ALLENSTOWN – The warm sun was shining low over the Merrimack River as numerous Allenstown officials gathered at the end of the day on Oct. 21 for the dedication of Allenstown’s Rail Trail. There were even two Hooksett residents who walked the trail from their town to join the event.
This was the culmination of a lengthy project that began around December 2022. The Allenstown Highway Dept. spent countless days cutting down and hauling away the jungle of shrubs, bittersweet vines, and trees that had taken over the railroad bed. Low bridges for drainage were rebuilt. Tons of crushed stone and stone dust were hauled in and spread out. The town would have faced a large cash expenditure were it not for the generous donation of paving materials by Allenstown Aggregate, the donation of reclaimed timbers from a local contractor, and the donations of wood chips from local tree services.
Select Board Chairman Scott McDonald offered remarks about the project and its benefit to residents.
Attendees included Fire Chief Eric Lambert and Laura Lambert, who arrived in the fire department’s side-by-side vehicle; two firefighters; Select Board members Kathleen Pelissier and Maureen Higham; Road Agent Chad Pelissier, Town Administrator John Harrington, Building Inspector Brian Arsenault, EDC Chairman Michael Frascinella, and even two visitors from the Hooksett Conservation Commission.
McDonald thanked everyone for attending. He praised the Allenstown Highway Department for their labors, Allenstown Aggregate for donating tons of crushed stone and stone dust for the trail bed, the anonymous contractor who donated the timbers for rebuilding the bridges, and Armand and Claudette Verville of the Historical Society who designed and built the signage that stands at the head of the trail.
“It provides a spot where our residents can go and walk and exercise and be outdoors, whether by themselves or with their children, without having to get in their car and drive up to Bear Brook State Park,” McDonald said to a Concord Monitor reporter. “For those of us who’ve lived here a long time and have watched our taxes go up and haven’t seen a big return or anything change, this is a big deal. The Allenstown Rail Trail is just a small part of it.”
“It was basically the woods,” Road Agent Pelissier told the reporter. “We cut the brush. We cleaned up the surface that was there. We leveled the existing surface and brought in crushed stone and geotextile fabric. We put the stone dust down as a final surface.”
After the ceremony concluded, Fire Chief Lambert took people for rides down the trail in the side-by-side vehicle.
