Coming soon: more of JIM'S UNOFFICIAL HISTORY
OF AND WHAT IT'S LIKE TO LIVE IN MONT VERNON NEW HAMPSHIRE. Reader contributions
or corrections graciously accepted.
Mont Vernon is a little hilltop town located a few miles North of the Massachusetts border roughly in the middle, east to west, of New Hampshire.
Legend has it that the town clerk at the time Mont Vernon was chartered as an official town was somewhat illiterate. The name Mont Vernon was written in the blank where it said NAME OF TOWN, and that's the way it remains to this day. There's a Mount Vernon in nearly every State of the Union, but there's only one Mont Vernon in the world*. What is more likely is that town fathers with their yankee sense of individuality, chartered the town with the name 'Mont' rather than 'Mount'.
* There is actually another Mont Vernon. As far as I know, it is a parrish or area on the carribean island of St. Martin.
Like so many other New England towns, Mont Vernon is the kind of 'If you blink as you pass through, you miss it' sort of a place. The main attractions in the center of town are the town hall with its' clocked steeple, the fire station, the grammar school, the Congregational church, the library and what has been come to be known affectionately as the Mont Vernon Mall.
I would like to take credit for being the first to call the Mont Vernon General Store the 'Mall', but one can never be sure. When I moved to the town in the mid 1970's, the general store was the center of activity in villiage. It was a grocery store, a hardware store, the post office and the only place in town one could buy gasoline. The post office was in the back of the store and had retained all the oldfashioned cast bronze combination locked mail boxes. The postmistress, Mrs. Carey, sat chain smoking behind the wrought iron barred window. The store was once two stories but the top story was removed in, I believe, the 1950's. It seems, in the typical Yankee fashion, that it was more practical at the time (read cheaper) to remove the top story than to repair the much leaking roof. The second story was replaced in the mid 1990's. An old-style flying horse Mobilgas sign still hangs from the front of the store.
Entering the town from the South on Route 13, one comes upon a real architectural treat. Rounding a bend in the road, we come face to face with the Daland Memorial Library . It is a beautiful building in the timeless Arts & Crafts style that became popular in the early part of the 20th century.
Because of it's elevation, Mont Vernon was favored as a resort spot especially in the late 19th and early 20th century. Apparently a number of factors but mainly the altitude (800+ feet above sea level) keeps Mont Vernon a few degrees cooler in the summer than the surrounding valley towns. Regular stagecoach runs from the surrounding area were set up to bring daytrippers and vacationers to the town. People from Massachusetts to the south were frequent visitors.
There were a number of hotels and very many guest houses. One of the largest of the hotels was the Grand; a true victorian style hotel with 100 rooms located on the highest point in town. A wonderful view of the surrounding area was afforded by the hotel's elevation. A wrap-around veranda made the view truly panoramic. The Grand also had a golf course a large part of which is now plowed for the planting of corn and the site of the new Mont Vernon postal office. The Grand, as so many other beautiful hotels of the era, was destroyed by fire. The fire occurred on Labor Day, 1930. Although a number of the outbuildings remain, nothing remains of the Grand except of course the view albeit it is rather grown up with trees. When I arrived in town there were some foundation stones and stairs but they have since been removed.
On one side of town is a very special place called Purgatory Falls. I have visited there many times and find it to be a facinating and somewhat spooky place. The brook that feeds the falls has carved a deep gorge through the rock below the falls. A large rock overhang was created by this erosion and it has been used as shelter by campers over the years. Near the top of the falls is a naturally formed deep hole in the rock and it is called alternately The Devils Bean Pot or The Devil's Bathtub. In climbing down into the hole, one finds names and dates carved in the rock back to the 1800's. In earlier times the area was used as sort of an amusement park with a pavillion, games and picnic areas. The only remaining evidence is some iron bars driven into the rock atop the falls where handrails had once been installed to aid in the visitors traversing of the upper falls area.
In case you're interested, the local paper has a website. Well, it's not Mont Vernon's local paper, Mont Vernon is way too small to have it's own paper. It's the area's local paper. It's called The Milford Cabinet . In fact, it was one of the first websites in the area.
If your tastes in newspapers is a little more urban (notice I said little), then here's the area's largest newspaper based in the closest "real city" The Nashua Telegraph . Don't forget to stop at the Mont Vernon page.
Coming soon: more of JIM'S UNOFFICIAL HISTORY
OF AND WHAT IT'S LIKE TO LIVE IN MONT VERNON NEW HAMPSHIRE. Reader contributions
or corrections graciously accepted.
Speaking of contributions, here is an
EMAIL EXCHANGE
I had with a very nice lady that had spent some apparently very memorable
childhood days with her grandparents in Mont Vernon. They resided in one
of the cottages that sat next to the Grand Hotel. Thank you Bernadette.