Troy got its name through a family tie to the man famous as Uncle Sam, and for nearly a hundred years a mill that made horse blankets was the backbone of its economy. This map prints the Troy Village Historic District, the Troy Town Hall, the Gay-Kimball Library, Lawrence Farm and Farrar Field, with Gap Mountain and Bigelow Hill.
Troy is in Cheshire County, just west of Mount Monadnock.
KNOWOL made this map in 2026 from public survey records in the style of an old atlas. The shaded terrain comes from United States Geological Survey elevation data, and the highest point in town is the south summit of Gap Mountain, at 1,900 feet, near the eastern line. The roads come from the Census Bureau, from North Main Street down to smaller roads such as Brook Street. The Troy Village Historic District and Lawrence Farm are on the National Register of Historic Places, and we checked them against National Park Service records. Troy had 2,130 people at the 2020 census, in a town of 17.6 square miles.
How Troy got its name
Settlers came in 1762, and by 1815 the community had grown enough to ask for a town of its own. That year it was set off from Marlborough, taking in land from neighboring towns as well. Captain Benjamin Mann of Mason, a prominent citizen and a friend of Governor John Taylor Gilman, suggested the name. His daughter had married Samuel Wilson, the meat packer famous as “Uncle Sam,” who was then living in Troy, New York, and at least seven members of Wilson’s family lived in the new town, which, the town page says, secured the name.
The town hall was built in 1813 and 1814 near the rail-fenced common, and it began as the village meetinghouse. The common itself dates from the town’s founding. The Troy School has taught the town’s children since 1895, when it was built for 225 students of all ages.
Troy Mills
The village grew where it did for the water power of several streams that join to form the South Branch of the Ashuelot River, and its mills stood along Mill Street and Monadnock Street. They made wood products at first, but textiles took over in the second half of the 19th century, Troy’s biggest years of growth, and the railroad that arrived in the late 1840s brought business and tourists. Troy Mills began making horse blankets in the mid-19th century and was the backbone of the town’s economy for nearly 100 years. Its founder, Thomas Goodall, sold the company in 1865 and went on to start Goodall Mills in Sanford, Maine. Troy also once turned out wooden ware, pottery and fine building stone.
Troy Mills stopped operating in 2002, and two smaller companies that grew out of it used the big complex on Monadnock Street for several years after. A company in West Virginia now uses the Troy trademark for its felt, and as of 2024 the old mill was being turned into affordable apartments. The village around it, mostly wood-frame houses of one and a half to two and a half stories built from about 1850 into the early 20th century, joined the National Register as the Troy Village Historic District in 2002.
Click to explore a larger preview. The digital watermark does not appear on printed maps.
Names on this map
These names are printed on this map.
Places: Downtown, Bigelow Hill, Brennan Hill, Fern Hill, Gap Mountain, Gap Mountain Reservation, Rhododendron State Park, Gap Mountain - Class 2 EcoReserve, Lawrence Farm, Troy Village Historic District, Town Hall, Gay-Kimball Library, Farrar Field, Elementary School, First Baptist Church of Troy, Immaculate Conception Church and Trinitarian Congregational Church.
Streets and roads: North Main Street, Monadnock Street, Richmond Road, West Hill Road, South Street, Bigelow Hill Road, Mackey Road, Marlboro Road, Prospect Street, Gap Mountain Road, Upper Gap Mountain Road, Quarry Road.
More street names, A to Z
Brook Street, Dort Street, High Street, Mill Street, Old Whitcomb Road, South Main Street, Tolman Road.
Gap Mountain
Gap Mountain has three summits between 1,820 and 1,900 feet, and it takes its name from the cleft between the south peak and the other two. Dairy farmers pastured it after it was cleared of timber in the 19th century, and the top was still open pasture as late as 1950. In the 1960s the mountain went up for sale, and a housing development and a ski area were proposed. Local people formed a coalition and, with the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, spent twenty years buying and protecting it, and land donations brought the reservation to more than 1,100 acres. Today the Metacomet-Monadnock Trail crosses the bare north and middle summits, with wide views of Mount Monadnock, and people come for the hiking and the blueberries.
Lawrence Farm
Lawrence Farm sits on more than 100 acres in northern Troy, on both sides of Marlborough Road. Joseph Parker built a log house on the land about 1783, and Silas Wheeler, who bought it in 1806, is credited with the oldest part of the Federal-style farmhouse that replaced it. George Lawrence bought the place in 1845, added to the land and the house, and was one of Troy’s wealthiest residents when he died. His descendants still own it and lease the fields to local farmers, and the farm was listed on the National Register in 2000.
The Troy Town Hall, the Gay-Kimball Library and Farrar Field are printed on the map, and so is Bigelow Hill. Routes 12 and 124 cross the town, and Route 12 runs through the center on its way northwest to Keene.
This Troy map would make a good addition to an office, library or den, and it can help teach children the geography and history of a mill village under Gap Mountain. It’s made for people who call Troy home, and KNOWOL created it in 2026 to show the town as it looks today. Zoom in on the preview above to explore the details, then click here to get your copy of the Troy map.
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