Meredith Historical Society publishes new book on Meredith Village mill yard history

MEREDITH — From its earliest days in the late 18th century until the early 21st, Meredith Village evolved around the background of a central mill yard and the waterfall that powered it. Now a comprehensive look into the mill site is the focus of a new book published by the Meredith Historical Society.

"A History of the Meredith Village Mill Yard 1786-2025" by local author John A. Hopper, the society’s president, provides a wide-ranging look into the site’s 239-year evolution.

Beginning as the requisite infrastructure to saw lumber for settlers’ rustic homes and to grind the grains that stocked their larders, the site located in the heart of present-day downtown Meredith has been home over the years to cotton mills, woolen mills, hosiery mills, linen mills and asbestos mills. It weathered the dark decades of the asbestos mill until it was closed down, cleaned up, and converted into today’s anchor piece of a robust tourist industry.

“Mother Nature and the Ice Age put their stamp on Meredith Village centuries ago,” Hopper said when introducing his book. “To the north and south, different hills boxed it in. Combined, these natural features made for a small but beautiful place that in the latter half of the 18th century drew the attention of colonial settlers in the rapidly expanding colony of New Hampshire.”

A life-long summer resident of Meredith’s Bear Island, Hopper is the author of two previous books on local history: "The History of Bear Island" and "The Bear Island Chapel." He is also a major contributor to the historical society’s annual publication Morsels of Meredith History. Although he is retired from a career in banking, his education was in the field of history, including receiving his PhD focused on Southern African history from Yale University.

Hopper’s "History of the Meredith Village Mill Yard" joins numerous other offerings in the Meredith Historical Society’s Main Street Museum book shop, located at 45 Main St.

All proceeds from book sales help the society fulfill its mission to preserve, develop, and promote the knowledge and awareness of Meredith’s unique history.

For more information, visit meredithhistoricalsocietynh.org.