Dover, NH

Cochecho Falls redirected Dover’s growth: its 34-foot drop drew the settlement and business center away from Dover Point and supplied waterpower for industry. The Cocheco Falls Millworks now occupies the former mill complex, while the Sawyer Woolen Mills developed beside the Bellamy River. Dover is also the Strafford County seat and, with 32,741 residents in 2020, was the most populous city in New Hampshire’s Seacoast region. The Cochecho and Bellamy rivers drain into the tidal Piscataqua, which forms Dover’s eastern boundary and the Maine state line. Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, the Woodman Institute Museum, and the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire are based in the city; the children’s museum moved into a reused mill building.