Acworth, NH Town Government, Hours, Auto Registration, Vital Records, Taxes, Contact Information Hours Town Administrator / Assessing Office - M, T, Th 8AM-1PM; Wed 10AM-4PM townoff@sover.net Tax Collector - Monday 2-4PM taxcoll@sover.net Town Clerk - Vehicle Registrations, Dog Licenses, Vital Records- Wednesday 4:30-7PM and Saturday 8AM-noon atclerk@sover.net Transfer Station - Wed. 11AM-6PM and Sat. 9AM-4PM Highway Dept. - Summer hours Mon-Thurs 6AM-4PM Quick Links Acworth Silsby Library Acworth Village Store BOS Minutes Building & Fire Codes Fact Sheet Fall Mountain Regional School District Maps My State Senator 2025 NH Municipal Tax Rates New Hampshire RSAs New Hampshire Site Sullivan County Welcome You are visiting the municipal website of Acworth, New Hampshire. This web site is designed to provide information about Acworth and their local government. Enjoy your visit and feel free to contact us for additional content. Acworth Community Information Fall Mountain tax impact estimates wrong at deliberative Fireworks greet Fall Mountain's consolidation strategy DETOUR PLAN FOR 123A JUNE 22 - AUGUST 14 TO REPAIR FLOOD DAMAGE ACWORTH ROAD WORK STATUS/ESTIMATED COMPLETION Highway Dept. is closed Thursday, July 2nd Town Clerk's Office is closed Saturday, July 4th The Transfer Station WILL BE OPEN July 4th News & Events July Town Hall Monthly (click here) Acworth and FMRSD Voting Results (click here) Notice of Supervisors' of the Checklist meeting (click here) Joint Boards meeting 6/22 at 6PM PB meeting to follow agenda Selectmen meeting Mon. June 29 at 6:30 Private Well event Wed., July 29th at 6PM The Transfer Station is accepting material to burn, by appointment Meeting minutes are posted on this website, at the town office, or by email Property Cards Employment 1st Issue Tax Bill RFPs/RFQs Perm. File Crane Brook Rd is OPEN from Sugar House Rd to 123A! This is a travel at your own risk, one lane road. Please proceed with caution. THE FOLLOWING ROADS ARE CLOSED: Sam Putnam Rd. Forest Rd. and Forest Rd. Bridge Forest Road Bridge Public Input Session of 7/29/2024 Minutes and Presentation Forest Road Bridge Public Input Session of 12/16/2024 Presentation ***NEW*** Transfers of Waterfront Properties with Septic Systems in the Protected Shoreland Fact Sheet Click one of the icons to renew your registrations, dog license, pay your taxes or request copies of marriage, birth or death records. Genealogy research must be done in person. Please call the Town Clerk for appointment 603-835-6879 ~ Payments accepted in Cash or Check only ~ Share

Acworth NH Cemetery Trustees Contact Information Cemetery Trustees Meeting times: The fourth Wednesday of the month at 10:30AM from May - November Anyone interested in locating family burial plots in Acworth can find extensive information at the website findagrave Additional Resources Cemetery Rules and Regulations Cemetery Map Minutes 04/27/2026 05/27/2026 04/24/2025 05/29/2025 06/26/2025 07/31/2025 08/28/2025 10/02/2025 10/31/2025 12/04/2025 02/03/2024 04/11/2024 05/16/2024 06/20/2024 07/18/2024 08/15/2024 09/19/2024 10/17/2024 11/21/2024 05/04/2023 06/22/2023 07/27/2023 08/17/2023 11/18/2021 5/12/2022 6/23/2022 7/28/2022 8/25/2022 9/15/2022 10/27/2022 11/10/2022

Acworth NH Hightway Department Highway Department Collin Crosby, Road Agent Address: 170 Beryl Mountain Road Email: ahd@sover.net Phone: 603-835-6866 603-477-9045 (cell phone) Summer hours: Monday - Thursday 10AM - 4PM Winter Weather Policy and Priorities Ordinance relating to placement of snow in right of way and winter parking ban

Acworth NH Assessing Assessing Abatement Processes and Deadline Assessing Credits, Exemptions, & Abatement Forms Current Use MS-1 Summary Inventory of Valuation Tax Credit Criteria Tax Exemption Criteria Contact Information Selectmen's Office 603-835-6879 Address: 13 Town Hall Rd. PO Box 37 Acworth, NH 03601 General Responsibilities: Town authority for all property assessment and related issues Maintain thorough knowledge of State of New Hampshire tax law Administer State statutes governing taxation. Perform statistical analysis to monitor market trends and ratio studies Annually review property tax assessments based upon market research and analysis, updating when and where necessary Conduct investigations to evaluate property changes. Involves conducting on-site inspections, building permit reviews, meetings with property owners, and researching modifications made to properties. Responsible for administering the tax abatement process Maintain property tax data files, property record cards, and various departmental databases Assist other departments and agencies on an as needed basis Provide assessment related data to various entities, taxpayers, and the general public Respond to taxpayer requests, and provide customer service in person, via email, or over the telephone Final Values by Owner Final Values by Map Final Values by Location Property Cards Revaluation Q&A Understanding the Math, Dispelling the Myths Understanding NH Property Taxes

Acworth NH Emergency Emergency Management Emergency Management Emergency Management Director: Jennifer Bland Assistant Emergency Management Director: Collin Crosby NH Emergency Alerts The Town of Acworth has launched an emergency management notification system. NH Alerts is a free service, implementing the use of the Genasys Emergency Alert System, to send important alerts and time-sensitive messages to residents. All residents are encouraged to sign up for these alerts. The Genasys Emergency Management system powers NH Alerts, a multi-channel (i.e. SMS, voice, email, etc.) communication solution that provides life saving emergency information. This critical feature allows town officials to send you important alerts via phone calls, test messages or emails. Alerts could include information on road closures, criminal activities, severe weather warnings, and more. Sign up today Click Here For location-based notifications, residents can also download the Genasys Protect Mobile app . This app notifies you of public safety alerts happening around you. If traveling throughout the United States, the app will notify you of any alerts launched to the app by other town/city officials. Genasys Protect FAQs NH 911 C.A.R.E.S. Program The Citizen Assistance Registry for Emergency Services program allows individuals to register medical conditions along with other important information that can impact the 911 call under their phone number. When a phone call is received from a registered telephone number of a C.A.R.E.S. individual, the medical condition(s), home address, and other information submitted by the account holder is displayed on the 911 telecommunicator’s computer screen and can be shared with first responders so they can have a better understanding of the emergency before they even arrive on scene. Click here for more information 2023 Local Emergency Management Plan (LEOP) Emergency : 911 Charlestown Police Dispatch: 603-826-3141 State Police Troop C: 603-358-3333 Golden Cross Ambulance Service: 603-542-6660 Helpful Links: Readynh.gov Ready.gov The NFIP & FloodSmart.gov NFPA & Firewise USA The NH Health Alert Network

Town of Acworth Officials Town Officials

How to Obtain Copies of Voter Checklist The Supervisors are required to provide copies of the Checklist to those who request it. Supervisors are urged to address all pending items prior to providing copies of the Checklist. However, the the Right-to-Know law requires that a public record that is immediately available be provided immediately. A person making a request for a copy of the Checklist should not be denied because there are pending changes, but they should be informed that the Checklist is not current. A request received by mail should not be unreasonably delayed while corrections are made. The Supervisors may only provide Checklist information for their own town or city. The Supervisors shall charge a fee for each copy of the public checklist for the town plus any shipping fees if applicable. The information on the Checklist that Supervisors of the Checklist may provide upon payment, include the voter's name, street address, mailing address, town or city, voter history for an election (including whether or not they voted absentee), and party affiliation, if any, of every registered voter in the town or city. Date (or any date range) of a voter's registration is not public information. The Supervisors of the Checklist may provide public Checklist information on paper, or electronically. **It is a crime to knowingly use the Checklist information for commercial or purposes such as selling or offering for sale any property or service unrelated to an election or political campaign. *To request a copy of the Voter Checklist to purchase, you can either print the form that we have provided for you in an attachment below, or come into the office and get a form to fill out and sign. *The Voter Checklist is a public record and therefore is open to view in our office during regular business hours. Forms Voter Checklist Request Form Electronic Records Release Voter Right to Know

BOS Minutes - 2017 Board of Selectmen Minutes - 2017 January 9, 2017 January 17, 2017 January 30, 2017 February 6, 2017 February 27, 2017 March 6, 2017 March 20, 2017 April 3, 2017 April 17, 2017 May 1, 2017 May 15, 2017 May 18, 2017 May 29, 2017 June 5, 2017 June 19, 2017 July 2, 2017 July 17, 2017 July 31, 2017 August 7, 2017 August 16, 2017 August 21, 2017 September 5, 2017 September 18, 2017 October 2, 2017 October 16, 2017 October 30, 2017 November 6, 2017 November 20, 2017 December 4, 2017 December 11, 2017 December 18, 2017 2026 Minutes 2022 Minutes 2021 Minutes 2025 Minutes 2020 Minutes 2024 Minutes 2023 Minutes 2019 Minutes 2018 Minutes For older minutes call 603-835-6879

Acworth NH Emergency Health Jennifer Bland, Health Officer, Term Expires 3/21/2026 Phone: 603-835-2130 Cell phone: 860-601-2223 The goal of the Public Health Officer is to maintain and improve the health and well-being of all Acworth residents. The Health Officer operates under the authority and guidelines laid out by NH RSAs, primarily RSAs 128, 147 and 595. The Health Officer: Enforces the New Hampshire public health rules and laws, as well as local ordinances and regulations Serve as a liaison between state officials and the local community on issues concerning local public health The Health Officer’s responsibilities include: Inspect daycare/foster homes Inspect septic systems to certify failure Provide information on public health-related topics Investigate complaints regarding local public health concerns Help in minimizing the impact of adverse events on our population such as natural disasters, biological terrorism, chemical terrorism or naturally occurring communicable disease outbreaks

Town of Acworth History History Acworth’s First 200 Years Helen H. Frink Acworth was granted in 1766 to original proprietors as lots and ranges; there were twelve ranges running east to west, each range divided into eighteen lots numbered south to north. As settlement began in 1767, each lot contained about 110 acres. This system of lots and ranges is indexed in the old Acworth history sold at the town library and town clerk's office. Landowners interested in what was located where they now live may be able to trace their home back to this old system through that history, published in 1867. Old stonewalls also delineated these lots, and they and ancient cellar holes are the most obvious features that remind us everywhere that others lived here long before us. Acworth’s earliest settlers, many originally from Connecticut, settled near the high land at the center of town because it provided a good vantage point for defense, and because the air at lower altitudes was suspected of carrying disease. Acworth's historic Church on the Hill demonstrates the powerful force of religion in that early community. Until 1819 everyone in any New Hampshire town was expected to contribute to the minister's tax and to share the same religious beliefs, so that the religious community of Congregationalists and the town itself were one and the same. Therefore Acworth’s first meetinghouse, built in 1784, served both for church services and town meetings. But religious unity was short-lived. In 1809 Baptists built a church on the Lynn Hill Road and moved it to the present site of the Acworth school in 1844. Quakers petitioned for exemption from the Acworth minister's tax to attend meeting in Quaker City in Unity, where their 1820 meeting house could be handily reached from Acworth’s Black North Road. In 1844 Methodists erected their church on the common about where the flagpole and memorial boulder are now. Acworth’s original meetinghouse needed major repair by the time New Hampshire passed a law in 1819 essentially separating church and state. After much debate the meetinghouse was dismantled and its salvaged building materials used to erect the present town hall in 1821. Around the same time, two rows of horse sheds were built behind the town hall and church. The single row of sheds visible today is one of only nine such structures remaining in the state. The magnificent new Church on the Hill, also built in 1821, never served as a town meetinghouse. It was built to seat 800 congregants, its pews rented to finance the building. These churches fulfilled a social function at least as important as their religious role. Churches provided music, singing, and intellectual stimulation, as well as a chance to sit down and rest. Men worked with other men, particularly in Acworth's numerous water-powered mills. There they also enjoyed the sociability of farmers bringing corn and wheat and rye to be ground, or hauling logs to be cut into lumber or turned into chair stock or barrels or shoe pegs. Women generally worked at home with young children until Sunday. No wonder they were eager to take a bath on Saturday night, put on their best clothes, forgo cooking any hot meals on the Sabbath, and spend the day sitting down in the company of other women. They extended their church community to organizations like the Female Charitable Society founded in 1816. While we may think of women of the 1800s and early 1900s as more religious than men, we should also consider the importance of the church as a social institution. In early days, Acworth was famous for raising flax used to manufacture linen, though most households depended on subsistence farming. Leather from the hides of oxen and milk cattle supplied the Acworth Boot and Shoe Company through the 1860s and 1870s. Farmers fenced livestock out of an enclosure protecting fields and gardens. Hogs roamed freely until they were slaughtered in the fall. Stray livestock that wandered into a neighbor’s enclosure could be corralled in the stone town pound, built behind the horse sheds in 1806. Owners were directed to claim ownership, pay charges, and take them away. To this day we vote annually to designate our selectmen as pound keepers, as well as fence viewers and measurers of wood. Around 1830 sheep and wool production gained ascendancy, as valuable Merino sheep were introduced into New England, and Acworth’s water-powered mills carded, spun, wove and pulled wool. The dozen mills powered by the Cold River also ground grain, and sawed lumber, shingles, lath, and later manufactured butter tubs and syrup pails. These mills drew millhands and their families from the earlier hilltop settlement around the town common downhill into the South Acworth river valley. We can see this settlement pattern not only in Keyes Hollow in Lempster, in East and South Acworth, but also where the Grout Hill and Gates Mountain Roads meet across 123A. There stands a cluster of small houses built too close together to be surrounded by fields. Barns in such mill settlements weren't the huge barns that sheltered hay and dairy cattle, but smaller stables for one milk cow and a driving horse. Each of these little communities needed a school, and usually a store and a church, or a place for community gatherings. In 1854 the Methodist church was moved to its present location on the Beryl Mountain Road near the river, where it later became the Grange Hall. The Baptist church made the same journey into South Acworth, rebuilt on Main Street, as it was then called, in 1867. Besides the mill, the church, and the school, most of these little settlements included a meeting place for sociability. We still have the South Acworth Village Store with its old Union Hall upstairs, built in 1865. Preserving the store and the post office as a gathering place has been a major achievement by some awfully hard-working volunteers. Later the Grange Hall, formerly the Methodist Church, filled this gathering function in South Acworth. East Acworth had a huge old hotel, livery stable and barn owned by the Buss family who ran the mill across the road. Besides dances held in the ell of the old house, there were church services there. In Acworth Center the gathering place became Eagle Hall, upstairs in the old two-story schoolhouse that burned down in 1929, replaced by the present school that opened in 1930. In 1850, Acworth had thirteen school districts to serve 474 children. Several of these schoolhouses are still standing: the Grout Hill School built in 1847, the Derry Hill school, and the former East Acworth schoolhouse on Underwood Drive. Since children all had to walk to school, the schoolhouses needed to be within two miles of every family's house. The key factor here was darkness, and the distance children could walk on a snowy late winter afternoon. Schools included children as young as four, and went through the eighth grade. Many residents ended their schooling there because it was too difficult to travel to a local high school. Electricity and school bus transportation have changed education patterns, and also made it possible for families with young children to live much further from schoolhouses. Nevertheless, these changes have eroded the cohesion of small communities, as has the necessary establishment of regional school districts such as Fall Mountain, in 1967. Acworth's population reached a high point of 1,526 residents in 1810. That didn't necessarily mean more households, because families were so much larger. In fact about a third of those residents were school-age children. Today only about 15% of the town's population is comprised of school-age children. Population declined steadily after 1810, first because soil proved too poor for continuous farming, and second because the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 and the development of railroads around 1850 took the profit out of farmers' cash crops, first flax, later wool, butter and cheese, and then aple sugar. The farm families who migrated westward left behind cellar holes, old wells, apple trees, lilacs, and Concord grape vines. Most moved to New York State or further west, for example Illinois. The Civil War caused more rapid decline because young men in the Union Army saw better land and better opportunities in the south and west. Because of the sheep boom between 1830 and 1850, the Acworth they left behind was almost entirely cleared land, as shown in old photos. Acworth’s farms raised literally tons of wool, for Army uniforms, blankets, and saddle blankets, some of it woven at the woolen mill in South Acworth. In the 1870s and 1880s, steam locomotives burned huge piles of cordwood, which was very inefficient, since the trains had to haul some of this heavy fuel supply on board. But Acworth farmers spent winters logging and hauling firewood over to North Walpole to meet the trains. In the 1860s two-thirds to three-fourths of New Hampshire was cleared land, mostly sheep pasture. Today two-thirds to three-fourths of New Hampshire is forest. Many of Acworth’s old stonewalls, built mostly between 1790 and 1820, were later toppled by fallen trees or frost heaves. Others were cleared to make way for farming equipment; As soon as the scythe and hand-held rake gave way to horse-drawn equipment around time of Civil War, stone walls became an impediment, because the horse and mowing machine turned in an arc that left the corner of each field unmowed. Mowing by tractor brought no better use of these unmown corners, so old walls were removed. And after floods, highway repair crews piled in rock from old stonewalls and then shoveled in gravel to fill the breach, causing stretches of walls along some hillsides to disappear. The mining of beryl, mica, feldspar, and quartz also reshaped some of Acworth’s landscape during the first half of the twentieth century, and provided employment as farming and mills declined. The low point of Acworth's population came in 1960, when the census counted just 371 residents. In the hippie years of the 1960s and 1970s, people began moving back to the land, so that in 1970 the population was around 460. These were younger people, some of them childless, and some trying out different communal lifestyles. The desire to live sustainably and to earn a living from traditional crafts also draws people to Acworth. Some Acworth residents seek to get away from faster-paced city life, traffic, pollution, and noise. But for most of the town's history, the emphasis instead was on coming together. Originally everyone's driveway was town-maintained, because roads were intended to connect farms and families. The town organized thirty-two highway districts in 1810; most covered a very small area. Men figured the cost of necessary construction and repair, assessed highway tax on each household, and then worked out their highway tax. The wealthier residents, widows, and the elderly paid in cash. Most men worked with team of oxen or horses and a dump cart shoveling, raking, and spreading gravel. The system changed gradually as old backwoods farms were given up or burned down, and these roads were "thrown up" by the town, meaning there was no longer any tax-supported maintenance. Today these abandoned roads are still public rights of way. Several, such as the Stebbins Road, the John Symonds Road, the Keyes Hollow Road and the Dodge Hollow Road are much appreciated by cross-country skiers, snowmobilers, and horseback riders. Most of these old roads followed rivers and streams, which is why the October 2005 floods did such terrible road damage. The reasons are both geological and historical. First, even a small stream carves out a valley, such as Honey Brook alongside route 123A going out to Marlow. Most townspeople considered that a pretty insignificant stream until October, 2005, when it destroyed the state highway. The same holds true for Thayer Brook that runs alongside the Forest Road from South Acworth to Alstead. Because the streams carved a fairly flat, broad valley, they made road building easier. Second, the larger rivers, particularly the Connecticut, had always been the highways, first for Native Americans, then for early white settlers. Hotels or taverns sprang up near these rivers, served the highways that followed the rivers, and then the railroads that followed in the 1850s. Stretches of Route 12 in Charlestown where we see the Connecticut River, Route 12, and the railroad through North Walpole represent all these forms of transportation: the River the oldest, the railroad the newest, and the state highway right in between. Regardless of human settlements and the way they shape the landscape, Nature comes back every few decades to remind us that we are not the absolute rulers of the universe. During a huge flood in November 3 through 5th of 1927 the Cold River flowed over the road by Leon Newton's farm, and Crane Brook flooded down Crane Brook Road. The state allocated over $5,000 to repair this highway district in the west part of town alone. Glenn Bascom harnessed four of his horses and he and his neighbors filled in the washouts with stones from old stonewalls, and then hauled in gravel to spread over the damaged areas. The bridges in South Acworth and in East Acworth washed out and had to be rebuilt as well. Another flood, this time in the spring, struck Acworth between March 12-19th, 1936, when several feet of heavy snow melting over still frozen ground contributed to the flooding. Roads were so impassable that the school bus, the mail carrier, and the stage, by now a motorized vehicle, were unable to get through. Much of the Cold River Road in East Acworth and 123A into South Acworth remained under water for days. Men used dynamite to blast huge icebergs out of the Cold River near the Newton farm and further downriver in an attempt to break up the huge ice dams that flooded low-lying fields and roads. This rainstorm destroyed traces of the foundations and dams of many of the water-powered mills. There was still a cement-topped mill dam in South Acworth that washed out and had to be repaired. By then it belonged to the town, which needed to pay for its repair as well as around $4,000 in road damage. Some of the work was funded by the Works Progress Administration, the WPA, which was one of President Roosevelt's make-work programs to counteract the massive unemployment caused by the Great Depression. Locally, the WPA was called the Working People of Acworth. Oddly enough, some of the factors that helped put an end to the Great Depression were further disasters: the 1938 hurricane that began on September 21st, the Marlow fire of 1941, and finally the Second World War. If there is a message here, it may be that these natural disasters can provide a creative opportunity for change. Today Acworth’s residents continue to work together to adapt the land to present needs, and to tie the community together.