Monadnock Moments No. 78: Rosebury New Hampshire

If a group of residents of Chesterfield, Swanzey and Winchester had had their way in 1815, today’s residents or portions or these three towns would now live in a town called Rosebury, New Hampshire.  In May of 1815 twenty families in these three towns prepared a petition requesting the New Hampshire Legislature to incorporate portions of the towns into a new town by the name of Rosebury.  This new town was to be centered in the northern part of Winchester, west of what is now the village of Westport.
The desire for a new town in this neighborhood had arisen several years earlier.  In 1806 some eighty families had petitioned the state legislature for the incorporation or a town.  The residents of this northern portion of Winchester, the west corner or Swanzey and the southeast corner or Chesterfield apparently felt more closely affiliated with each other than with their respective towns.  Their main argument was that some families had to travel as far as twenty-five miles to the nearest meeting house.  Their petition called for a new town containing 11,392 acres.
The petition was not granted, but a meeting house was built in the vicinity.  These families now had their own meeting place, but they were still isolated from the political and population centers of their respective towns.  Consequently, they met again in May of 1815 to prepare the petition calling for the incorporation of a town that they would call Rosebury.  They were probably encouraged by the recent incorporation of the town of Roxbury and the imminent formation of the town of Troy just to their east.  Once again the petition was unsuccessful and the town with the wonderful name or Rosebury was never to be.