EXETER, a town of south-eastern New Hampshire, U.S.A., on the Squamscott river, 12m. S.W. of Portsmouth; the county seat of Rockingham county. It is served by the Boston and Maine railroad. The population was 4,872 in 193o. It is the seat of Phil lips Exeter academy, one of the foremost secondary schools of the country, founded in 1781 by Dr. John Phillips (1719-95), a Harvard graduate who acquired considerable wealth as a merchant at Exeter and gave nearly all of it to promote education. The academy numbers among its alumni Daniel Webster, Edward Eve rett, John Parker Hale, George Bancroft, Jared Sparks, Robert T. Lincoln and many other men of prominence. The town was founded in 1638 by the Rev. John Wheelwright, an Antinomian leader who with a number of followers settled here after he was banished from Massachusetts. For their government the settlers adopted a plantation covenant, but in 1643 the majority submitted to the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, while the minority, including the founder, moved away. In 168o the town became a part of the new province of New Hampshire. During the French and Indian wars it was usually protected by a garrison. One of the garrison houses and some fine colonial homes are still standing. New Hampshire was the first of the colonies to adopt a constitution, and it was in Exeter, in Jan. 1776, that the first independent State government was formed. The legislature met here regularly from 1776 to 1782, and usually thereafter until 1800. Exeter was the birthplace of Lewis Cass, Henry A. Shute, Ambrose Swasey, E dward Tuck and Daniel Chester French.