A NH Town Celebrates

Many of us have grown up seeing a parade at some time in our lives, whether in our hometown or someplace else. Who doesn't like a parade?

That's why this post is about a special parade and celebration last weekend in a town about 20 miles from Nashua. Grenville had volunteered to help with traffic management through the Nashua Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and so I went along as a spectator.

Brookline, NH, celebrated its 250th "birthday" with one of the biggest and longest parades I can remember in a very long time — way back to my childhood in fact. 

Back then, my Plainfield, NJ hometown always had a great July 4th celebration complete with marching bands, floats, rescue vehicles and firetrucks that always sounded sirens at the end of the parade (remember when). 

Brookline did it up BIG time last Saturday with marching bands, classic cars, army vehicles, tractors, floats, colorful marchers, beauty queens, classic characters and more.

In its early years, the town was first a part of Dunstable, MA, then later was settled as West Hollis, NH. In 1769, the town was called Raby by NH Governor John Wentworth who named it after his cousin, the 4th Earl of Strafford and Baron of Raby Castle. 

The town was renamed in 1798 at the suggestion of a leading citizen in town originally from Brookline, Massachusetts. By 1859, when the population was 718, there were eight sawmills and one gristmill, as well as a sash and blind shop. 

Many years ago, Brookline was known throughout southern NH for producing lumber, charcoal and casks.The Boston and Maine Railroad eventually branched into Brookline in 1892. A large fraction of the area that was once railroad track is now NH Route 13. The former train station is now a private residential home. 

In 1960, Brookline’s population was just under 800; it's now at 5,000 and a lot of those residents lined the street for last weekend's festivities. There's no real "downtown" here. The parade was along the town's main road where the town's library, town hall, and a middle school are located.  

Many colorful and well-known characters walked the route, including Spiderman, Snow White, Elmo, Big Bird, Smokey the Bear and others.

There was a lot of interesting vehicles, including the Ghostbusters car. 

No parade would be complete without military vehicles and men in uniform. 

 Red and green tractors were driven in the parade.

There was no shortage of musical entertainment along the parade route with bagpipes, Dixie Land Tunes and others.

The Alepo Shriners traveled from Wilmington, MA, but not in the small vehicles they rode along the parade route, all of which arrived in three large tractor trailers. 

Beauty queens smiled and waved as they rode in convertibles. 

There were many vintage fire trucks from various neighboring communities.

Their modern day counterparts were also seen.  

As noted earlier, this was a long parade on a very warm Saturday afternoon. Temps in the mid to high 80s made it felt more like summer than fall weather. But the participants and parade goers, including myself, enjoyed a wonderful celebration of community spirit.

Happy 🎂 Birthday to Brookline, NH