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Exeter New Hampshire

One of the first original New Hampshire towns

Exeter is located in Rockingham County 15 miles south of Portsmouth between Kingston and Stratham along Highway 111 near Kingston State Park and home of Phillips Exeter Academy, which was endowed by Colonel John Phillips in 1781, and home to the American Independence Museum.

Incorporated in 1638, Exeter was one of the four original towns settled in New Hampshire. It was first named Squamscott, and was later given the name of Exeter by the settlement's managers, the "Exeter Combination," which was a group of English colonizers. The river location to the town, along the banks of the Exeter River and within 10 miles of the Atlantic Ocean, made it a shipbuilding center and West Indies trading port.

Among Exeter's fine citizens was sculptor Daniel Chester French, who was the creator of the Minuteman Statue that stands in Lexington, Mass and the statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial, in Washington, DC. French also designed the War Memorial at local Gale Park.

There are also many fine examples of federal architecture to be found in town, such as the Exeter Town Office building, built in 1892, and the Exeter Town Hall, built in 1855.

Other local sights to see is Gilman Park, built in 1890, at the junction of the Exeter and Little Rivers; the Down Easter train station, built in 1860, that provides train service between Portland, Maine and Boston; the Folsom Tavern, built around 1775, where George Washington stopped by in November 1789; and Founder's Park, surrounding the Exeter Public Library at the falls of the Exeter River, which was designed to commemorate Exeter's 350th anniversary.

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