Main Street, circa 1890 • Sandwich Historical Society Collection

Sandwich, New Hampshire

Chartered in 1763 by Colonial Governor Benning Wentworth, the land was considered so inaccessible that the grant was enlarged, making Sandwich one of the largest towns in the state.

The village of Sandwich from Burleigh Hill circa 1920. Photo courtesy of Sandwich Historical Society

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 93.5 square miles (242 km2), of which 90.2 square miles (234 km2) is land and 3.2 square miles (8.3 km2) is water, comprising 3.47% of the town. Sandwich is drained to the east by the Bearcamp and Cold rivers, to the northwest by the Beebe River, to the southwest by Squam Lake, and to the south by the Red Hill River.

Mount Israel, elevation 2,630 feet (802 m) above sea level, is at the center. Part of the Squam Mountains is in the west. Part of the Sandwich Range is in the north, including the 3,993-foot (1,217 m) Sandwich Mountain (also known as Sandwich Dome), the highest point in town.

The Earl of Sandwich, dreaming of a ham & swiss on rye?

Sandwich was named in honor of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, said to be the inventor of the sandwich.

The earliest European settlers arrived in 1767. By 1830 Sandwich had grown to a population of 2700, roughly double the current (2010) population. At that time the town contained farms, stores, mills, churches, schools, carpenters, blacksmiths, and wheelwrights. The picture in the header above shows Sandwich in its 19th century heyday.

By the end of the 1800s much of the population had left Sandwich to live in cities to the west. Sandwich began to be an attraction for visitors, summer residents and artists, which continues to this day.

The old Post Office at Lower Corner.

Voted to give Orlando Weed of Gilmanton for making the Seven first Settlements in said Sandwich, Seven hundred acres of Land in any part of the Town he shall chose, to be laid out in one square body, Seventy pounds Lawful money; and seven cows. ~ Proprietors Records, October 1765

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Grandmother Hoag set down in her little notebook that Huldah (Hoag, later Buffum) made 1052 pounds of butter in the year 1883 when she was 70 years old. ~ From Albert Boyden's account of the Hoag and Fry families.

A link to a speech read on the 150th Anniversary of the settlement of Sandwich, N. H., Aug. 22, 1917, by the second daughter of Daniel Greenleaf Beede, Emme Beede Gulliver. And an interesting write-up of the Sandwich Historic District.