Editing Auburn, New Hampshire (section)

== History ==
Auburn was originally settled by [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native Americans]] in 1624. It was a fishing settlement called by Native Americans "Massabesic" (the current name of the town's [[Massabesic Lake|largest lake]]). British settlers arrived in the area in 1720 and made peace with the Natives until the [[French and Indian War]]. The Massabesic settlement was destroyed, and the nearby town of [[Chester, New Hampshire|Chester]] claimed the land. It was known as "Chester Woods", "Chester West Parish", "Long Meadow",<ref name="1875Aub" /> and then Auburn. Auburn became an independent town on June 25, 1845,<ref name="1875Aub">[http://gedcomindex.com/Reference/New_Hampshire_1875/058.html Article in ''Statistics and Gazetteer of New-Hampshire'' (1875)]</ref> with a population of 1,200 people. As with [[Auburn, Maine]], [[Auburn, Massachusetts]], and [[Auburn, New York]], the name is from [[Oliver Goldsmith]]'s popular 18th-century poem, "[[The Deserted Village]]", which begins:

:Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,
:Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain
:Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
:And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed

Auburn was served by the Concord and Portsmouth Railroad, which later became the Portsmouth Branch of the [[Boston and Maine Railroad|Boston & Maine Railroad]].<ref name="1875Aub" /> Auburn was home to a small passenger depot at one time, but by the mid 1900s most rail activity was through traffic, as Auburn had few on-line industries. The last freight trains passed through in the early 1980s. The track was abandoned in 1982 and subsequently torn up between 1983 and 1985.