Day Trip to Dublin & Wilton

Today was rainy and foggy, but when on a road trip, weather is never a deterrent, so we drove to visit a couple of towns in what’s known as the Monadnock Region of southwestern NH, named after Mount Monadnock, the major geographic landmark in the region.

Mt. Monadnock was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1987. It has 40 miles of maintained foot trails, unsurpassed 100-mile views to points in all six NE states at the summit. Monadnock is reported to be the second most frequently climbed mountain in the world, after Japan's Mt. Fuji.

If you’re looking for quaint towns and villages and white clapboard churches with tall steeples, this region is the essential New England. And, nicer weather would help.First stop was Dublin. We didn’t need a passport or have to “hop the pond.”

Dublin is a town in Cheshire County, NH with a total area of 29.1 square miles.The population was 1,597 at the 2010 census. It is home to the Dublin School (a private preparatory high school) and Yankee Publishers, which publishes Yankee Magazine and The Old Farmer's Almanac. First called Monadnock No. 3, Dublin was one of the townships laid out by Masonian proprietors as part of an elaborate 18th century real estate speculation. The town founding dates to 1752, when William Thornton built and occupied a cabin, then left after a few years. The first permanent settlers, descendants of Ulster Protestants, arrived some time after 1760.Like other towns in this area, the landscape includes hills and valleys. Farmers found the soil hard and rocky, but with effort it yielded maize, oats, barley, potatoes, wheat and rye. Dublin prospered and by 1775, the town had selected a minister, started construction on a meetinghouse, and made provision for schools. There were 305 residents – by 1800 there were over 1,000.
The town was chartered in 1771 under the name of Dublin, but no records indicate why the name was chosen. It is widely suspected that it was named after the hometown of one of its first settlers, Richard Strongman, a native of Dublin, Ireland.
CAUTION: If you visit Dublin, NH, don’t do it on Friday – the town is closed then – town offices and library . But, the Dublin General Store is open about a 1/2-mile from the town center.
Delrossi's Trattoria, a restaurant located in a 1789 Georgian Colonial 18-room farmhouse on 12 acres, features homemade pastas.My lunch was a sweet potato gnocchi in a sage-butter sauce. Grenville had a seafood marinara. Dessert was a peanut butter-fudge mousse pie that we shared – there were no leftovers.
On the return trip to Nashua, NH we stopped in Wilton, NH.The population was 3,677 at the 2010 census. Like many small New England towns it grew up around water-powered textile mills. The Souhegan River originally provided water power for mills. Today, Wilton is a rural town with orchards, farms and woodlands. The massive Wilton Town Hall holds governmental offices and a private art-house movie theatre.Wilton was settled in 1738 and became a township known as Monadnock No.2, one of the towns on the NH's border laid out to provide protection against Indian attacks. The town was first granted by the Massachusetts government in 1749.

In 1761, residents petitioned Governor Benning Wentworth for incorporation, which was granted in 1762. The town had a school house, meeting houses, several mills, and enough homes to house a population of 623. By 1775, there were some roads and log bridges.
Governor Wentworth named the town Wilton either for Wilton, England or for Sir Joseph Wilton, a famous English sculptor. Wilton's coach design for King George III's coronation was later used as a model for the Concord Coach.

The Concord Coach was made by the Abbot-Downing Company in Concord, NH. At a cost of $1,050 each, these 1-ton coaches were the finest road vehicle of their time. The wheels were made of seasoned white oak, dried to withstand heat and cold. The spokes were all hand made and fitted to the rim and the hub.The coaches were drawn by some of the finest and swiftest horses and able to travel at about 15 MPH.

This weekend we’ll be back in this area for “Peak into Peterborough.” The weather report is for clear and sunny weather.