Founding year: Wikidata. First post office: 1840.The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Rye’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Rye is more historic than 90% of U.S. towns, #44 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 Rye’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 Rye’s 16.0 sits near the middle of its state (58% of New Hampshire towns have fewer) while its 9 historic buildings outnumber those of 75% of U.S. towns.
NoteThe founding year comes from Wikidata alone; no second source gives 1623.
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 (±6.1 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 Rye’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The first settlement in New Hampshire, originally named Pannaway Plantation, was established in 1623, at Odiorne's Point by a group of fishermen led by David Thompson. The settlement was abandoned in favor of Strawbery Banke, which became Portsmouth. The first settler in present-day Rye was probably William Berry. Prior to its incorporation in 1726 as a parish of New Castle, Rye was called "Sandy Beach" and its lands were once parts of New Castle, Portsmouth, Greenland and Hampton. In September 1691, a band of Wabanaki Indians attacked Sandy Beach in a raid during King William's War in what was called the Brackett Lane Massacre. In 1726, the town of New Castle set off a parish for Sandy Beach called "Rye", for Rye in Sussex, England, the ancestral lands of the Jenness family who continue to live in the town to this day and even have a beach named after them. The town was incorporated in…
Passages that mention Rye, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of the town of Rye, New Hampshire1905 · page 37Read the page →
Read the text
representatives on this petition that the first mention of "the Town of Rye" in the state records is to be found. Rye became a wholly separate and independent town in that }'ear, 1785, through the action of the legislature ; and after that }-ear no designation of Rye as a parish has been found by me in deeds or wills, although as late as 1792 a committee was appointed by the legislature " to establish and fix the line between said Parish of North Hampton and the Parish of Rye," North Hamp-
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
History of the town of Rye, New Hampshire1905 · page 33Read the page →
Read the text
John Jenness Jun^ Joseph Lock The petition did not prevail, and Nathan Goss was allowed to take his seat in the congress as a delegate from Rye, elected at a meeting held in Rye. But R}'e continued to be a "parish in New Castle," for in 1783 the precept for representatives was similar to that of 1748, for "New Castle and Rye jointly, two to be chosen at a meeting of both towns or parishes jointly at
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
Rye, decade by decade
2 decades in the archive, from the 1900s to the 1910s. 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 1623, according to Wikidata. Rye’s post office opened in 1840, and the first U.S. census counted 865 people here in 1790.
How does Rye rank for history?
Rye is more historic than 90% of U.S. towns, #44 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 Rye?
6 listings: 5 buildings, among them the Elijah Locke House (listed 1979, the first), and 1 structure. 9 historic buildings in all.
How old are the homes in Rye?
19% of Rye’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±6.1 points), against a typical 17% for a New Hampshire town; the median home was built in 1972.
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 (18), the Library of Congress (6), the National Register of Historic Places (6), 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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