Map of Effingham, New Hampshire in 2026

Up on Lord’s Hill, along Route 153, Effingham keeps a whole village from the late 1700s and early 1800s: Isaac Lord’s big Federal house, the church he built and the old academy that housed the state’s first normal school. The Lord’s Hill Historic District and the New England Masonic Charitable Institute are printed by name on this map, along with the Effingham Public Library, the Effingham Municipal Offices, the Effingham Elementary School, South Effingham, Grape Corner, Colcord Hill and East Freedom.

Effingham is in Carroll County, on the Maine line, with the Ossipee River as its northern border.

KNOWOL made this map in 2026 from public survey data and gave it the look of an old atlas. The shaded hills come from United States Geological Survey elevation data, up to Green Mountain, the highest point in town at 1,884 feet, and the roads and the town line come from the Census Bureau, right down to roads like Molly Philbrick Road. The Lord’s Hill Historic District and the New England Masonic Charitable Institute are on the National Register of Historic Places, and we checked them against National Park Service records. Effingham had 1,691 people at the 2020 census.

Leavitt’s Town

Members of the Leavitt family of Hampton settled the town, led by Captain John Leavitt, a soldier whose father kept a prosperous tavern in Hampton, and at first the place was called Leavitt’s Town. When Governor Benning Wentworth granted the land in 1749, he renamed it for the Howard family, the Earls of Effingham, who were related to the Wentworths by marriage. Effingham was incorporated in 1778. In 1831 North Effingham was set off as a town of its own. Newcomers from Maine and the families from the seacoast who were already here had clashed over culture and religion, and the new town took the name Freedom to mark the split. By 1859 Effingham Falls, on the Ossipee River, had grown into a small mill village with a woolen factory, five sawmills, three gristmills and a carriage factory.

Lord’s Hill

Lord’s Hill was first settled in the 1770s along one of the range roads the surveyors laid out. It grew in the 1790s, when Isaac Lord built his large Federal style house and ran a tavern there, and he helped win the town’s meetinghouse for the village, which brought more growth. Lord built the church in 1798, and in the 1840s it was made over in the Greek Revival style it has today. The houses, the academy and the church face a small triangular park where Plantation Road meets Route 153, and Lord’s own house stands on the north side of Route 153 near Hobbs Road. The district covers about 32 acres with 21 properties and five small cemeteries, and it has changed little since the middle of the 19th century.

The Effingham Union Academy was founded in 1819. In 1830, on the second floor of its building, James W. Bradbury, a Bowdoin graduate who later became a United States senator from Maine, agreed to take the school only if it would be for the “instruction and training of teachers.” It became the first normal school in New Hampshire, and a state historical marker says the idea was his own and, at the time, entirely new. Amos Tuck was one of the academy’s students. The old academy building now belongs to the Effingham Historical Society.

The Masons’ School

The New England Masonic Charitable Institute, on Town House Road, was founded by the Charter Oak Lodge No. 58 of the Free and Accepted Masons. Masonic halls in some other states made room for schools on their ground floors, but this is the only school in the United States known to have been run by the Masons. It’s a two and a half story Italianate building, and the lodge’s temple room is painted with trompe l’oeil murals by the Boston painter Philip A. Butler, showing classical sculpture, architecture and Masonic symbols, among them the All-Seeing Eye. The murals were damaged by water in the late 1980s and have since been restored, and the building now holds the town’s public library.

Down in the south of town, Province Lake sits on the Maine line, shared by Effingham, Wakefield and Parsonsfield, Maine. It’s shallow for a New Hampshire lake, 15 to 17 feet at its deepest, and its outlet, the South River, runs north to the Ossipee. The Ossipee River itself begins at Effingham Falls, at the outlet of Berry Bay, and the Ossipee River watershed, partly in Effingham, holds the largest stratified-drift aquifer in New Hampshire. South Effingham, Grape Corner, Colcord Hill and East Freedom are all printed on the map.

Hang this Effingham map in a living room, office, library or den, or use it to teach children the geography and history of the town that opened New Hampshire’s first normal school. It’s made for anyone who calls Effingham home, from Lord’s Hill to the shore of Province Lake. KNOWOL created it in 2026, and it’s printed on museum quality archival paper. Zoom in on the preview above to explore the details, then click here to get your copy of the Effingham map.

Sources

• Effingham, New Hampshire, Wikipedia
• Lord’s Hill Historic District, Wikipedia
• Effingham Academy, Wikipedia
• List of New Hampshire historical markers (76 to 100), Wikipedia
• New England Masonic Charitable Institute, Wikipedia
• Freedom, New Hampshire, Wikipedia
• Province Lake, Wikipedia
• Ossipee River, Wikipedia