Caption:

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. 

Caption:

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. 

Caption:

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. 

 

Caption:

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. 

 

Caption:

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. 

Caption:

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. 

Caption:

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. 

 

Caption:

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. 

 

Caption:

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. 

Caption:

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. 

Caption:

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. 

Caption:

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. 

Caption:

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. 

Caption:

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? 

Caption:

The White Mountains have long been known for their beautiful forests and abundant trees. In 1903, though, a series of forest fires swept through the mountains and burned over 12,000 acres and millions of trees. The loss of so much of the forest made many people in New Hampshire concerned for the forests’ survival. They organized better fire-fighting methods, including a series of lookout towers that would alert fire fighters to fires in the forests. They also formed groups, like the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, that would try to pass laws to protect the forests. 

 

Caption:

Thousands of people worked in the factories and mills of New Hampshire, including many children. Kids could work in the factories starting at the age of 5, and often they worked instead of going to school. For many struggling families, the money that children earned helped them survive. But without an education, those kids had little chance to improve their lives and get a better job. Although children worked in factories all over America, New Hampshire had a high percentage of child laborers because there were so many factories and mills here. In 1909, a photographer named Lewis Hine came to New Hampshire and photographed children working in the mills. The photographs showed how hard life was for these kids, the poor conditions in which they worked, and the dangers for children working in the mills. 

Caption:

In April 1917, the United States joined World War I, fighting on the side of England and France. America had a small army at the time, so the government encouraged volunteers to join up. Thousands of young men from New Hampshire signed up for the army. They were placed all in one division, which quickly became called the Yankee Division because it was full of soldiers from the New England (Yankee) states, such as New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont, and Rhode Island. The Yankee Division were the first American soldiers to arrive in Europe to fight the war, and they stayed in Europe until the war ended. They were trained by French officers, who thought that the Yankees were so good at throwing grenades because they were used to throwing baseballs! 

Caption:

The White Mountains are among the most important of New Hampshire’s natural resources. One of the state’s biggest exports has been the timber found in the mountains. By the early 1900s, so many trees had been cut down that people began to worry that the White Mountains would no longer have such beautiful forests. Starting in 1914, the U.S. government began buying land in the White Mountains. By 1918, the government owned enough land to protect the area by declaring it the White Mountain National Forest. Now, the national forest contains almost 800,000 acres of land. Thousands of people visit it every year to hike, ski, or simply enjoy the beauty of the mountains. 

 

Caption:

During World War I, Granite State farmers grew food for the soldiers serving in Europe. The U.S. government told the farmers what crops to plant and how much to plant to cover the needs of the army. But in the spring of 1918, New Hampshire farmers discovered that they had grown too many potatoes. Not wanting the potatoes to go to waste, state officials began the Great Potato Drive, encouraging everyone to eat as many potatoes as possible since they had a surplus. State officials also hoped that if people ate more potatoes they would eat less flour and wheat, which the army needed. The slogan for the Great Potato Drive was “Buy and Eat Potatoes Now.” 

 

Caption:

One of the most famous writers to live in New Hampshire was a poet named Robert Frost. He had two farms in the Granite State: one in Derry and one in Franconia. In 1923, Frost published a book of poems that were all about his home state. He was already a famous poet by this point, but he would win his first Pulitzer Prize for his book of poetry about New Hampshire. His poems focused on what it is like to live on a farm in the Granite State, how beautiful the state is, and how hard the winters are with cold and snow. His poems created an image of New Hampshire in readers’ minds.