We are preserving our historic buildings because Effingham is “a lost in time kind of place.” It’s how New Hampshire used to be. We have historical resources that make the lives of our founders palpable.
The Weare Drake Store Building was built circa 1816 by town founder, Weare Drake at age 78, and his 23-year-old grandson, Thomas Parsons Drake. In 1829, Thomas Parsons Drake, as postmaster, “captured” the Effingham post office (est. 1817) and moved it from Lord’s Hill to his store at Drake’s Corner. Within a few years, the store fell into disuse and the building was fitted up as an academy known as the Carroll Literary Institute. Due to insufficient enrollment, in the 1850’s, it was again occupied as a store and changed hands several times before being purchased by Grange No. 313 in 1913. The building was given by the Grange to the Town in 1994 and purchased from the Town for $1 by the Preservation Society in 2002.
Here the building is pictured in the 1870’s, we believe. The home in the background, was also built by Thomas P. Drake and inherited by his eldest son Cyrus K. Drake.
Judge Thomas P. Drake (1793 – 1861) and Huldah (Leavitt) Drake (1793 – 1874) were married in October of 1816 and had six children whose biographies are closely tied to the history of Drake’s Corner: Cyrus King,, Josephus Leavitt, Cynthia L., Huldah, L. Exa L., and Alexander V.B.
The above photo by Josephus L. Drake (second child of Thomas Drake) is part of the Effingham Historical Society Collection.