About Us

The Grafton County Complex is located on Dartmouth College Highway in North Haverhill, New Hampshire. There are 757.7 contiguous acres of land. Buildings include the Grafton County Courthouse, Grafton County Nursing Home, Grafton County Administrative Building, Grafton County Farm, Grafton County Department of Corrections and the Biomass Plant, which occupies 30 acres. There are 239 acres of Field and Cropland, 28 acres of Natural Area/Floodplain and 426 acres of Commercial Timberland. In addition, the land supports significant wildlife habitat, public recreation, environmental educational and scenic values.

County Government

Counties perform services which work best when designed to meet local needs which are too expensive or too difficult for the towns themselves to provide. County government has an executive branch consisting of three elected County Commissioners who jointly serve as the County’s chief executive, and four elected department heads: the County Attorney, Sheriff, Register of Deeds, and Treasurer. Click Here to view the Grafton County organizational chart. County elections are held every two years during even-numbered years. Commissioners are elected from individual districts, while the other four officials are elected countywide. The legislative branch of county government consists of all State Representatives from the county (27 in Grafton County); this is called the County Legislative Delegation; this Delegation adopts an annual county budget which raises revenues and appropriates funds for county departments and programs. 

Grafton County has a budget of appropriate $48,740,211 for Fiscal Year 2022 with $26,972,066 to be raised by property taxes. The Delegation elects an Executive Committee of nine members which meets with the Commissioners regularly to review the County’s financial reports. Counties were originally organized to provide regional courts at convenient locations throughout the State so that people would not have to travel to the Portsmouth or Exeter for court business.

Since 1984, the State of New Hampshire has funded a Unified Court System, but most counties maintain courthouses which they rent to the State. The Grafton County Courthouse, located on Dartmouth College Highway in North Haverhill, houses the Grafton County Superior and Circuit Courts