This work is the first modern history written by an American, embodying a new rigor in research, annotation, and reporting.

In 1764 he moved to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he "kept the school" and studied theology with Samuel Haven (Harvard College class of 1749).

After the Battle of Lexington in 1775 some units of the Dover militia were called out to support the Siege of Boston.

This position required travel throughout the state, and he used it as a chance to begin accumulating notes on the history of New Hampshire.

[3] Its reputation grew over the years, however, and after his death, Alexis de Tocqueville named him as America's best native historian.

He tried to clearly separate facts from analysis and opinion, and he provided many annotations to show the source and location of records that he had inspected.

Belknap accepted a new position in 1787, when he moved back to Boston to become pastor of the Federal Street Church.

John Eliot, a fourth-generation descendant of the 17th-century "Apostle to the Indians" and himself a minister, added Governor Thomas Hutchinson's manuscript for the History of Massachusetts Bay, which his father Andrew Eliot had saved during the Revolution when a mob looted the governor's home.