Compiled by Russell Bastedo
State Curator
1998

Frank W. Rollins (1899-1901). Born Concord; Concord lawyer. In state politics from 1885. Governor (1899-1901).

Frank Rollins (1860-1915) was one of four children born to U.S. Senator Edward H. Rollins and Ellen Elizabeth (West) Rollins. Rollins attended Concord public schools, tutored privately, and graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Class of 1881). For a year Rollins studied law at Harvard and in the law office of John Mugridge; he was admitted to the New Hampshire Bar in August 1882. Rollins married in 1882 and entered the banking firm established by his father in 1884. He was soon vice president and manager of the Boston branch office of E.H. Rollins & Sons, maintaining his home at Concord.

Rollins enlisted in the National Guard (1880) and was Assistant Adjutant General with the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1890/5. He was president of the New Hampshire State Senate (1895/6) and in 1896 he wanted the New Hampshire Republican Party platform to endorse the gold standard, in opposition to the Democrats' call for Free Silver. The state party did not do this, but Rollins was chosen to make the New England Republicans' address to Republican presidential candidate William McKinley when they visited McKinley at his home in Canton, Ohio. In 1898 Rollins was the New Hampshire Republicans' nominee to be governor and he easily won election.

As governor, Rollins saw abandoned New Hampshire farms and farm lands as major problems and he developed Old Home Week as a way to get former residents of the state to return for a visit with the hope they would buy these abandoned properties. In 1897 about 100 towns participated in Old Home Week and about 10,000 visitors returned. Rollins, working with longtime Secretary of Agriculture Bachelder, was president of the Old Home Week Association for many years. He also promoted good roads as an aid to tourism and served as president of the Good Roads League as well as the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. He wrote The Tourists' Guide-Book to the State of New Hampshire, an annual first appearing in 1902, in addition to many short stories and novels. He serve as a trustee and treasurer of St. Paul's School, Concord, and as a trustee of M.I.T. and many other clubs and organizations.

Location: State House, Second Floor
Portrait by Daniel Strain