The area that would become Concord was originally settled thousands of years ago by Abenaki Native Americans called the Pennacook. The tribe fished for migrating salmon, sturgeon, and alewives with nets strung across the rapids of the Merrimack River. The stream was also the transportation route for their birch bark canoes, which could travel from Lake Winnipesaukee to the Atlantic Ocean. The broad sweep of the Merrimack River valley floodplain provided good soil for farming beans, gourds, pumpkins, melons and maize.