Incorporated: 1768
Population: 13,240
County Name: Merrimack
(county map)
Town Contact:
Town of Hooksett
16 Main Street
Hooksett, NH 03106

Phone: 603-485-8471
Fax: N/A
Website: www.hooksett.org

Origin:
First known as Chester Woods and Rowe's Corner, this town was called Hooksett for nearly fifty years before being incorporated. The name may have come from a hook-shaped island in the Merrimack or from early fishermen, who called the area Hookline Falls. Rocky ledges flank the Merrimack River, and there were several cross-river ferries located here, as well as lumber mills and a brick-making establishment powered by the falls. In 1794, the lottery-funded Hooksett Canal became part of the transportation facilities of the Amoskeag Cotton Mills in Manchester.

More about Hooksett:
Robie's Country Store in Hooksett is the quintessential New England mercantile. The original store opened in the 1820s, providing its community with more than just food and other goods: it also served as the post office, meeting place, information center, and a "must-do" stop for local, state, and national candidates on the campaign trail. When George Robie purchased the shop in 1887, he began four generations of family operation that stretched across two buildings. The present clapboard structure, built in 1906 after a fire, is the third to occupy the location.

When the last of the Robie family operators retired and closed the store in 1997, a group of local citizens formed a nonprofit corporation — Robie's Country Store Historic Preservation Corporation — to protect their local resource. Today, the mercantile is an official project of Save America's Treasures and is listed on the National and New Hampshire Registers of Historic Places.