1623
Pilgrims, Pipe Dreams, Politics & the Founding of New Hampshire
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED & WHY IT MATTERS
Shrouded in myth, mystery, and misinformation, the true story of New Hampshire's founding family has never been fully told–until now. Why do we know so little about David and Amias Thompson of Plymouth, England? And why is what we think we know so often wrong? Barely three years after the Mayflower landed in Massachusetts, a wholly different plan for America was in play. Popular journalist J. Dennis Robinson exhumes the facts and connects the dots to reveal a forgotten journey that will challenge your perception of how New England was born.
READERS REACT TO 1623
"I have been impressed by Robinson's work over the years and own a lot of his books. While 1623 is about New Hampshire, it deserves national attention. The Granite State has never had a more important history book. Darn good writing and thorough research. Wow, just wow!" --Fritz Wetherbee, NH storyteller
"Robinson has written the best book ever on 1623 and the first English colonization of the New Hampshire coast!" --Richard M. Candee, Prof. Emeritus, Boston University
"1623 pulls back the curtain to expose long-held mistaken beliefs of what did and did not happen on the coast of what is now New Hampshire. Robinson's historiographical approach of contrasting multiple conflicting published accounts brings a new critical examination of old errors and even older myths to pick out the elusive truth." --Thomas M. Hardiman, Jr, Executive Director and Keeper, Portsmouth Athenaeum
"A compelling narrative on New Hampshire's founder, 1623 reveals the all-but-forgotten life of David Thompson, his family, and their relationship to an island in the Boston Harbor." --Sylvia Watts McKinney, CEO & President, Thompson Island Outward Bound Education Center
"Thank goodness for J. Dennis Robinson. While we've disposed of many grand myths of our past we still struggle with smaller ones that, in aggregate, form colorful but misleading narratives for the present. In 1623, Robinson's dogged (and often controversial) pursuit of the facts seduces readers with ironclad ironies, secret scuttlebutt, and rigorously researched revelations that make our history all the more fantastic and entertaining." --Rick Broussard, editor emeritus of New Hampshire Magazine
"1623 is a masterpiece. It fits together details that my history friends and I have been puzzling over for decades." --Wendy Pirsig, Southern Maine historian
"This important and entertaining read sets the record straight on New Hampshire's fascinating early history." --Emerson W. Baker, author of A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience
"1623 is a deep dive into what actually happened on the New Hampshire coast in its early years of European colonization. Robinson teases fact from fiction, setting the scene for the circumstances around David Thompson's settlement using the most up-to-date research. A must-read for anyone interested in the early history of New England." --Reagan B. Ruedig, NH historic preservationist
NONFICTION/ HISTORY
236 Pages/ Harbortown Press
Available in paperback, hardcover, and ebook from Amazon.com
Shrouded in myth, mystery, and misinformation, the true story of New Hampshire's founding family has never been fully told–until now. Why do we know so little about David and Amias Thompson of Plymouth, England? And why is what we think we know so often wrong? Barely three years after the Mayflower landed in Massachusetts, a wholly different plan for America was in play. Popular journalist J. Dennis Robinson exhumes the facts and connects the dots to reveal a forgotten journey that will challenge your perception of how New England was born.
READERS REACT TO 1623
"I have been impressed by Robinson's work over the years and own a lot of his books. While 1623 is about New Hampshire, it deserves national attention. The Granite State has never had a more important history book. Darn good writing and thorough research. Wow, just wow!" --Fritz Wetherbee, NH storyteller
"Robinson has written the best book ever on 1623 and the first English colonization of the New Hampshire coast!" --Richard M. Candee, Prof. Emeritus, Boston University
"1623 pulls back the curtain to expose long-held mistaken beliefs of what did and did not happen on the coast of what is now New Hampshire. Robinson's historiographical approach of contrasting multiple conflicting published accounts brings a new critical examination of old errors and even older myths to pick out the elusive truth." --Thomas M. Hardiman, Jr, Executive Director and Keeper, Portsmouth Athenaeum
"A compelling narrative on New Hampshire's founder, 1623 reveals the all-but-forgotten life of David Thompson, his family, and their relationship to an island in the Boston Harbor." --Sylvia Watts McKinney, CEO & President, Thompson Island Outward Bound Education Center
"Thank goodness for J. Dennis Robinson. While we've disposed of many grand myths of our past we still struggle with smaller ones that, in aggregate, form colorful but misleading narratives for the present. In 1623, Robinson's dogged (and often controversial) pursuit of the facts seduces readers with ironclad ironies, secret scuttlebutt, and rigorously researched revelations that make our history all the more fantastic and entertaining." --Rick Broussard, editor emeritus of New Hampshire Magazine
"1623 is a masterpiece. It fits together details that my history friends and I have been puzzling over for decades." --Wendy Pirsig, Southern Maine historian
"This important and entertaining read sets the record straight on New Hampshire's fascinating early history." --Emerson W. Baker, author of A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience
"1623 is a deep dive into what actually happened on the New Hampshire coast in its early years of European colonization. Robinson teases fact from fiction, setting the scene for the circumstances around David Thompson's settlement using the most up-to-date research. A must-read for anyone interested in the early history of New England." --Reagan B. Ruedig, NH historic preservationist
NONFICTION/ HISTORY
236 Pages/ Harbortown Press
Available in paperback, hardcover, and ebook from Amazon.com
AUTHOR NOTES
This project started almost 50 years ago when I bumped into a 1623 note in the journal of Pilgrim leader Edward Winslow. A "Scotchman" named David Thompson, Winnslow wrote, had recently set up a fishing and trading outpost at what would later become the tiny seacoast of New Hampshire. The Mayflower survivors were starving and sent military leader Miles Standish to find food. Thompson delivered a shallop full of live-saving codfish to the Separatists, after which the Plymouth Colony offered prayers of thanksgiving. The idea that the first European settler at what would become New Hampshire "saved" the PIlgrims intrigued me. Why hadn't I heard of this guy and his wife Amias and their son John who had settled at what is now Odiorne State Park in the town of Rye?
The more I dug into the story over the decades, the more fascinating it became. Thompson, in fact, was an apothecary (pharmacist) from Plymouth, England. He was born in London, it appears, not Scotland. He was deeply connected to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, a hugely influential figure in the first 40 years of New England history. Gorges, like Thompson and almost all other very early settlers to the region were Anglicans, loyal to the king and effectively enemies of the pious Pilgrims who had escaped to a new world. (This was before 20,000 Puritans imigrated to Massachusetts starting in 1630.)
My research led to the Wessagusset Massacre. In 1623 when, fearing an attack, Miles Standish and his tiny militia assassinated seven Native warriors at what was supposed to be a peaceful meeting. That event, rarely mentioned, had a profound effect on the region at the time.
And what about English lawyer and colonist, Thomas Morton, who was exiled and left to die at the Isles of Shoals by Standish? Who remembers Robert Gorges, the first "Governor" of New England? More digging. Explorer Christopher Levett, fisherman Phineas Pratt, and merchant Samuel Maverick all wrote about meeting David Thompson in his Piscataqua home near what is now Portsmouth, New Hampshire. So why is he forgotten today?
Why did the Thompsons pack up after only three years and move to an island in Boston Harbor? How did David die so soon after the move? What happened to his wife Amias? And what about the imaginary claim that two brothers named Hilton also founded a New Hampshire settlement in 1623? By the way, who ever mentions that Portsmouth was founded in 1630 because Gorges and John Mason ("the father of New Hampshire") thought the Piscataqua River was the Northwest Passage to the Orient--or at least to the fur-trading nexus at Lake Champlain. It wasn't. Why don't we teach young people that the first two Granite State settlements at Little Harbor and Strawberry Bank (yes, that is spelled correctly) were financial flops?
It took decades, but with a dozen history books and over 3,000 published articles under my belt, I finally got back to David and Amias Thompson. With NH's 400th anniversary looming, I asked myself--what the heck are we celebrating? So I pulled together enough puzzle pieces to attempt the first-ever true story of the founding days of the "Live Free or Die" state. This is an "indie" book because it had to be. Not even the state website or Wikipedia get the facts straight.
And let's remember that while The Council for New England was handing out grants to land they had never seen and didn't own, Indigenous Peoples had been here for 12,000 years. There are no footnotes here (sorry purists). I'm writing for general readers who are curious about the actual New England backstory rather than the usual myths and legends. But you will find a hefty 13-page bibliography at the end of the book. Enjoy. --JDR
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