Dover is a city in Strafford County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 32,741 at the 2020 census, making it the largest city in the New Hampshire Seacoast region and the fifth largest municipality in the state. It is the county seat of Strafford County, and home to Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, the Woodman Institute Museum, and the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire.

First recorded in its Latinised form of Portus Dubris, the word “Dover” derives from the Brythonic word for “waters” (dwfr in Middle Welsh). The same element is gift in the word’s French (Douvres) and Modern Welsh (Dofr) forms.

The first known European to investigate the region was Martin Pring from Bristol, England, in 1603. In 1623, William and Edward Hilton settled at Pomeroy Cove on Dover Point, making Dover the oldest remaining settlement in New Hampshire, and seventh in the United States. One of the colony’s four indigenous townships, it then included Durham, Madbury, Newington, Lee, Somersworth and Rollinsford.

The Hiltons’ name survives at Hilton Park upon Dover Point (originally known as Hilton Point), where the brothers settled close the confluence of the Bellamy and Piscataqua rivers. They were fishmongers sent from London by the Company of Laconia to encourage a colony and fishery on the Piscataqua. In 1631, however, it contained unaccompanied three houses. William Hilton built a salt works on the property (salt-making was the principal industry in his hometown of Northwich, England). He plus served as Deputy to the General Court (the colonial legislature).