Custom Car, Motorcycle, Watercraft Appraisals in Manchester, NH

Portland is the largest city in Maine, with a population of more than 68,400 people. It's also the capital city of the state, and serves as the seat of Cumberland County. The Greater Portland metropolitan area currently is home to more than 500,000 residents.

Since its founding in 1632 and its incorporation in 1786, Portland has experienced four devastating fires. This inspired the adoption of a city seal featuring a phoenix rising from the ashes, representing how the city has recovered each time and gone on to thrive. 

In the past, Portland's economy relied heavily on fishing, canneries, and manufacturing. Today, the city has a diversified economy that allows it to continue growing. The service sector and tourism now play major roles in the local economy. 

Different areas of the city offer residents and visitors plenty to do. The Old Port is known as a hotspot for nightlife, while also providing some of the best examples of 19th-century architecture to be found anywhere in the state. Fishing and commercial shipping continue to be major industries, with the Port of Portland serving as the second-largest tonnage seaport in New England.

Serving Manchester, NH

Facts about Manchester, NH

Manchester is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Hampshire and the largest city in northern New England, an area comprising the states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 109,565, and its estimated 2016 population was 110,506. It is one of two seats of Hillsborough County (along with Nashua), the state of New Hampshire's most populous county. Manchester is located near the northern end of the Northeast megalopolis, along the banks of the Merrimack River—which divides the city into eastern and western sections. It was first named by the merchant and inventor Samuel Blodgett (after whom Samuel Blodget Park and Blodget Street in Manchester's North End are named). Blodget's vision was to create a great industrial center similar to that of the original Manchester in England, which was the world's first industrialized city.

Manchester often appears favorably in lists ranking the affordability and livability of U.S. cities. In 2015, CNNMoney.com ranked it #1 in the U.S. for small businesses, and in 2009, another site ranked Manchester 13th in a list of the 100 best cities in the U.S. to live and launch a business. In addition, Kiplinger voted Manchester the second most tax-friendly city in the U.S., second only to Anchorage, Alaska. Also in 2009, Forbes magazine ranked the Manchester region first on its list of "America's 100 Cheapest Places to Live." According to the Equality of Opportunity Project, released in 2013, Manchester ranked as the seventh best metropolitan area in the U.S. in terms of upward income mobility. In 2014, Forbes magazine ranked this city among the top 5 most educated cities in the United States.

History

Pennacook Indians called it Namaoskeag, meaning "good fishing place"—a reference to the Amoskeag Falls in the Merrimack River. In 1722, John Goffe III settled beside Cohas Brook, later building a dam and sawmill at what was dubbed Old Harry's Town. It was granted by Massachusetts in 1727 as Tyngstown to veterans of Queen Anne's War who served in 1703 under Captain William Tyng. But at New Hampshire's 1741 separation from Massachusetts, the grant was ruled invalid and substituted with Wilton, Maine, so Governor Benning Wentworth rechartered the town in 1751 as "Derryfield". The rechartered name lives on in Derryfield Park and Derryfield Country Club, both on the east side of contemporary Manchester, and in the Derryfield School.

In 1807, Samuel Blodget opened a canal and lock system to allow vessels passage around the falls. He envisioned here a great industrial center, "the Manchester of America", like the Industrial Revolution's Manchester in England, the first industrialized city in the world. In 1809, Benjamin Prichard and others built a cotton spinning mill operated by water power on the western bank of the Merrimack. Following Blodgett's suggestion, Derryfield was renamed Manchester in 1810, the year the mill was incorporated as the Amoskeag Cotton & Woolen Manufacturing Company. It would be purchased in 1825 by entrepreneurs from Massachusetts, expanded to 3 mills in 1826, and then incorporated in 1831 as the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company.

Demographics

The city is the center of the Manchester, New Hampshire, New England City and Town Metropolitan Area (NECTA MA), which had a population of 187,596 as of the 2010 census. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 109,565, and its 2015 population estimate was 110,229. The Manchester-Nashua metropolitan area, with an estimated population in 2015 of 406,678, is home to nearly one-third of the population of New Hampshire.