eople in Francestown wield proud and practiced phrases to talk about the place where they live. “We didn’t choose Francestown,” two residents told me. “It chose us.” One woman said living there is like having an oncall psychiatrist: If you feel depressed, it’s enough to go for a walk along a quiet country road. “And if you have to die,” added her husband, “Francestown’s a great place to do it.” Pride and practice are also on show when you drive down Main Street. The ordered houses illustrate the phases of <strong>New</strong> England architecture, from humble Capes to countrified Federal-style houses, and even a take on Georgian stateliness in the public library building. Here and there are splashes of Greek Revival ornament and a restrained Victorian fancy. They’re all perfectly tidy, cheerily painted, and most carry little plaques telling passersby when they were built and by whom. Facing the green are the Old Meeting House, the Town Hall and the village horse sheds, all of which are white and clean and look like they belong in Yankee. Townspeople love to tell you how old the structures are and to relate ancient anecdotes about them, as if they had been there in person. No one wants to begrudge a town its past, but the truth is such things are run-of-the-mill in <strong>New</strong> <strong>Hampshire</strong>. They’re written down in town histories that no one reads and recycled in only slightly less soporific visitor guides available in town libraries. But one can handle only so much of this. After a while, the lines all run together. Each town, of course, has homed in on a few historical particularities that pique its sense of pride. Francestown has three. First, in 1800, the Second <strong>New</strong> <strong>Hampshire</strong> Turnpike was built right through the village, bringing as much traffic as the place has ever known for a period of about 30 years. Second, a locally famous grammar school once operated there and was attended briefly by two <strong>New</strong> <strong>Hampshire</strong> notables, Levi Woodbury and Franklin Pierce. It may be partly responsible for the town’s persistent bookish glow. And third, it was in Francestown that the purest deposit of soapstone on Earth was accidentally discovered in the 1790s. The soapstone was extracted profitably for several decades, but today the quarry lies invisible and abandoned beside a country road. The Francestown Improvement & Historical Society proudly possesses more than 100 articles made from this stone and will gladly show them to you, if you come during regular hours. Yet try as I may to strip away the luster, I can’t escape the sense that there might be something special about this town. One day I was having lunch with a friend who lives there. When I told him I planned to write an article about it, he groaned and asked not to be included, so I changed the subject. “What are we eating?” I asked. “This is croque monsieur,” he explained, “a relic from the past, once served in Paris bistros until the politicians intervened. It’s essentially a ham and cheese sandwich, but really much more. I baked the bread. The cheese is Gruyère and the ham is prosciutto. The sauce is bechamel, after the Marquis de Béchamel, steward to Louis XIV. The herbs are Provençal.” My friend sells rare books and for years operated a private press in his house, manually printing works of literary merit in small runs. He built the house in 1975 from stone found onsite, following the Nearings’ manual. He lives a frugal yet exceptionally elegant life with no running water or central heating and boils just enough maple syrup on his woodstove to get through a year. Looking around, I said, “Are you honestly not going to let me write about you? You’re such a fascinating character.” No, no, he insisted. He really preferred to be omitted. “And besides,” he added, “by Francestown standards, I’m not terribly interesting. If you really must write this story, though, I suggest you begin by talking to my neighbor.” And so you can read all the official histories you like. It’s only once you get behind closed doors that you touch the soul of a town. That was what I’d do. It was below zero when I arrived at Priscilla Putnam Martin’s hillside house one December morning. She opened the door and I saw a house full of things yet somehow uncluttered. There was motorcycle paraphernalia everywhere, including a recent photograph of Priscilla, who is about 70, straddling a Harley-Davidson Sportster in Laconia. There’s a matching one of her husband. He’s her fourth, she tells me without embarrassment. 68 nhmagazine.com | <strong>September</strong> <strong>2017</strong>
The Francestown Labor Day Parade is celebrating 100 years in <strong>2017</strong>. Read more about it on page 75. On the opposite page, kids toss candy during a past parade. nhmagazine.com | <strong>September</strong> <strong>2017</strong> 69
Change language