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NH-216
Granite Beneath Everything
Live Free or Die
New Hampshire was among the most combative of the original colonies. Its settlers arrived in the 1620s and immediately began arguing — with Massachusetts over boundaries, with each other over land grants, with the Crown over governance. Portsmouth grew into a prosperous port town on timber and cod, and New Hampshire’s sawmills supplied masts for the Royal Navy. When the Navy tried to monopolize the best white pines, the colonists rioted. The Mast Tree Riot of 1772 was one of the early sparks of colonial fury.
New Hampshire was the first colony to establish an independent government, doing so in January 1776, six months before the Declaration of Independence. Its men fought at Bunker Hill, at Saratoga, at Valley Forge. John Stark, who commanded at the Battle of Bennington, coined the phrase that became the state motto: “Live free or die; death is not the worst of evils.” The full sentence matters as much as the motto.
The 19th century brought the mills. Manchester’s Amoskeag Manufacturing Company became the largest textile complex in the world, its red-brick mill buildings stretching a mile along the Merrimack River. At its peak, Amoskeag employed 17,000 workers and produced enough cloth each year to circle the globe twice. When it closed in 1936, it took the city’s economy with it. Manchester spent decades learning to be something other than a mill town.
Mount Washington loomed over all of it. At 6,288 feet the highest peak in the Northeast, it generates weather so violent that the summit observatory recorded a wind gust of 231 mph in April 1934 — the fastest surface wind speed ever measured at that time. The Cog Railway has climbed it since 1869. The auto road has tempted drivers since 1861. The mountain claims lives every year and humbles everyone who approaches it.
New Hampshire’s modern identity is built on three unusual pillars: the first-in-the-nation presidential primary, which has given it disproportionate national influence since 1920; a fiercely low-tax, libertarian political culture that has resisted a state income tax and sales tax for generations; and a tourism economy anchored in the White Mountains, the Lakes Region, and eighteen miles of Atlantic coastline at Hampton Beach. The Granite State is harder than it looks.
1623
First Settlement
English settlers establish fishing camps at Little Harbor near present-day Rye, among the first European settlements in New England.
1772
Pine Tree Riot
New Hampshire colonists riot against British enforcement of the Broad Arrow Policy reserving white pines for the Royal Navy.
1776
First Independent Government
New Hampshire adopts its own constitution in January, becoming the first colony to establish an independent government.
1788
Statehood
New Hampshire ratifies the Constitution on June 21, providing the ninth and deciding vote that puts the document into effect.
1833
Amoskeag Expands
Amoskeag Manufacturing Company begins its expansion into the world’s largest textile complex along the Merrimack in Manchester.
1869
Cog Railway Opens
The Mount Washington Cog Railway opens, the first mountain-climbing cog railway in the world, still operating today.
1934
World Wind Record
The Mount Washington Observatory records a wind gust of 231 mph, the fastest surface wind speed ever measured on earth at that time.
1936
Amoskeag Closes
The Amoskeag Manufacturing Company closes after a bitter strike, devastating Manchester’s economy and ending an industrial era.
1952
First Primary
New Hampshire holds its first modern presidential primary, beginning a tradition of first-in-the-nation influence that shapes every presidential race.
2003
Old Man Falls
The Old Man of the Mountain, New Hampshire’s iconic rock profile on Cannon Mountain, collapses on May 3, ending a 12,000-year-old landmark.
