The season’s first “Stories to Share” event at the Jaffrey Civic Center focused on the role of historic preservation in small-town life.
Jon Knight, president of Historic Harrisville, called Harrisville “an interesting case study” in historic preservation, and described the town as a model for how historic preservation can revitalize and unite small rural communities.
“Vitality is a word I use all the time,” Knight said. “I want our buildings and our work at Historic Harrisville to engender vitality of all sorts—economic, social, cultural, familial. I like the word ‘vitality’ because it connotes action, and it is something which is fundamentally ongoing. Vitality is a not a ‘one and done’ chore, but a process of adaptation and change rooted in sensitivity to what is needed, and to where the possibilities lie.”
Founded in 1971, Historic Harrisville’s mission includes fostering the town’s economic vitality and sense of community along with preserving historic, cultural and natural resources.
“Rural vitality exists when local institutions and systems have been devised to serve to very specific purposes in very specific ways,” Knight said “When people harness the resources of a place to adequately make up for what is missing, or to help whomever is struggling, in turn, this creates a sense of identity, and belonging — perhaps even a sense of pride, which then compels people to continue to define issues, and create opportunities. These two things, resource adaptations and what I will call local pride, strike me as the ingredients of rural vitality, and together they can work to keep a place adaptive and thriving.”
Knight recounted the unique history of Harrisville, a village that developed around mills built to take advantage of the hydropower of Goose Brook, which drops 100 feet in a quarter-mile.
“In 1960, Cheshire Mills employed 130 people and filled 25 buildings,” Knight said. “In 1960, with the domestic wool industry collapsing, Cheshire Mills filed for bankruptcy, and Yankee magazine unironically ran the headline ‘Town for Sale.’ “
Knight described how after the mills closed, the founders of Historic Harrisville, including Chick Colony and Jim Putnam, had a vision for how the historic mill buildings could be used to keep the town going.
“When I asked Chick Colony why he and Jim founded Historic Harrisville, he said, ‘Because the problem was interesting. It was an entire town on the line,'” Knight said. “What this suggests is that Chick and Jim saw that these buildings were worth something, and that if they were knocked down or fell down, not only would they be gone forever, but in their place, new strutures would be built that responded to the moment of the 1970s, a moment when small towns weren’t worth very much in the global engine of the new economy.”
Knight said that in the organization’s first three years, the founders raised more than $350,000, bought and renovated six buildings, and began leasing them to small, local businesses.
“Within three years, these buildings began to generate revenue, and this is the model that Historic Harrisville still uses,” Knight said.
He presented photos of successful preservation projects, including the restored mills—now home to small businesses and art studios—the Harrisville General Store, the Harrisville Children’s Center, and several historic homes converted into apartments for residents who live and work locally.
Knight said the reopening of the general store, which had been closed for almost a decade, was a particular challenge.
“The finances of running a general store have never been good, especially if you want to pay the people who work there a living wage. In 2008, Historic Harrisville took over running the store, and has been slowly growing the business ever since,” Knight said.
Knight said the Harrisville General Store is a “perfect example” of how nonprofit management can sustain essential local institutions.
“The goals of running the store is not to turn a profit, but to sustain the town,” Knight said. “Every year, the Friends of the General Store provides essential income to keep it operational. In a sense, the store really belongs to the town, and to the patrons who support it.”
Knight also discussed Historic Harrisville’s ongoing renovation of the former St. Denis Catholic Church, which was deconsecrated and sold to Historic Harrisville in 2010. In 2024, Historic Harrisville received a $779, 635 CDFA grant to renovate the church as a community center.
Knight said the project was challenging because the church had no plumbing or accessible access.
“Finally, someone had the brilliant idea to use the building next door as the place to put the bathrooms,” Knight said. “This breakthrough came at the same time as the CDFA grant, and is scheduled to reopen as a community center in the coming year. Historic Harrisville held this building for nearly two decades without knowing how it would be used, and suddenly, we were able to invest almost a million dollars into the middle of town. Next year, it will be again be open to the public with staff dedicated to looking at the needs and possibilities in town, and devising ways to address them.”
For information about Historic Harrisville, visit historicharrisville.org.
Next month’s “Stories to Share” speaker is Kathy Bollerud, who will speak on “The Accidental Humanitarian: 15 Years in a Himalyan Village.” Information is available at jaffreyciviccenter.com/stories/.