DOVER

King Philips War

While King Philip's War was raging in the rest of New England (1675-1676), the settlers of Dover, led by Major Richard Waldron, invited the Pennacook Indians to Dover to sign a non-aggression pact. In June 1676, Chief Wannalancet led the Pennacook to Dover to begin negotiations. After a month of negotiations, Chief Wannalancet and Major Waldron signed the Treaty of Cocheco on July 3, 1676.

Likely due to the peaceful relations, the Dover area attracted Native American refugees who were affiliated with King Philip and his uprising.

Cochecho Massacre

On June 28, 1689, Dover suffered a devastating attack by Native Americans. It was revenge for an incident on September 7, 1676, when 400 Native Americans were tricked by Major Richard Waldron into performing a "mock battle" near Cochecho Falls. After discharging their weapons, the Native American warriors were captured. Half were sent to Massachusetts for predations committed during King Philip's War, and seven or eight were hanged, and others were sold into slavery. Local Native Americans deemed innocent were released, but considered the deception a dishonorable breach of hospitality. Thirteen years passed. When colonists thought the episode forgotten, they struck. Fifty-two colonists, a quarter of the population, were either captured or slain. This was the first attack of the Mournful Decade or King William's War.

Incursions against the frontier town would continue for the next half-century. During Father Rale's War, in August and September 1723, there were Indian raids on Saco, Maine, and Dover, New Hampshire. The following year Dover was raided again and Elizabeth Hanson wrote her captivity narrative.

Mill era

Located at the head of navigation, Cochecho Falls brought the Industrial Revolution to 19th-century Dover in a big way. But cotton textile manufacturing actually began about two miles upstream with the Dover Cotton Factory, which was incorporated in 1812, its mill built in 1815. The business would move to Cochecho Falls when it acquired water privileges occupied since the 17th century by sawmills and gristmills. In 1823, it was renamed the Dover Manufacturing Company, but was not successful. So in 1827 the Cocheco Manufacturing Company was founded (the misspelling a clerical error at incorporation), and the next year, the mill was the site of the first women's strike in the United States. "The Strike of the Mill Girls" took place on December 30, 1828, when about half of the 800 women employed at the mill walked out over lower wages and longer hours that the new owners had implemented. Expansive brick mills were constructed downtown, linked to receive cotton bales and ship finished cloth when the railroad arrived in 1842. Incorporated as a city in 1855, Dover for a time became a leading national producer of textiles, the mill complex dominating the riverfront and employing 2,000 workers.

The mills were purchased in 1909 by the Pacific Mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts, which closed the printery in 1913 but continued spinning and weaving. The printery buildings were demolished in 1913; their site is now Henry Law Park.

In 1922, it was affected by the 1922 New England Textile Strike, shutting down the mills in the city over an attempted wage cut and hours increase.

During the Great Depression, however, textile mills no longer dependent on New England water power began moving to southern states in search of cheaper operating conditions, or simply went out of business. Dover's millyard shut in 1937, then was bought at auction in 1941 by the city itself for $54,000. There were no other bids. Now called the Cocheco Falls Millworks, its tenants include technology and government services companies, plus a restaurant, brewery and bar.

Textile manufacturing in Dover wasn't limited to cotton. In 1824, Alfred I. Sawyer established the Sawyer Woolen Mills beside the Bellamy River. It would expand to include 15 major buildings over 8.5 acres (3.4 ha), and by 1883 was the largest woolen manufacturer in the state. In 1889, it was acquired by the American Woolen Company, but closed and was sold off in 1955. The buildings have been repurposed into housing.

Modern era

With the closing of the mills, the downtown area of Dover sat vacant and lifeless for a long time. With the turn of the century, the city government began to revitalize the area. The Children's Museum of New Hampshire was brought into a disused mill building with a lease of $1 a year. Henry Law Park, a grassy waterfront stretch of land, was given a brand new playground. Small businesses moved into the mills, such as restaurants, toy stores, real estate offices, and barber shops. Old buildings have been refurbished or outright rebuilt to provide new housing. An $87.5 million high school was built to handle the influx of new residents retreating from the high housing prices in Portsmouth. Recently, a plan to develop the waterfront on the other side of the river from the traditional downtown area was approved for $6 million. In early May 2021, waypoint signs were sporadically added to help drivers and walkers navigate Dover with the expansions that are underway.

Antique postcards