in 1905 more than one-half the total value. Cotton goods, the manufacture of which was introduced in 1804, increased in value only slightly during the last decade of the 19th century, from $21,958,002 to $22,998,249, but from 1900 to 1905 their value increased 28·4%, or to $29,540,770; except in 1900 the manufacture of cotton goods had long ranked first, measured by the value of the product, among the state’s manufacturing industries. Factory-made boots and shoes increased in value from $11,986,003 in 1890 to $23,405,558 in 1900, or 95·3%, the industry ranking first in 1900; but in 1905 there was a decrease to $22,425,700, the industry then ranking second; in 1900 the value of boots and shoes was 21·8% and in 1905 it was 18·1% of the total value of all factory products, and in no other state was the degree of specialization in this industry so great as in New Hampshire. Woollen goods, third in rank, decreased in value from $10,963,250 in 1890 to $10,381,056 in 1900, but the factory product increased in value from $7,624,062 in 1900 to $11,013,982, in 1905, or 44·5%. Paper and wood pulp, for the manufacture of which the spruce forests of the state are so largely used, increased in value from $1,282,022 in 1890 to $7,244,733 in 1900, or 465·1%, and to $8,930,291 in 1905; and this industry rose from ninth in rank in 1890 to fifth in 1900 and to fourth in 1905. The manufacture of lumber and timber products, one of the oldest industries of the state, ranked fifth in 1905; these products had increased in value from $5,641,445 in 1890 to $9,218,310 in 1900, or 63·4%, but decreased to $7,519,431 in 1905, the decrease being in large measure due to the great demand for spruce at the paper and pulp mills. Foundry and machine shop products, hosiery and knit goods, wooden boxes, flour and grist mill products, and malt liquors are other important manufactures; the value of wooden boxes increased from $979,758 in 1900 to $2,565,612 in 1905, or 161·9%, and the value of hosiery and knit goods increased during the same period from $2,592,829 to $3,974,290, or 53·3%. As compared with other states of the Union, New Hampshire in 1905 ranked fifth in the manufacture of factory-made boots and shoes, and in woollen goods, sixth in cotton goods, and seventh in paper and wood pulp, in hosiery and knit goods, and in the dyeing and finishing of textiles. In 1905 the value of the products in the eight cities of Manchester, Nashua, Concord, Dover, Rochester, Laconia, Keene, and Portsmouth, all of which are south of Lake Winnepesaukee, was 59·5% of that for the entire state. Nearly one-half the cotton goods were manufactured in Manchester. Boots and shoes were manufactured chiefly in cities near the southern border. Dover led in the manufacture of woollens; Laconia in the manufacture of hosiery and knit goods; and Berlin, the chief manufacturing centre north of the White Mountains, in the manufacture of paper and wood pulp.
Transportation.—With the exception of a Grand Trunk line in the northern part of the state the several steam railways are owned or leased by the Boston & Maine. Up the steep slope of Mount Washington runs a cog railway. The first steps in railway building were taken in 1835, when the Boston & Maine, the Concord, and the Nashua & Lowell railways were incorporated. The Boston & Maine was opened from Boston, Mass., to Dover, N.H., in 1842. In 1850 there were in operation 467 m.; this mileage had increased to 1015 in 1880 and to 1167·14 on the 1st of January 1909. Portsmouth, the only port of entry, has a very small foreign trade, but there is a considerable traffic in coal and building materials here and on the Cocheco, which is navigable to Dover.
Population.—The population of the state was 141,885 in 1790; 183,858 in 1800; 214,460 in 1810; 244,161 in 1820; 269,328 in 1830; 284,574 in 1840; 317,976 in 1850; 326,073 in 1860; 318,300 in 1870; 346,991 in 1880; 376,530 in 1890; 411,588 in 1900; and 430,572 in 1910; the per cent of increase was 9·3 from 1890 to 1900 and 4·6 from 1900 to 1910. Of the total in 1900, 88,107 were foreign-born; 58,967, or 66·9%, were natives of Canada (44,420 French and 14,547 English), 13,547 of Ireland, 5100 of England, 2019 of Scotland, 2006 of Germany, and 2032 of Sweden. Of the 323,481 native-born, 80,435, or 24·8%, were natives of other states than New Hampshire; 56,210 of these were natives of other New England states, however, and 7502 were natives of New York. At the same time there were 124,561 natives of New Hampshire numbered among the inhabitants of other states, principally Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, New York, Illinois, California, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Kansas and Nebraska, and to induce these to return for a holiday season to their native state the “Old Home Week” festival, now held throughout New England, was planned in 1899 by Frank West Rollins (b. 1860), who was then governor of New Hampshire. The Roman Catholic Church in 1906 had more members than any other religious denomination (119,863 out of 190,298 communicants of all denominations); in the same year there were 19,070 Congregationalists, 15,974 Baptists, 12,529 Methodist Episcopalians (North) and 4892 Protestant Episcopalians. Of the total population in 1890 the rural constituted 67·4% and the urban 37·6%, but in 1900 the rural constituted only 53·3% of the total and the urban 46·7%. The eleven cities having a population in 1900 of 5000 or more were: Manchester (56,987); Nashua (23,898); Concord (19,632); Dover (13,207); Portsmouth (10,637); Keene (9165); Berlin (8886); Rochester (8466); Laconia (8042); Somersworth (7023), and Franklin (5846).
Administration.—New Hampshire was the first of the original thirteen states to establish a government wholly independent of Great Britain. This was designed to be only temporary,[1] but was in operation from the 5th of January 1776 to the 2nd of June 1784. The constitution which then went into effect provided for a General Court consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives and made the Council a body advisory to the state president; the 1784 instrument was much amended in 1792, when the title of president was changed to governor, but with the amendments adopted in that year it is in large measure the constitution of to-day. For sixty years there was no change whatever, and only three amendments, those of 1852 (removing the property qualifications of representatives, senators and the governor), were adopted until 1877, when twelve amendments were adopted,—the most important being those providing for biennial (instead of annual) state elections in November (instead of March), and those doing away with the previous requirement that representatives, senators and the governor “be of the Protestant religion.” Five amendments were ratified in 1889 and four in 1902. New Hampshire is the only state in the Union in which amendments to the constitution may be proposed only by a constitutional convention, and once in seven years at the general election a popular vote is taken on the necessity of a revision of the constitution. A radical revision of the constitution is rendered especially difficult by a provision that no amendment proposed by a convention shall be adopted without the approval of two-thirds of the electors who vote on the subject when it is referred to them. Prior to 1902 every male inhabitant of a town who was twenty-one years of age or over, a citizen of the United States, and not a pauper or excused from paying taxes at his own request, had a right to vote, but an amendment adopted in this year made ability to read English and to write additional qualifications, except in the case of those physically unable to read or to write, of those then having the franchise, and of persons 60 years of age or more on the 1st of January 1904. Various other amendments have been proposed from time to time, but have been defeated at the polls. By an act approved on the 9th of April 1909 provision was made for direct nominations of candidates at primaries conducted by regular election officers.
There is a governor’s council of five members, one from each councillor district, which has advisory duties and shares with the governor most of his powers. There is no lieutenant-governor. The governor and the councillors are elected for a term of two years, and a majority of the votes cast is necessary to a choice. Where no candidate receives such a majority the Senate and the House of Representatives by joint ballot choose one of the two having the greatest number. No person is eligible for either office who shall not at the time of his election be at least thirty years of age and have been an inhabitant of the state for the seven years next preceding; a councillor must be an inhabitant of the district from which he is chosen. The governor and council appoint all judicial
- ↑ The constitution of 1776 provided that the Congress which framed it “assume the name, power and authority of a House of Representatives”; that said house choose twelve persons to be “a distinct and separate branch of the legislature by the name of a Council”; that the Council appoint a president; that civil officers for the colony and for each county (except clerks of court, county treasurers and recorders) should be appointed by the two houses; and that “if the present unhappy dispute with Great Britain should continue longer than this present year, and the Continental Congress give no instruction or direction to the contrary, the Council be chosen by the people of each respective county in such manner as the Council and House of Representatives shall order.” A constitution framed by a Convention which met in Concord on the 10th of June 1778 was rejected by the people in 1779.
