Rochester is a city in Strafford County, New Hampshire, United States. It is home to 32,492 people, according to the 2020 census. This makes it the 6th largest city in New Hampshire.

Besides the main downtown area, Rochester also includes the villages of East Rochester, Gonic, and North Rochester. The city has its own airport and is partly located on Baxter Lake. Rochester was one of New Hampshire's fastest-growing cities between 2010 and 2020.

History of Rochester
Geography of Rochester
- Neighboring Towns and Cities
People of Rochester
Economy of Rochester
Transportation in Rochester
Notable People from Rochester
Places to Visit in Rochester
Images for kids
See also

History of Rochester

How Rochester Began

Rochester was one of four towns created by Governor Samuel Shute. He was the governor of colonial Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The town was officially started in 1722. It was named after Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester, a close friend of the governor. He was also the brother-in-law of King James II.

In those days, tall white pine trees were very important. They were saved for the Royal Navy to use as masts for their ships.

Rochester Common: A Community Space

In 1737, Reverend Amos Main became the first pastor of the Congregational Church. The church building was later moved to Rochester Common. This area was once 250 acres (1.0 km²) and full of Norway pine trees. It was called "Norway Plain Mille Common." At that time, the Common stretched into what is now downtown Rochester. By 1738, about 60 families lived in this farming community. Today, a statue of Parson Main stands in the town square. It was made by Giuseppe Moretti.

By 1780, the area around the Common was the most populated part of town. A meeting house, which was also a church, was built on the east side of the Common. A cemetery was also started nearby. However, the ground was too wet, so the bodies were moved to the Old Rochester Cemetery. In 1842, the meeting house moved to its current spot. This is at the corner of Liberty and South Main streets. Over the years, the Common became smaller as parts of it were sold for building. A bandstand was built in 1914.

Today, the Common is used for many community events. These include Memorial Day celebrations and summer concerts. It also has a walking track for people to enjoy.

The Common During Wartime

During the Revolutionary War, the Common was a meeting place for soldiers. They would gather there before heading off to war. The Common also has a monument for the Civil War. It lists the names of 54 men who died during that war. The monument was dedicated in the 1870s, and a statue was added in the 1880s. Four Civil War cannons once decorated the monument. However, during World War II, they were melted down to help with the war effort. They were later replaced with World War II guns.

The bandstand was built in 1914 by Miles Dustin. Before that, band concerts were held in the town square. The flag pole was given by J. Frank Place in 1917. He used to publish the Rochester Courier newspaper.

Early Schools in Rochester

In 1750, Rochester decided to open a public school. It would teach children how to read and write. However, this decision was quickly changed. This went against colonial laws that said every community must have schools. In 1752, the first public schooling began. It lasted for 16 weeks. The teacher, John Forst, was paid 15 pounds. He stayed with a different family each month, and the city paid the family 30 cents a week.

For many years, the city would open a school and then close it soon after. Eventually, people realized a school was needed, but finding money was hard. In 1783, the state demanded that schools be open permanently. If not, the state would punish the town. A year later, permanent schools were finally set up. Teachers often used physical punishment back then.

In 1806, the school system was divided into districts. This followed a state law passed in 1805. This district system lasted until 1884. Schools in this system often did not have enough learning materials. Over time, fewer students attended school across the state. This led to the end of the district system. Many schools in Rochester and other towns had very few students.

In 1850, the city voted to allow and fund high schools. But money for high schools was not actually raised until 1868. The first high school opened in 1857. William A. Kimball was the principal and teacher. A school year lasted 22 weeks. Not many students went to high school, and most left before graduating.

Rochester's Growth in the 1800s

Mail service started in 1768. A mail rider traveled from Portsmouth through Berwick, Dover, and Rochester. He brought newspapers called gazettes. In 1792, this improved when Joseph Paine delivered and picked up mail once a week. When he arrived, a horn would blow to let everyone know. A regular post office opened on March 26, 1812, in the Barke Tavern. William Barker was Rochester's first postmaster.

The Cocheco River provided power for the city's early factories and mills.

The first big business in Rochester was lumbering. However, other industries soon became more important. Rochester grew into a mill town because the Cochecho River provided water power. In 1806, there were six tanneries (places that make leather). There was also a sawmill, a fulling mill (for cleaning cloth), and two gristmills (for grinding grain). By the 1820s and 1830s, the town had a cabinet maker and a clockmaker.

The Mechanics Company started in 1834. They made woolen blankets that won an award at the 1853 New York World's Fair. The Norway Plains Woolen Company made blankets for the Union Army during the Civil War. In 1870, they wove 1,600,000 yards (1,500,000 m) of textiles. But by the end of the century, they closed down. By 1880, shoe manufacturing became Rochester's most important industry, taking over from textiles.

In 1854, the E.G. & E. Wallace Shoe Company began. It became the city's largest employer, with over 700 workers in 1901. Its name changed to the Rochester Shoe Corporation in the 1920s. After the Wallace brothers died in the 1890s, other shoe factories opened. These included Perkins, Linscott & Company (later Linscott, Tyler, Wilson Company) and N. B. Thayer & Company, Inc., in East Rochester. In the early 1900s, more people worked in shoe making than in all other local industries combined. Rochester helped New Hampshire become the third largest shoe-producing state in the nation.

The Kessel Fire Brick Company started in 1889. At one time, bricks for new buildings at Harvard University were made in Gonic. Four railroads once passed through Rochester, carrying goods. Rochester was a major junction between Haverhill, Massachusetts, and Portland, Maine. Farming was still important, and the Rochester Fair began in 1875. In 1891, Rochester officially became a city.

The first telephone was installed in 1885 at the K.C. Sanborn Drug Store. It was connected to the Dover Telephone Exchange. By the early 1900s, Rochester made 1,200 local calls and 400 long-distance calls a day.

In 1889 and 1900, Jonas Spaulding and his three sons, Leon, Huntley, and Rolland, built a leatherboard mill in North Rochester. Jonas died before the mill opened. But his sons ran it well and made the company grow across the country and even internationally. Leon Cummings Spaulding became the president of J Spaulding and Sons Company after his father passed away.

During the Great Depression, many businesses moved to the South or went bankrupt. This was because it was cheaper to operate there. However, the rich mill era left behind beautiful buildings. One example is the Rochester Public Library, a Carnegie Library. It was designed by architects Randlett & Griffin from Concord.

Rochester Public Library

Rochester Public Library

The Rochester Public Library was approved in 1893. It opened to the public in early 1894. Back then, the library was on the corner of Portland Street and South Main Street. In 1897, the library moved to City Hall. It stayed there for over eight years.

In the early 1900s, Osman Warren, Rochester's postmaster, asked Andrew Carnegie for help. Carnegie was a very rich businessman who helped build many libraries. The Carnegie Institute gave $20,000 to build the new library. The new library was built where the Main Street School used to be. The library was built in the Georgian revival style. It used brick and granite, and the inside was decorated with golden oak and cypress wood. The library opened on October 2, 1905. On the first day, 150 people signed up to use it. Miss Lillian Parshley was the first librarian. She worked there until she died in 1945. Velma Foss, her assistant, became the second librarian.

City Hall and Opera House

Another important building is Rochester City Hall, built in 1908. It includes the Opera House. This building was designed by George G. Adams. Adams designed other buildings that were both city halls and opera houses in New England. These included buildings in Bellows Falls, Vermont (1887), Amesbury, Massachusetts (1887), Dover, New Hampshire (1891), and Derry, New Hampshire (1901). Only four of his buildings still exist today. Many of his buildings were destroyed by fires.

Adams' opera houses were special because their floors could move. They could be inclined (sloped) for plays and concerts. Or they could be level for dances or public meetings. The Rochester Opera House opened on Memorial Day in 1908. Almost all of Adams' buildings had movable floors, except for the ones in Waterville and Montpelier. Because other opera houses were destroyed, the Rochester Opera House is the only known theater in the United States with this type of movable floor.

For many years, the Rochester Police Department had offices in the basement of City Hall. Some old pictures of officers are still kept upstairs. This is where portraits of city officials were traditionally stored. These include officers Nelson S. Hatch and Red Hayes.

Today, people can still watch shows at the Rochester Opera House. The City of Rochester has kept the 90-year-old historical look of the Opera House.

Rochester in the 1900s

Rochester's busy shoe industry in the early 1900s brought business people from other states. In 1930, Samuel J. Katz started the Hubbard Shoe Company. They began working in the N. B. Thayer & Company factory in East Rochester. By 1931, they also took over the Linscott, Tyler, Wilson factory in Rochester. They bought it completely in May 1932.

At its busiest, the Hubbard Shoe Company employed about 400 people in East Rochester making men's shoes. Another 500 people in Rochester made women's shoes. Their total yearly payroll was $3 million, and they made 2.5 million shoes each year. In 1934, the Maybury Shoe Company started operations at the old E.G. & E. Wallace site. Both companies survived the Great Depression. They provided steady jobs for many Rochester citizens. During World War Two, they changed to making goods for the war. However, they could not compete with cheap imported shoes in the 1970s. Hubbard Shoe Company closed in 1973, and Maybury Shoe closed in the mid-1970s. Samuel Katz's son, Saul, later started the successful Rockport Shoe Company with his son, Bruce R. Katz.

Rochester moved past the silent film era on May 20, 1929. This was when the first talking movie, The Wild Party, came to the city. It starred Clara Bow and was shown at the Scenic Theater. The evening ticket price was 35 cents for adults and 15 cents for children.

In October 1930, a Rochester Courier article described a new indoor golf course:

INDOOR GOLF COURSE TO BE OPENED ON SATURDAY

The Leavitt Theatre Property Transformed Inside Into a Bower of Beauty - Rochester is to have an indoor golf course, which, it is said, will be second to none, in beauty and attractiveness, this side of New York. Fred Couture, owner of the Scenic theatre, who a few months since purchased the Leavitt theatre on South Main Street, has been laying out a small fortune in fitting it up on the ground floor for such use. This building was formerly the home of the Hon. Summer Wallace and was one of the most beautiful mansions in New Hampshire. Despite the way in which the outside was changed to make the theatre, much of the magnificent wood paneling inside has been saved. It was a perfect base for an unusual setting for indoor golf. A large group of workers has been busy in recent weeks, working in shifts, and this week six scene painters are decorating the walls and ceilings. There will be an Egyptian room, a Japanese room, an Indian room and a Dutch room. The walls of each are decorated with suitable paintings to create a picture of the particular land shown. The Dutch room, for example, not only has paintings of canals and dikes but an actual windmill that turns. In the Indian room are pictures of forests and streams, with an Indian paddling a canoe. There is a real waterfall too, with water flowing down over actual rocks into three basins, with a pool for goldfish at the bottom. One room shows the seashore, the entire wall being one huge painting of the ocean, with a real lighthouse perched up on a rocky point, with a light shining its rays. There is also a garden room with many flowers. There are various rest rooms and plenty of seats everywhere for those watching or tired players. All the floors will be covered with artificial grass. In a noticeable spot is a large pile of stones, with a fountain at the top, from which a tiny stream trickles down over the rocks in various small channels and little pools. Ferns grow on its sides. There are also in various places tree trunks, some birch with their white bark and other types. There will be eighteen holes to the golf course, with various traps and some mysteries. The whole place is certainly a wonderful representation of the great outdoors and a true dream of beauty. The grand opening is set for Saturday evening at 6:00, when Mayor Louis H. McDuffee will press the button and turn on the lights.

Natural Disasters in Rochester

The summer of 1947 was very dry. By late October, only a tiny bit of rain had fallen since mid-September. Temperatures were also high. Small ponds and streams had dried up. Local farmers used water from the Salmon Falls River and Cocheco River for their animals. The risk of fire was very high. On October 21, sparks from a train in Farmington started a fire. It ignited the dry grass on both sides of the tracks. This became the biggest fire to hit Rochester.

At first, firefighters thought they had the fire under control. But two days later, winds up to 60 mph (97 km/h) made the "small" fire grow out of control. The wind-driven fire moved south and east into Rochester. The fire covered an area over 9 miles (14 km) long and over 2 miles (3.2 km) wide. The flames were 40 feet (12 m) high. Before the fire was stopped, over 30 homes in Rochester were destroyed.

Hurricane Carol hit New Hampshire on September 2, 1954. The hurricane's winds were over 90 mph (140 km/h). Property damage in New Hampshire was estimated at $3 million. About 4 inches (10 cm) of rain fell during the storm.

A Category 5 hurricane, known as the Hurricane of '38, was the most deadly in New Hampshire's history. It caused a lot of damage to Rochester and nearby towns. Hurricane Carol was a Category 3 storm.

Geography of Rochester

The Cocheco River flows through central Rochester.

Rochester covers a total area of 45.44 square miles (117.7 km²). Of this, 45.02 square miles (116.6 km²) is land, and 0.41 square miles (1.1 km²) is water. Water makes up about 0.91% of the city's total area. The city is drained by the Salmon Falls, Isinglass, and Cochecho rivers. The highest point in Rochester is Chestnut Hill, which is 581 feet (177 m) high. It is located in the northern part of the city.

New Hampshire Route 16 (the Spaulding Turnpike) is a six-lane highway that goes through Rochester. It leads north towards Conway and south to Dover and Portsmouth. U.S. Route 202 uses the turnpike to go around the city center. Then it heads northeast into Maine and southwest towards Concord.

New Hampshire Route 125 goes north-south through the center of town. It leads south to Lee and Epping. It travels north parallel to NH 16 into Milton. New Hampshire Route 11 leads west to Alton and Laconia. It goes northeast along US 202 into Maine. New Hampshire Route 108 leads southeast to Dover. New Hampshire Route 202A leads southwest to Strafford and Northwood.

Besides the main downtown area, Rochester has two other important communities. East Rochester is a small neighborhood near the city's northeastern border. It is along routes 202 and 11, next to the Salmon Falls River. Gonic is located south of downtown along NH 125. It is at a dam on the Cocheco River. Its name comes from the Native American name Squanamagonic.

Neighboring Towns and Cities

Rochester shares borders with these places:

Lebanon, Maine (to the north)
Berwick, Maine (to the northeast)
Somersworth (to the east)
Dover (to the southeast)
Barrington (to the southwest)
Strafford (to the west)
Farmington (to the northwest)
Milton (to the north)

People of Rochester

Historical population
Census	Pop.	%±
1790	2,857	—
1800	2,646	−7.4%
1810	2,118	−20.0%
1820	2,471	16.7%
1830	2,155	−12.8%
1840	2,431	12.8%
1850	3,006	23.7%
1860	3,384	12.6%
1870	4,103	21.2%
1880	5,784	41.0%
1890	7,396	27.9%
1900	8,466	14.5%
1910	8,868	4.7%
1920	9,673	9.1%
1930	10,209	5.5%
1940	12,012	17.7%
1950	13,776	14.7%
1960	15,927	15.6%
1970	17,938	12.6%
1980	21,560	20.2%
1990	26,630	23.5%
2000	28,461	6.9%
2010	29,752	4.5%
2020	32,492	9.2%
U.S. Decennial Census

As of the 2010 census, Rochester had 29,752 people. There were 12,378 households and 7,936 families living in the city. There were 13,372 housing units, with 994 (7.4%) of them empty.

The racial makeup of the town was mostly White (95.4%). Other groups included African American (0.8%), Native American (0.3%), Asian (1.2%), Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander (0.1%), and some other race (0.4%). About 1.7% of people were from two or more races. About 1.8% of the population was Hispanic or Latino of any race.

Of the 12,378 households, 29.9% had children under 18 living with them. About 46.8% were married couples living together. About 12.2% had a female head of household with no husband present. And 35.9% were not families. About 27.8% of all households were made up of individuals. About 10.6% were someone living alone who was 65 years old or older. The average household had 2.38 people, and the average family had 2.89 people.

In Rochester, 22.0% of the people were under 18 years old. About 7.6% were from 18 to 24. About 26.2% were from 25 to 44. About 29.3% were from 45 to 64. And 14.8% were 65 years or older. The average age was 40.7 years. For every 100 females, there were 93.5 males. For every 100 females aged 18 and over, there were 89.6 males.

From 2011 to 2015, the estimated average yearly income for a household was $46,979. For a family, it was $59,519. Full-time male workers had an average income of $42,948, while females had $34,688. The per capita income (income per person) for the town was $26,580. About 13.2% of the population and 12.3% of families lived below the poverty line. This included 22.2% of people under 18 and 8.8% of those 65 or older.

Economy of Rochester

Major employers in Rochester include:

Frisbie Memorial Hospital
Albany International
Market Basket
Walmart
Thompson Investment Casting
Spaulding Composites
Rochester Manor
NextPhase Medical Devices
Monarch School of New England
Lydall Performance Materials
Lowe's
Laars Heating Systems
Kohl's
Homemakers & Health Services
The Home Depot
Hannaford
Eastern Propane & Oil
Cornerstone VNA
The City of Rochester
Rochester School District

Transportation in Rochester

Cooperative Alliance for Seacoast Transportation provides local bus service in Rochester.

Notable People from Rochester

Isaac Adams (1802–1883), an inventor who created the Adams Power Press, which changed the printing industry.
Allard Baird (born 1961), a vice president and assistant general manager for the New York Mets baseball team.
Jeff Coffin (born 1965), a saxophonist for the Dave Matthews Band. He won three Grammy Awards with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.
Casey DeSmith (born 1991), an ice hockey goaltender for the Vancouver Canucks.
James Farrington (1791–1859), a U.S. congressman.
Samuel D. Felker (1859–1932), a mayor and the 54th governor of New Hampshire.
James Foley (1973–c. 2014), a photojournalist.
John P. Hale (1806–1873), a U.S. senator.
Charles Francis Hall (c. 1821–1871), an Arctic explorer.
Lyndon LaRouche (1922–2019), a political activist and frequent presidential candidate.
Daniel Lothrop (1831–1892), a publisher, born in Rochester.
George A. Lovejoy (1931–2015), a New Hampshire state senator and businessman.
Freddy Meyer (born 1981), a defenseman who played for the Philadelphia Flyers ice hockey team.
Gertrude Jenness Rinden (1901–1992), a missionary, educator, and writer.
Brandon Rogers (born 1982), a defenseman who played for the Anaheim Ducks ice hockey team.
Carol Shea-Porter (born 1952), a U.S. congresswoman.
Huntley N. Spaulding (1869–1955), the 61st governor of New Hampshire.
Rolland H. Spaulding (1873–1942), the 55th governor of New Hampshire.
John Tuttle (1951–2022), a Maine state legislator, born in Rochester.
John Hanson Twombly (1814–1893), president of the University of Wisconsin and a Methodist minister.
Nathaniel Upham (1774–1829), a U.S. congressman.