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is a town in Cheshire County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 4,082 at the 2000 census. Hinsdale is home to part of Pisgah State Park in the northeast, and part of Wantastiquet Mountain State Forest in the northwest.
The primary settlement in town, where over 41% of the population resides, is defined as the Hinsdale census-designated place (CDP), and is located at the junction of New Hampshire Routes 63 and 119.
Tucked into the farthest southwestern corner of the state, Hinsdale was chartered in 1753 by Colonial Governor Benning Wentworth. It was named for Colonel Ebenezer Hinsdale, member of a prominent Deerfield, Massachusetts family, whose mother had been taken captive in the famed Deerfield Massacre of 1704. Graduated from Harvard College, Hinsdale ordained to become a missionary for Indians of the Connecticut River Valley. Instead, he would serve as chaplain at Fort Dummer, an important trading post on the Connecticut River, later enlisting as an officer in the army. Then, in 1742, he established Fort Hinsdale, including a trading post and gristmill, reportedly at his own expense. The town's earliest history recounts Indian assaults, raids and captivities.
Located beside the Connecticut River and connected to Brattleboro, Vermont by bridge, Hinsdale contains excellent farmland, but has been a significant center of industry as well, especially in the manufacture of paper. In a machine shop here, George A. Long built a self-propelled steam vehicle in 1875, for which he received one of the nation's earliest automobile patents.