Amherst, NH

Amherst is a Hillsborough County town in southern New Hampshire, while the Amherst census-designated place is the historic village center. The village counted 697 residents in the 2020 census; the wider town counted 11,753. Amherst began with a 1728 land grant to veterans of King Philip’s War, and the settlement that followed became a county shire town before the region’s growth shifted toward the larger Merrimack Valley. The Village Green, old town buildings, and Amherst Village Historic District keep that early New England center legible. Outside the village, Amherst spreads across a watershed of woods, ponds, and conservation land.

Ponemah Bog, Hodgman State Forest, Joe English Reservation, and Baboosic Lake each give the town a different local destination, while the Souhegan River and Beaver Brook run through the landscape. Clark and Wilkins elementary schools, Amherst Middle, and Souhegan High serve the school-age population. Summer concerts, July fireworks, historic district meetings, and Baboosic Lake planning all show up on the local calendar. Amherst is a town of two scales: a compact historic village at the center, and a much broader set of roads, lakes, forests, schools, and neighborhoods around it.