Harrisville, NH

Unwilling to let the fabric of its past unravel, Harrisville, N.H., has used its textile tradition to weave tighter community bonds.

A former mill town off the beaten path, Harrisville (pop. 900) has a fondness for its history. Named a National Historic Landmark for creative preservation of its 19th-century industrial heritage, the town’s old factories look right at home in some of the northeast’s most striking natural beauty, including nearby Mount Monadnock.

“It’s clean, friendly, and best of all, close to nature,” says librarian Connie Boyd, who relocated 25 years ago from Manchester. “I wake to sounds like wild turkey wings on the ice in my driveway.”

“Living here slows life down, which means I really see these magnificent views as I drive,” says Pat McCarthy, stained-glass artist and owner of Hammersley Gallery & Studio.

The relationship of the town’s granite and brick mills to the river that runs through them demonstrates how man-made and natural environments worked together to produce the spun wool that made Harrisville famous.

“Unlike other mills, these were constructed right over the river to tap water power,” says John Colony III, fifth generation of a mill-owning family. The upper mill’s foundation actually is a dam designed to control the flow of water to mills downstream. Man-made reservoirs above—including Harrisville Pond, one of New Hampshire’s most-photographed settings—fed this power source.

When wool production declined and mills closed in the 1970s, residents found a way to preserve the town’s identity. Historic Harrisville, a public, nonprofit foundation, acquired many of the buildings with the mission of preserving Harrisville as a working village, not a museum, Colony says. “The goal is to promote a local working economy rather than tourism.”

Today, Colony continues Harrisville’s 200-year-old textile tradition with Harrisville Designs, producing woolen yarns and handmade looms. Students and master teachers from throughout the world come to the company’s Weaving Center for workshops perpetuating a craft with deep roots here. Some stay in the boardinghouse originally built by Colony’s family to house workers when the mills ran six days a week. The center and retail showroom occupy a wool warehouse dating from 1832, and the company uses several of the mill structures for yarn and loom production.

Harrisville’s mills also have space for other businesses looking for a home, Colony says. “Ideally, we’d like to see several different uses to create more employment opportunities. It would be tempting if someone like Microsoft wanted to use it all, but we’d probably say no, because diversified use helps the town’s stability.”

Over at the general store, business is brisk again after a seven-year hiatus. “Historic Harrisville did a lot of work to get this building ready before I opened last fall,” says owner Hilary Sineaur, whose homemade soups, baked goods, and deli items scent the air. A café up front is a gathering place, and shelves are stocked with most anything people need to save a trip out of town. Throughout the store, photographs recall Harrisville’s early days, and at the center of things, Sineaur stocks a wheel of cheese, a favorite for many residents.

Expanding from about 900 to nearly 4,000 residents each summer, Harrisville welcomes everyone, whether they grew up here or not. “Folks who move here often are the ones who most want to see it stay unspoiled,” Colony says, and they helped keep a major highway from being re-routed here.

Residents say Harrisville blends the best of what bigger towns offer with more close-knit benefits. “If I see more than one newspaper in my neighbor’s driveway, I pick them up and go make sure everything’s okay,” McCarthy says.

“All ages come together here,” says Colony, who, like his children, attended the village school of 70 students. “Your best friends might be 80-years-old or 8. We all help raise our children, who can pretty much have the run of the place safely—as long as we teach them to swim,” he says, referring to the town’s nine ponds and sometimes-swift river.

Harrisville’s narrow streets hug a steep hillside or frame the river and ponds. A sign on one building advises, “Those who park here will be turned into zucchinis at their own expense”—just one more example of the comfortable good will that weaves this community together.

Phyllis Ring is a frequent contributor to American Profile.

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