For owners Ron and Robin Panneton, the Chichester Country Store is far more than a business — it’s their home.
The white house with a long porch stretching out to one side sits right by the junction of Main Street, Suncook Valley Road and Depot Road, attracting visitors and locals alike with its famous cider donuts and various other goods.
The store, its green sign and its fresh sweet treats are an undeniable staple of the Chichester community.
“We put everything into it,” said Robin.
This fall, the Chichester Country Store joined the ranks of other vintage structures across New Hampshire on the State Register of Historic Places. Parts of the stores’ building, which had several additions constructed over time, date back to 1784. Over the past two centuries, it has operated as an inn, a tavern and, of course, a country store.
The Pannetons had incidentally been trying for a while to complete an application to the Register with help from the Chichester Heritage Commission, but in an unrelated phone call with a representative from the State, they learned their building had been registered on their behalf.
“They’re redoing this whole intersection,” Ron said. “Part of that, they did the whole application. They hired some consulting firm that did that whole application.”
The store traces its roots back to Caleb Pearson, who served as a piper in the Revolutionary War. After the conflict, Pearson decided to make a name for himself as a businessman. He came from a mill family whose operations were expanding, so in addition to building a grain mill and a fulling mill in 1784, he constructed a tavern. Travelers stopped in to buy food and spirits, and soon the spot became a trading post. At the turn of the 19th century, Pearson continued to innovate, adding a dye house for fabric production.
The original building formerly sat across the street from its current location, a fact the current owners find quite interesting.
When James W. Towle, a relative of the Pearson family, purchased the structure at the start of the 1820s, he did not also acquire the land, leading to a peculiar cunundrum. The town, which included Pittsfield at that time, had cleared land across the street with the intention of constructing a town hall.
“They started,” Ron said. “They cleared the lot. They got all the timbers cut, and they’re all here. And then they had a town meeting, and there was a big fight.”
Chichester’s town hall ultimately moved to the site of the current library, leaving the already cleared land available for Towle to purchase,” Ron said. Towle moved the building across the street and turned it 180 degrees to rest in its current position.
“From Pearson, the guy who built it in 1784, until 1975, this was in one family,” Ron said.
It certainly changed hands and functions during those two centuries, notably when Towle sold the property to another relative, George P. Haines, in 1847.
Haines expanded on Towle’s work with the country store, adding a post office and an inn. These are the parts of the building’s history that are commemorated in the State Register of Historic Places, which lists Haines General Store and Post Office as “the largest, longest-operating and only surviving store in North Chichester Village.”
Haines Carriage Company eventually connected to one side of the building. Today, Ron said, a Haines carriage can still be found at the Chichester Historic Society.
The Pannetons view themselves as caretakers of the historic property.
“That’s what it feels like,” Robin said. “It’s kind of like having a pet. You don’t own it, you take care of it.”
They got their start with a home-based dairy delivery business in 2001. Living in Barnstead at the time, they knew of the Chichester Country Store and had seen it change hands over the years.
“Country stores weren’t doing great at the time,” said Ron.
He and Robin kept the store in the back of their mind as a potential place to expand the dairy business. When the building went up for sale at auction, it was too expensive for the couple to purchase. A bank acquired the building, and eventually the Pannetons were able to make an offer in 2009. They took over the store that summer, reopening that fall after making some necessary repairs.
The couple, who had recently built a house, quickly realized the store was more than a full-time job. They decided to move into the upper story of the house in the part that used to be an inn.
They’ve poured their all into the store, transforming it into a thriving operation and transitioning away from the dairy business as Ron’s proprietary cider donuts gained a following.
“I started playing around with the recipe, trying to find the right recipe for a good donut. And I finally came up with one, and everyone said, ‘Boy, that’s the best cider donut I ever had,’” Ron said.
Over the years, they tried selling beer, cigarettes and lottery tickets, as most small stores like theirs do to stay afloat.
It’s hard to keep up a country store, they agree. Especially one as old as theirs.
“The barn needs structural work, and there’s a couple spots on the building that where water is coming through a pipe here or there,” Ron said. “Nothing major. The bones of the building are strong and straight, but we’d like to preserve it, and we’d like to make sure that it stays as part of the community.”
They’ve been looking into different means of restoration. Since the store is not a nonprofit, they don’t qualify for grants that other historical sites can benefit from, Robin explained.
“If we could get some kind of funding, that would be more realistic to be able to go further than we can actually afford to do,” she said.
Robin and Ron have been searching for someone to help with the porch, which is one of their restoration priorities as they think about the future of their store.
“We want it to stay here and be part of the community, so that people can look back in the future and say, this is the way Chichester used to be,” Ron said.
For more information on the Chichester Country Store, visit www.chichestercountrystore.com.
This story has been updated to reflect that the Chichester Heritage Commission was the group that had worked with the Pannetons to get their store on the State Register of Historic Places.