Leavittstown was settled by members of the Leavitt family of Hampton, led by Captain John Leavitt, a soldier whose father, Moses, was a prosperous Hampton tavern keeper. In 1749, the land was granted by Colonial Governor Benning Wentworth, and renamed Effingham for the Howard family, who were Earls of Effingham and who were related to the Wentworths by marriage.
The town was incorporated in 1778. North Effingham seceded in 1831 to become the town of Freedom.
Effingham was home to the first normal school in New Hampshire, established in 1830 on the second floor of the Effingham Union Academy Building, erected in 1819. James W. Bradbury, later a U.S. Senator from Maine, took charge of the school only on condition that it should be for the "instruction and training of teachers." The idea was his own and, at that time, entirely novel.
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