Today

Upstairs, Downstairs:
Memories, Realities of Town Hall

Upstairs at the Amherst town hall, a grand story could unfold—if anyone in town would listen.

The two-story building that sits beside Route 9 got a new roof last year. But that was the extent of the facelift for the hall that is now quite tired looking.

It long has needed a new coat of paint. It also has needed the kinds of people who once filled it for galas, dances and dinners.

The building is still functional, because it’s where the three selectmen gather twice a month. But they use only the downstairs, and the upstairs—with a worn but beautiful dance floor—remains empty of any of the energy of years past.

The hall used to be the town’s pride. Now it’s a reminder of the years when as many as 800 people lived in Amherst in the 1880s.

Today the town numbers just 230. It’s often mentioned in the same breath as Aurora, the next-door town along Route 9 that has even fewer residents (121).

Amherst is a place where families go back generations, and most everybody knows each other. Carl Humphrey, for example, born in nearby Clifton, arrived in Amherst as a four-year-old. Now in his 80s, he still lives in the house he grew up in.

“I had a couple times when I felt that I wanted to run away,” said Humphrey, who made his living working the lumber mills. “But I never did.”

Newcomers are few. Neil Butler, who arrived from Massachusetts six years ago after 20 years of coming to his camp in the Amherst woods, remembers well his wary welcome.

“The first questions they asked when I arrived were, ‘What are you going to bring to us?’ and ‘What are you going to change?’ ” he said.

Now Butler has gained the town’s trust as its first selectman.

He’s the one pushing for the renovation of the town hall, although he knows there is little money for things like that. Many of the townspeople have modest incomes; they live or work in the woods.

That is why school board members are making every effort to keep the school budget in check. Amherst’s school-aged generation goes to the Airline Community School in Aurora with students from Aurora, Great Pond and Osborn.

Five years ago, Butler said, Amherst’s share of the school budget was $77,000. This year, the proposed budget for Amherst is $170,000.

“That’s a big jump, and there is no base here to absorb it,” he said. “A town filled 80 to 85 percent with trees doesn’t help us here.”

Last year, town taxes went up 20 percent due to the $156,000 school budget. The town has worked on holding down other expenses. There has been no road paving for the last two years, and the budget committee has dipped into the town’s reserve.

It takes people like Butler and the two other selectmen, Robert Calhoun and Ronald Vilasuso, to keep tabs on making life better for the town with few resources.

The relatively rich years, when the hemlock tannery dominated the economic landscape down on the Union River, are gone after all.