Exeter

American Independence Museum (Ladd-Gilman House)

Museum · 1 Governors Lane, Exeter, NH 03833

Located on the grounds of the Ladd-Gilman House, this museum holds one of only two surviving draft copies of the U.S. Constitution and a rare Dunlap broadside printing of the Declaration of Independence. The Ladd-Gilman House served as headquarters of the NH state treasury during the Revolution under Nicholas Gilman Sr.

Exeter Town Meeting House Site

Government · Front St, Exeter, NH 03833

The site where New Hampshire's Provincial Congress and later the state legislature met during the Revolutionary War period. After Governor Wentworth fled in 1775, the rebel government operated from Exeter's assembly spaces, making the town the de facto capital from 1775 to 1789.

First Congregational Church of Exeter

Church · 21 Front St, Exeter, NH 03833

The Congregational meeting culture was a civic institution as much as a religious one. Its tradition of community deliberation and self-governance was one of the institutional foundations of the town's capacity to assume governmental functions when royal authority collapsed in 1775.

Gilman Garrison House

Historic House · 12 Water St, Exeter, NH 03833

A seventeenth-century garrison house that served as a Gilman family residence throughout the colonial and Revolutionary periods. Nicholas Gilman Sr., the state treasurer, used the property as part of the administrative network that kept New Hampshire's revolutionary government functioning from Exeter.

Phillips Exeter Academy

Historic House · 20 Main St, Exeter, NH 03833

Founded in 1781 by John Phillips with an explicit mission to educate citizens for republican self-governance. The Academy's founding deed articulated Enlightenment civic principles that were direct expressions of the political culture Exeter had cultivated during the war years.

Squamscott River Waterfront

Landmark · Water St, Exeter, NH 03833

The tidal Squamscott River made Exeter a minor but functional port for small coastal vessels. Its limited navigability for large warships was one practical reason Exeter was a safe location for the rebel government — a British naval force could not easily threaten it the way it could Portsmouth.