History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 240

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1672

USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II > Part 240

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Indeed, the proprietors, when they had triumphed over their enemies, appear to have conducted their affairs in a very liberal way. It is much to their credit that they recognized themselves largely as trustees for the public, bound to make handsome grants for beneficent objects of general concern.

Methuen, the oldest daughter of Haverhill, is thus one hundred and sixty-three years old. Its territory was principally set off from Haverhill, with the ad- dition on the west of a strip of land between Haver- hill and Dracut, not previously comprised within the limits of any town. The portion of the city of Lawrence north of the Merrimac, was a part of Methuen and originally of Haverhill. That part of Law- rence has a large population, which eannot here be given ; but Methuen had, in 1880, four thousand three hundred and ninety-two inhabitants. Its historian is informed that a briek from the old " Bodwell house," bore upon it the date of 1660. The name had become familiar upon the Haverhill town records before the separation, and has recently be- come familiar to the country, in the person of one of of the descendants of that house too soon cut off from great usefulness, whilst Governor of a neighboring State.

In 1719, the town of Haverhill ordered the burial- ground to be suitably feneed with boards, and a con- venient gate erected and swung on hinges. The pres- ent generation may still take lessons from the past. Hardly a name is mentioned in these pages that has not its representatives there. The learned and pious and grave ministers were all buried in that consecrated spot. For nearly two centuries it was the burial-

J t

H to 1. th

1977

HAVERHILL.

ground by distinction. Valor, excellence, heauty -- all make that dust. Within its limits the first meet- ing-house, the old fort, the primal school-house stood. Everything makes the place interesting, in memory of the fathers, but it seems to have small interest for their children.

The new pound was ordered built in 1725. As has been suggested, the former may have stood nearer the river. In this year Mary Pearsons was warned out of town, "she having nothing to live upon," says the recorder. The authorities exercised intense watchfulness to prevent any poor persons becoming chargeable to the town. They usually served a formal notice on everybody who came, to go away again. Between 1724 and 1770 thirty were ordered off, of whom this apprehension was entertained. Thus, December 8, 1724, eighteen shillings was allowed Nathl. Peaslee, constable, for warning Mary Mash out of town and for carrying her out of town by a warraut from Justice Woodbridge to Bradford consta- ble, and for his assistance about it, and for the same service about Thomas Club.

"To Christopher Bartlett, for cleaning ye fish courses, 1724, 8 shillings." "Voted & allowed: Gratis : for John Sanders, for ye year past, and until this day as Representative for ye town, £4-0-0." The following vote explains itself: " Haverhill, Mch. 2, 1724-5, voated & granted yt ye new Book this day Brought into ye town meeting, shall be a book to en- ter ye town's acts & orders therein by ye Town Clerks, & so as they, from time to time, may be chosen att ye annual town meeting

"Voated & granted yt the new book this day Brought into ye town meeting as above, shall be delivered to John Eatton, this day chosen town clerk, for to enter the town's acts & orders therein, yt are already passed or this day be made."

"Pecker's " tavern has been mentioned, but in 1728 the town thought two were "sufficient for the town's benefit," and appointed Lieutenant Ebenezer East- man and John Swett to keep them-the latter at Holt's Rocks. Nathaniel Saltonstall wrote a letter to the Quarter Sessions, December 26, 1696, about licenses, worth reading to-day .- Notwithstanding the conservative action of the town on the application of the western people, to be permitted to form a new town, the period of disintegration and emigration be- gan before 1725.

In 1721 about a hundred persons from Portsmouth, Exeter and Haverhill, petitioned the General Court for liberty to settle in the northerly part of Nntfield, Londonderry. In the following year, a few families removed to Chester.

In 1720, Captain Ebenezer Eastman and several others of Haverhill explored the lands in the vicinity of Pennacook (Concord, N. H.), and delighted with its rich intervales, petitioned the General Conrt for a grant of them.

The grant of the " Plantation of Pennacook " was 124}

finally made January 17, 1725, under what were con- sidered very stringent conditions, to secure a solid and respectable settlement. One of them was to cut through a road from Haverhill to the new settlement. The court appointed a standing committee of nine " to bring it forward." The committee met at Haver- hill in February, 1725, for the purpose of admitting settlers. One hundred were admitted to be of the company, to each of whom was allotted a right in the township, and three lots were reserved, one for the first settled minister, one for the parsonage, and one for the "use of the school forever." In 1726 the General Court appointed a committee to lay out the lands of Pennacook, which was headed by John Wainwright, of Haverhill.

In 1727, Ebenezer Eastman, of llaverhill, moved the first family from Haverhill to Pennacook. He was a man of great energy of character. Born here, 1781, he was son of Philip Eastman, who was taken captive by the Indians in 1676, and whose house and buildings are said to have been burned by them in 1698. Ebenezer Eastman was in the expedition to Port Royal, and in Admiral Walker's unfortunate expedition up the St. Lawrence River in 1711; iu 1745 he was at the reduction of Louisbourg. Mean- while, as we have seen, he had " traded by sea," kept tavern, explored Pennacook, and led off in its settlement, becoming one of its most useful citi- zens.

There were thirty-six Haverhill men among the one hundred admitted by the committee to be of the Pennacook settlement. Of these were some of the leading and most useful citizens of the town. Dr. Bailey, several of the Ayer, White, Clement, Davis, Hazzen, Johnson, Peaselee, Pecker, Page, Sanders and Whittier families. Some of these were men of property, who entered into the affair as an investment, or for a provision for sons, complying with the con- ditions of clearing land and building honses. The relations between Haverhill and Pennacook, or Con- cord, were intimate for many years.

These movements had doubtless taught the towns- men greater consideration for settlers in the outskirts. Thus the petition of ten persons living in the east part of the town, for leave to worship at the Amesbury meeting-honse, was allowed in 1726. The next year families living in the northern and western parts of the town were permitted to hold meetings for wor- ship in each of those localities during the winter season. This did not satisfy the north, and, June 18, 1728, the town voted that the northerly part of the town should be set off into a separate precinct or parish, on condition that the inhabitants within it should determine in a month's time where to build their meeting-house, and settle an orthodox minister as soon as possible. The meeting-house was built the same year. The next year twenty-nine members of the church had leave to organize themselves as a church at what is now Salem, N. Il. In 1730 twelve

1978

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

persons were allowed to pay their "minister's rate" in Amesbury.

As movements were in progress to break up the town, the town was inclined to break up some other organization. In 1726, at an unwarned meeting, held after the annual town-meeting, Captain Joshua Bayley was chosen a committee to join with any per- sons chosen by neighboring towns, " to use all proper means to get the County of Essex divided." The reason given was that the shire-town was so distant. Nothing came of the proposition. In 1693 several towns had petitioned for a division of Essex County. The House passed an act for the purpose, but the Governor and Council would not coneur. In 1736 a similar proposition was made, without success, and since then the subject has been several times ineffec- tually agitated in the Merrimack Valley towns, on at least one occasion with an ambition to make Hav- erhill shire-town of the new county. When, Febru- ary 4, 1679, the General Court made an order, trans- ferring Haverhill and other towns from Norfolk County back into Essex, the town clerk entered a copy of it in the town-book, with this certificate: " This is a true coppy of the original sent up to be published, which was posted in Haverhill, 18 : 2 : 79. As attest, Nath'l Saltonstall, Record'r for Haverhill." At the present moment the town is as likely to re- main in Essex as at any time for the last two hundred and nine years.

In 1726, the town voted Mr. Brown, the minister, four yearly contributions, in addition to his salary. The next year the town, at his request, "double floored " one of the rooms, " very cold in the winter," " ceiled overhead " another, and, of its own volition, " repapered the great room."

In May of this year the town voted to raise and repay immediately into the province treasury one- fifth of the " Bank Money."

The year 1727 was long memorable in the traditions of the Merrimac Valley. First, on account of "a mighty tempest of wind and rain," Saturday and Sunday, September 16th and 17th, which destroyed a large amount of property, sweeping off "near two hundred load of hay " from the marshes of Newbury. " A most terrible, sudden and amazing earthquake " began Sunday, October 29th, the shocks continuing with abated violence for some months. The Rev. Mr. Plant, of Newburyport, in his account of these shocks, says: "On the nineteenth (November), about ten at night, a very loud shock and another about break of day, somewhat here abated, but at Haverhill a very loud burst, making their houses rock, as that overnight did with us. It was the Lord's day in the evening." Between January 1 and May 22, 1728, over thirty shocks are recorded. Cof- fin, in his History of Newbury, " has noted nearly two hundred earthquake shocks near the Merrimac, be- tween 1727 and 1770. May 22, 1728, was observed by the church in Haverhill as a day of thanksgiving

" for the great mereies of the winter past under the earthquakes."

The bounds of the North Parish or Precinct of Ilaverhill, as established by the General Court, Au- gust, 1728, should be given here as a matter of his- torical interest : " Beginning at the Westerly end of Brandy Brow, on Almsbury Line, from thence to the northerly end of the hither North Meadow, as it is commonly called, thence to the fishing river, and so down the fishing river till it comes to the Bridge by Matthew Harriman's, then running westerly to the bridge over the brook by Nath'l Marble's, and then a straight line Northwest one quarter of a point North, to the bounds of Haverhill, taking all the land within the town of Haverhill, north of that line." The North Parish, as thus defined, included almost the whole of Plaistow, about half of Hampstead and the whole of Atkinson.

At a special meeting called for that purpose in 1729, the town voted to raise fifty pounds towards the cost of supporting the province agent in England. Other sums were afterward appropriated for a similar object.

At the annual meeting a proposition was rejected to raise one hundred pounds for school money. The same proposition was renewed without success the next year, with the modification that half the money should be appropriated for the support of "the Gram- mar School near the meeting-house." The " Gram- mar School " was supported all the time, but held in different parts of the town. Common schools were kept a few weeks each, in different parts of the town.

The town gave tbe " North Precinet" ten pounds in 1730 towards the support of a minister, and the par- ish invited one Mr. Haynes to settle, who declined. They then invited Rev. James, son of Rev. Caleb Cushing, of Salisbury, who accepted, and was ordained the following December. Nov. 1, 1730, forty-six members of the First Church were dismissed, for the purpose of uniting in a church state in the North Precinct.

This year three "Overseers of the Poor" were chosen for the first time. Chosen annually till 1735, the office was then discontinued, and its duties rel- egated to the board of selectmen. The office of over- seer was not revived until 1801 .- The North Precinct asking for a grant of land for their new minister, the proprietors allotted him a piece containing about twenty-nine acres. Joseph Whittier and Moses Haz- zen, in 1731, petitioned the proprietors for leave to build a wharf on the Merrimack, near Mill Brook. It was granted on condition that they kept the two bridges near them in repair "forever," paid fifty pounds, and built a good wharf, at least one hundred feet wide, from the highway to low water-mark. In 1732, the town voted to give the " proffit (rent) of the Parsonage Farm " to the North Parish until there should be another parish in town. They voted to " take an exact list of the Poles and estates" in town,

1979

HAVERHILL.

choosing a committee to do it. "Christopher Bartlett was paid six shillings, one day valuation estates."

June 18,1733, Henry Springer, who professed that he was desirous of carrying on the trade of a ship car- penter, petitioned the proprietors to grant him land for a "building yard " " betwixt the highway by the burying-place and the River, or where the vessell now stands upon the stocks." This petition was granted, provided he "should settle and carry on the trade of a ship's carpenter, or that some other person build in the same place in his room, and no longer." This was pretty certainly the first of ship-building as a regular business.

In March, 1734, the proprietors granted to Richard Saltonstall the large island in "Island Pond," con- taining about two hundred acres-one-half in consid- eration of valuable services he had rendered them, the other half to be paid for by him at thirty shillings per acre. Island Pond was still in Haverhill.

In 1734 and the two following years, there was a terrible pest of " catterpillers " in Haverhill and Brad- ford, and a part of Methuen, Chester and Andover, " and in many other places near Haverhill." They entirely devoured all the foliage finally, but in the beginning specially affected that of the red aud black oak. Dr. Joshua Bailey left an account of theni.

In 1734 the town cousented that the inhabitants of the easterly part should be set off into a parish by themselves, and the line was accordingly run. But when the petitioners went to the General Court to get the proceedings legalized, there was such a sharp op- position from a minority that the court sent them home again.

The people in the westerly part made a similar ap- plication with better success and the west land was set off into the West Parish. A meeting-house was completed the following autumn. It stood east of the present meeting-house, where Timothy J. Goodrich lived in 1861. So says Chase.

In 1734 the Haverhill proprietors gave land to the North Parish for a burying-ground. It is still used for the same purpose, and is on the Atkinson road, near the Clement estate.

The next year the town for the first time voted " to mend and repair the highways by a rate." The prices for labor were fixed at four shillings per day for a man, and two shillings for a yoke of oxen ; the surveyors to judge what a day's work was. But no separate sum was voted to be raised as a highway tax till 1754.

In July, 1735, Rev. Samuel Bacheller was ordained as pastor of the West Parish. Seventy-seven members of the First Church were dismissed to form the new one. The next year the proprietors gave the parish forty acres of land, and Mr. Bacheller seventy for his own use. At the annual meeting the town also voted to divide the income from all the parsonage land west of Sawmill (Little) River equally between the North aud West Parishes.

In October the proprietors voted to survey and divide all the meadows lying in common in the town. Each was to receive his proportion, according to the original grant of "accomodation " land he repre- sented.

In May, 1735, a Mr. Clough, of Kingston, N. H., who had examined a hog dead of a throat disease, was himself suddenly attacked with a swelling of the throat, living but a few days. Three weeks after three children in his neighborhood were attacked in a similar manner, and lived but thirty-six hours. From this beginning the disease spread rapidly to the eastern colonies and to New York on the west, which it did not reach for two years. Between June, 1735, and Jnly, 1736, nine hundred and eighty-four persons died in fourteen towns of New Hampshire. Its particular mortality was with children. It appeared in October, 1736, in Haverhill, and swept off more than one-half of all the children under fifteen years of age. In many families not a child was left. Fifty-eight families lost one each; thirty- four, two each; eleven lost three each ; five lost four each, and four lost five each. One hundred and ninety-nine died in this town, of whom only one was over forty years of age. The disease was attended with a sore throat, white or ash-colored spots, an efflores- cence on the skin, great general debility and a strong tendency to putridity.

A layman would naturally conclude that this distemper was similar to the modern diphtheria. Physicians have written upon the disorder, althoughi the writer is not aware that any one contemporaneous with its ravages did so. Rev. John Brown, of Haver- hill, who lost three children, published an account of it in a large pamphlet, which must now be very rare.

The same disease appeared in 1763, in a milder form.

In 1737, the town voted to build an almshouse instead of supporting the paupers in private families. Next year the vote was renewed, and in 1738 it seems to have been constructed. It stood just below Mill Brook on the river side. But the new system did not satisfy them, and in 1746 the town voted to sell the almshouse and go back to the old plan.

The line between Haverhill and Methuen was not finally settled till 1738, when it was run by the select- men of the two towns.

About this time a new ferry was established about a mile and a half below the Chain Ferry, but it was soon after removed a mile up the river. November 6, 1738, James McHard petitioned the proprietors for leave to build a still-house on "a small vacancy of land betwixt the parsonage land and Merrimack River by Mr. Pecker's." They gave him permission, provided he built within three years. It stood on Mill Brook. This was a rum distillery, and the first one in town.

In the summer of 1740 there fell a vast amount of

1980

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS

rain. The succeeding winter is thought to have been the most severe known since the settlement of the country. There were twenty-seven snow-storms. In November and early in December there were great and continuous rains, producing a freshet, which, according to the journalist Plant, "was not known by no man for seventy years." In this town the water rose fifteen feet, and floated off many houses. December 12th the river was closed with ice, and before January Ist loaded teams, even with eight oxen, passed from Haverhill to the long wharf at Newbury- port.

A church was formed in that part of Haverhill now Salem, N. H., in 1740, of which Rev. Abner Bailey was the first minister. He died in 1798.

When the northerly part of the town was erected into a separate precinct in 1728 the town ceased to be the parish. All that remained after the North Parish was set off was known as the "South " or "Old Parish," still later as the " First Parish." Parochial business was no longer transacted in town, but in parish meetings, the first of which was beld November 24, 1729, by virtue of a warrant from Richard Salton- stall, justice. John Eaton was chosen clerk. From that time on the organization was regularly kept up.

In March, 1730, the parish voted to "give to ye Revd. Mr. Brown ye timber of the forte yt is about his house, to despouse of it as he pleaseth." The fear of Indian enemies had passed away at last.

In that year the petitions of the East and the West that money might be "raised by ye parish yt they might hire a minister to preach to ym in ye winter season, on bad traviling," were refused. 1732 the parish enlarged the burying-place by purchasing half an acre of land adjoining it.

In December, 1733, the parish voted to hire another minister, "to assist Mr. Brown for three months this winter." His health had long been failing, and the care of such an enormous parish would require a man of herculean strength. But the East and West had evidently improved the opportunity to press their re- spective claims. At the first meeting about an assist- ant there was " considerable discourse " and " some hard words," but no vote ; while at the next meeting the vote was passed to hire an assistant, and then votes to procure and pay ministers for both the East and West sections the winter following. There had been a compromise.

The following February, propositions were made in parish meeting to erect two new parishes and build two new meeting-houses one near the house of Nathaniel Merrill, Jr., and the other near that of Richard Hazzen. It was also proposed to set off to Amesbury West Parish those living near Amesbury line, and to the North Parish those who could most conveniently worship there. All these propositions were rejected. Four weeks later a vote was passed to set off those living east of a line from Elisha Davis' to the " pond bridge," and so on by the brook to the

North Parish line, into a new parish. Twenty-two persons living within the bounds of this new parish, as proposed, dissented from the vote; and, as we have already seen, their opposition prevailed at that time with the General Court, and the East Parish was not set up till some years after. Then there was "great Debat" and "some hard words " again, but finally a committee was chosen to set off a parish " at the west end of the old or South Parish." The General Court erected this parish at once, but its bounds were mat- ter of dispute for several years.

As early as 1720, Pastor Brown had been for several months unable to preach, the town providing a sub- stitute. From 1733 to 1742, being in a " weak state of health," the parish provided for his pulpit supply for weeks and sometimes for months at a time. At last consumption claimed its long-besieged prey, and the good man died December 2, 1742. The parish, with fine liberality, voted to raise one hundred pounds, old tenor, to defray the expenses of his funeral, which was to be delivered to " Madam Brown, to be used at her discretion."

Of Mr. Brown his successor wrote : "Mr. Brown, my immediate predecessor, whose praise was in the churches while he abode in the flesh, and whose mem- ory is still precious with the serious and judicious for his talents, goodness and assiduous labours, early ap- peared old by reason of a thin and slender constitu- tion, and, emaciated with cares and pains, seemed burthened with life before the time." Mr. Brown was forty-six years old. His epitaph declares that "as he was greatly esteemed in his life for his learning, piety and prudence, his removal is very justly la- mented as a loss to his family, church and country. He was an Israelite indeed, in whom there was no guile "

After the death of Mr. Brown the church and peo- ple were happily united in the Rev. Edward Barnard, who was ordained April 27, 1743. He belonged to one of the great ministerial families of New England. His father and grandfather were ministers of the First Church in Andover in succession. His brother, Rev. Thomas Barnard, of Newbury and Salem, was con- sidered one of the most profound, liberal and excel- lent of the ministers. They all graduated at Harvard. Thomas Barnard preached the ordination sermon for his brother Edward. His topic was, "Tyranny and Slavery in matters of religion cautioned against ; and true humility recommended to ministers and people." It is a sermon of great ability, clearness and liberality. It was printed in Boston for Samuel Eliot, of Haver- hill. Dr. Bayley wrote in his journal : " April 16, 1743 (O. S.). Great snow-storm-eleven inches on a level. Rev. Barnard ordained."

Mr. Barnard's salary was fixed at one hundred ounces of silver, or its equivalent, annually, together with the use of all the parsonage land and buiklings, except one lot near the river (where Merrimac Street now is), and also "a reasonable support and main-

11 th

1981

HIAVERHILL.

tenance when by ye providence of God he shall be disabled from ye work of ye ministry, so long as he remains our minister." This was an excellent pro- vision, for the times.

The next great agitation in the parish was about the first bell, imported expressly from London in 1748. The parish voted £65 1s. 6d., old tenor, to proenre it. After much discussion, it was finally " voted to Hang the Bell on the top of the meeting- house, and build a proper place for that purpose," and " to raise one hundred pounds, old tenor, towards defraying the charges of building the Steeple and Hanging the Bell." The belfry was built on the top of the meeting-house, and the bell-rope descended to the broad aisle. It was voted "to ring the bell at one of the clock every day, and at nine every night, and on Sabbaths and Lectures." The first bellman was Samuel Knowlton. March 26, 1753, the parish voted that Benjamin Harrod should take down and dispose of the old bell, and provide a "new one of about 500 lbs." In time the old meeting-house be- came so much decayed that the bell could not be rung with safety, and it was therefore taken down and hung on two pieces of timber placed crosswise at the top, upon the hill, near the parsonage house (corner of Main and Summer Streets). Mirick says it was first hung in that fashion. John Whiting sneceeded Samnel Knowlton as bellman, and to him succeeded his widow, Judith Whiting, who had charge of bell and meeting-house many years, dying in 1795, not quite a hundred years old, after crossing the Great Bridge and telling her budget of Indian stories.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 240

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1672

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1672