250 and Counting

Category: New Hampshire History

  • August 22, 1775: HMS Scarborough Leaves Portsmouth

    Cover art for August 22, 1775: the HMS Scarborough

    Things were heating up all over, but it was still especially prevalent in the northeast. This time around, problems are cropping up in New Hampshire.

    The HMS Scarborough was designated to keep the peace by patrolling the mouth of the Piscataqua River, but when relations broke down between the British and the colonists there (and with good reason), when the ship ran out of supplies they had to re-locate. So naturally they headed to…um, Boston.

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  • May 22, 1775: New Hampshire Gets Into the Act

    Cover art for May 22, 1775: "Private of the 2nd New Hampshire Continental Infantry" by Charles M. Lefferts, 1910.

    Up until now, New Hampshire has been rather quiet when it came to resisting British rule. But today was the day that “Live Free or Die” was more than a motto for their license plates, which had yet to be invented.

    New Hampshire already had militias, of course, but they had a much broader range of available men from whom to choose. In addition, they organized themselves into a tight fighting force quicker than anyone imagined they would.

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