History of New Hampshire
Besides attending to his growing congregation, Belknap served as a secretary to the convention of New Hampshire ministers from 1769 until 1787. This position required travel throughout the state, and he used it as a chance to begin accumulating notes on the history of New Hampshire. In 1772 he began to write his history. In 1784 he published the first volume of the History of New Hampshire, but it would take until 1792 to complete the work. The work was not successful at first, but its reputation grew over the years until, after his death, Alexis de Tocqueville named him as America's best native historian.
The History represented a new approach in its field. Besides just narrating events, he added two innovations. He tried to clearly separate facts from analysis and opinion, and he provided many annotations to show the source and location of records that he had inspected.
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