Railroad was a U.S. Class I railroad in northern New England. Originally chartered in 1835, it became part of what was the Pan Am Railways network in 1983 (most of which was purchased by CSX in 2022).
At the end of 1970, ...
in 1895, who operated it as their North Weare Branch. of track between Goffstown and
Henniker Junction were abandoned in 1937 due in part to damage from the floods of 1936, declining passenger counts and few freight customers. The remaining from Goffstown to Manchester remained in service for freight as the Goffstown Branch. Notable customers on the branch included Homgas at Grasmere, New Hampshire Doors Co. at Factory Street, and Merrimack Farmers Exchange and Kendall-Hadley Lumber in the village. In 1976 the town's landmark railroad
covered bridge
A covered bridge is a timber-truss bridge with a roof, decking, and siding, which in most covered bridges create an almost complete enclosure. The purpose of the covering is to protect the wooden structural members from the weather. Uncovered woo ...
burned due to arson, ending service to the center of town and forcing the remaining freight trains to stop on the eastern side of the Piscataquog River. The customers marooned by the fire either had their shipments trucked in from Manchester's railroad yard, or unloaded at New Hampshire Doors and then trucked the short remaining distance. No replacement structure was ever erected in place of the covered bridge. The last two rail customers in Goffstown were Kendall-Hadley Lumber and New Hampshire Doors Co; the former elected to truck its shipments from Manchester's railroad yard, while the latter shut down completely in 1980. The final freight train, led by Boston & Maine
EMD GP7
The EMD GP7 is a four-axle ( B-B) diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division and General Motors Diesel between October 1949 and May 1954.Pinkepank, Jerry A. (1973) pp. 53
Power was provided by an EMD 567B 16 ...
1557, traveled to Goffstown on September 20, 1980, and the line was officially abandoned in February 1981, with the rails being removed in the following years. In the dawning years of the 21st century, town and local organizations cooperated in a
rails-to-trails effort, converting the railbeds into bicycling and walking trails.
On a ridge currently overlooking the Piscataquog River from the south above the midpoint between Glen Lake and Namaske Lake, adjacent to
New Hampshire Route 114, originally stood the Poor Farm. In 1849 Noyes Poor sold the property to the county and it became the Hillsborough County Farm, a home for the indigent, ill, and infirm. The farm was sold into private hands in 1867 but re-acquired by the county in 1893 and again served as a residence for disadvantaged citizens of the county until 1924. A cemetery with numbered headstones is presently maintained by the county on these grounds but the tables relating the markings to the recorded names of the residents who died at the Farm appear to have been lost.
The County Farm grounds were converted to the
New Hampshire State Prison for Women, located until 2018 at 317 Mast Road. The facility's most famous resident was the convicted murderer
Pamela Smart, who was incarcerated at the Prison for Women from March 22, 1991, to March 11, 1993, when she was transferred to
Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in
Bedford, New York.
Geography
Goffstown is located in the eastern part of
Hillsborough County, directly to the west of
Manchester, the state's largest city.
Concord
Concord may refer to:
Meaning "agreement"
* Pact or treaty, frequently between nations (indicating a condition of harmony)
* Harmony, in music
* Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other ...
, the state capital, lies to the north. The town center is on the
Piscataquog River near the western boundary of the town, around the intersection of
New Hampshire Route 13
New Hampshire Route 13 is a long north–south state highway in the state of New Hampshire, United States. The highway runs from Brookline to Concord.
The southern terminus is at the Massachusetts state line in Brookline, where the route cont ...
and
114. The village of
Grasmere is located in the east-central part of town, and the neighborhood of
Pinardville is located in the southeast corner of the town, essentially forming a continuous development with the adjoining city of Manchester.
According to the
United States Census Bureau, Goffstown has a total area of , of which are land and are water, comprising 1.57% of the town.
The
Uncanoonuc Mountains
The Uncanoonuc Mountains are two small mountain peaks in Goffstown, New Hampshire, United States. The north peak, the highest point in Goffstown, has an elevation of above sea level, and the south peak rises to .
The name may be derived from the ...
(uhn-kuh-NOO-nuhk) are twin peaks in the southwest part of the town. The north peak, the highest point in Goffstown, has an elevation of above
sea level, and the south peak has an elevation of . The town's climate is classified as a Dfa or Dfb on the
Köppen climate classification charts.
Goffstown is drained by the
Piscataquog River and
Black Brook and lies fully within the
Merrimack River watershed
Watershed is a hydrological term, which has been adopted in other fields in a more or less figurative sense. It may refer to:
Hydrology
* Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins
* Drainage basin, called a "watershe ...
.
Adjacent municipalities
*
Dunbarton, New Hampshire
Dunbarton is a New England town, town in Merrimack County, New Hampshire, Merrimack County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 3,005 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, up from 2,758 at the 2010 census.
History
Originall ...
(north)
*
Hooksett, New Hampshire
Hooksett is a New England town, town in Merrimack County, New Hampshire, Merrimack County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 14,871 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, up from 13,451 at the 2010 census.United States Censu ...
(northeast)
*
Manchester, New Hampshire (east)
*
Bedford, New Hampshire (south)
*
New Boston, New Hampshire (west)
*
Weare, New Hampshire
Weare is a town in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 9,092 at the 2020 census. It is close to two important New Hampshire cities, Manchester and Concord.
History
It was granted to veterans of the Canadian ...
(northwest)
Demographics
As of the
census of 2010, there were 17,651 people, 6,068 households, and 4,319 families residing in the town. There were 6,341 housing units, of which 273, or 4.3%, were vacant. The racial makeup of the town was 96.6%
white, 0.9%
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of enslav ...
, 0.2%
Native American, 0.8%
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
n, 0.03%
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 0.4% some other race, and 1.2% from two or more races. 1.8% of the population were
Hispanic or
Latino of any race.
Of the 6,068 households, 32.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 57.9% were headed by
married couples living together, 9.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.8% were non-families. 22.2% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9.0% were someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.56, and the average family size was 3.00. 2,095 town residents lived in group quarters rather than households.
In the town, 19.8% of the population were under the age of 18, 15.9% were from 18 to 24, 22.8% from 25 to 44, 28.7% from 45 to 64, and 12.8% were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39.0 years. For every 100 females, there were 89.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.3 males.
For the period 2011–2015, the estimated median annual income for a household was $70,870, and the median income for a family was $86,061. Male full-time workers had a median income of $62,167 versus $45,583 for females. The
per capita income for the town was $32,574. 6.2% of the population and 3.4% of families were below the poverty line. 5.1% of the population under the age of 18 and 2.8% of those 65 or older were living in poverty.
Transportation
Three New Hampshire State Routes cross Goffstown:
*
NH 13 connects to the town of
New Boston in the west and joins NH 114 at Main Street. The two routes remain in conjunction to the center of town, where NH 13 continues north on High Street, connecting in the north to the town of
Dunbarton.
*
NH 114 connects to New Boston and
Weare in the west following North Mast Road, joins NH 13 at the intersection of Mast, Elm, Main, and High streets, and leaves 13 on South Mast Road. At the edge of the village of Pinardville, NH 114 leaves Mast Road and turns on to its own route to the south, with NH 114A continuing into Pinardville. NH 114 connects to
Bedford
Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest settlement in Bedfordshire, behind Luton, whilst t ...
in the south.
*
NH 114A forms the main route through the village of Pinardville, continuing along Mast Road from the point where NH 114 leaves to the south. It connects to Manchester in the east.
Law and government
Goffstown is governed by a five-member select board elected in the March general election to serve three-year staggered terms.
The
United States Postal Service operates the Goffstown Post Office.
Education
Goffstown is part of
School Administrative Unit 19, serving Goffstown and New Boston.
Primary and secondary
* Goffstown has one kindergarten, Glen Lake School.
* Goffstown has two first through fourth grade elementary schools,
Bartlett and Maple Avenue.
* Mountain View Middle School serves Goffstown students in fifth through eighth grade, and seventh and eighth grade New Boston students.
* Ninth through twelfth grade students from Goffstown and New Boston attend
Goffstown High School.
* The
Villa Augustina School was an independent
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
school founded in Goffstown in 1918. The school served children in pre-kindergarten through 8th grade. As of 2014, it is now closed. The facility has been bought by a tech company but has not had anything done to it.
Post-secondary
*
Saint Anselm College is a
Benedictine
, image = Medalla San Benito.PNG
, caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal
, abbreviation = OSB
, formation =
, motto = (English: 'Pray and Work')
, found ...
, Catholic liberal arts college. The college has received significant national media attention in recent years; the
New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm brings hundreds of dignitaries and politicians to Goffstown annually, most notably for the
New Hampshire primary
The New Hampshire presidential primary is the first in a series of nationwide party primary elections and the second party contest (the first being the Iowa caucuses) held in the United States every four years as part of the process of choosi ...
presidential debates, which have been held at the college since 2004.
Notable people
*
Jacob M. Appel
Jacob M. Appel (born February 21, 1973) is an American author, poet, bioethicist, physician, lawyer and social critic.Nagamatsu, Sequoia "A Few Words with the Ubiquitous Jacob M. Appel" ''Prince Mincer'' Journal http://primemincer.com/ confirmed ...
(born 1973), writer; lived in Goffstown from 1977 to 1983
*
Eben Bartlett (1912–1983), state representative
*
Joseph A. Favazza, 11th president of Saint Anselm College
*
Gordon Hall Gerould
Gordon Hall Gerould, B.A., B.Litt. (1877 – April 10, 1953) was a philologist and folklorist of the United States.
Born in Goffstown, New Hampshire, he joined the faculty of Bryn Mawr College and was a professor of English at Princeton Universit ...
(1877–1953),
philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...
and folklorist of the United States
*
Jennifer Militello, poet
*Rev.
David L. Morril (1772–1849), U.S. senator and governor of New Hampshire
*
Mary Gove Nichols
Mary Sargeant Gove Nichols (; August 10, 1810 – May 30, 1884), also known by her pen name Mary Orme, was an American women's rights and health reform advocate, hydrotherapist, vegetarian and writer.Iacobbo, Karen; Iacobbo, Michael. (2004). ''V ...
(1810–1884), activist
*
Sandeep Parikh
Sandeep Parikh (; born July 23, 1980) is an American writer, director, actor and producer of comedy. He is best known for his co-starring role as Zaboo on the award-winning web series '' The Guild''. He is the founder of Effin Funny Productions, ...
(born 1980), writer, actor, director, comedian
*
David Pattee
David Pattee (July 30, 1778 – February 5, 1851) was a businessman, judge and political figure in Upper Canada.
He was born in Goffstown, New Hampshire in 1778. He studied medicine but never practiced. In 1803, he left New Hampshire for the ...
(1778–1851), politician, judge
*
William Carey Poland (1846–1929), classical scholar, educator, academic administrator, and former university president
*
Francis Regis St. John (1908–1971), director of the Brooklyn Public Library; lived in Goffstown from 1967 to 1970
See also
*
2000 Little League World Series, featuring a team from Goffstown
References
External links
*
Goffstown Public LibraryGoffstown Historical Society
{{authority control
Towns in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire
Towns in New Hampshire
1761 establishments in New Hampshire