Why Was Colonial New Hampshire Founded? A 1629 Guide
The colony of New Hampshire was founded because of a 1629 land grant from the Council for New England to John Mason and Ferdinando Gorges, who split their joint territory so that Mason could pursue commercial profits from fishing, fur, and timber along the Piscataqua River. It began as a business venture, not a religious mission — though Puritan dissenters from Massachusetts Bay soon added a second wave of settlement, and boundary and governance disputes eventually pushed the region to become a separate royal colony by 1679.
Two English entrepreneurs, working through a land patent system run by the Council for New England, carved out the territory that became New Hampshire. Understanding that grant explains almost everything about the colony’s early character.
The 1629 Land Grant
The Council for New England was a joint-stock body chartered in 1620 to parcel out land in the region between present-day Maine and Massachusetts. In 1622 it issued a patent to John Mason, a naval captain and merchant, and Ferdinando Gorges, a soldier and colonial promoter, covering a stretch of coast they called “Laconia.”
The two men found the shared arrangement unworkable, and in 1629 they agreed to divide it. Gorges took the northern portion, which fed into Maine’s development, while Mason took the southern portion between the Merrimack and Piscataqua rivers. Mason named his share “New Hampshire” after Hampshire, the English county where he had served as a naval officer. That single 1629 partition is the legal founding act of the colony, and the New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources documents the region’s colonial settlement patterns that followed.
The grant’s purpose was explicitly economic. The Council for New England was not funding a religious refuge; it was issuing real estate to investors expected to return value. Mason received a defined tract, a title, and an incentive to develop it.
Mason’s Commercial Vision
Mason never lived permanently in New Hampshire, but he directed its early economy from England. His goals were practical and profit-driven, built on three natural resources the Piscataqua region offered in abundance: fishing, the fur trade with Indigenous peoples such as the Pennacook and Abenaki, and timber — especially white pines suited for ship masts, along with lumber, pitch, and tar for the English navy.
Mason financed settlements at Portsmouth and elsewhere along the Piscataqua, sending over fishermen, farmers, and craftsmen. The logic was simple: a cargo of dried cod sold in Europe could fund wages, supplies, and the next season’s voyage, while the same ship carried timber on the return. The colony existed, in Mason’s mind, to make that cycle profitable. He died in 1635, and his heirs struggled to enforce their claims against the settlers already living on the land. But his commercial blueprint — fishing villages, trading posts, and sawmills along the river — set the economic pattern New Hampshire followed for generations.
Religion and the Massachusetts Split
Commerce drew the first settlers, but religion drew a second and more permanent wave. During the 1630s, Massachusetts Bay enforced religious conformity, and colonists who disagreed with its Puritan leadership faced fines, banishment, or worse.
The clearest example is John Wheelwright, a Puritan minister banished from Massachusetts Bay in 1637 after a political and theological conflict with the colony’s magistrates. In 1638 he led followers north to establish the town of Exeter, on land outside Massachusetts’s jurisdiction. Other dissenters founded settlements such as Hampton and Dover, often without clear legal title to the land they occupied. This migration is well documented in the records preserved by the New Hampshire Historical Society.
These towns were not founded as a coordinated religious colony the way Plymouth or Massachusetts Bay were. They were pockets of dissenters and independent-minded settlers who wanted land and autonomy. That distinction matters: New Hampshire’s founding was commercial at the top and religiously motivated at the grassroots.
Royal Control by 1679
Because New Hampshire’s towns grew without a strong central government, they became a prize in a tug-of-war. Massachusetts Bay claimed authority over the settlements, while the Mason heirs and other proprietors claimed the land itself. Neither side could settle the matter locally.
In 1679, King Charles II issued a royal commission making New Hampshire a separate royal colony, with its own governor and council appointed by the Crown rather than by Massachusetts. The province kept that status, with interruptions, until the American Revolution. The Library of Congress holds records and maps documenting this period of colonial administration and boundary disputes.
The 1679 decision confirmed what the 1629 grant had begun: New Hampshire was never simply an extension of Massachusetts. It had its own proprietor, its own economy, and its own political identity — which is why its founding path differs from any other New England colony.
Key Takeaways
- New Hampshire was founded in 1629 when the Council for New England divided a joint land grant between John Mason and Ferdinando Gorges.
- Mason named his portion after the English county of Hampshire and intended it as a profit-making venture.
- The economy rested on fishing, the fur trade, and timber, especially white pines for ship masts.
- Religious dissenters, notably John Wheelwright, left Massachusetts Bay in the late 1630s and settled towns like Exeter.
- Disputes over land and authority led King Charles II to make New Hampshire a separate royal colony in 1679.
- The colony’s founding combined commercial ambition with religious migration, giving it a distinct path among the New England colonies.
