Old Home Day has been a tradition in Cornish for over a hundred years. Cornish folks and people who once called Cornish home return to renew friendships and acquaintances. The event is held annually in July. All present and past Cornish residents are welcome!
A Cornish Old Home Day Scholarship is available to anyone who has lived in Cornish for 5 years and will be entering into their second year of college or an adult returning to college. Applications are available by contacting Debbie Stone.
History of Old Home Day
Cornish’s claim to having the first old home day dates to the gathering held on August 15, 1877. The Rev. and Mrs. James T. Jackson invited a number of the elderly people of town to a reunion in the parsonage of the Center Church. The gathering was such a success that they decided to make it an annual event. It soon spread to include those who had moved away with an opportunity to come home for a visit.
In 1899, New Hampshire Governor Frank W. Rollins was concerned that New Hampshire’s small towns were dying as people were moving to factory jobs in the cities or to better farmland in the South and Midwest. He created “Old Home Week” as a call to sons and daughters of New Hampshire who had moved away, to come to visit and renew their connection back home. He hoped that the sense of nostalgia would cause many to stay. Perhaps some did, or they acquired some property for a vacation home, but people needed to live where there were jobs, so it wasn’t until later that New Hampshire’s population decline was reversed.
For a fuller discussion of Old Home Day in Cornish, see the book History of Cornish New Hampshire by William H. Child, page 258ff. This book is available from Cornish Historical Society.