Haverhill, New Hampshire, United States

🇺🇸 Haverhill is a town in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. Haverhill includes the villages of Woodsville, Pike, and North Haverhill, the historic town centre at Haverhill Corner, and the district of Mountain Lakes. Located here are Bedell Bridge State Park, Black Mountain State Forest, Kinder Memorial Forest, and Oliverian Valley Wildlife Preserve. It is home to the annual North Haverhill Fair, and to a branch of the New Hampshire Community Technical Colleges. The village of North Haverhill is the county seat of Grafton County.

History Settled by citizens from Haverhill, Massachusetts, the town was first known as "Lower Cohos". It was incorporated in 1763 by colonial Governor Benning Wentworth, and in 1773 became the county seat of Grafton County. Haverhill was the terminus of the old Province Road, which connected the northern and western settlements with the seacoast. By 1859, when the town had 2,405 inhabitants, industries included three gristmills, twelve sawmills, a paper mill, a large tannery, a carriage manufacturer, an iron foundry, seven shoe factories, a printing office, and several mechanic shops. The town is home to the oldest documented covered bridge in the country still standing—the Haverhill–Bath Bridge, built in 1829. The village of Woodsville, named for John L. Woods of Wells River, Vermont, was once an important railroad center. Woods operated a sawmill on the Ammonoosuc River, and developed a railroad supply enterprise following the establishment of the Boston, Concord & Montreal Railroad. The village of Pike was settled by future employees of the Pike Manufacturing Company, which was once the world's leading manufacturer of whetstones.

While the village of Haverhill Corner was historically considered to be the primary settlement in town, the town's municipal offices are currently located in the village of North Haverhill, with Grafton County's offices and courthouse located just two miles farther north along Route 10. Woodsville served as the county seat until 1972, when the administrative offices relocated to rural land halfway between Woodsville and North Haverhill.

The village of Woodsville is now the commercial centre of Haverhill and its smaller surrounding towns, including several in Vermont. Woodsville is home to the town's supermarkets, pharmacies, banks (including the headquarters of the regional Woodsville Guaranty Savings Bank), state liquor store, and most of its restaurants and chain stores, although a few are located in North Haverhill. In 2008, Walmart opened a Supercenter location in Woodsville. The town's elementary and high schools, along with Cottage Hospital, a critical-access hospital serving the area, are all located in Woodsville.

Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 52.4 square miles (135.6 km²), of which 51.0 square miles (132.1 km²) are land and 1.4 square miles (3.5 km²) are water, comprising 2.62% of the town. Bounded on the west by the Connecticut River, which forms the state border with Vermont, Haverhill is drained by the Ammonoosuc River, in addition to Oliverian Brook and Clark Brook. Haverhill lies fully within the Connecticut River watershed.

The highest point in Haverhill, at 2,320 feet (710 m) above sea level, is on the western slope of Black Mountain, whose 2,830 ft (860 m) summit is in the neighboring town of Benton.

The town is served by six state-maintained routes. New Hampshire Route 10 is the main north–south highway through Haverhill, paralleling the Connecticut River. U.S. Route 302 enters from Vermont and passes east–west through Woodsville in the northern part of town, joining with Route 10 to head north-east to Bath and Littleton. New Hampshire Route 25 enters Haverhill from Piermont while co-signed with Route 10, splitting off by itself to the south-east in Haverhill Corner. New Hampshire Route 116 has its southern terminus at Route 10 in North Haverhill, and New Hampshire Route 135 has its southern terminus at Route 10 just south of Woodsville. A very short section of New Hampshire Route 112 cuts through the north-eastern part of town. Haverhill also has easy access to U.S. Route 5 in Vermont via bridges in North Haverhill and Woodsville.

Sites of interest • Bedell Bridge State Park • Haverhill-Bath Covered Bridge (1829) • Haverhill Historical Society & Museum • Museum of American Weather • Oliverian School • Clement Farm Disc Golf Course.