Anybody Live in Franklin, NH?

[Ear]

My wife and I will be moving to NH in the Spring of 2007, and after doing a lot of Googling and Google Earthing, I've chosen Franklin as our future home.  I'm a trucker, so I can live pretty much anywhere without worrying about getting work.

Do any of you folks live in Franklin?  How is life there, and is it easy to find a house to rent while we look for one to buy?  What about the local hospitals and other considerations?  Hell, tell me anything, as long as it's true.

[Lex]

Why not go just a little bit west to Grafton?

[aries]

It's kind of a depressed town, right next to tilton though, a hopping shopping area. Franklin is... less hopping and more... in a bit of a sorry state. That's not to say it isn't a fine home, especially if you can find work in Concord or Tiltion or somewhere sligtly better off than franklin currently is.

[Dreepa]

It's kind of a depressed town, right next to tilton though, a hopping shopping area. Franklin is... less hopping and more... in a bit of a sorry state. That's not to say it isn't a fine home, especially if you can find work in Concord or Tiltion or somewhere sligtly better off than franklin currently is.

When I moved to NH.... My realtor kept trying to get us to buy in Franklin.
Franklin is 'up and coming' she said.
Franklin does have some things going for it.
School district keeps getting better.
They have a cap on spending.
There was a huge article in the Concord Monitor back in the Spring about Franklin and how it is 'on the rise'.  I will try and search for it.

[Pat McCotter]

Not to diminish Franklin in any way but the city's reputation os fairly low. The worst I heard was after one of my co-workers knocked a tooth out. Next day (after emergency dental work) he came back to work and said he had looked like he was "trailer trash from Franklin."

Also, because of the experience of another co-worker, one does not want to go to Franklin Hospital for trauma. The ER was going to send him home after a motorcycle accident with a broken back and punctured lung. Paramedics found a cooperative doctor and had him flown to Burlington, VY (look at a map to see why that is a big deal.)

On the lighter side of things, the neighborhood near the hospital has the following street names:

Independence Ave
Liberty Ave
Freedom Dr
Patriot Ave

[Ear]

On the lighter side of things, the neighborhood near the hospital has the following street names:

Independence Ave
Liberty Ave
Freedom Dr
Patriot Ave

Quite.  And the town itself is named after some fellow named Benjamin Franklin, who I understand was somewhat partial to the idea of personal liberty.

I chose Franklin because it's got a confluence of two rivers, proximity to massive amounts of lake shore, housing prices are low, Concord, Manchester, and Boston are not too very far away, etc.  I don't really care if people think I'm trashy for living there, although what that says about my future neighbors is a little anxiety-producing.

[Spencer]

My wife and I will be moving to NH in the Spring of 2007, and after doing a lot of Googling and Google Earthing, I've chosen Franklin as our future home.  I'm a trucker, so I can live pretty much anywhere without worrying about getting work.

Do any of you folks live in Franklin?  How is life there, and is it easy to find a house to rent while we look for one to buy?  What about the local hospitals and other considerations?  Hell, tell me anything, as long as it's true.

I believe you'll find much of the information that you're seeking here:

http://www.nhes.state.nh.us/elmi/htmlprofiles/franklin.html

[Ear]

I believe you'll find much of the information that you're seeking here:

http://www.nhes.state.nh.us/elmi/htmlprofiles/franklin.html

Well, yes and no.  Thanks much for the link, it is informative and I appreciate you going to the trouble of posting it for me... but what I'm MOST interested in is the opinions of people who live there, or at least visit there.

[KurtDaBear]

I don't want to hijack Ear's string here, but rather than open up a new one, I'd like to ask what anyone out there knows about Rochester?  No one in the FSP ever seems to mention it, and the one time I asked about it on the FSP Welcome Wagon site, I never got a reply.  It seems to be a fair-sized city and well situated, but it must be harboring some awful secret that no one will talke about.

[Lloyd Danforth]

If you go to the FSP forum and do a search on Rochester you will find some conservation about it.  I had a place there for a few months a couple of years ago.  The downtown is a little depressed, and there is often a lot of traffic down the main drag.  20 miles or so and $1.00 toll to get to Portsmouth, a nice city. Rochester is a good, in-expensive compromise if you want to live near the seacoast.

[Vote Tyler Stearns]

My mother-in-law lived in Tilton, right on the Franklin townline for 15 or so years. She was always talking about the 'hooligans' in Franklin and calling the cops on teens that were raising hell around her house. I personally got depressed every time I drove through Franklin because it's a mill town passed its prime.  We keep hearing about a renaissance, but haven't seen it yet.  Tilton, on the other hand, is a little more uplifting because of the shopping opportunities, but still doesn't exude a strong sense of 'community'.

I have relatives that have lived in Rochester for 50+ years, and a friend's daughter teaches at the high school.  Like Franklin, the city is rough around the edges, but housing prices are cheaper and you're close to the seacoast.  I have a good friend that lives in Rochester because housing is cheap and she works in Portsmouth, but she doesn't like raising her kids there (lots of drug/alcohol/violence problems at the high school). 

Of course, everything I wrote above is relative...Franklin and Rochester are probably shangri-la compared to the Bronx or Dorchester.

[cathleeninnh]

We spent over three weeks driving the towns of NH when we first arrived. To us, 90% of the towns in NH are "quaint, cute, I could live here" towns. Most of the rest, we just blinked as we drove through and didn't realize it was a town. Rochester was not an attractive town. Maybe you get used to it. And certainly some other places also have unattractive features. I could live in Franklin.

Cathleen

[Vote Tyler Stearns]

I've said this in earlier posts...but I think the Plymouth region is a terrific place to live.  The town of Plymouth is quite expensive, but the smaller towns on the outskirts offer less expensive housing.  Other Plymouth plusses:  Easy highway access up I-93, nice shopping opps, a state university (which brings a certain diversity to the population), an excellent community hospital, minutes to the lakes region and several major ski resorts, a quaint/vibrant downtown/Main Street...you'll find a real sense of community in Plymouth and the surrounding towns.  Also several liberty minded folks are organizing a Plymouth-region group.

[KurtDaBear]

Thanks Lloyd, malevil, and cathleen for the info. 
I guess I'd better check out Plymouth, too.  That's one that wasn't on my radar screen.