Free Town Project

The Free Town Project was an unofficial splinter group of the Free State Project that was started in 2003 to encourage libertarians
to move to Grafton, New
Hampshire. One member of the group, Larry Pendarvis, advocated
ending "enforcement of Laws prohibiting victimless crime acts among Consenting Adults, such as Dueling, Gambling, Incest, Cannibalism and Drug Handling." However, other members of
the group, including Robert Hull, Tim Condon, and Mike Lorrey, publicly
disavowed such positions.
The project founders, who included Larry Pendarvis, Robert Hull, Tim Condon,
and Mike Lorrey, researched 21 towns before deciding on Grafton. All of the candidate New Hampshire towns had sparse populations and no bureaucratic zoning boards. The founders decided on Grafton as a result of many factors, including cost and availability of land, a low level of commercialism and
industrialization, and local support for libertarianism.
The result was a meeting in Grafton ostensibly for residents to learn about
the project, but organized mainly by local Democrats hostile to libertarians
and the Free State Project; that group, calling itself "The Grafton Focus,"
organized the meeting for June 19th, 2004 and invited representatives from
the Free State Project, Free Town Project, and the New Hampshire Libertarian
party to clarify their intentions to concerned citizens. Despite the
apparent bias of the meeting organizers, the then-president of the Free
State Project, Amanda Phillips (now a Harvard Law School student) attended,
as did John Babiarz, a Grafton resident and then-chairman of the Libertarian
Party of New Hampshire. Tim Condon flew up from his residence in Tampa,
Florida at his own expense to address the group on behalf of the Free Town
Project, and Mike Lorrey, a native of New Hampshire, attended and spoke in
favor of the project. Bob Hull, who had already moved to Grafton and
purchased several hundred acres of land, attended but did not speak. Larry
Pendarvis, who lived in Florida, did not attend.
The meeting attracted between 200 and 300 Grafton residents (out of the
town's approximately 1,000 population). However, two out of the three town
selectmen did not attend; nor did the town clerk or other leading citizens,
apparently because the meeting was organized by the Grafton Focus Group and
was seen to be organized against the Free Towners. Several of the speakers
who attended the meeting were shocked to see that someone had brought a
casket to the meeting and propped it up on the back of their car; inside the
open casket was a faux corpse and a sign that said "Free State Project," showing enmity towards the Free State Project.
Despite the hostility that had been generated by the Grafton Focus group,
Amanda Phillips, Tim Condon, and Mike Lorrey all explained that the extreme
views of Larry Pendarvis were not shared by any of them (Tim Condon drew a
laugh when he was asked if he personally believed in polygamy, saying "My
wife would kill me if I publicly endorsed polygamy, so I say no!"). John
Babiarz also spoke. Although the mood of the crowd was often hostile,
several people spoke from the audience saying that an influx of people who
believed in privacy, individual freedom, and property rights would be good
for the community.
The Free Town Project is now defunct, due to lack of participation, funding and bad publicity. But a handful of Free State Project/former Free Town Project members have moved to the town of Grafton. Of those who attended the meeting, Robert Hull and Tim Condon are now residents and landowners in Grafton, while others have also migrated to the small town where they are making friends, showing themselves to be good neighbors, and becoming politically active (including by helping local activists fight against increased taxes, local government privacy intrusions, and property rights incursions).

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