HINSDALE

A short history of Hinsdale

Located in the southwestern corner of the state, Hinsdale was chartered in 1753. It was named for Colonel Ebenezer Hinsdale, member of a prominent Deerfield, Massachusetts, family, whose mother had been taken captive in the famed Raid on Deerfield of 1704. Graduated from Harvard, Hinsdale was ordained to become a missionary for Indians of the Connecticut River Valley. Instead, he would serve as chaplain at Fort Dummer, an important trading post on the Connecticut River, later enlisting as an officer in the army. Then, in 1742, he established Fort Hinsdale, including a trading post and gristmill, reportedly at his own expense. The town's earliest history recounts Indian assaults, raids and captivities.

Located beside the Connecticut River and connected to Brattleboro, Vermont, by bridge, Hinsdale contains excellent farmland, but has been a significant center of industry as well, especially in the manufacture of paper. Tobacco was grown in Hinsdale through the 19th century. In a machine shop here, George A. Long built a self-propelled steam vehicle in 1875, the Long steam tricycle, for which he received one of the nation's earliest automobile patents. The Hinsdale post office, located on Main Street, is the oldest continually-operating in the same building post office in the United States.

From 1959 to 2008, the town was home to the Hinsdale Greyhound Park. In 2023, Geoffrey Holt, a caretaker of a mobile home park, left the town $3.8 million to be used for education, health, recreation, and culture.

Adapted (trimmed) from the Wikipedia article Hinsdale, New Hampshire, revision 1378978521 by its contributors, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.