Page 136 - Curriculum Visions Dynamic Book

New Hampshire
Concord, the capital city of New Hampshire
Founded 1725 Incorporated 1734 Elevation 288 ft (88 m) Population 42,695
The area that would become Concord
was originally home to the Abenaki Native Americans called the Pennacook. They lived beside the Merrimack River, which they used as a source of fish. Their main means of transportation through the heavily wooded land was by birch bark canoes. They also cleared the forest by the river and used the floodplain to grow beans, gourds, pumpkins, melons and maize.
The first Europeans to come to this area were Captain Ebenezer Eastman and his party. They came from Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1725 and set up the Plantation of Penacook
at what is now the site of Concord on a
low river terrace to the west of the river. It
was renamed Concord in 1765 by Governor Benning Wentworth to mean harmony, following a dispute over the boundary between neighboring settlements. In 1779, New Penacook Plantation was granted to Timothy Walker, Jr. and his associates.
Concord still contains houses built in the
136
First Concord Bridge, 1795.