WDYK: Rolling Down the Road

Crew members from Sylvester attach a cable to the old Town Hall in Jackson to prepare for its move down Black Mountain Road.

One day last summer I found myself up in Jackson watching their historic town hall roll down the road. That’s not something you see every day.       

Recognizing the uniqueness of this occasion, the Jackson Historical Society was hosting a celebration to witness “Moving
History Forward,” as proclaimed on their souvenir T-shirts. In addition to T-shirt vendors, there was also a band, popcorn, demonstrations, exhibits and a “guess the weight of the building” contest to keep onlookers entertained as the building slowly inched its way from over here to over there.

At the new site, the cellar hole had been excavated and a concrete footing poured. On the footing, an orange paint dot, the size of a quarter, marked the target for the building to end up at, if everything went as planned. About 200 feet away, up Black Mountain Road, the old building was ready to make the big jump. It had been jacked up in the air and seated on I-beams with dolly wheels and was ready to roll. An eight-man team from Sylvester Building Movers of Falmouth, Mass., was busy with last-minute preparations, taking aim to make the building hit the target.

This town hall was constructed in 1879 and then bisected and enlarged in 1900. The old building had served as Jackson’s town hall up until 2000. Town meetings, movies, dinners, entertainment and dances were held on the first floor and a lock-up was in the basement. The Jackson Grammar School had used the building as a gymnasium. Town offices for the selectmen, town clerk and tax collector had been housed here at various times before relocating to more modern facilities. Beginning in 2009, the building was leased to the Jackson Historical Society, and they are now spearheading the drive to save it.

To prepare for its move, the town hall building was lifted up and placed on cribbing, and the old foundation was removed.

Situated on a small and ever-narrowing plot of land, the town hall was wedged between Black Mountain Road and the Wildcat River and threatened by both. In December of 2023, a flood event eroded the riverbank undermining the building and flooding the basement furnace area. In the spring of 2024, another river torrent caused further erosion and the foundation became unstable. On the opposite side, snowplow trucks pushed snow against the building, leading to rotting sills and damaged clapboards.

Squeezed by river washouts on one side and road creep on the other, options to preserve the building were limited. The tight boundaries of the existing parcel meant the only feasible option for saving the historic town hall was to move it onto a wider, adjacent parcel. This larger parcel was once the site of a long-gone 19th century bowling alley but was now owned by the town. Selectmen voted to allow the Historical Society to move the building but left funding the project up to them.

At a town meeting, voters appropriated $100,000 seed money toward the moving project. The Historical Society then sought grants from the LCHIP Program, the Ham Charitable Foundation, the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance and the Dorothy and Robert Goldberg Foundation.

Other donations from $25 to over $100,000 were graciously received. With funding in place, the moving project was ready to move forward.

In an initial first step, a 50-foot partial move was made to get the building up and off the old foundation and prepped for the big move. This was also as far as they could go before running into overhead utility wires. The next step involved patience as they waited for utility companies to relocate the overhead wires and clear a path for the final move.

This photo, shot from the middle of Black Mountain Road, was taken after the initial 50-foot move of the old town hall and just before the 200-foot move.

Perhaps one of the most underappreciated steps in the process is the installation of wooden cribbing for the now wheeled building to drive upon. Old buildings don’t flex very much, nor do they maneuver well around tight corners. Tall buildings, with a high center of gravity, must be kept from racking and precarious leans by avoiding uneven ground, bumps, dips and holes. To accomplish this, a temporary roadbed of wooden cribbing was constructed, creating a smooth level pathway to the new site.

With everything ready to go, the move began at 9 a.m., and the old town hall started on its journey down the hill and across the cribbing roadbed, reeled in slowly by a hydraulic winch mounted on a front-end loader. To prevent gravity from giving the building an undesired downhill boost, a semi-truck chained to the building on the uphill side acted as a restraining brake and crept forward incrementally. Anchoring the semi-truck was a second truck with a mounted winch, slowly playing out a thick cable. At noon the old building was in its new home.

When the equipment shut down and the site was secured, I was able to access the building now suspended above its new concrete footing. Someone had hung a plumb bob from the building’s corner, and it dangled down over the target paint spot. Missed by an inch. I’m impressed and call that a direct hit.

A plumb bob on a string line dangles from the corner of the building, pointing to the target spot on concrete footing. The old building moved 250 feet and hit within an inch.

Since moving day, restoration work on the building has continued. New basement walls were poured, and all above-ground concrete was faced with granite to give the building a historical appearance. Bathrooms and a septic system were installed, something the former site never had. The old entryway was rebuilt to make it ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) handicap-accessible. Rotting sills and damaged clapboards were replaced. Plumbing and electrical wiring were brought up to code. Windows were restored to improve energy efficiency, and interior and exterior painting is underway.

A recent generous donation provided funds for a fire-suppression system and an ADA elevator to be installed. Once construction is completed, the newly relocated and refurbished old town hall will once again serve as a community space welcoming residents and visitors to programs, events and exhibits.

If you guessed the weight of the building to be about 105 tons, you’d have won the contest. And if you ever find yourself needing to know how to move a 105-ton, 146-year-old, 2 1/2-story building down the road a couple hundred feet… I’d suggest you do it
one step at a time.