New Hampshire History II Trivia Quiz

Answer: Winchester

Founded in 1733, Winchester was named either Earlington or Arlington by Massachusetts colonial Governor Jonathan Belcher for Charles Fitzroy, the 2nd Duke of Grafton and the 3rd Earl of Arlington. The town would become a part of New Hampshire in 1741 and New Hampshire colonial Governor Benning Wentworth would rename the town for Charles Paulet 3rd Duke of Bolton and 8th Marquess of Winchester when the town was incorporated in 1753. Paulet served as Constable at the Tower of London from 1725 to 1726.

Answer: Hinsdale

In 1815 Nathan Babbitt became Hinsdale's first postmaster. Babbitt constructed the two story clapboard building the Hinsdale Post Office operates out of today on what is today the town's main street. The post office first opened in 1816. In its early years the building served as a general store with the post office operating out of one corner of the building. Over time the post office grew to incorporate the entire ground floor of the building.

The Hinsdale Post Office was one of the first in the nation to have a female postmaster. In 1885 Adelia Barrows began assisting her father, who was the postmaster at the time. Three years later after his death she succeeded him as postmaster, being so appointed by the federal government. Barrows would serve as Hinsdale's postmaster for thirty-seven years. During her time as postmaster the Hinsdale Post Office would survive the 1900 that destroyed the old town hall located next to the post office. It also survived a couple of robbery attempts which involved blowing up the safe inside, the first in 1899 and the second ten years later in 1909.

In August 2016 the Hinsdale Post Office celebrated its 200th birthday. It has continuously been operating in the same spot since it opened. It's even been a clue on Jeopardy! in 2021.

Answer: Alan Shepard

In 1963 Shepard began to experience extreme bouts of dizziness and nausea along with a clanging noise in his left ear. At first he tried to hide this as he, rightfully, feared it would have his flight status in the Gemini program pulled. At the time Shepard was slated to be the commander on Gemini III. But eventually he was forced to confess to fellow Mercury astronaut, and by then NASA's Director of Flight Operations, Deke Slayton what was happening. Shepard was forced to see NASA doctors who diagnosed him as having Ménière's disease, a condition which causes fluid to build up in the inner ear and to result in dizziness, disorientation, and nausea. Shepard was also diagnosed with glaucoma and a lump on his thyroid. Although Shepard had surgery to remove 20% of his thyroid in 1964, his Ménière's disease would have him pulled from flight status.

Then in 1968 astronaut Thomas Stafford, the man who was supposed to have been his pilot on the Gemini III, approached Shepard and told him of a Dr. William F. House, an otologist, who had developed a cure for Ménière's disease. After meeting with Dr. House, Shepard checked into L.A.'s St. Vincent's Hospital in early 1969 under the alias Victor Poulos to undergo a successful surgery. This would lead to his flight status being restored May 7, 1969 and him being named commander of Apollo 14.

Answer: Lake Winnipesaukee

Lovewell's first raid to the Winnipesaukee area began in December 1824 when he and his thirty man militia company left Dunstable (a former very large town in New Hampshire which would eventually be divided into a number of smaller towns including the present-day towns of Hollis, Litchfield, Merrimack, Hudson, and the city of Nashua). On December 10th they would kill two Abenakis.

The second raid began in February. On February 20th his men killed ten natives at the head of the Salmon River in present-day Wakefield.

Answer: Fort Constitution

Originally built in 1631 as an earthen redoubt, the fort came to simply be known as the Castle until 1692 when it was named Fort William and Mary. On the night of December 14, 1774 several hundred men from Portsmouth under the command of John Langdon raided the fort, forcing the surrender of Captain John Cochran and his five man garrison along with a hundred barrels of gunpowder. The following night a force of similar size under John Sullivan and Alexander Scammell again raided the fort, this time carrying off muskets, supplies, and sixteen cannons. Some of these items would later be used at the Battle of Bunker Hill. The fort would not remain in the hands of the colonials at this time and three days later a force of a hundred Royal marines would prevent a third raid on the fort.

In 1775 Sullivan, by then a Brigadier General in the newly formed Continental Army, would return to the then abandoned Fort William and Mary and have it dismantled. Forts Washington and Sullivan were built upriver from the old fort site at a more defensible position on the Piscataqua river and the old Fort William and Mary site was renamed Fort Hancock. Following the war the sight was renamed either Castle Fort or Fort Castle. Then in 1791 the federal government purchased the land and began construction on a new wooden First System Period of fortification construction fort there. This would be the beginning of the modern Fort Constitution. The First System fort would be replaced in the early 19th century with Second System fort featuring higher walls and brick buildings. Fort Constitution was to be upgraded to the Third System during the Civil War, but by the time construction began weapons technology had already demonstrated that the Third System was already outdated and this Third System fortification was never completed. Following the war during the Endecott Period saw the construction of two concrete reinforced gun batteries at the fort known as Battery Farnsworth and Battery Hackleman.

Answer: The Connecticut Lakes

The Republic of Indian Stream, which was named after a tributary of the Connecticut River, was established because of an ambiguity in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The treaty which ended the American Revolution in its second article established a boundary between British Canada and the United States. Part of that boundary was to be the northernmost head of the Connecticut River; however it did not establish where the northernmost head of the river was.

The British claimed the border was the southern branch at the end of what is today the four Connecticut Lakes while the United States claimed the border to be at Halls Stream. Both countries were taxing the residents of this area because of this dispute and this would lead to the citizens declaring themselves to be part of a republic independent of both nations until the dispute could be settled.

Answer: Charlestown

As Plantation No. 4, Charlestown was at the time the northern most British settlement in British North America. Because of its location, the Fort at No. 4 was erected in 1744 to protect the people of Plantation No. 4. In reality the fort was little more than a fortified village the people of the plantation could seek refuge in during times of trouble. During the third of the French and Indian Wars, King George's War would see the Siege of Fort at No. 4 April 7-9 end in a victory for the British defenders of the fort against French and Native Americans. And during the fourth and final of the French and Indian Wars, the French and Indian War itself, the fort would see soldiers stationed full time to defend what was by then Charlestown. During this time John Stark would help construct the Crown Point Military Road linking Charlestown with Fort Crown Point on the New York Shores of Lake Champlain.

The Fort at No. 4 fell into disrepair after the American Revolution and was eventually lost. In the 1960s a reproduction of the original fort a few miles from the original fort site. The reproduction was made using a plan drawn by John Maynard in 1746 of the original fort. It now stands as an open-air museum. Plantations No. 1-3 became the current towns of Chesterfield, Westmoreland, and Walpole, in that order.

Answer: False

Slavery existed in all of the thirteen colonies. The first African slave arrived in New Hampshire in 1645, though there may have been enslaved Native Americans there prior to this. In 1714 the New Hampshire Assembly passed "An Act to Prevent Disorders in the Night" which prevented Native American, African, and Mulatto servants and slaves from being out after 9 PM.

This act was reaffirmed in 1764 and again in 1771. By 1770 there were between 654 and 700 enslaved individuals in New Hampshire. Gradual emancipation of New Hampshire's slave population would begin in 1783 and the last slaves in the state to be counted in a census would be counted in the 1840 census. Slavery was not officially abolished in New Hampshire until the 1850s.

Answer: Colonel Moses Little

Part of what would become the town Lisbon prior to 1770; the area was called Chiswick, a Saxon name meaning Cheese Farm, after the Duke of Devonshire's castle in 1764. In 1770 Littleton was separated from the rest of what would become Lisbon and named Apthorp after wealth Boston mercantile George Apthorp. At some point between 1770 and 1784 the Apthorps passed control of the land to family associates in Newburyport, Massachusetts. These associates were headed by the Surveyor of the King's Woods, Colonel Moses Little.

As for Lisbon, when it was incorporated as a town in 1824 it was named in honor of Governor Levi Woodbury's friend Colonel William Jarvis who served a decade as the U.S. Consul to Lisbon, Portugal.

Answer: Sank off the Isle of Shoals

Commissioned March 1, 1939, SS-192 USS Squalus had completed fitting out by May 12th when she began a series of test dives. Squalus had completed eighteen successful test dives off the Isle of Shoals prior to the morning of May 23rd. But at 7:40 AM on May 23rd the boat's main engine air induction valve failed just after submerging during her nineteenth test dive, resulting in the flooding of the engine room. Squalus would sink in 240 feet of water with twenty-six men. About thirty-three of her crew survived the sinking, finding themselves trapped on the sea floor.

Squalus would be located by her sister ship SS-191 USS Sculpin later that day. Via a telephone marker buoy Sculpin was able to determine there were survivors aboard the downed boat. Rescue operations began that day, though the survivors would have to spend the night aboard the sunken ship. This was particularly dangerous for them as sea water in the battery compartment unleashed chlorine gas. The rescue ship ASR-2 USS Falcon arrived on scene at 10:14 AM the following morning and began lowering the McCann Rescue Chamber on the first of four dives to rescue the survivors. Four of the men involved in the rescue operation would receive the Medal of Honor for their actions.

Squalus would eventually be raised and towed back to Portsmouth by the end of September of that year. In November she was decommissioned. Recommissioned USS Sailfish almost a year to the day of her sinking, she would go on to earn nine battle stars during World War II. Sailfish was decommissioned in October 1945 and sold for scrap in 1948