Weare

Weare covers roughly 60 square miles of central New Hampshire hill country, making it one of the largest towns in the state by land area. Named for Meshech Weare — who served as the town's first clerk before becoming New Hampshire's first governor and simultaneously its chief justice — the town was incorporated in 1764 and retains a strong sense of self-reliance. The center village includes the Clinton Grove Academy building, originally founded in 1834 as New Hampshire's first Quaker seminary by abolitionist Moses Cartland, a cousin of poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who sheltered freedom seekers heading north to Canada. Clough State Park sits on the sandy shores of Everett Lake, a 150-acre impoundment on the Piscataquog River managed by the Army Corps of Engineers. The park offers swimming, picnicking, and a 0.9-mile accessible parkway along the water. Just beyond the park, the Hopkinton-Everett trail system — one of New Hampshire's oldest public OHV riding areas — opens up miles of trails for dirt bikes, ATVs, UTVs, and snowmobiles across Weare and Dunbarton. Lake Horace, also known as Weare Reservoir, is a 268-acre lake originally dammed between 1910 and 1913 to feed hydropower downstream at Gregg's Falls in Goffstown. Today it's a local hub for boating, fishing, and paddling in summer, and ice fishing and cross-country skiing in winter. Mount William Pond, at 128 acres, rounds out the town's water access. High schoolers attend John Stark Regional, built in 1987 and shared with neighboring Henniker, named for the Revolutionary War general who gave New Hampshire its "Live Free or Die" motto. Weare's back roads, town forests, and trail networks draw people who want space, privacy, and room to breathe — a rural New Hampshire lifestyle that keeps residents fiercely loyal to their town.