Westmoreland, New Hampshire: Canoe Settlement on the Connecticut

Westmoreland, New Hampshire sits above the Connecticut River on the state's southwestern edge, and its settlement story is more dramatic than most. The first families arrived in seventeen forty-one, making their way north from Massachusetts with their goods and children to stake a claim on frontier land. A Massachusetts governor had issued an initial grant in seventeen thirty-five; New Hampshire Governor Benning Wentworth regranted it in seventeen fifty-two, and the town was named Westmoreland in honor of an English lord.

The river they followed was both highway and lifeline. For generations, the river was Westmoreland's link to the wider world. The town remains one of Cheshire County's quiet agricultural communities, the river still marking its western border.