CHAPTER II BROOKLINE HISTORY

Brookline was officially chartered on March 30, 1769 when the so-called “west-enders” from the Town of Hollis merged with the previously unaffiliated one mile wide tract of land called Mile Slip. The town was originally named the township of Raby in honor of one of the English peerages held by the Wentworths, the family that governed the colony for half of the 18th century. The new township was home to 70 settlers and included seventeen square miles of pine forest and hills as well as several tiny brooks funneling into numerous ponds and rivers. At this time only two framed houses had been erected in town, with the remaining settlers living in log cabins. Raby’s early days were filled with legal battles ranging from a border dispute with Hollis and an internal struggle over where to build a new meeting house.

It is believed the current name of Brookline, adopted in 1798, was most likely suggested by one of the town’s leading citizens, Benjamin Shattuck, who was from Brookline, MA. The impetus for the name change was reportedly that the town hoped to distance itself from a bad reputation developed as a result of an unscrupulous group of settlers residing in the southern end.

Farming was the town’s main industry until the late 1800’s, when lumbering and mills broadened the town’s business base. The magnificent forests were the principal source of its prosperity, as eleven sawmills would spring up by 1840. In the town’s early days they furnished large quantities of lumber for local use and later they were the cause of the establishment of the coopering business which for many years was the principal source of income for many inhabitants. At about the same time that lumbering became prevalent, the town’s plentiful waterways also spawned a booming ice business on the 350 acre Muscatanipus Pond where the Fresh Pond Ice Company built what was then the largest ice house contained under one roof. Other early town industries included tanneries, brick manufacture, granite quarrying, and blacksmithing.

Commercial activity in town was also enhanced by granting of a railroad charter to the Brookline railroad company by the state legislature in 1891. Operating under the name of the Brookline and Pepperell railroad, the fourteen-mile line extended from lake Potanipo to a point at or near the station on the Worcester, Nashua and Portland railroad in Pepperell, Massachusetts. The Brookline Station, one of three stations in town, soon became the center of commercial and social activity. At one point at the turn of century over seventy to eighty cars a day regularly left Brookline station for Boston loaded with ice, lumber and granite as well as passengers. Unfortunately, Brookline and other small rail stops became casualties of the decline of the railroad industry in the mid-20th century due to the rise in private truck transportation.

As a whole, the town’s growth was slow for over 200 years as the town essentially remained a quiet rural community. However, the pace of change quickened dramatically in the last 25 years, as the population growth rate soared. Brookline is now recognized as the fastest growing town in the state. This growth in population occasioned a rise in public services and community activities since the late 1960’s. The following chronology reflects some of the more significant events in recent town history:

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students. Upgrade of computer infrastructure in Town offices begins. Local cable access channel begins operation.

Sources: Brookline, New Hampshire: Two hundred twenty-five years 1769-1994, Brookline Historical Society, 1994. History of Brookline New Hampshire, Edward E. Parker, 1914. Gateways to Greater Nashua, Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce, 1996. Brookline Annual Reports.

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