New Hampshire earned its nickname, the Granite State, honestly. Its bedrock granite was quarried for buildings and monuments, and stone, timber, and farmland formed the backbone of the early economy. Hill farms, woodlots, and small mills supported a largely rural population spread across hundreds of towns.
The state's rivers were its first engines. Fast-falling water on the Merrimack, the Connecticut, the Androscoggin, and smaller streams powered sawmills and gristmills, and later the far larger textile and paper mills. Forests fed a lumber economy, and the long winters and rocky soil shaped a culture of self-reliance and seasonal work.
This rural foundation is why New Hampshire grew as a patchwork of distinct towns, each with its own common, meetinghouse, and Main Street — a settlement pattern the modern 603 still follows.