by Francis L. Childs (Booklet #1, July 1997)

This is a reprint of a speech given at the New England College Community Day Convocation, May 28, 1958, by Dr. Francis Lane Childs, Emeritus Professor of Anglo-Saxon and English Language and Literature, Dartmouth College. "The history of Henniker as a township begins early in 1735 when the Province of Massachusetts, claiming title to a large part of what is now the southern portion of New Hampshire, laid out a double tier of nine 'townships for defense,' each about six miles square and numbered consecutively. What is now Henniker was Number Six, so known and recorded until 1768."