Exeter, New Hampshire: The Revolutionary Capital That Forged a State and Helped Birth a Nation

When the royal governor of New Hampshire fled his own province in the summer of 1775, he did not leave behind a vacuum. He left behind Exeter — a modest town on the Squamscott River that would spend the next decade serving as the revolutionary capital of New Hampshire, the seat of its provisional government, the engine of its military contributions, and the birthplace of the first state constitution adopted by any of the thirteen colonies. Exeter's story is not one of dramatic battlefield engagements or famous midnight rides. It is the story of governance under fire, of institution-building in the midst of uncertainty, and of a handful of extraordinary citizens whose decisions in this small New England town rippled outward to shape the founding of the United States.

To understand Exeter's significance, one must first appreciate the crisis that elevated it. Throughout the colonial period, Portsmouth had served as New Hampshire's capital, the seat of royal authority embodied by Governor John Wentworth. Wentworth was not, by most accounts, a tyrant — he was an educated, capable administrator who had invested in the province's infrastructure and enjoyed considerable personal popularity. He had succeeded his uncle, Governor Benning Wentworth, in 1767. But by 1774 and 1775, as tensions between the colonies and Parliament escalated, Wentworth found himself caught between imperial directives and an increasingly restive population. The breaking point came in stages. When patriots raided Fort William and Mary in Portsmouth harbor in December 1774, carrying off gunpowder and weapons that would later serve the revolutionary cause, Wentworth was powerless to stop them. The fort housed supplies of gunpowder and arms, and the raid delivered barrels of gunpowder across the seacoast towns, including Exeter. The town had erected a gunpowder house in 1771, making it an excellent location to store the spoils. By June 1775, with armed conflict already underway at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, the governor's position had become untenable. Wentworth dissolved the colonial assembly, attempted to govern by decree, and finally, recognizing the futility and danger of his situation, fled first to the fort at New Castle, and later to Boston. He would never return to govern. Royal authority in New Hampshire was finished.

Into this void stepped the New Hampshire Provincial Congress, which had actually begun convening in Exeter even before the governor's flight. In July 1774, a group of men — many of whom were serving in the Provincial Assembly in Portsmouth — met at Exeter to discuss the increased tension with the British government. Exeter was chosen as the second-largest town in the province and because it was inland enough to be safe from British naval intimidation. They agreed on two things: they would elect and send a delegation to the Continental Congress forming in Philadelphia, and they would establish a New Hampshire Committee of Correspondence to keep everyone informed of developments across the colonies. This meeting, which appears to have been short, was later known as the First New Hampshire Provincial Congress. The choice of Exeter was both practical and symbolic — it had a tradition of independent civic life, and it was home to several of the province's most prominent patriot leaders. A Second Provincial Congress met in Exeter just after the Fort William and Mary raid, and it is of note that many of the same men who met in Exeter were also members of the Provincial Assembly in Portsmouth. At this second Congress, it was agreed to continue to participate in the Continental Congress by sending delegates and approving funds to support them.

After the battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, the Committee of Correspondence immediately called for the Third Provincial Congress to meet in Exeter. It opened on April 21, 1775, with John Wentworth (a patriot, not the royal governor) elected President and Ebenezer Thompson serving as Clerk. Their first order of business was military planning: more than 2,000 New Hampshire militiamen had already gathered near Boston, and these forces needed organization and supplies. Colonel Nathaniel Folsom was appointed to command the New Hampshire troops heading to Boston.

In July 1775, the Provincial Congress had the provincial records seized from royal officials in Portsmouth and brought to Exeter, formally establishing it as New Hampshire's capital — an honor it held for fourteen years. What began as an extralegal assembly, meeting without royal sanction, rapidly assumed the full functions of government. The delegates organized militia, coordinated supplies, managed finances, and corresponded with the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Exeter was no longer simply a town; it was the operational headquarters of a revolution in New Hampshire.

Among the most consequential acts of this period was the establishment of the New Hampshire Committee of Safety, created on May 17, 1775, by the Fourth Provincial Congress, which had convened in Exeter on May 27.

The Committee of Safety functioned as the state's executive when the state legislature was not in session. Under the January 5, 1776 constitution, which established no separate executive branch, executive power was in practice delegated to the Committee of Safety, consisting of eight or ten legislative leaders, which had full power to act on behalf of the government while the legislature was not in session.

Most of the time, the committee met at the home of Joseph and Rebecca Gilman, which stood in the town square on the site of the current Exeter Town Hall.

The Committee's chairman — and arguably the most powerful individual in revolutionary New Hampshire — was Meshech Weare, a farmer, politician, and judge from Hampton Falls, a town about seven miles to the southeast of Exeter, who was well educated, having earned a degree from Harvard University in 1735.

Weare was elected chairman of the Committee of Safety and served in this capacity throughout the Revolution. In addition to being New Hampshire's first "President" (as the chief executive was then titled), Weare was chief justice of the state's highest court, the Superior Court of Judicature, from 1776 to 1782. He also served as presiding officer of the Council, the upper house of the legislature. That a single individual simultaneously led the executive, legislative, and judicial functions of the state government speaks to both the extraordinary circumstances and the concentrated nature of power in revolutionary Exeter.

As historian Jere Daniell observed, "New Hampshire's Committee of Safety virtually ran the government after the summer of 1779. It controlled the militia, settled claims against the state, issued permits to privateers, regulated trade, administered tax collection, and once on its own initiative appointed a delegate to the Continental Congress."

Its duties also included supervision and coordination of military affairs, raising of recruits and supplies, regulation of the state militia, custody of prisoners of war, supervision of the entrance and clearance of vessels from Portsmouth Harbor, surveillance of the Loyalists, regulation of trade and currency (including prevention of counterfeiting), and supervision of price controls.

All of New Hampshire's considerable military endeavors during the Revolution were managed from Exeter.

Among those endeavors was the raising of Continental Army regiments. On May 22, 1775, the Provincial Congress voted to raise a volunteer force of 2,000