Dover, NH

From Faces Of Dover

Dover is a city in Strafford County, New Hampshire, in the United States of America. The population was 26,884 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Strafford County, and home to the Woodman Institute Museum and the Children's Museum of New Hampshire.

Contents 1 Founding Fathers 2 History 2.1 Settlement 2.2 Incorporation 2.3 Cochecho Massacre 2.4 Millyard

Founding Fathers

The first known European to explore the area of Dover NH was Martin Pring, who sailed from Bristol, England in 1603 under patronage of the mayor, alderman and merchants. The Speedwell, his flagship of 60 tons with a crew of 30 men, was escorted by the Explorer, a bark of 26 tons with a crew of 13 men. As recorded in his writings under license by Sir Walter Raleigh, in June they arrived at the Piscataqua River, the westernmost and best river according to Pring.

History

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Settlement

According to Historian Jeremy Belknap, the area was called Wecohamet by native Abenaki Indians. The first known European to explore the region was Martin Pring from Bristol, England in 1603. Settled in 1623 as Hilton's Point by brothers William and Edward Hilton, Dover is the oldest permanent settlement in New Hampshire, and the seventh oldest in the United States. It is one of the colony's four original townships, and once included Durham, Madbury, Newington and Lee. It also included Somersworth and Rollinsford, together which Indians called Newichawannock after the Newichawannock River, now Salmon Falls River.

The Hiltons' name survives today at Hilton Park on Dover Point, located where they landed near the confluence of the Cochecho and Bellamy rivers with the Piscataqua. They had been sent from London by The Company of Laconia, which intended to establish a Colony and Fishery around the Piscataqua. In 1631, however, it contained only three houses.

In 1633, the Plantation of Cochecho was bought by a group of English Puritans who planned to settle in New England, including Viscount Saye and Sele, Baron Brooke and John Pym. They promoted colonization in America, and that year Hilton's Point would receive an infusion of pioneers, many from Bristol. It would also receive another name. While Captain Thomas Wiggin was agent for the proprietors, granting small lots to keep the settlement compact, it was called Bristol. Atop the nearby hill, the settlers built a meetinghouse, surrounded by an Entrenchment. To the east of it, they built a jail.

Incorporation

The town would be called Dover in 1637 by the new governor, Reverend George Burdett. With the arrival of Thomas Larkham in 1639, it would be renamed Northam, after Northam, England, where he had been Preacher. But Lord Saye and Sele's group lost interest in their settlements, both here and at Saybrook, Connecticut, when their intention to establish a hereditary Aristocracy in the colonies met with disfavor in New England. Consequently, in 1641, the plantation was sold to Massachusetts and again named Dover, possibly in honor of Robert Dover, an English Lawyer who resisted Puritanism.

Cochecho Massacre

Settlers felled the abundant trees to build log-houses called Garrisons. The town's population and business center would shift from Dover Point to Cochecho at the Falls, where the river's drop of 34 feet provided Water power for industry. Indeed, Cochecho means "the rapid foaming water." Major Richard Waldron settled here and built a Sawmill and Gristmill. On September 7, 1676, Waldron invited about 400 Indians to participate in a mock battle against the Militia. It was a trick; instead, he took them prisoner. He would free about 200 of them, but sent the remainder, whom he considered in some regard a threat, to Boston, where 7 or 8 were executed. The rest were sold into Slavery in "foreign parts." Richard Waldron would be appointed Chief Justice for New Hampshire in 1683.

Thirteen years passed, and it was assumed that the incident had been forgotten. But then Squaws began dropping ambiguous hints that something was astir. When citizens spoke their concern to Waldron, he told them to "go and plant your Pumpkins, and he would take care of the Indians." On June 27, 1689, two Indian women appeared at each of 5 garrison houses, asking permission to sleep by the fire. All but one house accepted. In the dark early hours of the next day, the women unfastened the doors, and in rushed Indian men who had concealed themselves about the town. Waldron resisted but was stunned with a hatchet, then placed on his table. After dining, the Indians cut him across the belly with knives, each saying "I cross out my account." Major Waldron was slain with his own sword. Five or six dwelling houses were burned, along with the mills. Fifty-two colonists, a full quarter of the entire population, were captured or slain in the Cochecho Massacre of June 28, 1689.

Millyard

Located at the head of Navigation, the falls of the Cochecho River helped bring the Industrial Revolution to 19th century Dover in a big way. The Dover Cotton Factory was incorporated in 1812, then enlarged in 1823 to become the Dover Manufacturing Company. In 1827, the Cocheco Manufacturing Company was founded (the misspelling a clerical error at incorporation), and in 1829 purchased the Dover Manufacturing Company. Expansive brick mill buildings, linked by Railroad, were constructed downtown. Incorporated as a city in 1855, Dover was for a time a national leader in Textiles. The mills were purchased in 1909 by the Pacific Mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts, which closed the printery in 1913 but continued spinning and Weaving. During the Great Depression, however, textile mills no longer dependent on New England water power began moving to Southern states in search of cheaper operating conditions, or simply went out of business. Dover's millyard shut down in 1937, and was bought at auction in 1940 by the city itself for $54,000. There were no other bids.