Sanbornton, NH

Sanbornton holds the distinction of being the very first township granted by the Masonian Proprietors, on December 31, 1748, to about 60 grantees from Hampton, Exeter, and Stratham. Twelve of them were named Sanborn, so "Sanborntown" it was. War delayed settlement until 1764, the first mills rose on the Winnipesaukee River in 1765 and 1766, and the town was incorporated in 1770 by Governor John Wentworth.

In its heyday Sanbornton was one of the most productive farming towns in New Hampshire. The hill farms boomed, and the population peaked around 3,300 in 1820, when Sanbornton Square on its hilltop was the civic heart of a much larger township. That hilltop village survives nearly intact, and the Sanbornton Square Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

The town then shrank the way many NH hill towns did, by giving away its busy parts. A corner went to the new town of Franklin in 1828, and in 1869 the industrial village at Sanbornton Bridge voted 150 to 105 to separate, becoming Tilton, named for mill owner Charles E. Tilton. The mills and the railroad went with it, and Sanbornton settled into the role it still plays: the quiet, scenic farm town in the hills above Lake Winnisquam.