This is NHPR’s The Big Question. We ask you a question about life in New Hampshire, you submit an answer, and we feature your voices on air and online.
From Franklin Pierce to Daniel Webster to Christa McAuliffe, many people have shaped New Hampshire history.
So, for July’s Big Question, we asked: Who do you believe has been the most influential person in New Hampshire history?
Here’s what some of you said.
Don Brueggemann - Concord, NH: I think that John Winant would have to be included in that list of folks. He was a three-term governor. He helped start up the Social Security Administration back during the Roosevelt era. I think, probably, his most significant contribution [was] that he was ambassador to the United Kingdom during the London Blitz and to the end of World War II and steered the U.S. out of isolation to help in the war effort. Unfortunately, we lost him too soon. But as an enduring legacy, his children contributed property here in Concord that hosts a network of trails.
Chris McDade - Newfield, NH: To me, one of the most influential people from New Hampshire is Daniel Webster. Daniel Webster was a significant politician, statesman and lawyer. One of the key things that I was aware of him doing was the famous Dartmouth case [Dartmouth v. Woodward], where he kept the state from taking control of Dartmouth College. That has definitely contributed to our “Live Free or Die” state since then.
Arnie Alpert - Canterbury, NH: The people I'm thinking about are two of New Hampshire's best makers of good trouble, and they are Stephen Symonds Foster and Renny Cushing. In the case of Stephen Symonds Foster, he made a practice of disrupting church services because he believed that the churches were complicit in slavery, and if he could get the churches to change their minds, that would lead to slavery being no longer tolerated in the country. He would typically get dragged out. He would sometimes get arrested. He went all over New England and did this. And it was part of what made an impact on changing attitudes in the country about the evils of slavery.
Renny Cushing was one of the founders of the Clamshell Alliance, which was an organization that organized massive, nonviolent civil disobedience protests against the construction of a nuclear power plant in Seabrook. He was able to bring people along on issues like abolishing New Hampshire's death penalty. While it would certainly be a stretch to say that either Stephen Symonds Foster or Renny Cushing are among New Hampshire's most influential people, boy, would we be better off if they had been.
Lynn Chong - Sanbornton, NH: I lived in Rumney for 23 years. While I was in Rumney, Ray Burton was the district councilor for my Executive Council district. He was the longest serving Executive Councilor. He was very good at listening to everybody—it didn't matter what your party was. And he was kind of famous in his district for remembering people.
I have found, as part of his obituary, this quote that I think is terrific and I think shows his real good humanity and his fun in life. It says, “He often stated, we cannot let anybody in Concord forget that there's life north of Concord. We have to tell them to start looking out their north windows.” So kudos to Ray Burton, and I'm glad he was among us.
