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 New Hampshire has an eighteen-mile coastline of beautiful beaches. On the fine harbor at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, the first colonists founded the city of Portsmouth, historically a center of maritime activity and culture. Inland, the countryside quickly becomes hilly, eventually rising to some of the highest mountains in the eastern United States, including the towering Mt. Washington at 6288 feet. |
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The State of New Hampshire
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Anglicans were among the first white settlers in the 1630s, and ours was the first colony to declare independence from England. The state constitution, older than the federal document, reflected the character of its citizens. The town emerged as the center of government and society, and important decisions about schools, pastoral leadership, taxes, and borders were made at the local level. Citizens spoke loudly and clearly, frequently expressing disagreement with those who governed from Concord or Washington. Rocky soil and changeable weather required diligence, patience, resourcefulness, and adaptability. The record of farming and rural life in New Hampshire produced few historical figures, yet there is little doubt that a small-town ethos still exists in the mind and mythology of our region. Fierce independence characterized the early New Hampshire settler and is expressed in our state motto: “Live Free or Die.” As the area became more populous, hill farms and farmers were pushed to the periphery, fishing and timber exports declined, and cities and manufacturing increased in importance. With its railroads and mills, Manchester (currently the state’s largest city) emerged as the representative nineteenth-century city rising from industrial development. Lumber and textile industries, the backbone of the state economy, were greatly aided by the growth and improvement of transportation. As modern means of travel brought visitors, tourism increased in the late nineteenth century, eventually becoming a major component of the state economy. The state’s unique geography and climate always attracted artists, writers, and poets. Creative colonies flowered in Cornish, Dublin, Peterborough, and various other places, and many well-known authors and painters came here at one time or another for aesthetic nourishment. Robert Frost captured the spirit of the state and its people as no one else: "The land was ours before we were the land's." His words evoke an appreciation that we have for the Granite State. |
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