Ed Ranks Counties of New Hampshire

Hey look everyone! NEW HAMPSHIRE!

New Hampshire is the fourth best state in the country. It has ten counties. Here they are, ranked. How? By a myriad of factors, including:

• Any notable / large cities
• Overall population size (do people actually live here?)
• Area (does it have a lot of land or is it a wee thing?)
• Age (is it one of the "Original 5" counties? Did it come later?) 
• Coolness of county name (that's got to be worth something)
• Is there anything to do (Beyond just having large cities in general, are there National Parks? Notable historic sites? Places listed on the National Register of Historic Places? Can I go fishing or see a museum or something?)

So here we go. Live Free or Die, bitches.

10. Belknap

There isn't much going for Belknap County. It's one of the two newest counties (along with Carroll, though "new" is a relative term, since it broke away from parts of Merrimack and Strafford counties way back in 1840). Add to that it's the second-smallest county, has only the 7th highest population of all the counties, and has no significant cities in it (the county seat is Laconia, with a population of just 15,951 at the 2010 census). There are no national parks in Belknap County, and no National Historic Landmarks either (being the ONLY county in all of NH with no National Historic Landmark). The National Register of Historic Places lists 45 places in Belknap, but that's the second least of any county. In summary: small, newer, and not jack shit to do. Named after Jeremy Belknap, an obscure historian.

9. Coos

This courthouse is about as exciting as this county gets.

Coos is lucky that Belknap sucks so much, or else it would be at the bottom. It ranks dead last of the ten counties in New Hampshire for population size and has the least number of registered National Historic Places. And let's be honest, it has the worst name too. Coos. Coos?! It's supposedly an Algonquian word meaning "small pines," and while I hate to hate on a county for using a Native American name, "Coos" sounds less like a First Peoples word and more like a rooster noise. The only saving graces for Coos county is that it is the largest of all the counties and part of the Appalachian Trail runs though it. So that sort of counts as them having a park, right? At least you can do something there.

8. Carroll

Like Belknap, Carroll is one of the johnny-come-lately counties, dating from the mid 19th-century. Also like Belknap, it has a very low population, no real significant cities, and is lacking in very many historic sites or things to do. However, like the aforementioned Coos County, the Appalachian Trail runs through Carroll County, so there is at least one thing to do here. That, of course, being to walk on a trail to leave Carroll County. Interestingly, the county is named for exactly who I thought it would be - Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. From Maryland. Who had nothing at all to do with New Hampshire. At all. I suppose the interesting fact about Charles Carroll is that he was the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, since he lived until 1832. Maybe his old ass gained a sort of celebrity status for simply living that long and NH decided to pay a tribute to him 8 years after he died for some reason.

7. Sullivan

NPS: Sure, I guess this sculptor's house can be a park.

Discounting the Appalachian Trail that runs across much of the east coast, the only other National Park in all of New Hampshire belongs to Sullivan County - which boasts the Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park (the home, gardens, and studios of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 1848–1907, one of the mos famous US sculptures famous for Standing Lincoln, the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, and Diana of the Tower). But beyond that and the Salmon P. Chase (a famous anti-slavery activist, 1860 Presidential candidate, and later Supreme Court Chief Justice) Birthplace and Boyhood Home, I can't say there is a lot else to do in Sullivan County. After Coos it's the second least populated county, and its seat (Newport, though not the famous one) has only 6,507 residents. It was named after a guy named John Sullivan, but not the bare-fisted boxer with that name. There are like a million people with that name. This one was the third and fifth governor of New Hampshire, with someone else serving a term between him (like how Grover Cleveland sandwiched Benjamin Harrison... metaphorically only, I hope).

6. Strafford

Strafford is one of the "Original Five" counties of New Hampsire, which is worth something. Not much though, given that it's the smallest of all the counties in New Hampshire, and has the second least nationally registered historic places after Coos (just 45). It's also got a super boring name, being named after William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford (you'd think they'd have renamed it after we won the war). In every other aspect, Strafford falls about right in the middle of the statistics. It's about in the middle of the counties for population, and its most notable city, Dover (again, not the famous one), is merely the 5th largest city in the state. It's safe to say based on just how middling this county is, it gets ranked near the middle.

5. Grafton

You can always look at trees in the fall. So there's that.

As with Strafford, Grafton is one of the OG five countries and is named after a British aristocrat... in this case, Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, who actually became Prime Minister of Great Britain the year before this county was founded in 1769. He wasn't a particularly good Prime Minister, and had to step down after only two years after France stole Corsica from Britain, leaving a vacancy that would be filled by the much more famous Lord North of US Revolutionary War fame. I digress. The county though.  Exactly in the middle (five out of ten) in terms of population, National Historic Landmarks, and sites the National Register of Historic Places. Large in land size (the second largest after Coo) but lacks in notable cities, with the county seat of Haverhill's mere 4500 residents being only the 79th most populated city in the state. Hanover is also in Grafton county though, with twice the population and Dartmouth University. That's worth something, right? Not that the The Epic of American Civilization mural by socialist painter José Clemente Orozco (on campus at Dartmouth) is going to be a driving factor to make you go there. Balance the few negatives and positives with the rest of the "meh" and you get the county that is exactly the middle most interesting county in New Hampshire. And HEY! Remember that "Old Man of the Mountain" rock face that was so important that New Hampshire put it on its State Quarter (then the whole thing collapsed)? Yeah, that was in Grafton County. By the way, this reminds me that I need to rank the 50 state quarters. *makes note*

4. Cheshire

Not named after the cat from Alice in Wonderland (who obviously hadn't been invented yet), Cheshire is instead simply named after the county in England. Okay. Boring. What else you got for me, Cheshire County, NH? It's one of the original 1769 counties, so okay on that. It's sixth place of the ten counties both in terms of population and land area, has no parks or really notable large cities. Everything about this is screaming that it should place lower than fourth place (maybe... you know... sixth!) So why is it here? Because of National Register of Historic Places listings! It tops all the ten counties in New Hampshire with 153 registered historic places! Exciting, huh? I mean, not particularly. If you look at a listing of what those places are, you'll see that they're mainly just old houses, churches, bridges, halls and courthouses, farms and homesteads, etc. Still, Cheshire has 153 of them, which is much more than Coos with its mere 31. Just think how boring the other counties must be if they can't even point to 153 old houses and bridges like Cheshire can.

3. Merrimack

Not #1, but state capital as a consolation prize.

Merrimack! Great name, by the way. Second best name overall. Fun! Named after the Merrimack River, this county only popped up in the 19th century when it was cut away from parts of Hillsborough and Rockingham counties. Those names don't seem familiar to you? Well, I guess I've given away what #1 and #2 are then. And there is good reason why this county is ranked among its high-ranking neighbor counties that it was pulled away from. It's the only of the counties not among the original five that ranks among them. There are lots of reasons why this should be the third-highest ranked county. It's got the third highest population. It's got the third largest land area. It's county seat, Concord (yes, finally for one the actual city you're thinking of, and the actual capital of New Hampshire!) is the third largest city in the state. It's got landmarks (e.g. the Daniel Webster Family Home) and it's got historic places (e.g. the Franklin Pierce House, where the President of the United States lived and died... or at least it HAD this historic place, until it burned down in 1981, oh well, whatever). Anyway, Merrimack County is cool. Because it's all dressed in black, black, black. With silver buttons, buttons, buttons...

2. Hillsborough

Hillsborough has a lot going for it and hypothetically COULD be the #1 county in New Hampshire for a lot of reasons. Biggest population? Check! Human beings actually live in this place, rather than trees! In fact, the two largest cities in the entire state, Manchester and Nashua, are BOTH in this county. In fact, Manchester is larger than any other city in all of Maine and Vermont as well, making it the most populous place in all of northern New England (the 2019 population estimate is 112,673).  Hillsborough is also one of the original five counties of New Hampshire, is a decent size (fifth largest), it's name is fairly cool (though, again, after an English aristocrat - Wills Hill, Earl of Hillsborough, who served as the first Secretary of State for the Colonies), and it's loaded with landmarks (the childhood home of Franklin Pierce, the historic MacDowell Colony for artists) and registered historic sites (the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Zimmerman House, the Currier Gallery of Art).

1. Rockingham

YESSS! Water! And lighthouses! HUZZAH!

HELL YEAH! ROCKINGHAM! Look, first and foremost, this is clearly the best name and is obviously named after Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, who fought against the Jacobites in their uprising and later became Prime Minister of Britain twice, notable enough so that the faction of  the political party he controlled came to be known as the "Rockingham Whigs." How awesome of a name is Rockingham? Very awesome. And how awesome is the county named after him? Also very! Though it's only seventh in size, it's second in population (right behind Hillsbourough) and also has some of the largest cities in the state (Derry, Salem, and Portsmouth). Historic sites? A ton of them! 129 in total (the second most), including highlights such as the Robert Frost Homestead (obviously the home of the poet), and the John Paul Jones House (the American Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones lived here while supervising construction of a new battleship, the America). Battleship... you ask! Yes! While you might generally think of New Hamshpire as being landlocked, a tiny bit of NH does stretch out and touch the Atlantic Ocean to make sure that Massachusetts and Maine never actually touch one another... and that stretch of land is 100% Rockingham County! (Though to be fair to Strafford County, the Piscataqua River that forms the boundary of Maine and New Hampshire also dumps off a lot of water into the Great Bay, meaning that Strafford does also have some bayfront land, if not coastal). The addition of a coastline equals a million more things to do than other counties. Islands! This county has islands!!! Take, for example, the Isles of Shoals. Plus AWESOME LIGHTHOUSES! Oh, and as for the list of National Historic Landmarks in New Hampshire counties... Rockingham blows all other counties away with a massive 12 landmarks! The entire state only has 23, meaning that over half are all in this county. That list of landmarks includes the aforementioned Frost and John Paul Jones houses, and the homes of Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, and Matthew Thornton (all three signers of the Declaration of Independence ACTUALLY FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE). Yeah, Rockingham is where it's at, people.