To get to the point quickly, what exactly does “Cow Hampshire” mean?
First, take this quick test.
Please, say outloud, “Cow Hampshire.”
If you have just said something that sounds like:
1. “Cow Hamp-shyre”
or
2. “Cow-Hamp-sher”
you won’t understand, because you are either
a. a transplant to New Hampshire
b. not a native of New Hampshire
c. a native of New Hampshire, but somehow you did not inherit the accent
If you just said something that sounds like:
“Cow-Hamp-Shaa”
Congratulations…
You have the correct accent, are at least someone with a new England accent, possibly you were born in, or lived some time, in New Hampshire or one of the surrounding states, or maybe you are from England (in which case you qualify, as the New England accent is supposed to sound like the original settlers of New Hampshire, who were mainly from England, Scotland and Ireland).
WHATS IN A NAME
Wondering about the name of my blog, Cow Hampshire? Read this article: “NH Tidbits: Cow Hampshire Revisited,” to understand my rationale behind the title. In 2018 I changed my logo from a Holstein dairy cow to a “Yellow Cowe” to be historically correct.
BRIEF BIO:
I grew up, and attended grammar school, high school and college in Manchester, NH Some of the other places I’ve lived (in NH) include: Goffstown, Mont Vernon, New Boston, and Merrimack. Some of the places I’ve lived outside of New Hampshire include St. Esprit Cape Breton Canada, Denver Colorado, and Swanton Vermont.
I maintain several web sites on the genealogy and history of NH, which includes photographs–old and new. I’ve been documenting some of the NH cemeteries, before the gravestones disintegrate with time, or are destroyed by vandals.
I’ve been researching genealogy for about 40 years (I started at a tender age!). Ancestors in my paternal grandmother’s line hail for many generations from NH–with surnames such as Kilborn, Abbott, Uran (settlers on the Isles of Shoals in the late 1600s), Runnels, Tuttle, Worthley, etc. If you have a few ancestors that lived in NH in the 1700s, I’m probably distantly related to you.
The name Cow Hampshire for this web site is used because I believe that we should encourage a sense of humor about everything–ourselves, genealogy, and even our state.
Janice Brown
P.S.: “The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.”
I have a long history with my family line in New Hampshire. My mother’s maiden name was Hall. Her family came over with the pilgrims. We have even corrected the caretakers at strawberry bank. We even have the registered genealogy to prove our line. My first ancestor to journey here was named Jon Hall( a name still in common use today in my family). My last name is not hall though
I inherited Mader from my father. His father invented medicines of assorted types.