OUR TOWN
photo by stillman rogers
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Behind the Curtain Take a peek into the past in Hillsborough BY BARBARA RADCLIFFE ROGERS
A
quest for painted theater curtains took us to Hillsborough, following an interest we had acquired while exploring Haverhill for an “Our Town” article a few years ago. In our research we learned of a few other such curtains in the state, and we were particularly intrigued by the story of the two that are now on display in Hillsborough’s former fire station. The story of the two curtains, which originally hung in the Hillsborough Grange Hall, is a longish one involving the town of Goshen’s Grange Hall, where several curtains were discovered. Three of these were identified as originating in Hillsborough because of landmarks they depicted — one of the still-existent Rosewald Farm, one of the town’s distinctive Twin Bridges, and a third showing a Main Street scene with several identifiable businesses. These curtains had been painted for the
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nhmagazine.com | June 2020
Hillsborough Grange and, when it disbanded in the 1960s, were sold to the Sunapee Mountain Grange in Goshen. They had been stored there ever since. Large hand-painted canvases such as these were common in Grange halls in the years from the end of the Civil War through the 1930s. Used as backdrops for performances and for Grange rituals, they were painted by itinerant artists and often financed by selling advertising to the local businesses, which were identified in the paintings. The curtains needed restoring, and even with the help of volunteers the project was too costly for Goshen to undertake alone. So an agreement was reached between the two towns: In exchange for two of the curtains, Hillsborough would pay for the restoration of the third, to be kept in Goshen. The two chosen were those with the most distinctive local scenes, the stone arched
The Franklin Pierce Homestead
Twin Bridges and the curtain advertising Hillsborough businesses, which preserved a snapshot of the town in the 1930s. Fundraising by the Save our Curtains! Committee combined with a grant from the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation financed the cleaning and stabilization of the curtains, which are now displayed in the Hillsborough Heritage Museum. The museum is a project of the Hillsborough Historical Society and the Fireman’s Association to save the century-old fire station as headquarters for the society, and a place to store and display firehouse memorabilia and historical collections. The building, which is located on Central Street, is easy to spot from Main Street by its tall hose tower. The museum is normally open on Wednesday and Saturday mornings. Hillsborough’s bestknown historical attraction is the Franklin Pierce Homestead, on the 2nd New Hampshire Turnpike
