Founding year: Wikidata. First post office: 1805.The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Boscawen’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Boscawen is more historic than 89% of U.S. towns, #46 of 126 in New Hampshire. All 3 inputs are above most U.S. towns; its age ranks highest and its National Register listings lowest.
A
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Boscawen’s overall grade.
New Hampshire towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical New Hampshire town has 9.5 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Boscawen’s 14.8 sits near the middle of its state (55% of New Hampshire towns have fewer) while its 6 historic buildings outnumber those of 72% of U.S. towns.
NoteThe founding year comes from Wikidata alone; no second source gives 1760.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from A− to A. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±7.3 points).
Founding year: Wikidata (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Boscawen’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The native Pennacook people called the area Contoocook, meaning "place of the river near pines". In March 1697, Hannah Duston and her nurse, Mary Neff, were captured by Abenaki Indians and taken to a temporary village on an island at the confluence of the Contoocook and Merrimack rivers, at the site of what is now Boscawen. In late April, Duston and two other captives killed ten of the Abenaki family members holding them hostage, including six children, and escaped by canoe to Haverhill, Massachusetts.
Passages that mention Boscawen, cut from the printed page as they were published.
The history of Boscawen and Webster [N.H.] from 1733 to 18781878Read the page →
Read the text
modation of the public, the court of sessions, in the year 1821, which by the law of 8 Feb., 1791, had the power to lay out public highwa3\s in certain cases, laid out a road from the tavern before mentioned in Boscawen, in a straight line across Contoocook river to what is now Washington square in Concord, upon condition that the town of Boscawen should give security to maintain one half the bridge over the Contoocook, which bridge was part of the road so laid out. This change would remove the bridge from
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
The history of Boscawen and Webster [N.H.] from 1733 to 18781878 · page 97Read the page →
Read the text
" The Petition of us the subscribers hereby showetli that the Proprietors of the Town of Boscawen have at their meetings from time to time voted sums of money as they thought needful to carry on their publicli affairs and particularly a sum of money to purchase a Right of land in said Town of Boscawen for the encouragement of the settling a Gospel minister in the Town.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
A chronological register of Boscawen, in the county of Merrimack, and state of New-Hampshire, from the first settlement of the town to 1820. In three parts1823 · page 47Read the page →
Read the text
The following sections exhibit the Chronological History of the town of Boscawen from the time of its incorporation in the year 1760, to the year 1820.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
By decade
Boscawen, decade by decade
One decade in the archive so far: the 1900s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
In 1760, according to Wikidata. Boscawen’s post office opened in 1805, and the first U.S. census counted 1,108 people here in 1790.
How does Boscawen rank for history?
Boscawen is more historic than 89% of U.S. towns, #46 of 126 in New Hampshire. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
What is on the National Register in Boscawen?
4 listings: 4 buildings, among them the Boscawen Academy and Much-I-Do-Hose House (listed 1980, the first). 6 historic buildings in all.
How old are the homes in Boscawen?
20% of Boscawen’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±7.3 points), against a typical 17% for a New Hampshire town; the median home was built in 1978.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From Wikimedia Commons (12), the National Register of Historic Places (4), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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