The Last Christmas of Dallop, New Hampshire

Towns retire...

Before its retirement, Dallop, New Hampshire sat just north of Colebrook. It was populated by seven extended families: the Cotes, the Halls, the Allens, the Adamses, the Andersons, the Millers, and the other Andersons. The Cotes ran the Cote Inn, which served fine soup and let four rooms. The Andersons and the other Andersons, of kind dispositions and harboring no feud, nonetheless never spoke to one another.

Late on a peculiarly mild night in mid-December, 1970, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and his band arrived at the Cote Inn. They were lost and took four rooms for the night. Jack Cote offered to help them find their way in the morning. That night soup was served, the seven families, called by some silent Yankee sense, made their way to the inn, and the first and last jazz performance in the history of Dallop began. Kirk played two horns until morning, and though they kept quiet, some Andersons danced with the other Andersons.

In the morning Jack Cote led the band south to Colebrook, and Dallop was more content than it’d been since with the arrival of Rev. Vannevar Anderson in 1803 to found the Dallop Congregational Church. So content was Dallop that it decided to retire after Christmas.

When a town retires, what becomes of its men? Every family in Dallop awoke on Christmas to exchange gifts and eat pie, for in Dallop Christmas pie had long ago succeeded Christmas tree. After pie they donned their heavy coats and walked into the woods, a wintertime gone to Croatan. When the last Anderson disappeared into the trees, Dallop disappeared from the map. Its signs—and even the memories of it—melted away. The trees crowded in.