ABOUT

"The Little Town on Seven Hills"

H

istoric Cradensburg is a town located in the "more scenic" part of the state of New Hampshire. Located a convenient distance from major state landmark, the "Chicken Farmer I Still Love You" Rock, visitors to our town can enjoy being close enough to the landmark without risking traffic. We never get traffic in this region, but why risk it?

Our Name

While Cradensburg is known as the "little town on seven hills," Cradensburg is actually situated on twenty-one hills. It was originally monikered "the little town on seven-times-three hills." This is because one of our town's illustrious founders and experimental mathematician, Jedediah Jeremiah Jehosophat Jezekial had seven digits between hands and feet and argued that counting things in multiples of seven "was going to catch on." 

"The little town on seven-times-three hills was a mouthful to say and so, in 1923, the town's marketing department decided it should be called "the little town on seven hills" because it "fit better on the signs."
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"The Little Town on Seven-Times-Three Hills" is too much of a mouthful. 

 Since then, almost all of our town signage and brochures have been updated with the new slogan and we don't really feel like paying to update them to saying "twenty-one hills" because that's almost as bad as the first option.

Early History

Residents of Cradensburg are well known amongst ourselves as residents of the oldest town in New Hampshire. Many sources list Dover as the oldest, but in fact, it is Cradensburg.

 Named for Agnes Isabel Cradensburg the Second, Cradensburg was founded in 1623 when, in search of new fishing grounds, a band of free thinkers misplaced their maps during a heated argument about individualism and red socks. 

The band of travelers went due south when they should have gone southwest, and then north when they should have bore northeast and so came upon an Abenaki village where they refuged for the winter.

Come spring, the Abenaki had had quite enough of their ideas and politely suggested they set up a more permanent dwelling in an area long left vacant because of its proximity to a known Muskogdemoos. (A Muskogdemoos is a swamp woman who lures people to their deaths with her mournful cries.) 

Being too preoccupied with their own intellectual differences proved beneficial for our town's founders in dealing with the Muskogdemoos as they were oblivious to the cries coming from what is now called the Swamp Hill Neighborhood. 

By 1684, the Muskogdemoos had just stopped trying.

Our Present

Cradensburg is a vibrant, autonomous community, home to a thriving and diverse population, quaint commerce, and more mosquitoes than you'd ever expect in the northeast.


With twenty-one hills, a small ski resort, a lumber mill, a historic library, and more pizza parlors and cemeteries per capita than any other town in the nation, we are an independent, but welcoming destination for newcomers and visitors alike.


We are proudly a chicken-friendly community with one of the most tolerant chicken ordinances in all of New England.

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