History of New Hampshire
Since the 20th century, the state has been known for its presidential primary, outdoor recreation, educational boarding schools, and being part of the biotech industry.
Various Algonquian-speaking Abenaki tribes, largely divided between the Androscoggin, Ko'asek and Pennacook nations, lived in the area as long as 12,000 years before European settlement.
English and French explorers visited New Hampshire in 1600–1605, and David Thompson settled at Odiorne's Point in present-day Rye in 1623.
New Hampshire was first settled by Europeans at Odiorne's Point in Rye (near Portsmouth) by a group of fishermen from England, under David Thompson[3] in 1623, three years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.
Settlers from Pannaway, moving to the Portsmouth region later and combining with an expedition of the new Laconia Company (formed 1629) under Captain Neal, called their new settlement Strawbery Banke.
In 1631, Captain Thomas Wiggin served as the first governor of the Upper Plantation (comprising modern-day Dover, Durham and Stratham).
The relationship between Massachusetts and the independent New Hampshirites was controversial and tenuous and complicated by land claims maintained by the heirs of John Mason.
After a brief period without formal government (the settlements were de facto ruled by Massachusetts) William III and Mary II issued a new provincial charter in 1691.
The province's geography placed it on the frontier between British and French colonies in North America, and it was for many years subjected to native claims, especially in the central and northern portions of its territory.
The New Hampshire Assembly in 1714 passed "An Act To Prevent Disorders In The Night":[4][5] Whereas great disorders, insolencies and burglaries, are ofttimes raised and committed in the night time, by Indian, Negro, and Molatto servants and slaves, to the Disquiet and hurt of her Majesty's good subjects: No Indian, Negro, or Molatto servant or slave, may presume to absent from the families where they respectively belong, or be found abroad in the night time after nine o'clock; unless it is upon errand for their respective masters or owners.Notices emphasizing and re-affirming the curfew were published in The New Hampshire Gazette in 1764 and 1771.
[4][8] The only battle fought in New Hampshire was the raid on Fort William and Mary, December 14, 1774, in Portsmouth Harbor, which netted the rebellion sizable quantities of gunpowder, small arms, and cannon over the course of two nights.
(General Sullivan, leader of the raid, described it as "remainder of the powder, the small arms, bayonets, and cartouche-boxes, together with the cannon and ordnance stores".)
This raid was preceded by a warning to local patriots the previous day, by Paul Revere on December 13, 1774, that the fort was to be reinforced by troops sailing from Boston.
Although there were apparently no casualties, these were among the first shots in the American Revolutionary period, occurring approximately five months before the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
In response, on May 22, 1775, the New Hampshire Provincial Congress voted to raise a volunteer force to join the patriot army at Boston.
Abolitionist sentiment was a strong undercurrent in the state, with significant support given the Free Soil Party of John P. Hale.
[14] Nativism aimed at the rapid influx of Irish Catholics characterized the short-lived secret Know Nothing movement, and its instrument the "American Party."
[citation needed] As early as January 1861, top officials were secretly meeting with Governor John A. Andrew of Massachusetts to coordinate plans in case the war came.
[18] New Hampshire fielded 31,650 soldiers and 836 officers during the American Civil War; of these, about 20% died of disease, accident or combat wounds.
[20] The 20th-century historian Bruce Catton said that the Fifth New Hampshire was "one of the best combat units in the army" and that Cross was "an uncommonly talented regimental commander.
The post-World War II decades have seen New Hampshire increase its economic and cultural links with the greater Boston, Massachusetts, region.
The replacement of the Nashua textile mill with defense electronics contractor Sanders Associates in 1952 and the arrival of minicomputer giant Digital Equipment Corporation in the early 1970s helped lead the way toward southern New Hampshire's role as a high-tech adjunct of the Route 128 corridor.
