Digital Marketing Services In Your Area Of Durham NH

Durham sits beside Great Bay at the mouth of the Oyster River, an ideal location for people who lived close to the land, like the Western Abenaki and their ancestors who’ve lived in the region for an estimated 11,000 years. The Shankhassick (now Oyster) River provided shellfish and access to the north woods for hunting and trapping; the sea provided food and access to long-established trade routes between tribes both north and south; and the open meadows provided land easy to cultivate for crops. Wecannecohunt (or Wecohamet), as the settlement was known until English settlers arrived, proved immediately attractive to them, too.

Oyster River was part of Dover throughout its first century. The Plantation was granted rights as an independent parish in 1716 and incorporated as a township in 1732 when it was renamed Durham. Rev. Hugh Adams claimed to have proposed the name “Durham” in an address to the General Assembly in 1738. Two of the earliest settlers of Dover were William and Edward Hilton, the direct descendants of Sir William de Hilton, Lord of Hilton Castle in County Durham, England, but there is nothing to prove that Durham was named in their honor.

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