Goshen receives $95,385 grant for Grange restoration

Staff Reports
GOSHEN  – The Town of Goshen has received a $95,385 grant award from the N.H. Land and Community Heritage Investment Program (LCHIP) to support renovation of the town’s historic Grange building.  

Goshen’s grant will support the return of the Grange building to everyday use.  The Grange building was originally a one-story structure, built in 1853 near Rands Pond in Goshen and used as a chapel.  It was moved to Route 10 in the center of Goshen in 1878 to serve as a Methodist meeting house.  In 1892 the building was purchased by Sunapee Mountain Grange #144.  The Grange organization was very active and grew to need more room, so in 1908 the building was jacked up and a new first floor added, leading to the counter-intuitive situation of a building with its first floor much newer than its second floor.  

The Grange declined in membership, leading the remaining members to donate the building to the Town of Goshen in 2002.  A very hard-working and skilled group of volunteers, The Friends of the Grange, maintained the building for the next 15 years.  With this grant the town intends to finally return the beautiful building to everyday use, with space for small meetings and office space for the school district and town police department.  

Forty-two projects, spread all across the state, will receive matching grants from LCHIP. Sixteen natural resource conservation projects will be supported by $2 million while 26 historic resource projects will receive $1.9 million, all in matching grants. 

Historic resource projects will help with rehabilitation of structures ranging in date from 1721 (Ladd-Gilman House, Exeter) to 1916 (Whitcomb Hall, Swanzey). The natural resource projects will ensure permanent protection of more than 13,000 acres in parcels ranging from ten acres in Durham to over 6,000 acres in Gorham. Grant recipients are required to provide at least one matching dollar from another source for every dollar received from the state through LCHIP. This year, they will provide more than $3.70 for each state dollar. The smallest grant is $7,500 for a planning study to help the Great North Woods Committee for the Arts explore what is needed to convert the former Shrine of Our Lady of Grace into a cultural and arts center. The largest grant of $350,000 will help the Southeast Land Trust of New Hampshire create the Birch Ridge Community Forest in New Durham. 

Sandy Sonnichsen applied for this grant as a volunteer for the Town of Goshen. She said, “We are stunned and delighted to receive this award.  It will be wonderful to see the building, which has stood empty for so long, returned to a central role in the life of our town.” 

Sonnichsen said the town also received an $8,000 Moose License Plate grant in 2017 to repair the roof of the building, and another Moose Plate grant of $10,000, awarded this fall, to repair the foundation.  The town will soon be soliciting bids for the foundation work, hoping to complete those repairs by early summer, while also soliciting bids for the building renovation. 

The 18-member LCHIP board of directors selects the grant recipients as the culmination of a rigorous application and review process. LCHIP’s Board Chair, Amanda Merrill of Durham, observed, “The LCHIP board and staff have the responsibility and privilege of helping to protect natural, cultural and historic resources across New Hampshire. It is a pleasure to work with dedicated colleagues from local government, citizens groups and non-profits to preserve the places that make our state special.”