Life and times in Hopkinton, . having two villages, there was a disposition on the partof some of our citizens to contest the location of the newtown-house. Consequently, there was considerable difficul-ty in securing an agreement to build the needed the 22d of April, 1873, a town-meeting was held on thesite of the burned town-house, to ascertain the mind of thelegal voters in regard to the formulated proposition to re-build. Local excitement ran high, and there was muchdiscussion of the question, a party favoring the commit-ment of the whole subject. A number of citizens, led b
Life and times in Hopkinton, . having two villages, there was a disposition on the partof some of our citizens to contest the location of the newtown-house. Consequently, there was considerable difficul-ty in securing an agreement to build the needed the 22d of April, 1873, a town-meeting was held on thesite of the burned town-house, to ascertain the mind of thelegal voters in regard to the formulated proposition to re-build. Local excitement ran high, and there was muchdiscussion of the question, a party favoring the commit-ment of the whole subject. A number of citizens, led byCol. E. C. Bailey, of Contoocook, desired to prevent theerection of a new house on the old spot, or to secure twotown buildings, one in each section of the township. How-ever, when it was shown, by a copy of the legal instrumentrendered by Benjamin Wiggin, that there was a reversionof the property used as a site of the court-house unless thesame was perpetually devoted to public uses, the tide of 20W GO O O 2do 00 w -3 !^ 00 >. A NEW TOWN-HOUSE. 173 opinion was turned in favor of rebuilding on the old town voted to appropriate $3,000 for the erection of anew town-house, and the three selectmen—John F. Burn-ham, Horace F. Edmunds, and Thomas B. Richardson—and Isaac Story were made a building committee. The local controversy refused to be quelled so easily. Asecond town-meeting was called in Contoocook on the 13thof May. The most important business done at this meet-ing was to reduce the building fund of the town-house to$2,500 instead of $3,000, and to place James M. Connorupon the building committee. This action, however, hadbut little weight, since the right to hold a town-meeting atany other place than the site of the town-house was ques-tioned, and no means fiad been provided for raising thebuilding fund. A difficulty also arose from the fact thatthe people of the southern section of the town desired toplace a second story upon the new building, for the acco
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