Media Library

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John Wheelwright was an English minister who founded the town of Exeter, New Hampshire. In 1636, he emigrated with his family to Boston and began to preach there. He didn’t get along with the colonial authorities in Massachusetts Bay, though. They disagreed about religion, and the Massachusetts officials didn’t like what Wheelwright was preaching. Eventually he was banished from Massachusetts. Wheelwright, his family, and about 20 other families moved north to New Hampshire in 1638. They signed a deed, or a document, with the local Abenaki sachem, Wehanownowit, to buy a piece of land and build a town. They called the town Squamscott. Later it was called Exeter. Finally, the government of Massachusetts Bay pardoned Wheelwright, so he was able to go back to Massachusetts to live. Even though Wheelwright had left Exeter, the settlement was very successful and continued to grow.

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Wehanownowit was the sachem of the Squamscott people, a band of Abenaki. During the summers, the Squamscott lived and farmed in the area around where the Squamscott and Exeter rivers meet. Several different bands of Abenaki used to meet in this area to fish for salmon. Unfortunately we do not have a lot of information about Wehanownowit, like when he was born and when he died. We do know that when John Wheelwright and his followers settled in the area where the Squamscott people lived, they wrote a deed, or legal document. The deed gave the English settlers the right to settle the land. It also said that the Squamscott people still had the right to hunt and fish there. Because he was the sachem, Wehanownowit signed the deed on behalf of the Squamscott people. He used a pictograph, or drawing of himself. We don’t know for sure what happened to Wehanownowit after the deed was signed. More and more settlers came to the town, which was eventually called Exeter. It was harder and harder for the Squamscott people to hunt and fish there. Wehanownowit and his people probably moved west to New York. 

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Meshech Weare was New Hampshire’s first governor. He is also sometimes called the “father of New Hampshire” because he played such an important role in creating the state government. When New Hampshire was an English colony, he represented the town of Hampton Falls in the colonial assembly. He supported American independence from the British Empire and helped write the N.H. Constitution of 1776 that declared New Hampshire’s independence from Great Britain. During the American Revolution, Weare was chief justice of New Hampshire’s highest court and the head of the Committee of Safety, which governed the state during the war. After the N.H. Constitution of 1784 was ratified, Weare was elected the first governor, which was then called “president.”  The town of Weare is named after him.

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John Langdon was an American Founding Father and an important political leader from New Hampshire. He was an early supporter of independence from Great Britain. He served in the Continental Congress and led troops at an important American victory, the Battle of Saratoga. After the American Revolution, he was the second person to be elected governor of New Hampshire , which was then called “president.” Langdon was one of New Hampshire’s delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. He supported a strong central government and campaigned in favor of ratification in New Hampshire. His efforts helped New Hampshire become the ninth and deciding state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. He was one of New Hampshire’s first U.S. senators, serving from 1789 to 1801. Later he was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives and again as New Hampshire’s governor.

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Nicholas Gilman was one of New Hampshire’s delegates to the Constitutional Convention and a signer of the U.S. Constitution. He came from a prominent family in Exeter. He and his father were both early supporters of American independence from Great Britain. Gilman fought in the American Revolution and also served as New Hampshire’s treasurer during the war. In 1787, he was chosen to represent New Hampshire at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. He supported a strong central government and helped convince New Hampshire’s state convention to support the Constitution. In the first federal elections, Gilman was elected to represent New Hampshire in the U.S. House of Representatives. He served four terms and was later elected to the U.S. Senate.

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Benning Wentworth was New Hampshire’s first colonial governor. His family were wealthy merchants who lived in Portsmouth and were also political leaders. In 1740, the king of England decided that New Hampshire should have its own governor. Up until then, New Hampshire shared a governor with Massachusetts. The king chose Benning Wentworth to be New Hampshire’s governor. While he was governor, Wentworth helped to establish a lot of towns in New Hampshire. He made money by selling land throughout New Hampshire, and he gave a lot of land and government jobs to his relatives. But he also helped to make sure that the new towns were self-sufficient and governed themselves through town meetings. Eventually, the colonists in New Hampshire got tired of how Benning Wentworth and his family kept getting richer and more powerful. He also got in trouble for selling land that actually belonged to New York, so he had to resign. His nephew, John Wentworth, became the next colonial governor.

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Robert Rogers was New Hampshire’s most famous soldier during the French and Indian War. He commanded a group of New Hampshire men called Rogers’ Rangers. These soldiers were familiar with the forests and mountains of New Hampshire. They could blend into their surroundings without anyone hearing or seeing them. They also were good at surviving in the wilderness during all kinds of bad weather. Rogers’ Rangers even fought battles on snowshoes and ice skates. Robert Rogers wrote a book about these military strategies. Parts of this book are still used today by the U.S. Army Rangers, which are named after Rogers’ Rangers. 

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Philip Carrigain was an important person in New Hampshire in the early 1800s. He founded a newspaper, was a secretary of state, and wrote a poem called “The Granite State” that gave New Hampshire its nickname. He is most known for creating the “Carrigain map.” No maps of New Hampshire had been made since the American Revolution. There was a lot of land in the North Country that had never been mapped. And there were new towns popping up everywhere as more and more people moved to the state. Philip Carrigain convinced the state government that it was time for a new map. The state put him in charge of it. It was a long and complicated project, because each town’s map had to be drawn by hand. Then the maps had to be put all together into a single map. It took 13 years! Eventually, in 1816, it was finished, and a copy was given to each town in the state.  

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Daniel Webster was one of the most important American politicians of the 19th century. He was known as “the Great Orator,” because he was a talented public speaker. He was very good at convincing people of his point of view. Webster grew up in Salisbury, New Hampshire, in a part of the town that is now the city of Franklin. He graduated from Dartmouth College and became a lawyer. In 1819, he won a very important court case for Dartmouth College. He also represented New Hampshire in the U.S. House of Representatives. Later he moved to Massachusetts, and was elected a U.S. Senator. He was also the U.S. Secretary of State, a very important job.  As the country became more and more divided over the issue of slavery, Webster tried to keep the union together by suggesting compromises. His statue is in front of the New Hampshire State House.

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Jeremy Belknap wrote the first history of New Hampshire. He was born in Boston and studied at Harvard College. As a young man, he moved to New Hampshire and became a minister. He also loved to research and write about history. He traveled all over New Hampshire and studied its past. In 1784 he published the first part of the History of New Hampshire. He had done so much research and learned so much that it took two more books to tell the whole story! This was the very first history book written by an American. New Hampshire’s Belknap county is named after him.