Enfield Center
In the center was the Town House, a Greek Revival-style structure that served as Enfield’s Town Hall from 1845 to 1916. In 1859 it was moved to a new location. In 1909 it was renovated to become a social hall.
And in 2017 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
“It’s one of the oldest existing buildings in Enfield,” said Meredith Smith, chairwoman of the Enfield Heritage Commission and member of the town’s Selectboard. “It’s pretty much untouched to the point where it has a two-hole privy in the back. Now unused, I would like to point out.”
The process wasn’t easy, particularly with the amount of research required, which involved visiting various libraries and “going over old records in infinite detail,” Smith said. “The renovation in 1909, that was a difficult thing to determine. We couldn’t find anything in the beginning in the records.”
The commission was greatly aided by Andrew Cushing, who now works for the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance.
“The process to list a resource, then, is to explain the history and architectural evolution of a building — and prove that it retains its integrity,” Cushing said, meaning the structure has retained “its location, setting, design, materials, workmanship, feeling and association.”
Along the way, the commission was met with surprises about the Town House’s history. Smith, in particular, was surprised to learn that the building’s stage wasn’t original — it was added during the 1909 renovation. Beadboard (vertical, narrow pine boards) also was added then.
“That must’ve been what they thought of as modernizing in 1909,” Smith said.
The historic designation will enable the heritage commission to apply for grants to fix up the structure. Two years ago, the Old Home Day dance was held at the Town House — “Everybody loved it,” Smith said — and shortly afterward it was discovered that the underpinnings of the building were spongy.
“Which was another reason we were so anxious to get the National Historic Register, to do the necessary structural repairs to the building so it won’t fall into the dust,” Smith said.
There are other issues with the building that are preventing the town from using it to its full potential — there’s no parking, no well and no septic. While Enfield still owns the Town House, “the town sold off all the land surrounding the building in the ’70s,” Smith said. “Without a toilet and running water, it’s pretty difficult to use the building for public use.”
The building also would need heating, insulation and to be made accessible to people with disabilities, along with “all the things they do to old buildings to make them environmentally usable,” Smith said. “We would love to acquire enough land to do those things and then put the building into (this) century’s usability.”
The Town House joins the Enfield Center Union Church, the buildings that make up the Shaker Museum and the Hewitt House, which are already on the register. Enfield Village is a National Historic Register District.
Cushing said a misconception about the register is that the buildings on it need to be “nationally significant.”
“The Town House is not significant because Franklin Pierce practiced law there or because the Republican Party was founded there, but its integrity helps the building fit into a broader narrative — that of separation of church and state; of Greek Revival architecture (and how rural carpenters interpreted Greek Revival architecture); of New Hampshire’s direct democracy; of the rise of social organizations in the early 1900s,” Cushing said. “In all of these aspects, the Town House is remarkable because its intact exterior and interior illustrate these national and regional trends.”
Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.
