Town Records of Goffstown, New Hampshire

These town records were transcribed by Robert Craig in 1930. Goffstown, located in Hillsborough County, was established in 1733/4 and named in 1748. Births (grouped by family) and marriages are included in the records.

Records of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers are included with the town records. The Quaker records are identified by the unique formatting of dates. Ellen Thomas Berry and David Allen Berry describe the Quaker system of dating in Our Quaker Ancestors (GPC, 1987):

"Another pitfall for the purist can be the unique way the Quakers dated events. They did not use names for days of the week or months of the year since most of these names were derived from the names of pagan gods. A date such as August 19, 1748 will never be found. Rather it would be written '19th da. 6th mo. 1748.' Sometimes this will be written as 6mo 19da 1748. Why 6th month since August is the 8th month? The Quakers, along with everyone else in the American Colonies and England did not begin using the Gregorian calendar until 1752. Under the Julian calendar the year began on March 25th; March was the first month and February the twelfth month. This is something of a problem when an event occurred in the months of January, February, or up to March 25th, for then the date is given as 1748/1749... If exact days, months, and years are wanted, the old Quaker records must be used with great caution. Remember that until 1752 '1st mo' is March."

The original manuscript is part of the R. Stanton Avery Collections. It can be viewed by NEHGS members at our research library in Boston. The call number is Mss A 6963.

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