Newington's Old Town Hall was built in 1872. This venerable building served as the seat of municipal government for almost a century. It also housed a two-room elementary school until 1921. In addition to the sometime stormy town meetings where matters were sometimes hotly discussed, from highway appropriations to the support of indigent widows and the offspring of unwed mothers, the old building was the home of the Piscataqua Grange and the Reapers Circle.

Before the advent of radio and television, the old hall served as the social center for square dances, plays and whist parties.

The sign above the door had been intended for a ship of that name, one of many built in Newington's Shattuck Shipyard during World War One. The Armistice of 1918 left the "Newington" and several other partially completed hulls rotting on the building ways.

On December 23, 1987, the U.S. Department of the Interior listed this building on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Reapers have moved across the street to the Old Stone School. The Old Town Hall's first floor is presently occupied by the Newington Historical Society where several remnants from the former elementary school are preserved.

The second floor served from 1992 thru the summer of 2001 as the headquarters for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Great Bay National Wildlife Refuge. The second floor is presently vacant.