As thousands of cap-tossing college seniors and their families gather this month in the shadow of Durham’s iconic clock tower, they will carry out a proud and longstanding community tradition – one tilled more than a century ago by the hands of agriculture students and a farmer with grand visions for this charming patch of green along the banks of the Oyster River.

First settled in 1635 as Oyster River Plantation, Durham began as a British outpost of what is now neighboring Dover. The Oyster River Massacre of 1694 by French and Abenaki forces during King William’s War all but decimated the village, but the community rebuilt, and by 1716, Durham was a separate parish named for its counterpart in England.

Incorporated in 1732, Durham would develop and prosper as both a farming community and a shipbuilding center for nearby Portsmouth. Its identity was cemented – or, more aptly, seeded – toward the end of the 19th century when a prominent settler, Benjamin Thompson, bequeathed to the State of New Hampshire his Warner Farm and some $400,000 for the creation of an agricultural college. What had begun in Hanover as the NH College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts moved to Durham in 1893 and officially became the University of New Hampshire in 1923.

Today, UNH is the centerpiece of Durham, its Greek Revival clock tower – Thompson Hall – among the state’s most arresting pieces of architecture. Landscaped throughout the early 20th century almost entirely by students, UNH’s lush campus is home to more than 14,000, and no visit to town is complete without taking in a Wildcats game or a performance at Memorial Field or the Whittemore Center.

Further up Main Street, you’ll want to bring your appetite to Young’s Restaurant, where students and full-timers alike have been lining up since 1916 for healthy platefuls of pancakes, eggs Benedict and juicy local gossip. There you might find local ambassador Pri Phenix, who, at 90, still gives friendly dissertations on Durham history and culture. A visit, meanwhile, to the circa 1649 Three Chimneys Inn, with its yellow facades, lattice arbors, and elegant Olmsted-designed gardens overlooking the Oyster River and Mill Pond, affords perhaps the area’s prettiest views and finest hospitality.

• Population of 13,667 (2008 census)
• Typical of a college town, the median age in Durham is 21, with 56% of the town’s population ages 18 to 24.
• In Durham, the first recording of the term “police officer” is found in a document dated in 1848. It was not until 1920 that the Durham Town Report referred to a Police Department budget. Through the 1920s, the yearly operating budget for the department, including salaries, was $100. Until 1961, police officers worked out of their homes and there were no police officers on duty past midnight. Currently, the Durham Police Department is made up of 18 full-time, sworn-in police officers and provides service 24 hours a day.
• The University of New Hampshire Men’s Hockey Team is among the most successful collegiate programs in the nation, and boasts a rich history, full of tradition. One such tradition has been the “throwing of the fish.” After UNH scores its first goal, all fans turn their attention to the goal of the opposing teams. Up and over the boards, a fish is thrown onto the ice, as the home crowd erupts in excitement. This fish-tossing tradition is believed to have originated in the early 1970’s with the fish used to resemble the visiting team “fishing the puck out of the net.”
• Notable residents of Durham have included: NH’s 3^rd and 5^th Governor John Sullivan, a delegate in the Continental Congress and major general in the Continental Army who fired the first shot in the Revolutionary War during the Battle of Fort William and Mary in 1774; Daniel Chapman Stillson, inventor of the modern adjustable pipe wrench; Author Joyce Maynard, known for her relationship, at age 18, with author J.D. Salinger, and her novel “To Die For”, which recounts the Pamela Smart murders; Farmer and businessman Benjamin Thompson, the main benefactor of UNH; Daniel Ford, American journalist, novelist and historian, best known for his Vietnam novel that became the Burt Lancaster motion picture “Go Tell the Spartans”.