Rye is a town in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 5,543 at the 2020 census. The town is home to several state parks along the Atlantic coastline.

History

The first settlement in New Hampshire, originally named Pannaway Plantation, was established in 1623 at Odiorne’s Point by a group of fishermen led by David Thompson. The settlement was abandoned in favor of Strawbery Banke, which became Portsmouth. The first settler in present-day Rye was probably William Berry. Prior to its incorporation in 1726 as a parish of New Castle, Rye was called “Sandy Beach” and its lands were once parts of New Castle, Portsmouth, Greenland and Hampton. In 1726, the town of New Castle set off a parish for Sandy Beach called “Rye”, for Rye in Sussex, England, the ancestral lands of the Jenness family who continue to live in the town to this day and even have a beach named after them. The town was incorporated in 1785. In 2013, a researcher pointed out that the town seal showed the parish creation date of 1726 as the incorporation date. Later on in the year, the seal was updated to include the three dates important to Rye, 1623, 1726 and 1785.

Education

Children who live in Rye can attend public schools in town from kindergarten through eighth grade. School Administrative Unit 50 (SAU-50) is the school district that serves Rye, as well as the towns of Greenland, Newington, and New Castle. High school students from Rye attend Portsmouth High School.

Rye Elementary School is home to kindergarten through fifth grade and is the first and largest school students from Rye will attend in SAU-50. All grades are co-ed and the school has an 11 to 1 student per teacher ratio with three hundred and thirty students enrolled in October 2013. Rye Junior High handles grades six, seven, and eight. The neighboring town of New Castle sends its students to Rye Junior High after sixth grade, but only contributes a few students to each year’s seventh grade class. All grades are coed and contain two hundred and twenty students as of October 2013 with a ratio of nine students to each teacher.

There are two private pre-schools in the town. Rye Country Day is the larger of the two pre-schools in town, currently enrolling one hundred and forty students (as of October 2013). The second, The Children’s House Montessori school, is located at 80 Sagamore Road and has a student per teacher ratio of eleven to one.

Learning Skills Academy is a private non-profit school catering to students with learning capabilities. The organization has a location at 1237 Washington Road in Rye and accepts students in fifth through eleventh grade, as well as third. 32 kids make up the student body at the Rye location as of October 2013.

Demographics

As of the census of 2010, there were 5,298 people, 2,252 households, and 1,531 families residing in the town. There were 2,852 housing units, of which 600, or 21.0%, were vacant. 471 of the vacant units were for seasonal or vacation use. The racial makeup of the town was 97.8% white, 0.3% African American, 0.02% Native American, 0.9% Asian, 0.04% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 0.2% some other race, and 0.8% from two or more races. 1.1% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

Of the 2,252 households, 26.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 56.3% were headed by married couples living together, 8.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.0% were non-families. 25.4% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.9% were someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.34, and the average family size was 2.80.

In the town, 20.3% of the population were under the age of 18, 4.3% were from 18 to 24, 18.2% from 25 to 44, 37.5% from 45 to 64, and 19.7% were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 48.8 years. For every 100 females, there were 95.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.8 males.

For the period 2012–2016, the estimated median annual income for a household was $99,417, and the median income for a family was $122,064. Male full-time workers had a median income of $60,368 versus $50,588 for females. The per capita income for the town was $60,071. 5.1% of the population and 2.3% of families were below the poverty line. 4.4% of the population under the age of 18 and 5.6% of those 65 or older were living in poverty.