Colonel James Rogers of Londonderry, New Hampshire, received a royal grant and led the first settlers into an area called Kent between 1770 and 1772, renamed Londonderry in 1780. The population increased sharply from 1810 to 1830, as a farming and industrial base was built, but after the Civil War, the town went into decline. Mills were lost to floods and fires; farms were abandoned as the population declined. The railroad, chartered in 1867, was seen as the salvation for the area’s economic woes, but it was not so. Even today Londonderry is primarily an agricultural town, with only about 1700 inhabitants.
Read more »