You know, when you picture the modern state of
New Hampshire, there is like a very specific
image that probably comes to mind. Right. The
whole cinematic postcard perfect version of New
England. Exactly. You likely picture quiet, snow
dusted forests or maybe prestigious boarding
schools with ivy crawling up the brick. and very
polite people queuing up in town halls for those
early political primaries. Yeah, it all feels
so, I don't know, organized. It really does.
It projects this aura of stability that suggests,
well, that it's just always been that way. But
today we are taking a deep dive into a comprehensive
Wikipedia article on the history of New Hampshire
and the history laid out in these sources. Honestly,
it shatters that postcard completely. Oh, absolutely.
We're definitely not talking about a quiet or
subtle timeline here. No, not at all. We are
talking about a history where furious locals
literally hitched teams of oxen to an integrated
school just to drag the entire building into
a swamp. Yeah, or stolen British gunpowder and
completely absentee landlords. Right. And panicked
border towns declaring themselves independent
micronations, not to mention some absolutely
radical economic reinventions. It is really a
phenomenal case study in survival through sheer
stubbornness. The primary sources reveal a place
that has been in an almost constant, violently
contested state of flux. And our mission today
for you listening is to uncover exactly how this
relatively small piece of New England managed
to forge its fiercely independent identity out
of all. that chaos. Yeah, tracing it through
400 years of border wars, deep social contradictions,
and total economic collapse. OK, let's unpack
this starting from the very beginning. Or I guess
the fact that the English colonization was incredibly
late to the game. Well, that is a vital context
to establish, because long before European monarchs
started carving up maps, various Algonquian -speaking
Abenaki tribes lived in this specific area for
a staggering 12 ,000 years. 12 ,000. That is
a massive amount of time. It really is. Yeah.
And the source text makes a point to note that
despite sharing a broader language family with
other Algonquian peoples across the northeast,
the Abenaki here maintained a distinctly different
culture. Like different how? Mostly in their
lifestyle and religious practices, which were
perfectly adapted to the harsh northern environment.
Right. So you have 12 ,000 years of deeply rooted
history and then the 1620s roll around and suddenly
Guys in London are just drawing arbitrary lines
across a continent they have never even seen.
Yeah, which brings us to Captain John Mason.
Yes, this guy. So in 1629, he and a partner named
Sir Ferdinando Gorgeous, they decided to split
their massive land grant right down the middle
of the Piscataqua River. Mason takes the western
half. And he names it New Hampshire after his
home, the English county of Hampshire. A county
which, as a fun historical footnote, was actually
itself named after the Port of Southampton. Oh,
I love that. But here is the detail that absolutely
gets me. John Mason, the man who essentially
founded, funded, and named the colony, he died
in 1635 without ever once setting foot in it.
Not a single visit. Never. It is like a guy buying
prime virtual real estate site unseen on the
internet, bragging about it to all his friends,
and then dying before he even botched to create
a login. That is a remarkably accurate analogy,
honestly. And what's fascinating here is the
real -world impact of that on the ground. Because
Mason died, his heirs essentially abandoned this
unprofitable freezing colony. So the people actually
living there were just left hanging. Exactly.
Places like early Strawberry Bank, which later
became Portsmouth, they were entirely left to
fend for themselves. No governor dropping by,
no royal troops and really no centralized economy.
So they are just out in the woods trying not
to freeze while all their neighboring colonies
decide to start claiming their land. Because
suddenly Massachusetts is trying to absorb them
from the south, right? Yes. And New York is claiming
territory all the way over to their west. Why
was everyone trying to get New Hampshire? It
all comes down to vague royal charters and valuable
resources. Massachusetts had a charter that said
their border extended three miles north of the
Merrimack River. Right, but the river bends sharply.
Exactly. So Massachusetts interpreted that to
mean they own everything up to central New Hampshire.
Meanwhile, New York and New Hampshire were fiercely
contesting the western lands over timber and
farming rights. Right. The New Hampshire Grants
dispute, which eventually got so heated the locals
just broke off entirely and formed Vermont. Yeah.
And even the eastern border with Massachusetts,
which later became Maine, was a total mess. Yeah.
The text mentions the King of England literally
had to send royal surveyors into the wilderness
to figure it out. And the way those surveyors
solved it is just a fascinating piece of geographical
history. When King George II sent them in the
1740s, they intentionally extended the line two
degrees west of due north. Wait, how does drawing
a line west fix a map that is supposed to be
going straight north? Well, it was to account
for the curvature of the earth. Oh, wow. Did
18th century guys tramping through a colonial
forest even have the tools to measure something
like that? Surprisingly, yes. They used complex
celestial navigation and remarkably precise surveying
chains. If you draw a straight line on a flat
piece of paper, it works. But if you walk a straight
compass line north on a globe, the lines of longitude
eventually converge at the pole. Oh, so they
had to mathematically angle the border to maintain
the intended width of the land grant over a curved
surface. Exactly. That is wild. They are doing
advanced planetary geometry just to figure out
who gets to tax a specific pine tree. Yeah, pretty
much. But if you zoom out, you can really see
how this environment shapes the people. Like
if you are constantly having to defend your town
from Massachusetts, arguing with New York and
managing your own affairs because your founder
never showed up, you're going to get really good
at resisting outside control. Precisely. That
geographical chaos incubated a fierce, almost
uncompromising culture of home rule. The early
New Hampshireites were conditioned over generations
to be deeply skeptical of distant authorities.
Mainly because those authorities had proven to
be totally incompetent at managing the frontier.
Exactly. Which perfectly primes this colony to
be the absolute tip of the spear against the
biggest, most overbearing distant authority of
them all, the British Empire. So in December
1774, locals in Portsmouth get a warning from
Paul Revere. Right, months before the famous
shots at Lexington and Concord. Exactly. And
over two nights, this massive group of rebels
rose out to Fort William and Mary in the harbor,
overwhelms the British guards, and just steals
a massive cache of royal gunpowder. It was an
act of open treason. And the historical accounts
indicate that very same stolen gunpowder was
later carted off and used against the British.
at the Battle of Bunker Hill. They didn't even
have an army yet. They just hid British explosives
under their floorboards until a war officially
started. Yeah, it was incredibly brazen. And
then jump to January 1776, New Hampshire becomes
the very first colony to set up an independent
government and draft its own constitution. Although
if you look at the text, they did awkwardly include
a line saying they never sought to throw off
their dependence on Great Britain. Yeah, that
wording is so funny. Like, we are independent,
but not too independent. It was a wildly bold
move to draft a constitution, but they were definitely
hedging their bets in case the revolution failed.
They wanted to legal loophole to avoid the hangman's
noose. Still, they are projecting this incredible
rebellious younger sibling energy, stealing the
empire's gunpowder and the glorious name of liberty.
Right. But here is where it gets really interesting.
Because the source material doesn't let us just
enjoy that triumphant narrative. It forces us
to look at a very dark contradiction playing
out in those exact same towns. You are referring
to the reality of slavery within the colony.
Exactly. While the colonists are drafting documents
about the inalienable rights of free men, there
is a 1714 curfew act on their own books, specifically
targeting Indian, Negro, and mulatto servants
and slaves. Making it a crime for them to be
out after nine o 'clock. Right. And even more
strikingly, in 1779, right in the thick of the
Revolutionary War, 20 enslaved people in Portsmouth
submitted a brilliantly written petition to the
state for their freedom. Historians often refer
to individuals like those 20 petitioners as the
revolutionary generation of enslaved people.
They were politically astute. They read the room.
and use the exact same philosophical language
of liberty and natural rights that the white
colonists were currently using to justify their
war against the British. And the response from
the New Hampshire legislature? Silence. They
just ignored it. They didn't officially eliminate
slavery in the state until 1857. Yeah. If we
connect this to the bigger picture. it challenges
a very persistent regional bias. How so? Well,
there's a tendency to view the colonial north
as entirely divorced from the institution of
slavery, treating it strictly as a southern issue.
But the text impartially breaks down how deeply
the northern economy was inextricably linked
to the Atlantic slave trade. Right, like how
New Hampshire was one of the few colonies that
didn't impose a tariff on imported enslaved people.
Precisely. It functioned as a massive tax -free
smuggling base. Traders would import enslaved
people into Portsmouth and then illegally smuggle
them across the border into Massachusetts to
avoid paying those local tariffs. Wow, so it
was purely economic. Very much so. And the economic
complicity evolved even as the local enslaved
population dwindled in the 19th century. New
Hampshire's economy transitioned into booming
textile mills, which were entirely reliant on
slave -produced cotton. Oh, right. The sources
even document a ship named the Nightingale. outfitted
right in Portsmouth, that was captured functioning
as an illegal slave ship as late as 1861. As
late as 1861. That is a profound structural hypocrisy.
And that fundamental tension, this violent struggle
over who actually gets to experience freedom
and belong in New Hampshire. It didn't just magically
resolve after the Revolutionary War. No, not
at all. It bled directly into the 1800s and exploded
into some truly bizarre political movements and
actual local rebellions. Let's look at how far
they were willing to push it with the Republic
of Indian Stream. Ah yes, in 1832, up on the
northern border with Canada. The international
boundary was still so poorly defined by the Treaty
of Paris that locals were getting taxed by both
the U .S. and Canada. And neither country would
provide them with basic services. So out of cure
frustration, they just declared themselves their
own independent sovereign nation. They drafted
a constitution, formed a government, and operated
as a micronation for three years until New Hampshire
finally sent in the militia to annex them. It
is that fierce home rule conditioning again,
taken to its absolute logical extreme. If the
distant authority cannot fix your problem, you
become your own authority. But that same impulse
to take matters into their own hands had horrifying
consequences when it came to social change. Let's
go back to that hook about the school. The Noise
Academy in 1835. Right. Abolitionists opened
this integrated school in Canaan, welcoming both
black and white students. And the rural white
opponents were so outraged, they didn't just
protest. They brought in nearly a hundred yoke
of oxen, physically hitched the animals to the
foundation, and dragged the entire building into
a swamp. Think about the sheer logistical coordination
required for that. It was a stark, undeniable
illustration of the deep, visceral, and often
violent resistance to racial integration. the
rural month. It wasn't just passive disagreement.
No, it was community -organized destruction.
And all of that social anxiety seemed to culminate
in perhaps the most confusing political movement
in the text, the Know Nothing Party. Right, in
1855. Yeah, this secretive, nativist movement
completely swept the state elections. They won
full control of the legislature. But their actual
agenda is baffling. Let me get this straight,
because I want to make sure I'm reading this
right for you listening. It is one of the most
fascinating mixed bags of policy in American
history. OK, so they were hardcore anti -immigrant
zealots, terrified of Irish Catholics coming
to work in the mills. So they successfully extended
the waiting period for citizenship and banned
liquor. Right. Typical nativist policies. But
in the very same legislative session, they vastly
increased state spending on public high schools,
aggressively reformed the tax system, fought
against corporate monopolies, and actively opposed
the expansion of slavery in the West. Wait. They
were anti -immigrant zealots, but they also expanded
public schools and fought corporate monopolies.
It sounds like a political platform built by
a random word generator. It really does sound
contradictory, but this raises an important question
about how communities react when their demographics
and economies change overnight. The text points
out that the Know Nothings were battling traditionalism
while simultaneously promoting rapid modernization.
The economy was moving from family farms to massive
industrial corporations, and people felt completely
out of control. This party was a panicked attempt
to control the social fabric. Exactly. They wanted
to lock out the new immigrants they feared, but
they also recognized they needed modern infrastructure,
better schools, and fairer taxes to survive the
industrial age themselves. It's the ultimate
defensive crouch. But all of that intense local
political maneuvering was about to be completely
eclipsed by the massive, devastating human cost
of the Civil War. New Hampshire answered the
call heavily. sending over 31 ,000 troops to
the Union Army. And the source specifically highlights
the Fighting 5th Regiment led by Colonel Edward
Ephraim Cross. You read the statistics and they
are chilling. They suffered the highest number
of battle -related deaths of any infantry regiment
in the entire Union Army. Yes. Across all the
state's forces, they saw a 20 % overall casualty
rate from combat, accidents, and disease. Pause
for a second and imagine the impact of a 20 %
casualty rate on these small tight -knit rural
towns. Every single family, every street, would
have been touched by profound grief. The economic
and emotional toll on the local population was
unimaginable. And to compound that tragedy, the
state government was completely unprepared for
the administrative reality of a modern industrialized
war. The text talks about the adjutant general
at the time, a guy named Colby. Right. For context,
think of the adjutant general as essentially
the head of human resources for the state's military
forces. They track who is drafted, who is deployed,
who is injured. And how badly did he mess it
up? Well, General Colby was so overwhelmed by
the sheer scale of the Civil War that he basically
stopped keeping records. There was no accurate
information on draftees, missing personnel files
everywhere. It was a bureaucratic nightmare.
Which means when the war ends, widows and orphans
trying to claim their incredibly necessary military
pensions have no proof their husbands or fathers
ever served or died. Exactly. The system broke
down entirely. It took a new official. Nathaniel
Head, who had to secure a massive emergency budget
to hire a team to literally reconstruct the missing
paperwork from scratch. Just so devastated families
could actually get the post -war payments they
needed to survive. Right. It is a sobering reminder
that the reality of war is not just battlefield
tactics. It's the immense bureaucratic and human
aftermath. And those staggering losses of young
men forced New Hampshire into yet another era
of desperate reinvention to keep their economy
going, to keep those massive textile mills in
Manchester running. They had to rely on the exact
same immigrant labor that nativists had just
spent decades trying to keep out. The late 19th
and early 20th centuries saw an unprecedented
wave of immigration to fill that labor vacuum.
French Canadians flooded south into the state.
At one point, they made up 25 percent of Manchester's
entire population. Wow, 25 percent. Yeah, and
Polish immigrants and other European groups arrived
in large numbers as well, completely redefining
the cultural makeup of the mill towns. Amidst
all this heavy industrialization, there is this
wonderful, quiet detail in the text about an
Abenaki chief named Joseph Laurel. While the
mills are pumping out smoke and the demographics
are completely flipping, he immigrates south
from Quebec. Mm -hmm. He sets up a trading post
in New Hampshire. Right. And he writes an English
Abenaki dictionary. He is actively working to
preserve the language and culture that had been
native to that specific land for 12 ,000 years,
right as the modern era threatens to pave over
it entirely. It acts as a vital cultural anchor
in a sea of rapid, almost violent industrial
change. But as history shows us, that industrial
era dominated by the massive brick textile mills,
couldn't last forever either. And that brings
us to the devastating collapse. In 1935, right
in the deep trough of the Great Depression, the
Amesig Mills in Manchester, which was once the
largest textile plant in the world, closed down
entirely. A massive blow to the region. Yeah,
and later the massive Brown Company paper mill
up north in Berlin went bankrupt too. So what
does this all mean? I want you listening to really
imagine that. Imagine the absolute largest employer
in your entire reviews, the singular engine of
your city's economy just vanishing overnight.
How does a state possibly recover when its heart
stops beating? Well, if you look at the historical
record, it reveals that New Hampshire's ultimate
superpower isn't its timber or its rivers or
its natural resources. Its superpower is its
adaptability. When the textile industry died,
they didn't just abandon the massive brick cities
they had built. Instead, from the 1950s through
the 1970s, they looked at what they had. Specifically,
millions of square feet of empty, heavy -duty
factory space and their geographical proximity
to Boston. So they basically used geography as
destiny again. Precisely. They recognized that
those 19th century brick mills with their thick
load -bearing floors originally built for heavy
textile looms were structurally perfect for the
heavy machinery required by mid -20th century
defense electronics. Ah, so defense contractors
like Sanders Associates moved into the old mill
spaces in Nashua. Exactly. Then, as technology
advanced, came the mini computer boom with companies
like Digital Equipment Corporation. They essentially
transformed the rotting ashes of the textile
industry into a vital, high -tech adjunct of
Boston's Route 128 tech corridor. So, tracing
this whole journey, we have literally gone from
a piece of unmapped wilderness named by a British
guy who never bothered to log in and visit, to
a hotbed of stolen gunpowder, to a rogue micronation
up by Canada, to the textile capital of the globe,
and finally into a modern biotech mini -computer.
and political primary powerhouse. It is a wildly
chaotic ride that never seems to settle down.
Yeah, it really doesn't. It truly hasn't settled
yet. And looking at all this history leaves us
with something really compelling to think about.
Given that New Hampshire's borders, its economy,
and its demographics have been in a relentless,
unforgiving state of flux for 400 years, what
will this first -in -the -nation state look like
in the next century? Especially as the current
rise of remote work and digital nomadism continues
to completely reshape the economic landscape
of New England all over again. It's a fantastic
question to leave off on. Will they have to build
another micronation in the woods or just adapt
their old mills into server farms for artificial
intelligence? I guess we will have to wait and
see. But learning all this definitely changes
how you look at those postcard perfect, serene,
snowy forests, doesn't it? Because just beneath
the pine needles, there is a whole lot of messy,
fiercely independent, and fascinating history.
Thanks so much for joining us as we unpacked
it all on this deep dive. We'll catch you next
time.