This year marks the 250th anniversary of our great little town, Brookline, New Hampshire. Although, we weren’t always Brookline – when the town was first chartered back in 1769, it was named Raby by New Hampshire Governor John Wentworth after his English cousin, the 4th Earl of Strafford and Baron of Raby Castle.
Almost thirty years later the town was renamed Brookline at the suggestion of a highly imaginative leading citizen originally hailing from Brookline, Massachusetts. Consistent with a trend that existed throughout New England since it was first settled, newly established towns and villages were often named for the place from which the settlers came, sometimes – in a fit of creativity – adding “New” to it, such as New Braintree, Massachusetts and New Britain, Connecticut. In this case, it took almost three decades for someone to make the suggestion to name Brookline after Brookline MA.
And while Bingham Lumber isn’t 250 years old (yet) we have a historic past, too. Our owner, Tom Bingham, is the latest in a long line of lumbermen in his family. His great grandfather and great uncle owned a wood-turning and custom wood shop and both his grandfathers owned sawmills. The second Bingham generation (Tom’s father, aunt and uncle) moved their mill, Bingham Lumber, from Fitchburg, MA here to Brookline in 1973. The mill grew and thrived until 2000 when the tides changed for the sawmill industry in New Hampshire.
