Overview

The town of Stoddard, located in the Monadnock Region of southwest New Hampshire, is blessed with a handsomely severe landscape of forests, lakes, and hills admired for their natural beauty. Hundreds of farm families settled in the town between 1768 and 1820. When the rock-laden and thin-soiled farms failed in the mid-1800s, the town turned to industry to survive. An extensive woodenware industry and a nationally known glass industry provided employment through the 19th century. Those industries also failed by the early 20th century, and the town's population toppled by more than 90 percent. The introduction of the automobile revived the community, allowing families to easily visit the town's numerous lakes and ponds. Stoddard became a tourist destination as the 20th century progressed. Today, two-thirds of the land area has been conserved as natural open space, most of it available for public use. Stoddard's natural beauty and unaltered historic character are enjoyed by visitors and a growing population of permanent residents.

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9781467160612

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Stoddard's rich photographic record, housed at the Stoddard Historical Society and Historical Society of Cheshire County, is used here to illustrate the town's early success, desperate decline, and 20th-century rebirth as the community celebrates its 250th anniversary. Author Alan F. Rumrill has served as executive director of the Historical Society of Cheshire County for 40 years, and his family has lived in the town of Stoddard since 1770.

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