Belmont, NH

Belmont is the Census-designated village at the center of Belmont town in Belknap County, where the Tioga River gave an early mill settlement its shape. The town began as part of Gilmanton, separated by the legislature in 1859, and took the name Belmont in 1869. The Belmont Mill, a brick structure built in 1833 for the Gilmanton Village Manufacturing Company, is the clearest surviving piece of that industrial story; after a 1992 fire, it was restored and rededicated in 1998 as a place for community services. Main Street, the mill, the library, and the town's meetinghouse keep the CDP's small village center readable, while the larger town reaches toward Cotton Hill, lakes, and the Tioga's watershed.