New Hampshire

Settled along its short, rocky coast in the 1620s, New Hampshire grew up in the shadow of larger Massachusetts before winning a separate royal charter in 1679. Its economy ran on timber, fish, and shipbuilding, and its fiercely independent towns governed themselves with little patience for distant authority.

In January 1776 New Hampshire became the first colony to adopt its own constitution and renounce British rule — months before the Declaration of Independence. In June 1788 it cast the decisive ninth vote to ratify the U.S. Constitution, the approval that put the new federal government into effect.