Farmington

The New Hampshire town of Farmington is in Strafford County. In 1721, the Colonial Assembly in Portsmouth approved the building of a fort at Lake Winnipesaukee in order to stop the numerous Indian raids. The fort and the soldiers road to be used for supplies were finished soon, and the first European settlers arrived in the Northwest Parish of Rochester. The settlement was chartered in 1722. The soil was rocky, but farmers cultivated, and the settlement became agricultural. Soon gristmills were built to grind the grain, and sawmills helped to cut the timber. A movement to establish a new township began in the 1770s. Settlers were being taxed more than they thought was right. They were taxed to support the meetinghouse and the minister, but tthe meetinghouse was twelve miles away. So, the petition for a charter for the new township was submitted to the state legislature in 1783, but it was denied. A second petition, filed in 1798, was granted, and Farmington was officially incorporated with nearly a thousand residents. In 1800, a two-story meetinghouse measuring 40 feet by 50 feet was built on Meetinghouse Hill. Later that year, John Wingate set up shop for his blacksmithing business. Later, he would become the proprietor of Wingate's Tavern. In 1836, Farmington became home to a thriving shoemaking industry when E.H. Badger set up his shoe shop on Spring Street. It was one of the first in the nation to use automated machines. Martin Luther Hayes soon began running the business. The railroad came along in 1849, with a rail line that connected the town to Dover, and it was expanded to Alton Bay in 1851. After the Civil War, the shoe business grew quickly, and many factories were built to make them. Farmington became known as the "Shoe Capital of New Hampshire." Soon, the shoe factories were joined by factories that manufactured wooden boxes, knit underwear, knives, and carriages. The Panic of 1893 caused all but two shoe factories to close.

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