North Conway
| North Conway | |
|---|---|
 Located in Carroll County, New Hampshire
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| Basic data | |
| State : | United States |
| State : | New Hampshire |
| County : | Carroll County |
| Coordinates : | 44 ° 3 ′ N , 71 ° 8 ′ W |
| Time zone : | Eastern ( UTC − 5 / −4 ) |
| Residents : | 2,349 (as of 2010) |
| FIPS : | 33-53860 |
| GNIS ID : | 2378085 |
| Website : | www.conwaynh.org |
North Conway is a place in eastern Carroll County , which is in the US state of New Hampshire . In 2010 it had 2,349 inhabitants. The town is the largest settlement in the Town of Conway , the eastern border of which extends to the state border of Maine . The place extends east of the Moat Mountains through the valley of the Saco about 3 km towards the Green Mountains. The White Mountain National Forest is west of North Conway.
history
In the 18th century there were 13 Abenaki tribes in New Hampshire , the Pequawket lived in the Saco Valley. However, they only did this in the summer while they spent the winter in Saint Francis, Canada. Hence, they came to be known as the Saint Franics Indians . In addition to fishing and hunting, they made a living from growing maize and built their settlement more than 10 m high above the river. The name Pequawket means 'coiled', which refers to the river. The majority of the Abenaki fell victim to smallpox or some other epidemic .
Darby Field was one of the first non-Indians to come to the area as hunters in 1642. He rowed up the Saco and found a vast village. Despite his attempts to recruit settlers, there was no establishment. An attempt to settle too close to the river sank in a flood in 1735. Seven houses and five barns were affected. Numerous animals also drowned.
Towards the end of the British colonial era, the governor gave the place to 64 interested parties. The place, which emerged from 1765, was named after Henry Seymour Conway , who came from an English family and who rose to become Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Secretary of State. He also supported the American independence movement. The earliest settlers knew the place as 'Pequawket', which has since been corrupted to Pigwacket. This name went back to the Abenaki village on the Saco River . The first settlers were Joshua Heath, Benjamin Dolloff, and Ebenezer Burbank; David Page and James Osgood already settled in East Conway . Colonel Andrew McMillan, who had received land in Lower Bartlett for his contributions to the Revolutionary War , sold it and bought new land in North Conway. His house became a focal point for new settlers, whom he was constantly recruiting, and so it soon became the first hotel. The settlers were each given 50 acres of which they had to have a tenth in use within five years. Each settler gave the community a small area for a cemetery and a community hall.
As in many places in North America, the settlers began to remove anything that bothered them in their new environment. This was done by offering rewards from 1767. They received $ 20 for every wolf's head and 23 cents for every crow. The settlers were told to kill as many animals as possible. In 1769 the first school in the area was established in East Conway, and in 1775 the first in North Conway. It was run by the Episcopal Church . In 1793 Conway had 574 inhabitants, making it the largest town in the hinterland.
When 15 men from Conway were involved in the fighting around Boston during the American uprising , the community asked for a protection force against Indian raids for the place near the border. In 1788 New Hampshire became the 9th US state, David Page was the first MP for Conway, but he, like 45 others, did not vote for the new constitution because he rejected the proposed continuation of slavery until 1808. In 1818 there was famine in the northeast after a very cold summer. During the Civil War, 66 men from Conway moved south, 7 of whom died and 2 went missing.
In the 19th century, artists moved to the White Mountains, and dropouts and tourists soon appeared there. The writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau , who bought a house in North Conway in 1853, should be mentioned here. It created its own art school, the White Mountain School of Art . This development was steered in a different direction by the expansion of the Portsmouth, Great Falls & Conway Railroad and North Conway in 1872. The first train station was built in 1874 and the number of tourists skyrocketed. They were soon drawn to winter pursuits such as skiing, but also to local culture. The chief of the Abenaki of Saint Francis on the other side of the Canadian border, Joseph Laurent (1839-1917), acquired an outbuilding of the railway and founded a gift shop with the products of the Abenaki. The group he led had crossed the Canadian border to return home. In addition to five houses, a wigwam and a totem pole were built in their settlement from 1884 . This was replaced in 1960 by a stake over 13 m high, which was made by Theophile Panadi. It was dismantled in 1982 for repairs.
By 1915, North Conway had a high school. John H. Fuller, after whom the Fuller School in North Conway is named, was the first Superintendent of Schools.
In 1961 the passenger traffic, which at that time was with the Boston and Maine Railroad , was set, in 1972 the goods traffic followed. However, the Conway Scenic Railroad still exists there today , and the station has been added to the National Register of Historic Places . In the late 1980s, White Mountain Airport was also closed; the so-called Settlers' Green Outlet Village is located there today . Since all traffic now had to be handled by roads, the New Hampshire Route 16 was initially extended by North Conway, but then a new road was built parallel to Route 16. A bypass is planned.
Since 1982, the town has had its own newspaper, The Conway Daily Sun.
literature
- Bob Cottrell: North Conway , Arcadia Publishing, 2012.
- Barbara Smat Lucy: A History of Conway, New Hampshire for Use in the Social Studies Program of the Fourth Grades in the Conway School District , University of New Hampshire, 1963. ( online , PDF)
Web links
- Local History , Conway Public Library
- The Conway Daily Sun , local newspaper