Province of New Hampshire

The Province of New Hampshire was an English colony and later a British province in New England, occupying the territory between the Merrimack and Piscataqua rivers on the eastern coast of North America. It was named after the English county of Hampshire by Captain John Mason, its first named proprietor, in 1629. English settlement along the coast, the Piscataqua River and Great Bay began in the 1620s, and the province long consisted of a small number of coastal communities. In 1641 these communities were placed under the government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Charles II granted a separate royal charter in 1679 and appointed John Cutt as president. After a brief absorption into the Dominion of New England in 1686, New Hampshire was separated from Massachusetts again in 1691 and organized as a crown colony under a charter enacted in 1692. Portsmouth served as its capital. The province's governor was often also governor of Massachusetts, and its economy was dominated by timber and fishing. In 1776 New Hampshire established an independent state government and joined the other colonies in forming the United States.