New Hampshire's sectionalism was intensified by its mountainous terrain. The state's major rivers run from north to south, which dictated that most roads, and later railroads, would lead to Boston, rather than Portsmouth. New Hampshire's economic and social ties to Boston also meant that its residents were more sensitive to events in Boston. When Revolutionary politics closed the port of Boston, New Hampshire sent food. When news came of Lexington and Concord, New Hampshire towns sent troops. The once-loyal British subjects of New Hampshire became the first in America to draft a separate state constitution, and they were the first to instruct their delegates attending the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to vote for independence.
Throughout the 1800s, the Seacoast declined as a commercial center. As economic activity slowed in Portsmouth, towns like Dover, Newmarket, and Somersworth prospered by turning to textile manufacturing. It was the Merrimack Valley, however, that took over as the social, political, and economic center of the state. Manchester and Nashua became major textile manufacturing centers, while Concord's central location and diversified economy made it well-suited to serve as the new state capital. At first, textile mills around the state hired local youths to operate their machinery, but by 1850, mill owners had begun to supplement the local work force with immigrant labor, making a special effort to recruit the French-speaking farmers of Québec.
Although New Hampshire emerged as a major manufacturing state in the late 1800s, it did so at the expense of the traditional family hill farm. New Hampshire hill farms could not compete with farms in the Midwest, and the farm population not only declined in the second half of the century; it literally moved downhill, leaving behind a maze of stone walls and cellar holes. The population that remained in New Hampshire's farm towns became increasingly concentrated in one or more village centers, usually marked by a few stores, a district school, a church, an inn or hotel, and perhaps surrounded by a small number of dairy farms. In spite of these agricultural reverses, however, New Hampshire's rural areas were not without options. In the late 1800s, New Hampshire's North Country turned to commercial logging. Logging railroads were built into once-inaccessible forests. Other forests sent their logs to mills in Groveton, Berlin, and Massachusetts via log drives down the Connecticut and Androscoggin Rivers. Meanwhile, urban areas around Boston and Portland needed daily shipments of perishable foods.
By 1870, New Hampshire's railroad network was largely complete, and farmers near the various rail depots found a ready market for dairy and poultry products, as well as fresh fruit. Happily for New Hampshire, the same railroads that brought produce to Boston and Portland also brought tourists from those urban centers. New Hampshire's natural splendors attracted artists, poets and writers, scientists, and a host of curious sightseers throughout the 1800s. By the last quarter of the century, investors were building grand hotels along coastal areas and in the majestic White Mountains. Tourists came from all over the United States and Europe.
At the beginning of this century, New Hampshire was a leading producer of textiles, machinery, wood products, and paper. Its manufacturing towns and cities were populated not only by native-born Americans and immigrants from Canada, but also by workers from virtually every European country, giving New Hampshire's population a percentage of foreign-born persons that was above the national average. Meanwhile, as New Hampshire hill farms struggled, tourism was providing some relief for rural areas.