What did people do with their weekends and vacations?

Just like today, people spent some of their time-off doing chores like laundry and cleaning. But also like today, people wanted to use some of their leisure time to do something fun or go somewhere interesting. Usually that meant getting out of the crowded cities that had grown up near the factories in the 1800s. Especially in the summer, people found life in the cities to be hot and unpleasant.

They wanted to see beautiful sights, get some exercise, and enjoy some cool weather and open spaces. For all these reasons, people in the 1800s left the cities on the weekends and went on vacations as much as they could.

Willey Slide

The deaths of the Willey family made national headlines because the story was so tragic and strange. People all over the country read about the tragedy in newspapers and magazines. Some people decided to travel to New Hampshire to see the Willeys’ house for themselves. It became one of America’s first major tourist attractions.

Tourist Attractions

Once these tourists were in New Hampshire, they saw how beautiful the White Mountains were and wanted to explore them more.

Over the next several decades, more and more people came to the White Mountains and visited spots like the Old Man of the Mountain, the Flume Gorge, and Mount Washington, which is the tallest mountain in the northeast.

Granite Staters started to advertise these attractions to tourists to encourage them to visit—things like guided tours, hikes, or even carriage rides.

Mount Washington

Mount Washington was a particularly popular spot.

Some people hiked to the summit, or the top of the mountain, even though it was dangerous because the mountain is so high.

It can get very cold on the top of Mount Washington, and storms can start very quickly. Sometimes hikers would get lost in the storm and freeze to death.

Starting in the 1840s, Granite Staters began building structures on the summit of Mount Washington to provide shelter. In the 1850s, two hotels were opened on the summit so tourists could stay overnight: the Summit House and the Tip-Top House.

Mount Washington Carriage Road

To make it easier to reach the summit, the Mount Washington Carriage Road was built in the 1850s and 1860s. By using the carriage road, people could safely ride up to the top of the mountain in stagecoaches or on horseback. (Today the carriage road has become the Mount Washington Auto Road, and cars drive to the summit.)

Tourists also saw how beautiful the rest of the state was too. They started visiting other spots around New Hampshire, like Lake Winnipesaukee, where they could swim, boat, and fish. Or, tourists went to the seacoast to enjoy places like Hampton Beach or the Isles of Shoals.

Even small towns in New Hampshire welcomed tourists to enjoy the beauty of the state and its fun outdoor activities.

Amusement Parks

By the early 1900s, New Hampshire was full of carriage rides, hikes, scenic views, and parks.

The state also had a new type of attraction: amusement parks. Pine Island Park opened in Manchester in 1901, and Canobie Lake Park opened in Salem the following year, 1902. There were other amusement parks in Penacook and Dover.

Just like today, amusement parks had Ferris wheels, roller coasters, and other rides. But they also offered boat rides, beaches and swimming piers, and other entertainments like concerts and dance halls to keep people amused.

Because these amusement parks were located on trolley lines, people could reach them quickly, making it easy to spend the day there.

How to Get There, Where to Stay

How did New Hampshire change to welcome the tourists?

All of these people coming to New Hampshire brought a great deal of change with them. How would tourists get to New Hampshire? Where would they stay and eat while they were here?

Granite Staters developed different kinds of tourist attractions to keep visitors entertained, but they also had to develop other kinds of visitor services to encourage people to come to New Hampshire. All of these new visitor services changed New Hampshire a great deal.

Where did tourists stay when they visited New Hampshire?

In the early 1800s, visitors stayed in taverns, which were really just the houses of people who had extra rooms to rent. Usually there was a “common” room where the guests could meet and eat their meals. Most taverns were pretty basic—the furniture was hard, the food was plain, and there wasn’t much to do if it was raining outside.

Some of the most famous early taverns were owned by the Crawford family, who lived in the White Mountains near what is today called Crawford Notch.

Abel Crawford moved to the area in 1792, bringing his son Ethan Allen Crawford with him. They each built a house and ran the houses as inns, offering rooms and meals for travelers. For years, until the 1840s, the Crawfords were the most important family in the White Mountains, and they worked hard to promote the area as a tourist destination.

They helped build roads so people could travel through the mountains more easily. They offered guided tours of the area and carved out hiking paths and trails. Ethan’s wife Lucy wrote a popular book about the White Mountains, which advertised the area to tourists throughout America.

The Crawfords also encouraged family and friends to move to the White Mountains and offer more attractions for visitors.

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Biography

Abel Crawford

circa 1766–1851

Caption:

Abel Crawford moved to the White Mountains in 1790 and spent the rest of his life promoting the mountain region. At the time, very few people lived there, but he and his father-in-law, Eleazer Rosebrook, both opened inns near a pass in the mountains where travelers could cross the mountains. The pass was originally called the Notch, but now it is known as Crawford Notch after the Crawford family. Abel loved the mountains and explored them more than anyone else had done at that point. He was known for telling wild stories about what he found in the White Mountains, including tales of encountering bears and other animals. With his son Ethan Allen Crawford and other family members, Abel built taverns and inns where tourists could stay, cut hiking trails through the mountains, and led guided tours to interesting noteworthy places.

Image Credit: Photo by Mr. Spring from a portrait by Chester Harding dated 1846, New Hampshire Historical Society

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Biography

Ethan Allen Crawford

circa 1792–1846

Caption:

The son of White Mountain explorer Abel Crawford, Ethan Allen Crawford helped develop the White Mountains as a tourist destination. Ethan Allen ran a hotel named the Crawford House, which offered tourists a nice place to stay when they visited the White Mountains. He also cut the first hiking trail to the summit of Mount Washington, naming it the Crawford Path. He helped write guidebooks about the mountains and placed advertisements in newspapers encouraging people to visit. An experienced mountain man, Ethan Allen loved to tell tall tales about life in the White Mountains, just like his father did. Many things in the White Mountains are named after Ethan Allen and his family, since they played such a big role in bringing tourists to the region.

As tourism in New Hampshire became more popular in the mid-19th century, Granite Staters began to build hotels for tourists to stay in during their visits.

Hotels were a little bit nicer than most taverns and had more rooms. Sometimes hotels were called “houses,” but they were much bigger than a typical house people live in today.

Many hotels were built around the state, especially in the White Mountains and on the seacoast.

Grand Resort Hotels

After 1850, a new kind of hotel became popular in New Hampshire: grand resort hotels.

These very big hotels could hold 200 or more guests at once, and they usually offered lots of luxuries for the time, like hot and cold running water, electricity, telephones, and flushing toilets.

The grand resorts served visitors lots of good food, usually prepared by a trained chef. Their staff organized games and trips for guests—things like hikes, carriage rides, picnics, tennis, swimming, fishing, bike riding, golf, dancing lessons, and lawn games.

They took tourists to visit nearby attractions like scenic views, waterfalls, and rock formations. The resorts held concerts, lectures, and plays for the guests’ entertainment.

Some guests would stay at a grand resort hotel for the entire summer, while other people would visit for just a week or two.

Although most grand resort hotels were located in the White Mountains or near the seacoast, they could be found all over the state, even in fairly small towns. In fact, New Hampshire used to have dozens of grand resort hotels, spread out across the state. Less than 10 of them are left today.

Beyond the Grand Resorts

There were also other options than grand resort hotels for visitors to New Hampshire.

There were hundreds of smaller hotels and inns, cabins, and boardinghouses in popular tourist areas for those who could not afford to stay at a grand resort hotel.

Summer Homes

Some New Hampshire tourists loved the state so much that they bought summer homes here. Many people built summer homes in the Lakes Region, but tourists also moved into summer homes all over the state.

There were lots of houses available in the 1870s and 1880s, because many of New Hampshire’s farmers moved to the Midwest during these years—to places like Iowa and Nebraska. The farming was easier there. They sold their land and farmhouses to rich people from Boston or New York who wanted to spend their summers in New Hampshire.

Family Camps

Other visitors to New Hampshire would buy some land and then set up a temporary campsite on it where they could stay for the summer. They would live in cloth tents or build small shelters or lean-tos.

Over time, these campers would make the rough structures nicer, more weatherproof, and larger until they had their own summer cabin.

These types of camps were very popular in the Lakes Region.

Often, a camp would be handed down through several generations in one family. Many families continued to call their property a camp even if they had built a house on it.

Sleepaway Camps

New Hampshire is the birthplace of “sleepaway” summer camps, where kids stay—sometimes for several weeks—and sleep in cabins or tents. Thousands of kids from all over the northeast have come to sleepaway camps in the Granite State. Most of these camps are in the Lakes Region. There have been more than 450 sleepaway camps in New Hampshire.

Camp Chocorua was the first sleepaway camp in New Hampshire and in the United States. It was founded in 1881 by a Dartmouth College student named Ernest Balch.

In addition to all the outdoor activities, like swimming, boating, hiking, and fishing, Camp Chocorua had a choir and a newspaper run by the boys. The boys held races of all kinds, played baseball, cleared trails through the forest, and learned how to build things out of wood. There were also “liberty days” when there were no rules at all.

Camp Chocorua closed in 1889 after just 9 years. But many people were interested in the camp’s ideas and started their own camps in New Hampshire.

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Biography

Ernest Balch

Caption:

Ernest Balch was a student at Dartmouth College when he got the idea to start a summer camp for boys. He founded Camp Chocorua in the Lakes Region in the summer of 1881. Most of the boys who came to the camp were wealthy boys who lived in big cities, like Boston, New York, or Washington, D.C. Ernest Balch wanted them to learn to be self-reliant and to enjoy nature, which he didn’t think they could do while living in big cities. The boys were expected to take care of themselves while at camp. They cut their own firewood, cooked their own food, washed their own clothes, and were responsible for keeping the camp clean. But there was still plenty of time for fun! Camp Chocorua closed in 1889, and Ernest Balch moved to South America.

Tourism and Art

How did art promote tourism in New Hampshire?

Artists loved coming to New Hampshire, particularly the White Mountains. In fact, about 450 artists came to New Hampshire during the 19th century to create masterpieces that showed the beauty of the state.

Some artists would come for short visits, make sketches, and then return to their studios in Boston, New York, or Philadelphia to paint. Others stayed longer in New Hampshire and rented studios so they could create their paintings right here. A few even moved to New Hampshire to live here year-round!

The most famous of the White Mountain artists was a man named Benjamin Champney. He had a studio in North Conway, and many people visited him to see—and sometimes buy—the art he created. Even other artists came to see him, to learn more about how to paint such powerful images of the natural world.

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Biography

Benjamin Champney

1817–1907

Caption:

One of America’s most famous 19th-century artists, Benjamin Champney was born in New Ipswich, New Hampshire. As an adult, he lived in North Conway, where he kept an artist’s studio. Benjamin loved the White Mountains and made many sketches and paintings of the natural world. These types of paintings are called landscape paintings because they focus on the land around us. Benjamin’s White Mountain paintings were very popular, and many tourists bought them, taking them to their homes in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. But not just tourists were impressed with Benjamin’s beautiful landscape paintings. Other artists were as well, and they came from all over the country to visit him at his North Conway studio to learn about painting the natural world.

Image Credit: Image from Sixty Years' Memories of Art and Artists (Woburn, MA: News Print. Wallace & Andrews), 1900

Most of the art these 19th-century painters created were landscapes, showing the beauty and power of the natural world. This style of art became so popular that people started calling it White Mountain art.

Some of the paintings were huge, measuring 8 or more feet wide. The artists used strong colors to make the paintings more dramatic and make nature seem more impressive. When these massive paintings were hung on a wall, it was like looking out a window at an inspiring natural scene, which is probably why so many people living in big cities wanted to own these paintings. The huge paintings made them feel like they were close to nature and far away from busy city life.

The White Mountains weren’t the only part of New Hampshire that attracted artists. Painters also visited other parts of the state, like the Lakes Region and the seacoast, and created works of art.

The Isles of Shoals was a particularly popular spot for artists and writers. Located in the Atlantic Ocean 10 miles off the coast of New Hampshire, the islands stay cooler than the rest of the state during the summer months, which brought a lot of people to visit when it got too hot.

The Isles of Shoals was also the home of Celia Laighton Thaxter, who was a famous poet and artist. Her books about life on the Isles of Shoals helped make them famous.

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Biography

Celia Laighton Thaxter

1835–1894

Caption:

Celia grew up on the Isles of Shoals where her father, Thomas Laighton, was a lighthouse keeper and the owner of the first hotel on the islands. It was called the Appledore House, and it opened in 1848. Celia moved to Massachusetts when she married Levi Thaxter, but she came back to the Isles of Shoals often. She wrote many poems and stories about her life on the Isles of Shoals and published them in magazines and books. She was also an artist and drew many pictures of wildlife, particularly flowers, on the islands. Celia grew a beautiful garden near her cottage in the Isles of Shoals. It was the inspiration for her book, An Island Garden. The book included illustrations by the famous painter Childe Hassam. Celia became one of America’s most popular authors during the late 19th century. 

Image Credit: Photo by Warren's (Firm), Courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Collections

Some artists set up studios in New Hampshire to sketch and paint. Visitors would come to the studios to see the artists at work, view the paintings the artists had created, and maybe even buy one of them. Seeing the artists in their studios became popular tourist destinations.

Even if paintings were created in New Hampshire, they didn’t stay here. Artists usually sold them to museums or private collectors.

Once sold, the paintings showed the beauty of New Hampshire and encouraged more tourists to visit. It was almost like the paintings themselves became advertisements for the Granite State.

In addition to creating landscape paintings, artists often found jobs working at the grand resort hotels. Some of the resorts even had artists-in-residence who would live at the hotel and create paintings as souvenirs for the guests, decorate brochures and menus for the hotel, and give art lessons to tourists.

Souvenirs

How did people remember their visit to New Hampshire?

Just as tourism was new to the 19th century, so were souvenirs—the things people buy at tourist destinations to help them remember their visit.

Souvenirs came in all shapes and sizes, such as postcards and photographs, pin cushions, plates, jewelry boxes, teacups, guidebooks, and collectible spoons. Just like today, people bought these items to help them remember their trip.

Souvenirs often contained the name of a popular tourist attraction or of a grand resort hotel, and sometimes they had a picture too.

Arts and Crafts

Although many souvenirs were mass produced, tourists also bought hand-made souvenirs created by Granite Staters who lived in the state and used natural resources to make their products. In fact, tourists' interest in hand-made souvenirs led to an arts and crafts movement in New Hampshire, when creative people who lived here made all sorts of things to sell to visitors who came to vacation in New Hampshire.

Some of these local artists were colorful characters who became well known among the public, like English Jack, who told stories and carved walking sticks that he sold to the public. Another popular figure was the "Hermit of Manchester," who also shared tall tales with visitors and sold them herbs and vegetables from his garden.

One of the best known White Mountain characters was Frank Leavitt, who created a series of wacky maps for tourists in the second half of the 19th century. He was a popular guide who took visitors to historic sites and places of great natural beauty in the mountains. The maps he created were not accurate depictions of the White Mountains—in fact, some of the maps were upside down!—but they shared stories of the mountains and encouraged tourists to visit some of the region's sites.

Abenaki Crafts and Storytelling

Although all kinds of souvenirs could be purchased in New Hampshire, crafts made by Abenaki Native Americans were particularly popular.

Most of the Abenaki had left New Hampshire in the early 18th century, but some still lived in the state, especially in the White Mountains and the Great North Woods.

Abenaki communities worked through the winter months creating baskets with complex decorative designs and other handmade items. During the summer months, when visitors flocked to New Hampshire, the Abenaki set up roadside stands where tourists could watch baskets being made, listen to stories that shared Abenaki culture, and purchase souvenirs to take back to their homes.

Some Abenaki traveled between the grand resort hotels in the summer to give demonstrations of traditional Abenaki crafts.

The popularity of Abenaki crafts and culture sparked new interest in Abenaki life and their history in New Hampshire.

Tourism Brings Change

In what ways did the tourism industry change New Hampshire?

So many tourists came to New Hampshire that they changed the state in many ways, especially the White Mountains region.

Granite Staters built roads, bridges, and railroads for the tourists to travel on. They developed tourist destinations that brought more visitors to the state. They opened hotels, inns, restaurants, and stores for the tourists, which encouraged visitors to spend money in the state. Tourism became one of New Hampshire’s leading industries, meaning it became one of the main ways people in the state made enough money to live.

Tourists also began expecting certain comforts when they were in New Hampshire, things like hot and cold running water, telephones, and electricity. And the owners of hotels and tourist attractions responded by bringing these technological improvements to different parts of the state. By having things like roads, railroads, and telephones, the different regions of New Hampshire felt more connected to one another. Not just tourists could travel easily from one part of the state to another, but so could Granite Staters themselves!

The tourism industry also made people more aware of how beautiful the state is and how its natural resources and stunning scenery needed to be protected.

Taking care of New Hampshire's natural resources—for the tourists and for the people who lived here—became important in the second half of the 19th century, when the mills and factories began to pollutethe state's waterways. As the lumber industry cut down more and more trees, New Hampshire's natural landscapes were threatened, which was a challenge for the tourist industry. No one wanted to travel to the Granite State to see a forest that had been cut down!

The needs of all these industries—tourism, factories, and lumber—had to be balanced for the people of New Hampshire to prosper.