Incorporated on January 17, 1760, by Governor Benning Wentworth, it was named after Lieutenant Peter Prescott (1709–1784) of Concord, Massachusetts, a prominent land speculator.

[3] The Contoocook River and Nubanusit Brook offered numerous sites for watermills, and Peterborough became a prosperous mill town.

[4] He founded the town's first prep school, the Monadnock Summer Lyceum,[5] and the first free library in the US, all in Peterborough.

[7] Its success led the New Hampshire State Legislature to pass legislation in 1849 authorizing towns to raise money to establish and maintain their own libraries.

[8] Other early cultural institutions include Mariarden, a summer theatre, where Paul Robeson played in Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones.

Regular performers included Tom Paxton, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shawn Colvin, and Suzanne Vega.

The highest point in Peterborough as well as in Hillsborough County is the summit of South Pack Monadnock (2,290 feet (698 m) above sea level), in Miller State Park in the southeast corner of town.

Peterborough is also home to Edward MacDowell Dam and Lake recreation area, where visitors can walk across the dam, hike, cross-country ski, swim, boat, picnic, play Frisbee golf, play horseshoes, and take advantage of other recreational opportunities, many of them accessible to people with disabilities.

[16] Start-ups based in Peterborough include New Hampshire Ball Bearing, Microspec, Pure Flow, Peterboro Basket Company, Borrego Solar, MobileRobots Inc., Toadstool Bookstores, Froling Energy, Brookstone, SoClean and Hyndsight Vision Systems.

The town celebrates First Friday monthly with presentations by MacDowell artists, gallery openings, shopping, live music, and local pubs.

The Peterborough Diner, a Worcester railway lunch car in the center of the village square, attracts many presidential hopefuls every four years.

[20][21] New Hampshire's oldest continuously active state militia unit, the Lafayette Artillery Company, was founded in Peterborough in 1804.

[23] The town's outdoor amenities include hiking trails, wild flowers, cross-country skiing, kayaking, cycling and small lakes for swimming, sailing, fishing and ice-skating.

[citation needed] The town wants to achieve 100 percent reliance on sustainable energy,[28] and built the largest solar facility in New Hampshire,[29] next to its wastewater treatment plant.