WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.100 You know, when you picture the modern state of 00:00:03.100 --> 00:00:05.679 New Hampshire, there is like a very specific 00:00:05.679 --> 00:00:08.140 image that probably comes to mind. Right. The 00:00:08.140 --> 00:00:10.960 whole cinematic postcard perfect version of New 00:00:10.960 --> 00:00:14.939 England. Exactly. You likely picture quiet, snow 00:00:14.939 --> 00:00:19.019 dusted forests or maybe prestigious boarding 00:00:19.019 --> 00:00:23.059 schools with ivy crawling up the brick. and very 00:00:23.059 --> 00:00:25.120 polite people queuing up in town halls for those 00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:27.179 early political primaries. Yeah, it all feels 00:00:27.179 --> 00:00:30.000 so, I don't know, organized. It really does. 00:00:30.140 --> 00:00:32.899 It projects this aura of stability that suggests, 00:00:33.259 --> 00:00:36.229 well, that it's just always been that way. But 00:00:36.229 --> 00:00:39.609 today we are taking a deep dive into a comprehensive 00:00:39.609 --> 00:00:41.789 Wikipedia article on the history of New Hampshire 00:00:41.789 --> 00:00:44.250 and the history laid out in these sources. Honestly, 00:00:44.429 --> 00:00:46.869 it shatters that postcard completely. Oh, absolutely. 00:00:46.969 --> 00:00:48.990 We're definitely not talking about a quiet or 00:00:48.990 --> 00:00:50.990 subtle timeline here. No, not at all. We are 00:00:50.990 --> 00:00:53.670 talking about a history where furious locals 00:00:53.670 --> 00:00:56.229 literally hitched teams of oxen to an integrated 00:00:56.229 --> 00:00:58.570 school just to drag the entire building into 00:00:58.570 --> 00:01:01.329 a swamp. Yeah, or stolen British gunpowder and 00:01:01.329 --> 00:01:03.929 completely absentee landlords. Right. And panicked 00:01:03.929 --> 00:01:06.069 border towns declaring themselves independent 00:01:06.069 --> 00:01:08.709 micronations, not to mention some absolutely 00:01:08.709 --> 00:01:11.590 radical economic reinventions. It is really a 00:01:11.590 --> 00:01:14.689 phenomenal case study in survival through sheer 00:01:14.689 --> 00:01:17.769 stubbornness. The primary sources reveal a place 00:01:17.769 --> 00:01:20.370 that has been in an almost constant, violently 00:01:20.370 --> 00:01:23.209 contested state of flux. And our mission today 00:01:23.209 --> 00:01:26.329 for you listening is to uncover exactly how this 00:01:26.329 --> 00:01:28.950 relatively small piece of New England managed 00:01:28.950 --> 00:01:31.909 to forge its fiercely independent identity out 00:01:31.909 --> 00:01:34.040 of all. that chaos. Yeah, tracing it through 00:01:34.040 --> 00:01:38.079 400 years of border wars, deep social contradictions, 00:01:38.500 --> 00:01:41.120 and total economic collapse. OK, let's unpack 00:01:41.120 --> 00:01:43.540 this starting from the very beginning. Or I guess 00:01:43.540 --> 00:01:46.180 the fact that the English colonization was incredibly 00:01:46.180 --> 00:01:48.180 late to the game. Well, that is a vital context 00:01:48.180 --> 00:01:50.700 to establish, because long before European monarchs 00:01:50.700 --> 00:01:53.900 started carving up maps, various Algonquian -speaking 00:01:53.900 --> 00:01:57.579 Abenaki tribes lived in this specific area for 00:01:57.579 --> 00:02:00.719 a staggering 12 ,000 years. 12 ,000. That is 00:02:00.719 --> 00:02:03.010 a massive amount of time. It really is. Yeah. 00:02:03.349 --> 00:02:05.269 And the source text makes a point to note that 00:02:05.269 --> 00:02:07.670 despite sharing a broader language family with 00:02:07.670 --> 00:02:10.310 other Algonquian peoples across the northeast, 00:02:11.069 --> 00:02:13.789 the Abenaki here maintained a distinctly different 00:02:13.789 --> 00:02:16.330 culture. Like different how? Mostly in their 00:02:16.330 --> 00:02:18.889 lifestyle and religious practices, which were 00:02:18.889 --> 00:02:21.250 perfectly adapted to the harsh northern environment. 00:02:21.530 --> 00:02:24.270 Right. So you have 12 ,000 years of deeply rooted 00:02:24.270 --> 00:02:29.009 history and then the 1620s roll around and suddenly 00:02:29.280 --> 00:02:31.919 Guys in London are just drawing arbitrary lines 00:02:31.919 --> 00:02:34.139 across a continent they have never even seen. 00:02:34.419 --> 00:02:36.479 Yeah, which brings us to Captain John Mason. 00:02:36.840 --> 00:02:40.699 Yes, this guy. So in 1629, he and a partner named 00:02:40.699 --> 00:02:43.460 Sir Ferdinando Gorgeous, they decided to split 00:02:43.460 --> 00:02:46.240 their massive land grant right down the middle 00:02:46.240 --> 00:02:49.419 of the Piscataqua River. Mason takes the western 00:02:49.419 --> 00:02:51.460 half. And he names it New Hampshire after his 00:02:51.460 --> 00:02:54.150 home, the English county of Hampshire. A county 00:02:54.150 --> 00:02:57.310 which, as a fun historical footnote, was actually 00:02:57.310 --> 00:02:59.770 itself named after the Port of Southampton. Oh, 00:02:59.770 --> 00:03:02.789 I love that. But here is the detail that absolutely 00:03:02.789 --> 00:03:06.030 gets me. John Mason, the man who essentially 00:03:06.030 --> 00:03:09.009 founded, funded, and named the colony, he died 00:03:09.009 --> 00:03:12.349 in 1635 without ever once setting foot in it. 00:03:12.479 --> 00:03:15.919 Not a single visit. Never. It is like a guy buying 00:03:15.919 --> 00:03:18.259 prime virtual real estate site unseen on the 00:03:18.259 --> 00:03:20.460 internet, bragging about it to all his friends, 00:03:20.620 --> 00:03:23.199 and then dying before he even botched to create 00:03:23.199 --> 00:03:26.319 a login. That is a remarkably accurate analogy, 00:03:26.620 --> 00:03:28.879 honestly. And what's fascinating here is the 00:03:28.879 --> 00:03:31.860 real -world impact of that on the ground. Because 00:03:31.860 --> 00:03:35.500 Mason died, his heirs essentially abandoned this 00:03:36.460 --> 00:03:38.979 unprofitable freezing colony. So the people actually 00:03:38.979 --> 00:03:40.819 living there were just left hanging. Exactly. 00:03:40.960 --> 00:03:42.879 Places like early Strawberry Bank, which later 00:03:42.879 --> 00:03:45.219 became Portsmouth, they were entirely left to 00:03:45.219 --> 00:03:47.319 fend for themselves. No governor dropping by, 00:03:47.460 --> 00:03:50.460 no royal troops and really no centralized economy. 00:03:50.780 --> 00:03:52.860 So they are just out in the woods trying not 00:03:52.860 --> 00:03:54.960 to freeze while all their neighboring colonies 00:03:54.960 --> 00:03:57.340 decide to start claiming their land. Because 00:03:57.340 --> 00:03:59.580 suddenly Massachusetts is trying to absorb them 00:03:59.580 --> 00:04:02.159 from the south, right? Yes. And New York is claiming 00:04:02.159 --> 00:04:04.449 territory all the way over to their west. Why 00:04:04.449 --> 00:04:06.789 was everyone trying to get New Hampshire? It 00:04:06.789 --> 00:04:10.550 all comes down to vague royal charters and valuable 00:04:10.550 --> 00:04:13.750 resources. Massachusetts had a charter that said 00:04:13.750 --> 00:04:16.189 their border extended three miles north of the 00:04:16.189 --> 00:04:18.910 Merrimack River. Right, but the river bends sharply. 00:04:19.490 --> 00:04:22.149 Exactly. So Massachusetts interpreted that to 00:04:22.149 --> 00:04:24.410 mean they own everything up to central New Hampshire. 00:04:25.569 --> 00:04:28.629 Meanwhile, New York and New Hampshire were fiercely 00:04:28.629 --> 00:04:31.610 contesting the western lands over timber and 00:04:31.610 --> 00:04:34.259 farming rights. Right. The New Hampshire Grants 00:04:34.259 --> 00:04:36.860 dispute, which eventually got so heated the locals 00:04:36.860 --> 00:04:39.839 just broke off entirely and formed Vermont. Yeah. 00:04:40.360 --> 00:04:42.319 And even the eastern border with Massachusetts, 00:04:42.420 --> 00:04:45.660 which later became Maine, was a total mess. Yeah. 00:04:45.759 --> 00:04:47.720 The text mentions the King of England literally 00:04:47.720 --> 00:04:50.439 had to send royal surveyors into the wilderness 00:04:50.439 --> 00:04:52.620 to figure it out. And the way those surveyors 00:04:52.620 --> 00:04:55.579 solved it is just a fascinating piece of geographical 00:04:55.579 --> 00:04:58.639 history. When King George II sent them in the 00:04:58.639 --> 00:05:02.160 1740s, they intentionally extended the line two 00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:04.879 degrees west of due north. Wait, how does drawing 00:05:04.879 --> 00:05:07.240 a line west fix a map that is supposed to be 00:05:07.240 --> 00:05:09.259 going straight north? Well, it was to account 00:05:09.259 --> 00:05:12.459 for the curvature of the earth. Oh, wow. Did 00:05:12.459 --> 00:05:14.800 18th century guys tramping through a colonial 00:05:14.800 --> 00:05:16.980 forest even have the tools to measure something 00:05:16.980 --> 00:05:20.779 like that? Surprisingly, yes. They used complex 00:05:20.779 --> 00:05:24.100 celestial navigation and remarkably precise surveying 00:05:24.100 --> 00:05:26.819 chains. If you draw a straight line on a flat 00:05:26.819 --> 00:05:29.740 piece of paper, it works. But if you walk a straight 00:05:29.740 --> 00:05:32.779 compass line north on a globe, the lines of longitude 00:05:32.779 --> 00:05:34.639 eventually converge at the pole. Oh, so they 00:05:34.639 --> 00:05:37.199 had to mathematically angle the border to maintain 00:05:37.199 --> 00:05:40.300 the intended width of the land grant over a curved 00:05:40.300 --> 00:05:43.740 surface. Exactly. That is wild. They are doing 00:05:43.740 --> 00:05:45.759 advanced planetary geometry just to figure out 00:05:45.759 --> 00:05:48.660 who gets to tax a specific pine tree. Yeah, pretty 00:05:48.660 --> 00:05:51.209 much. But if you zoom out, you can really see 00:05:51.209 --> 00:05:53.189 how this environment shapes the people. Like 00:05:53.189 --> 00:05:55.769 if you are constantly having to defend your town 00:05:55.769 --> 00:05:57.850 from Massachusetts, arguing with New York and 00:05:57.850 --> 00:05:59.490 managing your own affairs because your founder 00:05:59.490 --> 00:06:01.709 never showed up, you're going to get really good 00:06:01.709 --> 00:06:04.449 at resisting outside control. Precisely. That 00:06:04.449 --> 00:06:07.310 geographical chaos incubated a fierce, almost 00:06:07.310 --> 00:06:10.420 uncompromising culture of home rule. The early 00:06:10.420 --> 00:06:12.639 New Hampshireites were conditioned over generations 00:06:12.639 --> 00:06:15.459 to be deeply skeptical of distant authorities. 00:06:15.920 --> 00:06:18.079 Mainly because those authorities had proven to 00:06:18.079 --> 00:06:20.680 be totally incompetent at managing the frontier. 00:06:20.779 --> 00:06:23.500 Exactly. Which perfectly primes this colony to 00:06:23.500 --> 00:06:26.040 be the absolute tip of the spear against the 00:06:26.040 --> 00:06:28.540 biggest, most overbearing distant authority of 00:06:28.540 --> 00:06:31.759 them all, the British Empire. So in December 00:06:31.759 --> 00:06:35.540 1774, locals in Portsmouth get a warning from 00:06:35.540 --> 00:06:37.779 Paul Revere. Right, months before the famous 00:06:37.779 --> 00:06:41.399 shots at Lexington and Concord. Exactly. And 00:06:41.399 --> 00:06:44.420 over two nights, this massive group of rebels 00:06:44.420 --> 00:06:47.160 rose out to Fort William and Mary in the harbor, 00:06:47.540 --> 00:06:49.759 overwhelms the British guards, and just steals 00:06:49.759 --> 00:06:52.800 a massive cache of royal gunpowder. It was an 00:06:52.800 --> 00:06:55.240 act of open treason. And the historical accounts 00:06:55.240 --> 00:06:57.839 indicate that very same stolen gunpowder was 00:06:57.839 --> 00:06:59.720 later carted off and used against the British. 00:06:59.689 --> 00:07:01.810 at the Battle of Bunker Hill. They didn't even 00:07:01.810 --> 00:07:04.569 have an army yet. They just hid British explosives 00:07:04.569 --> 00:07:06.990 under their floorboards until a war officially 00:07:06.990 --> 00:07:09.660 started. Yeah, it was incredibly brazen. And 00:07:09.660 --> 00:07:13.660 then jump to January 1776, New Hampshire becomes 00:07:13.660 --> 00:07:15.899 the very first colony to set up an independent 00:07:15.899 --> 00:07:18.980 government and draft its own constitution. Although 00:07:18.980 --> 00:07:21.759 if you look at the text, they did awkwardly include 00:07:21.759 --> 00:07:23.839 a line saying they never sought to throw off 00:07:23.839 --> 00:07:26.199 their dependence on Great Britain. Yeah, that 00:07:26.199 --> 00:07:28.519 wording is so funny. Like, we are independent, 00:07:28.519 --> 00:07:32.279 but not too independent. It was a wildly bold 00:07:32.279 --> 00:07:35.060 move to draft a constitution, but they were definitely 00:07:35.060 --> 00:07:37.420 hedging their bets in case the revolution failed. 00:07:37.600 --> 00:07:40.720 They wanted to legal loophole to avoid the hangman's 00:07:40.720 --> 00:07:44.199 noose. Still, they are projecting this incredible 00:07:44.199 --> 00:07:47.579 rebellious younger sibling energy, stealing the 00:07:47.579 --> 00:07:50.300 empire's gunpowder and the glorious name of liberty. 00:07:50.459 --> 00:07:53.259 Right. But here is where it gets really interesting. 00:07:53.529 --> 00:07:55.470 Because the source material doesn't let us just 00:07:55.470 --> 00:07:58.730 enjoy that triumphant narrative. It forces us 00:07:58.730 --> 00:08:01.189 to look at a very dark contradiction playing 00:08:01.189 --> 00:08:03.689 out in those exact same towns. You are referring 00:08:03.689 --> 00:08:05.870 to the reality of slavery within the colony. 00:08:06.290 --> 00:08:08.889 Exactly. While the colonists are drafting documents 00:08:08.889 --> 00:08:11.449 about the inalienable rights of free men, there 00:08:11.449 --> 00:08:15.350 is a 1714 curfew act on their own books, specifically 00:08:15.350 --> 00:08:17.910 targeting Indian, Negro, and mulatto servants 00:08:17.910 --> 00:08:20.269 and slaves. Making it a crime for them to be 00:08:20.269 --> 00:08:23.040 out after nine o 'clock. Right. And even more 00:08:23.040 --> 00:08:26.879 strikingly, in 1779, right in the thick of the 00:08:26.879 --> 00:08:30.339 Revolutionary War, 20 enslaved people in Portsmouth 00:08:30.339 --> 00:08:32.919 submitted a brilliantly written petition to the 00:08:32.919 --> 00:08:35.740 state for their freedom. Historians often refer 00:08:35.740 --> 00:08:38.840 to individuals like those 20 petitioners as the 00:08:38.840 --> 00:08:41.179 revolutionary generation of enslaved people. 00:08:42.139 --> 00:08:45.200 They were politically astute. They read the room. 00:08:45.309 --> 00:08:48.509 and use the exact same philosophical language 00:08:48.509 --> 00:08:51.289 of liberty and natural rights that the white 00:08:51.289 --> 00:08:53.789 colonists were currently using to justify their 00:08:53.789 --> 00:08:55.789 war against the British. And the response from 00:08:55.789 --> 00:08:58.429 the New Hampshire legislature? Silence. They 00:08:58.429 --> 00:09:00.129 just ignored it. They didn't officially eliminate 00:09:00.129 --> 00:09:03.509 slavery in the state until 1857. Yeah. If we 00:09:03.509 --> 00:09:05.710 connect this to the bigger picture. it challenges 00:09:05.710 --> 00:09:08.909 a very persistent regional bias. How so? Well, 00:09:09.009 --> 00:09:11.190 there's a tendency to view the colonial north 00:09:11.190 --> 00:09:13.690 as entirely divorced from the institution of 00:09:13.690 --> 00:09:15.870 slavery, treating it strictly as a southern issue. 00:09:16.549 --> 00:09:18.889 But the text impartially breaks down how deeply 00:09:18.889 --> 00:09:21.610 the northern economy was inextricably linked 00:09:21.610 --> 00:09:23.950 to the Atlantic slave trade. Right, like how 00:09:23.950 --> 00:09:25.990 New Hampshire was one of the few colonies that 00:09:25.990 --> 00:09:28.629 didn't impose a tariff on imported enslaved people. 00:09:29.029 --> 00:09:32.490 Precisely. It functioned as a massive tax -free 00:09:32.490 --> 00:09:35.470 smuggling base. Traders would import enslaved 00:09:35.470 --> 00:09:38.149 people into Portsmouth and then illegally smuggle 00:09:38.149 --> 00:09:40.490 them across the border into Massachusetts to 00:09:40.490 --> 00:09:42.690 avoid paying those local tariffs. Wow, so it 00:09:42.690 --> 00:09:46.429 was purely economic. Very much so. And the economic 00:09:46.429 --> 00:09:48.929 complicity evolved even as the local enslaved 00:09:48.929 --> 00:09:51.889 population dwindled in the 19th century. New 00:09:51.889 --> 00:09:54.049 Hampshire's economy transitioned into booming 00:09:54.049 --> 00:09:57.169 textile mills, which were entirely reliant on 00:09:57.169 --> 00:09:59.830 slave -produced cotton. Oh, right. The sources 00:09:59.830 --> 00:10:02.700 even document a ship named the Nightingale. outfitted 00:10:02.700 --> 00:10:05.100 right in Portsmouth, that was captured functioning 00:10:05.100 --> 00:10:08.440 as an illegal slave ship as late as 1861. As 00:10:08.440 --> 00:10:12.000 late as 1861. That is a profound structural hypocrisy. 00:10:12.179 --> 00:10:14.700 And that fundamental tension, this violent struggle 00:10:14.700 --> 00:10:16.539 over who actually gets to experience freedom 00:10:16.539 --> 00:10:19.279 and belong in New Hampshire. It didn't just magically 00:10:19.279 --> 00:10:21.740 resolve after the Revolutionary War. No, not 00:10:21.740 --> 00:10:25.659 at all. It bled directly into the 1800s and exploded 00:10:25.659 --> 00:10:28.879 into some truly bizarre political movements and 00:10:28.879 --> 00:10:32.159 actual local rebellions. Let's look at how far 00:10:32.159 --> 00:10:33.980 they were willing to push it with the Republic 00:10:33.980 --> 00:10:37.820 of Indian Stream. Ah yes, in 1832, up on the 00:10:37.820 --> 00:10:40.100 northern border with Canada. The international 00:10:40.100 --> 00:10:43.019 boundary was still so poorly defined by the Treaty 00:10:43.019 --> 00:10:46.320 of Paris that locals were getting taxed by both 00:10:46.320 --> 00:10:48.889 the U .S. and Canada. And neither country would 00:10:48.889 --> 00:10:51.350 provide them with basic services. So out of cure 00:10:51.350 --> 00:10:53.549 frustration, they just declared themselves their 00:10:53.549 --> 00:10:55.909 own independent sovereign nation. They drafted 00:10:55.909 --> 00:10:58.590 a constitution, formed a government, and operated 00:10:58.590 --> 00:11:01.429 as a micronation for three years until New Hampshire 00:11:01.429 --> 00:11:04.009 finally sent in the militia to annex them. It 00:11:04.009 --> 00:11:06.370 is that fierce home rule conditioning again, 00:11:06.690 --> 00:11:09.169 taken to its absolute logical extreme. If the 00:11:09.169 --> 00:11:11.529 distant authority cannot fix your problem, you 00:11:11.529 --> 00:11:14.190 become your own authority. But that same impulse 00:11:14.190 --> 00:11:16.850 to take matters into their own hands had horrifying 00:11:16.850 --> 00:11:19.309 consequences when it came to social change. Let's 00:11:19.309 --> 00:11:21.549 go back to that hook about the school. The Noise 00:11:21.549 --> 00:11:25.080 Academy in 1835. Right. Abolitionists opened 00:11:25.080 --> 00:11:27.820 this integrated school in Canaan, welcoming both 00:11:27.820 --> 00:11:30.179 black and white students. And the rural white 00:11:30.179 --> 00:11:32.600 opponents were so outraged, they didn't just 00:11:32.600 --> 00:11:35.399 protest. They brought in nearly a hundred yoke 00:11:35.399 --> 00:11:38.120 of oxen, physically hitched the animals to the 00:11:38.120 --> 00:11:41.100 foundation, and dragged the entire building into 00:11:41.100 --> 00:11:44.120 a swamp. Think about the sheer logistical coordination 00:11:44.120 --> 00:11:47.220 required for that. It was a stark, undeniable 00:11:47.220 --> 00:11:50.419 illustration of the deep, visceral, and often 00:11:50.419 --> 00:11:53.669 violent resistance to racial integration. the 00:11:53.669 --> 00:11:56.190 rural month. It wasn't just passive disagreement. 00:11:56.409 --> 00:11:58.950 No, it was community -organized destruction. 00:11:59.610 --> 00:12:01.990 And all of that social anxiety seemed to culminate 00:12:01.990 --> 00:12:04.509 in perhaps the most confusing political movement 00:12:04.509 --> 00:12:07.549 in the text, the Know Nothing Party. Right, in 00:12:07.549 --> 00:12:10.570 1855. Yeah, this secretive, nativist movement 00:12:10.570 --> 00:12:13.289 completely swept the state elections. They won 00:12:13.289 --> 00:12:15.870 full control of the legislature. But their actual 00:12:15.870 --> 00:12:17.929 agenda is baffling. Let me get this straight, 00:12:18.009 --> 00:12:18.970 because I want to make sure I'm reading this 00:12:18.970 --> 00:12:20.929 right for you listening. It is one of the most 00:12:20.929 --> 00:12:23.450 fascinating mixed bags of policy in American 00:12:23.450 --> 00:12:27.289 history. OK, so they were hardcore anti -immigrant 00:12:27.289 --> 00:12:30.029 zealots, terrified of Irish Catholics coming 00:12:30.029 --> 00:12:32.710 to work in the mills. So they successfully extended 00:12:32.710 --> 00:12:35.250 the waiting period for citizenship and banned 00:12:35.250 --> 00:12:38.309 liquor. Right. Typical nativist policies. But 00:12:38.309 --> 00:12:41.470 in the very same legislative session, they vastly 00:12:41.470 --> 00:12:43.750 increased state spending on public high schools, 00:12:44.409 --> 00:12:47.110 aggressively reformed the tax system, fought 00:12:47.110 --> 00:12:49.769 against corporate monopolies, and actively opposed 00:12:49.769 --> 00:12:53.580 the expansion of slavery in the West. Wait. They 00:12:53.580 --> 00:12:56.179 were anti -immigrant zealots, but they also expanded 00:12:56.179 --> 00:12:58.399 public schools and fought corporate monopolies. 00:12:58.500 --> 00:13:00.399 It sounds like a political platform built by 00:13:00.399 --> 00:13:02.919 a random word generator. It really does sound 00:13:02.919 --> 00:13:05.419 contradictory, but this raises an important question 00:13:05.419 --> 00:13:07.700 about how communities react when their demographics 00:13:07.700 --> 00:13:10.220 and economies change overnight. The text points 00:13:10.220 --> 00:13:12.500 out that the Know Nothings were battling traditionalism 00:13:12.500 --> 00:13:15.460 while simultaneously promoting rapid modernization. 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:18.620 The economy was moving from family farms to massive 00:13:18.620 --> 00:13:21.340 industrial corporations, and people felt completely 00:13:21.340 --> 00:13:24.169 out of control. This party was a panicked attempt 00:13:24.169 --> 00:13:27.149 to control the social fabric. Exactly. They wanted 00:13:27.149 --> 00:13:29.490 to lock out the new immigrants they feared, but 00:13:29.490 --> 00:13:32.330 they also recognized they needed modern infrastructure, 00:13:32.970 --> 00:13:36.370 better schools, and fairer taxes to survive the 00:13:36.370 --> 00:13:38.710 industrial age themselves. It's the ultimate 00:13:38.710 --> 00:13:42.009 defensive crouch. But all of that intense local 00:13:42.009 --> 00:13:44.289 political maneuvering was about to be completely 00:13:44.289 --> 00:13:47.090 eclipsed by the massive, devastating human cost 00:13:47.090 --> 00:13:49.190 of the Civil War. New Hampshire answered the 00:13:49.190 --> 00:13:52.269 call heavily. sending over 31 ,000 troops to 00:13:52.269 --> 00:13:55.389 the Union Army. And the source specifically highlights 00:13:55.389 --> 00:13:57.809 the Fighting 5th Regiment led by Colonel Edward 00:13:57.809 --> 00:14:00.669 Ephraim Cross. You read the statistics and they 00:14:00.669 --> 00:14:03.309 are chilling. They suffered the highest number 00:14:03.309 --> 00:14:06.029 of battle -related deaths of any infantry regiment 00:14:06.029 --> 00:14:09.070 in the entire Union Army. Yes. Across all the 00:14:09.070 --> 00:14:12.129 state's forces, they saw a 20 % overall casualty 00:14:12.129 --> 00:14:15.190 rate from combat, accidents, and disease. Pause 00:14:15.190 --> 00:14:17.490 for a second and imagine the impact of a 20 % 00:14:17.490 --> 00:14:20.320 casualty rate on these small tight -knit rural 00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:23.120 towns. Every single family, every street, would 00:14:23.120 --> 00:14:25.820 have been touched by profound grief. The economic 00:14:25.820 --> 00:14:28.179 and emotional toll on the local population was 00:14:28.179 --> 00:14:31.659 unimaginable. And to compound that tragedy, the 00:14:31.659 --> 00:14:34.120 state government was completely unprepared for 00:14:34.120 --> 00:14:37.399 the administrative reality of a modern industrialized 00:14:37.399 --> 00:14:40.580 war. The text talks about the adjutant general 00:14:40.580 --> 00:14:43.460 at the time, a guy named Colby. Right. For context, 00:14:43.980 --> 00:14:45.679 think of the adjutant general as essentially 00:14:45.679 --> 00:14:48.720 the head of human resources for the state's military 00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:52.179 forces. They track who is drafted, who is deployed, 00:14:52.299 --> 00:14:54.690 who is injured. And how badly did he mess it 00:14:54.690 --> 00:14:56.789 up? Well, General Colby was so overwhelmed by 00:14:56.789 --> 00:14:58.990 the sheer scale of the Civil War that he basically 00:14:58.990 --> 00:15:01.370 stopped keeping records. There was no accurate 00:15:01.370 --> 00:15:04.190 information on draftees, missing personnel files 00:15:04.190 --> 00:15:05.970 everywhere. It was a bureaucratic nightmare. 00:15:06.090 --> 00:15:08.750 Which means when the war ends, widows and orphans 00:15:08.750 --> 00:15:11.450 trying to claim their incredibly necessary military 00:15:11.450 --> 00:15:14.450 pensions have no proof their husbands or fathers 00:15:14.450 --> 00:15:17.490 ever served or died. Exactly. The system broke 00:15:17.490 --> 00:15:20.549 down entirely. It took a new official. Nathaniel 00:15:20.549 --> 00:15:23.070 Head, who had to secure a massive emergency budget 00:15:23.070 --> 00:15:26.669 to hire a team to literally reconstruct the missing 00:15:26.669 --> 00:15:29.210 paperwork from scratch. Just so devastated families 00:15:29.210 --> 00:15:31.129 could actually get the post -war payments they 00:15:31.129 --> 00:15:35.049 needed to survive. Right. It is a sobering reminder 00:15:35.049 --> 00:15:37.830 that the reality of war is not just battlefield 00:15:37.830 --> 00:15:41.450 tactics. It's the immense bureaucratic and human 00:15:41.450 --> 00:15:43.950 aftermath. And those staggering losses of young 00:15:43.950 --> 00:15:46.490 men forced New Hampshire into yet another era 00:15:46.490 --> 00:15:49.429 of desperate reinvention to keep their economy 00:15:49.429 --> 00:15:51.929 going, to keep those massive textile mills in 00:15:51.929 --> 00:15:54.909 Manchester running. They had to rely on the exact 00:15:54.909 --> 00:15:57.370 same immigrant labor that nativists had just 00:15:57.370 --> 00:16:00.230 spent decades trying to keep out. The late 19th 00:16:00.230 --> 00:16:03.149 and early 20th centuries saw an unprecedented 00:16:03.149 --> 00:16:06.149 wave of immigration to fill that labor vacuum. 00:16:06.759 --> 00:16:08.860 French Canadians flooded south into the state. 00:16:09.100 --> 00:16:11.299 At one point, they made up 25 percent of Manchester's 00:16:11.299 --> 00:16:13.860 entire population. Wow, 25 percent. Yeah, and 00:16:13.860 --> 00:16:15.919 Polish immigrants and other European groups arrived 00:16:15.919 --> 00:16:18.240 in large numbers as well, completely redefining 00:16:18.240 --> 00:16:20.620 the cultural makeup of the mill towns. Amidst 00:16:20.620 --> 00:16:23.360 all this heavy industrialization, there is this 00:16:23.360 --> 00:16:26.000 wonderful, quiet detail in the text about an 00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:28.940 Abenaki chief named Joseph Laurel. While the 00:16:28.940 --> 00:16:31.059 mills are pumping out smoke and the demographics 00:16:31.059 --> 00:16:33.799 are completely flipping, he immigrates south 00:16:33.799 --> 00:16:36.080 from Quebec. Mm -hmm. He sets up a trading post 00:16:36.080 --> 00:16:38.279 in New Hampshire. Right. And he writes an English 00:16:38.279 --> 00:16:41.740 Abenaki dictionary. He is actively working to 00:16:41.740 --> 00:16:44.159 preserve the language and culture that had been 00:16:44.159 --> 00:16:47.360 native to that specific land for 12 ,000 years, 00:16:47.620 --> 00:16:50.279 right as the modern era threatens to pave over 00:16:50.279 --> 00:16:53.519 it entirely. It acts as a vital cultural anchor 00:16:53.519 --> 00:16:56.720 in a sea of rapid, almost violent industrial 00:16:56.720 --> 00:17:00.159 change. But as history shows us, that industrial 00:17:00.159 --> 00:17:03.580 era dominated by the massive brick textile mills, 00:17:03.720 --> 00:17:05.619 couldn't last forever either. And that brings 00:17:05.619 --> 00:17:09.259 us to the devastating collapse. In 1935, right 00:17:09.259 --> 00:17:11.299 in the deep trough of the Great Depression, the 00:17:11.299 --> 00:17:13.599 Amesig Mills in Manchester, which was once the 00:17:13.599 --> 00:17:16.420 largest textile plant in the world, closed down 00:17:16.420 --> 00:17:18.900 entirely. A massive blow to the region. Yeah, 00:17:18.900 --> 00:17:21.359 and later the massive Brown Company paper mill 00:17:21.359 --> 00:17:23.960 up north in Berlin went bankrupt too. So what 00:17:23.960 --> 00:17:25.920 does this all mean? I want you listening to really 00:17:25.920 --> 00:17:29.000 imagine that. Imagine the absolute largest employer 00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:31.339 in your entire reviews, the singular engine of 00:17:31.339 --> 00:17:33.680 your city's economy just vanishing overnight. 00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:36.500 How does a state possibly recover when its heart 00:17:36.500 --> 00:17:38.740 stops beating? Well, if you look at the historical 00:17:38.740 --> 00:17:41.720 record, it reveals that New Hampshire's ultimate 00:17:41.720 --> 00:17:45.059 superpower isn't its timber or its rivers or 00:17:45.059 --> 00:17:48.099 its natural resources. Its superpower is its 00:17:48.099 --> 00:17:50.960 adaptability. When the textile industry died, 00:17:51.339 --> 00:17:53.099 they didn't just abandon the massive brick cities 00:17:53.099 --> 00:17:56.059 they had built. Instead, from the 1950s through 00:17:56.059 --> 00:17:59.960 the 1970s, they looked at what they had. Specifically, 00:18:00.480 --> 00:18:03.059 millions of square feet of empty, heavy -duty 00:18:03.059 --> 00:18:06.339 factory space and their geographical proximity 00:18:06.339 --> 00:18:09.509 to Boston. So they basically used geography as 00:18:09.509 --> 00:18:12.230 destiny again. Precisely. They recognized that 00:18:12.230 --> 00:18:14.609 those 19th century brick mills with their thick 00:18:14.609 --> 00:18:16.769 load -bearing floors originally built for heavy 00:18:16.769 --> 00:18:19.690 textile looms were structurally perfect for the 00:18:19.690 --> 00:18:22.170 heavy machinery required by mid -20th century 00:18:22.170 --> 00:18:24.950 defense electronics. Ah, so defense contractors 00:18:24.950 --> 00:18:27.349 like Sanders Associates moved into the old mill 00:18:27.349 --> 00:18:30.529 spaces in Nashua. Exactly. Then, as technology 00:18:30.529 --> 00:18:32.890 advanced, came the mini computer boom with companies 00:18:32.890 --> 00:18:35.980 like Digital Equipment Corporation. They essentially 00:18:35.980 --> 00:18:38.240 transformed the rotting ashes of the textile 00:18:38.240 --> 00:18:41.420 industry into a vital, high -tech adjunct of 00:18:41.420 --> 00:18:44.779 Boston's Route 128 tech corridor. So, tracing 00:18:44.779 --> 00:18:47.220 this whole journey, we have literally gone from 00:18:47.220 --> 00:18:50.400 a piece of unmapped wilderness named by a British 00:18:50.400 --> 00:18:53.160 guy who never bothered to log in and visit, to 00:18:53.160 --> 00:18:56.819 a hotbed of stolen gunpowder, to a rogue micronation 00:18:56.819 --> 00:19:00.240 up by Canada, to the textile capital of the globe, 00:19:00.279 --> 00:19:04.339 and finally into a modern biotech mini -computer. 00:19:04.329 --> 00:19:07.869 and political primary powerhouse. It is a wildly 00:19:07.869 --> 00:19:10.049 chaotic ride that never seems to settle down. 00:19:10.289 --> 00:19:12.470 Yeah, it really doesn't. It truly hasn't settled 00:19:12.470 --> 00:19:15.250 yet. And looking at all this history leaves us 00:19:15.250 --> 00:19:17.509 with something really compelling to think about. 00:19:17.609 --> 00:19:20.390 Given that New Hampshire's borders, its economy, 00:19:20.509 --> 00:19:22.509 and its demographics have been in a relentless, 00:19:22.849 --> 00:19:25.630 unforgiving state of flux for 400 years, what 00:19:25.630 --> 00:19:27.289 will this first -in -the -nation state look like 00:19:27.289 --> 00:19:29.210 in the next century? Especially as the current 00:19:29.210 --> 00:19:32.150 rise of remote work and digital nomadism continues 00:19:32.150 --> 00:19:34.309 to completely reshape the economic landscape 00:19:34.309 --> 00:19:36.789 of New England all over again. It's a fantastic 00:19:36.789 --> 00:19:39.109 question to leave off on. Will they have to build 00:19:39.109 --> 00:19:41.630 another micronation in the woods or just adapt 00:19:41.630 --> 00:19:44.430 their old mills into server farms for artificial 00:19:44.430 --> 00:19:46.210 intelligence? I guess we will have to wait and 00:19:46.210 --> 00:19:48.539 see. But learning all this definitely changes 00:19:48.539 --> 00:19:51.480 how you look at those postcard perfect, serene, 00:19:51.619 --> 00:19:54.099 snowy forests, doesn't it? Because just beneath 00:19:54.099 --> 00:19:56.579 the pine needles, there is a whole lot of messy, 00:19:57.000 --> 00:19:59.079 fiercely independent, and fascinating history. 00:19:59.640 --> 00:20:01.240 Thanks so much for joining us as we unpacked 00:20:01.240 --> 00:20:03.640 it all on this deep dive. We'll catch you next 00:20:03.640 --> 00:20:03.880 time.