Editing Bow, New Hampshire (section)

== History ==
[[File:Bow Center School, 1894, Bow NH.jpg|thumb|left|Bow Center School (1894)]]
The town was granted by the authorities of [[New Hampshire]] to Jonathan Wiggin and others in 1727, and was originally {{convert|9|mi|0}} square, covering nearly all the territory granted to Ebenezer Eastman and others by the authorities of [[Province of Massachusetts Bay|Massachusetts]] two years previous, under the name of "Pennacook" (now [[Concord, New Hampshire|Concord]]). Massachusetts claimed to hold authority over a large portion of the territory of New Hampshire for many years, until the [[northern boundary of Massachusetts|final boundary line]] was established in 1741, giving New Hampshire more territory than it had ever claimed.

These complicated lines of the two towns coming from two different authorities were not settled decisively until after the final separation of the two colonial provinces. The government of New Hampshire gave Bow the preference in its grant of 1727, and did not recognize the title of the Pennacook grantees, and in the bill giving a charter for the parish of Concord, it was worded as "taking a part of the town of Bow," etc. Although Concord was granted and surveyed before Bow, its final organization was 38 years after it. Bow gained a victory over Concord in its original title; still it was obliged to yield over two-thirds of its territory to Concord, [[Pembroke, New Hampshire|Pembroke]] and [[Hopkinton, New Hampshire|Hopkinton]], establishing their final boundary lines at different times, from 1759 to 1765.<ref name="1875Bow">{{Cite web |url=http://gedcomindex.com/Reference/New_Hampshire_1875/074.html |title=Article in ''Statistics and Gazetteer of New-Hampshire'' (1875) |access-date=December 15, 2013 |archive-date=December 15, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131215181553/http://gedcomindex.com/Reference/New_Hampshire_1875/074.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The town's name comes from its establishment along a bend, or "bow", in the [[Merrimack River]].{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}} The first census, taken in 1790, reported 568 residents.<ref>{{Cite web| url=https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1790/number_of_persons/1790a-02.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180713112742/https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1790/number_of_persons/1790a-02.pdf |archive-date=July 13, 2018 |url-status=live| title=Schedule of the Whole Number of Persons Within the Several Districts of the United States...| publisher=U.S. Census| date=1793| access-date=June 7, 2018}}</ref>

In 1874, the Concord Railroad passed along the eastern border of Bow.<ref name="1875Bow" /> It is now the [[New England Southern Railroad]].

On September 28, 2019, hundreds of climate activists protested in Bow against Merrimack Station, one of the last remaining coal-fired power plants in New England. 67 people, who carried buckets signifying their intent to physically remove coal from the site, were arrested by state police.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Ropeik |first1=Annie |title=Dozens Arrested at Protest Outside New England's Largest Coal Power Plant, in Bow, N.H. |url=https://www.nhpr.org/post/dozens-arrested-protest-outside-new-englands-largest-coal-power-plant-bow-nh#stream/0 |access-date=September 30, 2019 |publisher=New Hampshire Public Radio |date=September 30, 2019}}</ref>