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In the early 1600s, a few European explorers came to New England. Among them was Captain John Smith, who was famous for helping to found the Jamestown colony in Virginia. Smith landed on a small group of islands off the coast of New Hampshire in 1614. He originally named the largest island after himself—Smith Island—but today we know all of these islands as the Isles of Shoals. When Smith returned to England he wrote a book about what he had seen in New England and told his readers that there were more fish in New England waters than anyone could imagine. He also wrote about how beautiful the land was, how plentiful the trees and animals were, and how perfect it would be to settle there. His book encouraged many people to think about coming to New England.

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The Europeans who visited New England accidently brought with them diseases like small pox and chicken pox. Unfortunately, thousands of the Abenaki caught these diseases and became sick. Since the Abenaki were not used to European diseases, their bodies had no resistance to the infections. More than three-quarters of the Abenaki became sick and died from these diseases, and sometimes diseases wiped out entire villages of Native Americans. 

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The first permanent European settlement in New Hampshire was at Odiorne Point in Rye. A group of English settlers led by a man named David Thomson came to the area mainly to fish. They built stone houses because they planned to stay year-round, even through the winter. Other Englishmen soon joined them and made their own settlements along the coast of New Hampshire and eventually inland. 

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Although other Englishmen came to New Hampshire in the early 1600s, the founder of New Hampshire was a man named Captain John Mason. He named this land after his home county in England, Hampshire. Mason planned to bring his wife and newborn baby with him when he and a group of settlers came to the New World in 1635. They planned to make money from all the fish in the waters off New Hampshire’s coast. They also thought they could trade with the Native Americans for beaver pelts, which were very popular in England. Unfortunately, Mason died unexpectedly before leaving England. For nearly 100 years afterward, his heirs fought to protect their claim to New Hampshire.

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At more than 6,000 feet, Mount Washington is the tallest mountain in New England. The first person to climb it was an Englishman named Darby Field. The Abenaki had warned Field that it was dangerous to go to the top of Mount Washington because of “evil spirits,” but the real danger was the terrible weather conditions so high up. No one knows why Field was so determined to make such a difficult climb, although there were rumors at the time that there were precious gems, like diamonds, high up in the mountains. After Field's climb to the top, no one else seemed interested in Mount Washington until after the American Revolution, more than 100 years later. 

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For most of the 1600s, the leader of the Abenaki in southern New Hampshire was a man named Passaconaway. He was the sachem, or chief, of the Pennacook tribe, which included as many as 12,000 people. Passaconaway was greatly respected by his people, and many believed he had all sorts of mystical powers to summon huge storms and talk to animals like bears. Although no one knows when Passaconaway was born, he was rumored to be over 100 years old when he stepped down as leader to his people. Passaconaway believed the Abenaki should live with the English settlers in peace. In his last speech, he urged his people to work with the English. 

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In the 1600s, European settlers to New Hampshire were from England. In 1719, a new group of settlers came here. They were known as the Scots-Irish. A group of 16 families founded a settlement in Nutfield, which later became the town of Londonderry. Over the next several decades, thousands of Scots-Irish came to New England, and many of them passed through Nutfield as they decided where to live. New Hampshire has a strong tradition of Scots-Irish culture, and many people here are descended from the Scots-Irish. The Scots-Irish in Londonderry also planted the first potatoes in North America. 

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When New Hampshire was first founded, it shared a government with Massachusetts. They both had the same governor, and at one point, there was even talk about making all of New Hampshire a county in Massachusetts! Most people living in New Hampshire did not want to be part of Massachusetts, and they asked King George II of England to keep them separate and give them their own governor. The king agreed and appointed Benning Wentworth the governor of New Hampshire. Wentworth was from an old New Hampshire family, and under his rule, New Hampshire became completely separate from Massachusetts. 

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By the 1760s, many people in New Hampshire—and America—were getting tired of being British colonies and having to pay taxes to the British government. In 1765, the British imposed a new tax called the Stamp Act, which put a tax on books, newspapers, documents, playing cards, and anything made of paper. People all over America protested against the new tax, including in Portsmouth, which was the biggest city in New Hampshire at that time. This protest was an important first step in convincing the people of New Hampshire that they needed to be independent from Great Britain.  

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One of the British laws that the people of New Hampshire did not like involved pine trees! The British government declared that all the big pine trees in New Hampshire belonged to the king, who used them as ships’ masts for the British navy. Many people in New Hampshire ignored the law, but then a group of people in Goffstown and Weare got caught cutting down some big pine trees for their own use. They had to pay a fine for breaking the law. Some of them paid the fine, but the people living in Weare refused to pay it. When the sheriff came to arrest them, they ran him out of town in the middle of the night. This became known as the Pine Tree Riot. It is an example of how the people of New Hampshire were frustrated by being under British rule.

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In December 1774, an American patriot named Paul Revere rode to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to warn his friends that the British army was going to send more soldiers and supplies to Fort William and Mary in Portsmouth Harbor. The Americans wanted to keep the British army out of New Hampshire, so they captured Fort William and Mary from the few British soldiers who were stationed there. This action was the first conflict between the Americans and the British in what would become known as the American Revolution. 

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On January 4, 1776, New Hampshire became the first British colony to declare its independence from Great Britain. Since New Hampshire was now an independent state, its leaders wrote a new constitution for it, which laid out how the government would function. New Hampshire, therefore, formed the first state government in America. 

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In the summer of 1777, the British army launched a massive campaign through the Hudson River Valley in New York and Vermont to divide the New England colonies from the rest of America. Fighting between the British and Americans went on all summer, but in the middle of August, New Hampshire’s General John Stark arrived in southern Vermont with a large group of New Hampshire soldiers. They fought a portion of the British army near a town called Bennington and won. Stark’s victory kept the British from gathering supplies and cost the British army many men who were captured, wounded, or killed. The British defeat at Bennington weakened them. A few months later, the Americans won an even bigger victory against the British at the Battle of Saratoga, which was the turning point of the American Revolution. 

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New Hampshire used to have enslaved people. The first enslaved people in America were kidnapped in Africa and brought to the New World where they were sold for their labor. They had to work for their masters without being paid, and they weren't allowed to make their own decisions about their lives. Their children were also enslaved, and their grandchildren and so on. Most enslaved people in America lived in the South, but even colonies in the North, like New Hampshire and Massachusetts, had enslaved people. During the American Revolution, when people were talking about the importance of freedom and equality, many enslaved people started to question why they weren’t also free. In Portsmouth, 20 enslaved people wrote a very well-crafted petition to the new state government. They argued that if America was a land of freedom, then they should not have to live as slaves. The state government did not act on the petition or free them from slavery. 

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When the 13 American colonies declared themselves independent from Britain, they had to form a government for their new country. They had to decide how political power was going to be shared between the states and the federal government and develop a process for passing laws that would govern the new country. At first they wrote a document called the Articles of Confederation, but the Articles didn’t work very well and they set them aside. Next they wrote a document called the Constitution. For the Constitution to go into effect, 9 of the 13 states had to agree to it, which is called ratifying. In June 1788, New Hampshire ratified the new Constitution and was the 9th state to do so. Even though other states ratified the Constitution too, New Hampshire’s vote meant the new Constitution could go into effect. 

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In 1796, an enslaved woman named Ona Judge ran away from her master in the South and came to New Hampshire. Her master was George Washington, the president of the United States. Washington owned many slaves at his plantation in Virginia, and he wasn’t willing to just let Ona go. Instead, he tried to catch her and bring her back to slavery. Slavery was not very popular in New Hampshire by this point, though, and New Hampshire authorities refused to help Washington capture her, even if he was the president. Although Ona always worried about being recaptured, she never was, and lived the rest of her life in New Hampshire. 

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There were no big roads in New Hampshire during the 1700s like the highways we have today. Instead, all the roads in the state were local, linking one village to another. Each town was responsible for building and repairing their own roads, and sometimes the towns didn’t do a great job of it. In the late 1700s, some investors got together and decided to build a nice, big road that would run across the middle of the state, from Portsmouth to Concord. They called the new road the New Hampshire Turnpike. Although it was a toll road, meaning people had to pay to use it, the road was in much better condition than the smaller, local roads. The turnpike was wider than most roads and had fewer potholes. It made traveling from one part of the state to another much faster and easier. Soon other turnpikes were built in New Hampshire, linking most of the regions of the state together in a road network. 

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The first cotton mill in New Hampshire was built in New Ipswich in 1803. It was a small mill, but it used giant machines, known as looms, to weave cloth, which would normally take a long time to weave by hand. The looms were powered by water. Because the looms could make more cloth faster, the owners of the mill made more money. The success of the mill encouraged others across the state to open their own textile mills. Eventually there were mills all over New Hampshire. 

 

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It wasn’t until the early 1800s that people started exploring the White Mountains, which were beautiful but rugged. Men building a road through Franconia Notch in 1805 saw a group of rocks that looked just like a giant head. They called the rock formation the Old Man of the Mountain, and soon tourists came from all over to see the Old Man. The Old Man eventually became a symbol for the state, and he often appears on all sorts of things having to do with New Hampshire, even license plates and bobbleheads! 

 

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New Hampshire’s most famous Revolutionary War soldier, General John Stark, used the term “Live free or die” in 1809. He was writing a letter to some fellow veterans who had organized a dinner to celebrate the anniversary of Stark’s great victory in 1777, the Battle of Bennington. Stark was too sick to attend the dinner, but instead he sent a letter. The letter praised the men for fighting in the American Revolution. Stark wrote, “Live free or die, death is not the greatest of evils.” A newspaper published Stark’s letter, and the phrase “Live free or die” seemed to stick in everyone’s minds. It wasn’t until 1945, though, that Stark’s phrase officially became the state motto of New Hampshire. 

 

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The Merrimack River is the largest river in New Hampshire. At a time when it was still difficult and slow to travel on roads, water travel was the fastest way to move goods and people from one place to another. People used rivers almost like they use highways today. The Merrimack River was an important highway because it was so big and it went through the center of the state. But it had many waterfalls and rough water which boats couldn’t get around, especially between Manchester and Concord. In the early 1800s, a series of locks and canals were built so boats could navigate around the falls. These changes made it possible for a boat to travel all the way from Boston to Concord. 

 

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Maps have always been very important in settling new land and in protecting people’s claims to land they believe they own. There were a few early maps of parts of New Hampshire, but by the early 1800s, people realized they needed a map of the whole state. New Hampshire Secretary of State Philip Carrigain took on the job of creating this map, although it took him much longer to make it than anyone expected—more than 10 years! The Carrigain map showed all of New Hampshire, including the White Mountains and the North Country, which had never been mapped before. It became the official state map for the first half of the 19th century. 

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For the first few decades New Hampshire was a state, it didn’t have a state capital. Instead, the state government moved between several towns, including Portsmouth, Exeter, Dover, and Hopkinton. Finally, around 1810, the state government decided to settle in Concord, which was in the center of the state geographically and had a good road system, making it easy for people to travel to and from the new capital. In 1816, the state government ordered the construction of a building where they could conduct their business. It would be called the State House, and when it was finished in 1819, it was the largest building in the state. Made out of Concord granite, the State House would become the political center of the state, and it would also become a place that celebrated all the important people in New Hampshire’s history with statues and portraits. 

 

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In June 1825, the state government held a big dinner on the State House lawn in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette. Lafayette was a Frenchman who became an American hero during the American Revolution 50 years earlier. He returned to America in 1825 and took a grand tour of all the states to celebrate America’s 50th birthday. At this dinner on the State House lawn, New Hampshire Secretary of State Philip Carrigain gave a toast to Lafayette in which he referred to New Hampshire as the Granite State. New Hampshire had already gained a reputation for the fine granite stone found in the state, which was starting to be used in buildings all over New England. The nickname stuck, and New Hampshire has been known as the Granite State ever since. 

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In the 1820s, not many people lived in the White Mountains. One family, the Willeys, built a homestead near Crawford Notch. The family included a mother, father, five children, and two hired hands. In August 1826, a huge storm moved through the area and set off a massive landslide in the little valley where the Willeys lived. The landslide destroyed almost everything in the valley except the Willeys’ house. Unfortunately, when the Willeys heard the landslide begin, they left their house and tried to run away from the landslide, which didn’t work. They were all killed, even though their house miraculously survived. News traveled all over the country of the Willey tragedy and the strange story that their house was just as they left it, with beds unmade, and books and food sitting on the table. In fact, tourists started coming to the White Mountains just to see the Willeys’ house. This became the start of a tourism boom to the White Mountains. People came to see the Willeys’ house but were so impressed with the beauty of the White Mountains that they stayed for long visits and began to explore the area more. 

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A Concord coach is a type of stagecoach that made travel easier and more comfortable for people in the 19th century. The Abbot-Downing Company of Concord became famous for making the best and most luxurious stagecoaches of the century. They designed their coaches so that the passenger compartment swayed gently with the motion of the horses rather than bouncing up and down. Concord coaches were widely used in the eastern portion of America until railroads became popular. Most people think of them in connection with the American West, where they were used for most of the 19th century. They were used all over the world, though, in places as far away as Australia. Wells Fargo Bank adopted the Concord coach as its symbol, which is still in use today. 

 

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With all of the rivers in New Hampshire, the state soon became a center for textile mills, which needed water power from the rivers to work the machinery, like looms, to weave cloth and fabric. Manchester was particularly well-placed for textile mills, as the Merrimack River ran strong in that area, and its water generated a lot of power. The Amoskeag Manufacturing Company bought a series of small mills in Manchester in 1831 and united them all under one company. They also built dozens of new mill buildings. Soon Manchester had become the biggest textile manufacturing company in the world. In the early 1900s, the company produced 50 miles of woven cloth per hour. Thousands of immigrants came to Manchester to work in the mills. 

 

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The first railroad tracks were laid in New Hampshire in 1838. The tracks ran from Nashua south for 5 miles before crossing the Massachusetts border and continuing on to Boston. Within less than 10 years, the Boston, Concord, and Montreal Railroad had built railroads throughout the southern part of the state. Because people could travel faster and easier by train than any other form of transportation, having railroads in New Hampshire made people in different towns and communities feel more connected to one another. 

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By the middle of the 19th century, more and more people in the North had decided that slavery was a bad thing, but not very many politicians had spoken against slavery. In 1845, John Parker Hale, who was a senator from New Hampshire, publicly declared that slavery was a terrible thing and should be stopped, even in the South where slavery was very popular. Hale was the first U.S. senator to speak out against slavery. Afterward, several more politicians spoke out against slavery as well. 

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Franklin Pierce was a very important man in New Hampshire politics. He led the Democratic Party in the state and served New Hampshire as both a congressman and a senator. In November 1852, he was elected president of the United States, the only president to come from New Hampshire. Pierce was president for four years, but his presidency didn’t go well. People were becoming more and more angry about slavery, and the country started to split apart. By the time he left office in 1856, America was closer to civil war. 

 

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In 1853, a man from New Hampshire named Amos Tuck got a bunch of his friends together in Exeter and decided to form a new political party called the Republicans. The Republican Party stood against slavery in America. They challenged the Democratic Party for state and national offices. Just seven years after the party was formed, Americans elected the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln. 

 

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Thousands of soldiers from New Hampshire fought in the Union Army during the Civil War, when the North (the Union) fought against the South (the Confederacy). The biggest battle of the war was the Battle of Gettysburg, fought on July 1-3, 1863, which the Union won. This battle is the most significant conflict of the war. A New Hampshire man named John Badger Bachelder interviewed hundreds of Union soldiers after the battle and created a diagram, which is kind of like a map, of one part of the battle. Then he hired a painter named James Walker to turn his diagram into a painting. Historians think this painting portrays just what Gettysburg looked like. 

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An inventor named Sylvester Marsh loved the views from the top of Mount Washington, the highest peak in the Northeast. But he thought there must be an easier way to get to the top than climbing up 6,000 feet. He developed a special kind of train, called a cog railway, that could climb such a steep terrain. The cog railway used gears to pull the train up the side of the mountain. It also had special brakes that would keep the train from coming back down the mountain too fast. It took a long time for Marsh to convince people that his train would work. In fact, people used to make fun of his idea by calling it the “railway to the moon,” since they thought Marsh had as much chance to build a train that ran to the top of a mountain as he did building one that went to the moon. But finally, he raised enough money to build it. On July 3, 1869, the first cog train, which Marsh called “Old Peppersass,” climbed to the top of Mount Washington. It was the first cog railway in the world. 

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Women in New Hampshire—and throughout America—were not allowed to vote for many years. In 1870, a New Hampshire woman named Marilla Ricker tried to vote in her hometown of Dover. She was denied, but she kept turning in her votes in town elections for the rest of her life even if town officials refused to count them. Later in her life, Ricker became the first woman lawyer in New Hampshire. Women wouldn’t get the vote in the Granite State until 1920. 

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Lots of people from Scandinavian countries moved to New Hampshire in the 1800s to work in the timber industry in the White Mountains. They brought with them many traditions from the countries they came from, including cross-country skiing. In Berlin, immigrants from Norway formed the first ski club in North America in 1872. They called it the Nansen Club, and it still exists today. Scandinavians made skiing very popular in New Hampshire, especially as the White Mountains offered so many great places to ski. 

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In the summer of 1881, a New Hampshire man named Ernest Balch opened the first children’s summer camp in the United States. Located on Squam Lake, he called it Camp Chocorua. The camp was for boys who lived in big cities, like Boston and New York. Balch’s idea was that these boys needed to spend time in the great outdoors during the summer, doing things like fishing, swimming, sailing, and hiking. The idea of a summer camp for kids really caught on, and soon people were opening similar camps all over the country. Over the years, the Granite State would have hundreds of such camps for boys and girls. 

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At the end of the 19th century, more people were moving out of New Hampshire than moving to it. People especially didn’t want to stay working on farms. Many of the state’s small towns saw a decline in their population. Governor Frank Rollins came up with the idea that every New Hampshire town should hold an Old Home Week as a way to celebrate their community. The townspeople in each community would decide how they wanted to celebrate, but most towns held picnics, concerts, baseball games, plays, dinners, parades, and fireworks. Rollins also encouraged towns to write letters to people who used to live there but had moved away, inviting them back again to see old friends at the celebration. When these visitors returned, they often donated money to the town to build a new building or create a park for the townspeople. New Hampshire towns stopped holding Old Home Week in the 1920s, but many began the tradition again in the 1990s or 2000s, only now the celebration usually lasts a day. Does your town celebrate Old Home Day?