NHNew Hampshire field entry
The Old Country Store & Museum
Moultonborough, NH
A Moultonborough general store operating since 1781 where cheddar, barrel pickles, maple syrup, candy and gifts are still rung through antique cash registers while an upstairs museum preserves the tools and stories of the store and surrounding town.
The Old Country Store & Museum is an active shop whose deliberately old-fashioned checkout, merchandise and upstairs history collection blur the line between store and museum.
Field notes
Why it belongs
General store, specialty-food shop, New Hampshire gift store, living historic retailer, antique-register operation and local-history museum.
A working store dating to 1781 preserves antique registers and hand-tallied checkout below an upstairs museum of store and community history.
The Old Country Store in Moultonborough traces commercial activity to 1781 and remains an active general store selling cheese, barrel pickles, maple products, old-fashioned candy, preserves and other New Hampshire goods. Recent 2025–2026 reporting confirms that the store still uses antique 1891 cash registers and manually totals purchases rather than replacing the old retail system with a conventional modern checkout. Upstairs, a museum documents the store, local tools and community life. The store describes itself as perhaps the oldest in the United States; this profile preserves that attribution rather than certifying the superlative independently.
Store contents
What you will find
Directory categories
Known for
- Store operation dating to 1781
- Aged cheddar
- Barrel pickles
- Maple syrup
- Old-fashioned candy
- Local gifts
- Antique 1891 cash registers
- Hand-tallied checkout
- Uneven historic floors
- Upstairs museum
- Historic tools and local artifacts