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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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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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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. 

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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.