dcr
Deceased Member
Registered: February 2004
Posts: 1,317
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Grant Road is in Gilford - a trail to Round Pound starts from the end; its future may be in doubt because of ongoing development. In the photo we see a long-unused old barn and shed beside a reclaimed field, with Belknap and Gunstock in the background. In early settlement days fields were cleared primarily for subsistence reasons - to grow food and establish a house site. In the early 1800's many new fields were cleared to raise sheep; the newly built textile factories in southern NH and Mass were demanding great quantities of wool and many former subsistence farmers grew wealthy in meeting this demand - many of NH's much-admired old churches and meetinghouses that we see today were the result of donations by some newly wealthy sheep farmers. The sheep boom went bust around 1850 as a result of competition, foreign (sounds familiar) and domestic (newly opened farmlands in the midwest, which more than a few NH farmers went to, and the new Eire Canal which helped Ohio farmers get their wool to market sooner and cheaper than back-country NH farmers; even Australia and New Zealand could ship their wool to US markets cheaper than NH farmers). Chances are that today this recently re-cleared field will grow houses.
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