A slice of the rural life
Arcadia is a mill village without the mill.During my two afternoons exploring the village’s hilly terrain, admiring the simple elegance of mill workers' housing and the larger, less rectangular homes once occupied by management, no one I talked to could even remember when the mill closed. It seemed they hardly ever thought about it.Straddling Roaring Brook, a tributary of the Wood River, Arcadia has around 20 houses in the village proper. Sprawling between Exeter and Richmond (and Hopkinton, depending on who you talk to), at least one thing is unmistakable about this former hive of industry: Arcadia is now a rural community.Many locals in Arcadia keep barns and tall fences, though in February only the horses could be seen roaming outdoors. Perhaps short on barn space, one Arcadian has filled an entire school bus with firewood.Family compounds are common in Arcadia. At the Middle of Nowhere Diner on Route 3 — one of the closest restaurants, as Arcadia has none — waitress Ginger Williams...
