About Memorial Arch of Tilton
On a hill above Northfield stands a Roman-style triumphal arch built for a funeral that never happened. Charles E. Tilton commissioned the granite monument in the 1880s after seeing the Arch of Titus in Rome. A lion-topped memorial beneath it was meant to mark his family’s resting place, but Tilton was buried elsewhere.
A state historic inventory says the change followed Northfield’s refusal to join the neighboring town of Tilton. Whatever the civic dispute, the result is wonderfully odd: a grand tomb-like monument without its intended occupant, overlooking the town that bears his name. The arch is easy to admire as stonework and stranger still as a personal statement written across a hillside. Approach from the public access near Arch Hill Cemetery, not a house number on Memorial Street. Take a moment to look through the opening toward the valley, then imagine the scale of ambition it took to build this in a small New Hampshire town.