Sullivan County, NH

Settlement & growth (pre-1960)

Long before European arrival, the land now called Sullivan County was home to the Abenaki people, particularly the Pennacook tribe, who used the Connecticut River as a travel and trade corridor. French explorers and Jesuit missionaries passed through in the 17th century, but permanent European settlement began only after the English established Fort at Number 4 in present-day Charlestown in 1744, a fortified outpost during the French and Indian Wars. After the war, New Hampshire’s Masonian land grants opened the region to English colonists from Massachusetts and Connecticut, who founded towns such as Charlestown (1753), Newport (1761), and Claremont (1764). These early settlers were overwhelmingly of English and Scots-Irish stock, drawn by cheap land and the promise of self-sufficient farming.

The 19th century brought industrialization, especially to Claremont, where the Sugar River’s water power fueled textile mills, machine shops, and foundries. This economic shift attracted two major immigrant waves. First, Irish laborers arrived in the 1840s and 1850s to build railroads and work in the mills, settling in Claremont’s “Irish Hill” neighborhood. Second, French-Canadian families from Quebec poured in between 1870 and 1920, seeking work in the mills and machine shops. By 1900, Claremont had a substantial French-Canadian community, with its own Catholic parishes and French-language newspapers. Smaller numbers of German and Polish immigrants also arrived, but never formed large enclaves. Towns like Unity, Sunapee, and Goshen remained almost entirely Yankee and agricultural. The 20th century saw mill decline and outmigration; the county’s population peaked around 1950 and then began a slow, steady drop as manufacturing jobs moved south.

Modern era (post-1965)

The 1965 Hart-Cellar Act, which reshaped U.S. immigration, had almost no impact on Sullivan County. The foreign-born share remains minuscule at 0.6%, and no new immigrant enclaves formed. Instead, the county’s demographic story since 1965 has been one of domestic stagnation and selective in-migration. The decline of Claremont’s textile and machine industries continued through the 1970s and 1980s, leading to population loss in the city itself. Meanwhile, towns like Sunapee and Grantham attracted second-home owners and retirees drawn to Lake Sunapee and Mount Sunapee ski area, many from southern New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Newport saw a modest revival as a regional service center, while Plainfield (including the village of Meriden) retained a rural, educated character, partly due to proximity to Dartmouth College in neighboring Hanover. The county’s racial composition barely shifted: the small Hispanic population (2.0%) is concentrated in Claremont, often in service and agricultural work, while the Black and East/Southeast Asian populations remain tiny and scattered. No suburban sprawl occurred; the county’s population density is just 55 people per square mile, and most growth has been in lakeside vacation homes rather than new subdivisions.