10 minute read
One Restaurant, One Gas Station, No Traffic Lights
Fremont stays under the radar, just the way residents like it
STORY AND PHOTOS BY JASON SCHREIBER / ILLUSTRATION BY PETER NOONAN
Inside the old one-room schoolhouse that now serves as the Fremont Historical Museum sits a yellowed black and white postcard printed in 1910 offering a futuristic look at the town of Fremont. The postcard shows a view of Main Street with a hand-drawn streetcar, a subway bound for New York and other innovative modes of transportation, but most notable is the blimp-like aircraft seen floating high above the town.
With just under 5,000 residents, it’s easy to see why there are no streetcars or subways in the year 2024. This town has managed to preserve its pastoral character and still has only one restaurant, one gas station and no traffic lights.
But as it turns out, that postcard vision of the future really wasn’t that far-fetched, as Fremont became the unlikely home to a high-tech research and development center that now tests large broadband blimps, known as aerostats, that hover over the town and are visible for miles. They are the work of Altaeros Energies, a Massachusetts company developing aerostats to be used as aerial broadband towers that can be sent to rural and remote parts of the world to provide clear wireless signals.
These modern-day blimps are part of a new chapter in the history of a small town that has remained largely under the radar, despite its many historic markers scattered throughout town that tell the story of a community shaped by a barrel factory and brickyard workers, a lumbermen’s riot over valuable pine trees, a strong sense of patriotism and a world-class racing event that continues to bring tens of thousands of snowmobile enthusiasts to a local farm every October.
“If you want to come to a little town in southeastern New Hampshire that has a lot of character, incredible history and interesting people, this is the town to check out. Is it going to wow you with fancy architecture? No. It’s just a nice, humble, old-fashioned community that has taken pride in itself,” said Matthew Thomas, the town’s 67-yearold historian who began digging into Fremont’s past for an eighth-grade school project when he was a young teen and never stopped.
Situated just south of Route 101 – the state’s busiest east-west freeway – and a mile west of Route 125, Fremont is like a doughnut hole surrounded by major highways and commercial development.
Once known as Poplin when it was first incorporated in 1764, this mill town’s name was changed to Fremont in 1854 as a way to honor Gen. John C. Fremont, who was the first candidate of the Republican Party in the presidential election of 1856 and who served as the first territorial governor of Arizona from 1878 to 1883.
While it has a rich history, when outsiders are asked about Fremont these days, the first thought that often comes to mind for many is Fremont Pizzeria. It’s the only restaurant in town, but it’s been around long enough to have built up a loyal customer base with regulars who come from as far away as New London, N.H., and Burlington, Mass.
The pizzeria first opened in 1987 in a renovated barn attached to an old nursing home, but five years later it moved to its current spot on Main Street. “The people in town are great and very supportive, but there are people who still don’t know where Fremont is,” owner Nick Kakouris said.
And that’s just fine with some residents who would prefer to keep their small bedroom community a secret, including Thomas, though he’s spent his life trying to put Fremont on the historical map. He wasn’t happy when the New Hampshire Snowmobile Association’s Grass Drags and Watercross races, which came to town in the 1980s, was marketed as an event in Epping – a bigger neighboring town that’s more widely known. The race takes place at Brookvale Pines Farm on Martin Road, and while a portion of the farm sits in Epping, the races have always been held over the line in Fremont.
The popular three-day powersports event is hosted by the New Hampshire Snowmobile Association on Columbus Day weekend and attracts more than 45,000 snowmobile enthusiasts from across the Northeast and Canada. It’s the largest event that’s ever been held in town and is considered the kickoff to the winter season, featuring world-class snowmobilers racing on grass and across a large pond on the farm.
It’s an event that wouldn’t be possible without the support of farm owners Scott and Brenda Barthelemy. It was Brenda’s father, the late Phil Peterson, who first allowed the event to be held there when he operated the farm. Peterson was always generous with the property, and the Barthelemys have continued the tradition by allowing generations of residents and out-of-towners to enjoy the farm land for recreation.
“It’s being preserved for everybody. Our fences don’t mean ‘stay out.’ They just keep the cows in,” she said. “We love to see people fishing and enjoying the outdoors. When you drive down Martin Road, we’d like to think that the world hasn’t changed all that much.”
In recent years, the farm has also become the new home for the New Hampshire Renaissance Faire, which is held over two weekends in May and draws thousands of people from across New England.
This is the same farm that made headlines in 1986 when Peterson was kind enough to allow someone to store dozens of circus animals in a wooded area on the property, unaware that authorities were searching for some of them after they were reported stolen. Police were stunned to find a wild menagerie that included an elephant, tigers, a leopard, a lioness, camel, monkeys, donkeys, exotic birds and others.
The case of the hidden circus animals is just one of the many pieces of the past that Thomas has documented in books on a town with many firsts. They include the first Civil War riot in New England on July 4, 1861, the first Mast Tree Riot in 1734, and the first New Hampshire resident to have a heart transplant.
Thomas has ensured that the historical museum has plenty of news clippings from the highly publicized B-52 bomber crash in Spruce Swamp in 1959, which was the only bomber plane crash in U.S. history in which no crew members died; stories about Fremont’s 1960s all-female band, The Shaggs, which Frank Zappa once called “better than the Beatles” and over the years has developed a cult following; and the devastating fires that hit the Spaulding & Frost Cooperage.
Thanks to Thomas’ decades of research, Fremont now has six state historical markers and is tied with the city of Dover. The only communities with more are the city of Portsmouth, which has seven markers, and the capital city, Concord, which has the most with 14, one of which is retired. In addition to the state markers, the town has created many of its own local historical signs that hang on buildings to identify other town landmarks.
“Who knew about the B-52 bomber crash? Who knew about these riots? These are pieces of history that happened in one little community that should not be lost to history. I’m very big on putting up markers in hopes that future generations will hopefully remember seeing them and will remember, because I don’t expect to live forever,” Thomas said.
Built in 1874, the Spaulding & Frost Cooperage was the oldest operating white pine barrel-making factory in the country, but suffered fires in 1921 and again in 1973. During its operation, the factory produced what is believed to be two of the largest barrels ever made in the U.S. — one built in 1976 that was 15 feet tall and 10 feet wide and another made in 1998 that measured 17 feet high and 10 feet wide. The cooperage ceased operations in 1999, but its legacy lives on.
Craig Jewett is the owner of Jewett Construction Co. Inc., who moved the headquarters of his growing $100-million company to the former cooperage property in 2020. His father was a former co-owner of the cooperage before it burned in 1973.
When the younger Jewett decided to buy the property and relocate his business, it was like a homecoming of sorts. And while Fremont has a small business community, Jewett said the town was inviting and he’s glad he came here.
“It’s just a quintessential, bucolic New England town, and we’re happy to be there. It’s one of the better business decisions I’ve made in my life,” Jewett said. “It’s only 4 miles off of 101 and that’s our access to the world. We’ve had tremendous growth, and I think that has a lot to do with it.”
Heidi Carlson is in her 30th year as Fremont’s town administrator. She considered a new job only a couple of times over the years, but decided that she has more work to do here. A leader in town government who sticks around for three decades is rare these days.
“I’ve spent more than half of my life here. It’s a community very similar to where I grew up. I still consider it to be very grassroots democracy here. People are interested, and they’re engaged. They’re paying attention and everybody has an interest,” she said. “For the most part, virtually every town official that I’ve ever worked with on a board or a committee was on that board for the good of the town, not because they needed something or had an agenda. I think that’s huge.”
Like others, Thomas has always approached his work in a similar way as he continues to document current events that will one day become a part of Fremont’s history. With that 1910 postcard sitting nearby, he is already working on the page about the blimp business by Altaeros, which plans to develop new aerostats here for the foreseeable future.
“Finding the ideal spot for our R & D Center in Fremont was extremely lucky. While the location is great, the people and local businesses are what really makes this town one of a kind,” said Elise Gianattasio Niman, marketing and public relations manager at Altaeros. “The community in Fremont and the surrounding area has been so welcoming to our team, and we are so happy to be here. We love Fremont.”
Jason Schreiber is a former newspaper journalist whose career spanned nearly 30 years and was spent entirely in New Hampshire. He is a lifelong Fremont resident with a large extended family that remains deeply rooted in the town. Like Schreiber, many of his relatives grew up in Fremont and never left, choosing to raise their families there as well.
