New Hampshire Patriot
Near this site, on land just north of the Governor Hill Block at 58-62 North Main Street, was the first home in Concord of Isaac Hill, printer, bookseller, publisher, U.S. Senator and Governor of New Hampshire. It was here that Hill began his married life in 1814, to socially prominent Susanna Ayer.
Born into a poor family in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1788, lame from a farming accident and small in stature, Isaac Hill was apprenticed to a printer in Amherst, New Hampshire in 1802. At the age of 21 he bought the New Hampshire Patriot, the predecessor to the Concord Monitor, and began publishing in 1809.
Hill became active in politics, using the Patriot to express strongly worded political ideals and to champion the common man. He served in both the house and senate of the state legislature and was a fiery and vocal supporter of Andrew Jackson, who invited him to Washington to serve as a member of his "Kitchen Cabinet." Jackson nominated Hill as Second Comptroller of the U.S. Treasury, but the Senate rejected him.
Hill recovered from this affront when New Hampshire Democrats elected him to the U.S. Senate in 1830, in which he served from 1831 to 1835. Hill resigned from the Senate in 1835 to run for Governor, serving from 1836 to 1839.
As Governor, he strongly supported the expansion of the railroads, urging the state
legislature to use surplus funds to lay track. He was a pioneer in creating the new Democratic Party in New Hampshire. He was a founder of the first Episcopal Church in Concord and supported the creation of an asylum for the mentally ill, today's State Hospital.
From 1835 until his death, Hill published "The Farmer's Monthly Visitor," a newsletter providing farming advice and extolling the virtues of New Hampshire agriculture. Hill died in 1851, at age 62, and is buried in Blossom Hill Cemetery in Concord.
The granite marker located here was initially erected at Hill's second home, now 75 South Main Street. A fine, early brick house in the city, it was demolished in 1973. The owner relocated the marker to his property on Loudon Road, where it remained for almost 40 years, confusing many a viewer.
Under the direction of the Concord Heritage Commission and with the generous assistance of Perry Brothers Monuments, the marker was removed from its erroneous location, refurbished, and placed at this appropriate site in 2012.
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