New Hampshire is Called the Granite State Thanks to a Song

It all started millions of years ago during the Ice Age.  That’s when the granite in New Hampshire started to form through compressions deep below the earth’s surface.

In the 1800’s people in New Hampshire began to quarry granite because it was so abundant in the region.

According to cowhampshireblog.com, the state was known to have granite fields across the state, but in 1825, while General Lafayette was enjoying a public dinner in Dover, one Colonel Philip Carrigain, an attorney, decided to sing a song he wrote.

The poem talks about “the Granite State to see”, penned by Colonel Carrigain.  Carrigain mentions “the Granite State” again in his personal letters.  The Concord Register published the lyrics to the song, and also the New Hampshire Patriot & State Gazette.

Months later the Haverhill Gazette & Patriot reported the term “granite state”, coined by Carrigain and so it caught on with the public as well. It all started with a song.

While most Granite Staters don’t know Carrigain’s name, he does have some prominent landmarks and waters named after him in the White Mountains.

If you study New Hampshire history you will know the Colonel’s name because he was not only a prominent attorney, but also Secretary of State for New Hampshire, and he was asked to publish a map of New Hampshire, which he did in 1816 or thereabouts.

According to swensongranite.com, the state’s largest company to quarry “Concord Gray” granite, it’s the only granite company to survive the Great Depression. Quarrying granite was popular in the 1800’s, but with global competition, quarrying in New Hampshire is not as popular today.

In fact, if you see that light gray granite curbing, it’s likely to have come from Concord’s Swenson Granite.