History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 241

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 241

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In 1734 the inhabitants of the easterly part had failed to be set off into a separate parish because of the opposition of some of their own number. In 1743 the attempt was renewed in a petition to the General Court of Nathaniel Peaslee (who had headed the petition nine years before) and fifty-four others, who recite the incorporation of Methuen in 1725, of the North Parish in 1728, and the West Parish in 1734. " And now may it please your Excy. & Honrs., the meeting-house now in the old parish stands but a mile at furthest off the West Parish Line, & the said meeting House stands near six miles from the East End of said Parish, & we have petitioned to the said Parish for some ease in this matter, & no help can be obtained," ... signing them- selves, " Your poor distressed Petrs."

June 1, 1743, the petitioners were ordered to serve the First Parish with a copy of the petition, "that they may show cause (if any they have) why the prayer thereof should not be granted." June 9th, Joshua Bayley and Captain James Pearson were chosen to make answer in behalf of the first or " Old- est Parish." They set forth in their answer what was formerly done and failed to be done, on account of the opposition of "many of the inhabitants on the easterly side of that line;" that "in the month

of May last there was a vote passed to divide ye Parish, and a line was fixt which we hoped might make a peace in the Parish (tho at the same time we are humbly of the opinion that the whole Parish will make but two verry lean Parishes when divided). ... It appears to ns that we have been tenderly thought- ful in what we have done relating to a divisional line, having set off near one-half of the land & near sixty families, yea, all that have desired it except two or three men which, by our own act, may go with their estates to the new Parish if they please." . .. They solicit " a tender regard to the old Parish that was once the Center of a verry large town, is now become (by the loss of almost all Methnen & three separate Parishes) to be very small." June 14th, these petitions were read, and a committee was appointed to visit Haverhill, view the parish, hear the parties and report. September 9th, the commit- tee reported in favor of the petitioners, and the par- ish was set off accordingly.

In November of the same year the first parish meeting of the East Parish was held " at the house of Nathaniel Whittier, deceased." A committee was appointed to select a location for a meeting-house, who reported at an adjourned meeting a recommen- dation that it be erected " at the south side of Turkey Hill, near the south-east end of the hill." The re- port was accepted, the work was begon, and meetings were held in the meeting-house by the following September, though it was not actually finished until a few years before it was torn down in 1838, nearly a century after. Alterations and improvements were made at different times. Until about 1816 the two sexes sat apart during meeting. The first artificial heating was in 1829. In 1745 the town granted the East Parish parsonage land valued at twelve hundred pounds, old tenor. When the house was ready to be used, the parish invited the neighboring ministers to fast and pray with them " for ye divine direction, in order to give a person a call to settle among them in the work of the ministry." September 6, 1744, was the day appointed. After the meeting the ministers recommended Mr. Benjamin Parker as well qualified. Accordingly, October 4th, a call was given to Mr. Parker. The parish voted to give him the use of the parsonage land ; to build him a parsonage house and barn ; to pay him one hundred pounds, old tenor, and seventy pounds provision pay, annually, for the first three years, and, after that, to increase the provision pay to one hundred pounds per annum. The call was accepted, and Mr. Parker was ordained November 28, 1744, at which time the church was gathered, con- sisting of sixteen male members. Mr. l'arker entered in its records that " the inhabitants of the precinct had constant preaching for some time previously." In March, 1745, a parish committee requested Mr. Parker to wait a time for them to build the parsonage house they had engaged to furnish him with. llis answer was, "no, he would not," and, before the next October,

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

the house was finished. It was nearly opposite the meeting-house, and was long used for its original pur- posc. In 1748 the parish built a school-house about six rods northerly of the meeting-house, and laid out two burying-grounds,-the first "between Jonathan Marsh's barn and Gravel Shoot," the other " in the cor- ner of Richard Colby's land, nearest country bridge," both of which places are still used for the purpose. After a few years the school money was divided into two parts, and one school was kept at Gideon George's, another at Joseph Greele's, till the town was divided into small districts. Tradition has said that in 1750 there were but four houses at Rocks Village.

In 1743 the proprietors granted Edward Flynt leave " to finish a vessel he had put up on the banks of the river near his house," and also to put up any others during the proprietors' pleasure.

John Ayer had recently built a tan-house " on land given to him by tbe proprietors for that purpose in the rear of his father's garden," and had also built a bridge across the stream near it. In consideration that he would forever keep the bridge in repair, the proprietors granted him the piece of land west of his tan-honse. This was not far from the west end of Plug Pond, probably bordering on what is now Kenoza Avenue.

In 1744 the town voted to divide the parsonage land into lots. A highway two and a half rods wide was laid out through the lots " to near the mouth of Little River and over said river." The expense of the bridge was to come out of the sale of the lots. This highway was what is now called Merrimac Street, now one hundred and forty-four years old. The lots were laid out on the north side only, and numbered from east to west, the lot cornering on Merrimac and Main Streets -long known as " White's Corner "-being " Lot Number One."

It is, of course, deeply to be regretted that this bigli- way was made so narrow. The town had exhausted itself npon one great highway in the early day-that from Sanders' Hill to the Merrimac, above Holt's Rocks -- which was twelve rods wide, and made the town much trouble. In 1754 it was cut down to four rods in width, and the land thus thrown out, nineteen acres and eighty-two rods, was sold to various per- sons along the line of the road.

In 1733 the proprietors had given John Gage liberty to set a blacksmith's shop near the river and Springer's ship-yard; and now, Edmund Greenleaf obtained liberty to set up such a shop near Edward Flynt's ship-yard.

In 1745 the town allowed Thomas Cottle to estab- lish a ferry near his house, as he represented that the ferry might be "sarvicable to the town and other travailers," and proposed to ferry the town's people one-fourth cheaper than strangers. There were thus five ferries over the Merrimac between the village and Holt's Rocks-i.e., Griffin's, ou Water Street, near the foot of Lindell; Mullikin's, at the chain ferry ;

Pattee's Ferry ; Cottle's, at Cottle's Creek, on the mouth of East Meadow River; Swett's, at Holt's Rocks.

In 1746 the town voted to exempt the First, or "old," Parish from paying anything for any other school in town, provided they would keep a grammar school constantly in their parish, at their own expense. The year before a grammar school had been begun there. -The tax-collectors were usually the constables. As we have noted, there was originally but one constable, who, when chosen, must either "stand," procure an acceptable substitute, pay a penalty of five pounds, or get excused, which the town was rarely in a mood to allow. After a while there were two constables, one for the lands and people east of Little River, the other for those west. Finally, there was one constable to a parish. At first the constables were not allowed any pay ; in 1780 it was voted to allow them a pound- age of fourpence on twenty shillings collected. Each parish now collected its own ministerial tax. In the First Parish the system of collection was frequently as follows : a contribution was taken up every Sabbath afternoon at the close of service. In the early days everybody went up to the deacon's seat, depositing his offering, the dignitaries beginning. It is said this custom went out about 1665. Afterwards the con- tributions were collected. Every contributor inclosed his money in a piece of paper, on which he wrote his name, and the amount contributed, with the object to which he wanted it devoted. If he wished it appor- tioned to his tax, it was so eredited. When no name was written on the paper the offering was understood to be for the minister, and so disposed of. As we have seen, special contributions were sometimes taken up for his benefit. There are religious societies to-day within the limits of the " Ancient Parish," which are supported entirely upou the principle of voluntary contribution.

The following is a brief list of persons residing in this town in 1747, with their occupations. It was gleaned from petitions and other papers in the State Archives, and is of some value as showing what trades were carried on:

" James Pecker, an a Potecary ; Edmond Mors, a shoemaker or cord- winder ; Daniel Appleton, Joyner ; James Parson, Husbandman; John Byenton, Black Smith ; Grant Webster, Marchant; Jonathan Webster, Hatter; Andrew Fwink, Shipwrite ; Nathaniel Knolton, Tayler ; Mr. Trask, Brick Layer; Ebenezer Hale, Cordwinder ; William Hancock, Farmer."

In 1748 occurred one of the overmastering agitations about town affairs. At the annual meeting, March Ist, Nathaniel Peaselee was declared elected modera- tor. Samuel White and fifteen others, ineffectually protesting " that he was not chosen according to law," retired, and those who remained elected town officers, and transacted the other business. Henry Springer and fifty-eight others asked the General Court to in- vestigate the matter, on the ground that illegal votes were received and legal rejected. The petitioners chose John Sanders and Peter Ayer to present their

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HAVERHILL.

case. With the petition were sent fourteen depositions signed by twenty-eight other inhabitants, in support. Joshua Sawyer and others deposed, September 17th, that no list was used to show who was entitled to vote till some time after Peaslee began to act as moderator. To these petitions the selectmen of 1747 and 1748 and seventy-two others replied that the petition "con- tained false and abusive statements," that many of the petitioners were new-comers and contentious people; "that John Sanders was greatly prejudiced against moderator Peaslee, because the latter had exposed and prevented the former from obtaining more money from the Province than belonged to him, by a false account; the moderator was duly and legally chosen, and had the Rev. Mr. Barnard open the meeting with prayer ; and many of the petitioners were not qualified to vote, and some were not even residents of the town."

There was another petition, dated March 29, 1748, signed by twenty-seven "freeholders and inhabitants," who say that they were not present at the annual meeting on account of the great depth of snow, but had heard of the proceedings, and prayed that the petition of Sanders and others be not granted.

These petitions were referred to a committee, which reported " that the town-meeting held on the first day of March he sett aside and that the selectmen for the year 1747 grant a new warrant for the choice of all ordinary town officers that Towns by law arc enabled to choose ; " the meeting to be held some time in April. The report was accepted.

A town-meeting was accordingly convened April 26th, at which all the officers chosen March Ist were re- chosen, except Thomas Duston selectman in place of Moses Clement. " John Pecker and others " dissented, because this was not done "according to law."

May 25, 1748, Richard Saltonstall and forty-one others, memorialized the General Court, to the effect that " the affairs of the second meeting were conducted with more wickedness, partiality and premeditated corruption than the first;" that the selectmen (who were also assessors) had made a " pretended valuation, by which they disqualified some of the op- posite party, and admitted others who were clearly not entitled to vote-all for the purpose of carry- ing their own points in the choice of officers; that the cause of all the uneasiness among the inhabit- ants, was the belief that the Selectmen, or some of them, had combined with the Town Treasurer (who was also Town Clerk) to Imbezell large sums of the publick money & apply it to their own use." They therefore prayed for a new meeting, to be presided over by a disinterested moderator, and that the transactions of the last meeting be set aside. The General Court ordered the petitioners to serve the selectmen and moderator with a copy of their petition, and June 15th, was assigned to hear the parties. In their answer the selectmen deny any attempt at partiality, and declare that the memorial is false and vexations. But it ap-

pears that June 17, 1748, Nathaniel Sanders and Joseph Patten for the memorialists and the selectmen for the respondents, made an agreement for peace on the following terms : the memorialists to drop their petition, on condition that a new town-meeting be held, and that a disinterested committee be chosen to settle with the town treasurer, on which committee no selectman or member of a former committee should he placed. However, the General Court's committee heard the case in part in June, postponing its consid- eration further to September, when they made a re- port, recommending that the proceedings of the second meeting should be set aside, and declared null and void, and a new meeting should be called ; and that as no valuation had been taken the present year, "according to law," the valuation of 1747 should be taken as the rule for determining the right to vote. The General Court adopted the report, and appointed John Choate, E-q., of Ipswich, to act as moderator of the meeting. Accordingly, a meeting was held No- vember 22d, when Col. Choate acted as moderator, and the same persons were for the third time elected as town officers! And then the war came to an end. But if our fathers' opinions of each other, as ex- pressed to the General Court, are to be taken as cor- rect, their descendants have invented nothing in the way of bad politics.

Colonel Nathaniel Peaslec, the moderator, grandson of Joseph the first and son of Joseph the second, born in 1682, was a merchant and a large landholder. He was much employed in the town's business, serving many years as selectman and moderator. He was representative to the General Court nine years in all, and longer than any other man in the town's history save David How.

This year-1748-a motion was made to build a school-house in every parish, but it was negatived. In 1723 the town had voted to build a number, but they may not have been built, or all of them.

During the war of 1744-48 Haverhill men were out. Some were at the taking of Louisburg, but the muster-rolls of that expedition do not give place of residence or enlisiment of those engaged in it. In 1748 nine Haverhill soldiers were stationed at Scar- horough, Me., as sentinels.

In 1749 a proposition was made to hold the town- meetings half the time in the West Parish, and the other half in the East-but it was voted down. Prob- ably that arrangement would have inconvenienced almost everybody.

The summer of this year was made miserable by intense drought, caterpillars and similar pests, accom- panied with great heat.

In 1751 it was voted that a grammar school should be kept in each parish four months in the year. This was probably a spasmodic effort, occasioned by inti- mations that the town was in danger of prosecution for not keeping such a school, as the law required. In fact, the next spring Nathaniel Peaslee was chosen

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

to appear and answer a presentment against the town, for not being provided with a "grammer-school master; " and another, for not keeping "Hawk's River Bridge in repair."

In 1752 great alarm was occasioned by the appear- ance of small-pox in neighboring towns, and John Cogswell and Samuel White were appointed to assist the selectmen to use every means to prevent its en- trance into this town. Special constables were ap- pointed to serve necessary warrants. But the disease was not to be barred out by their puny barriers, and in 1755-56 several persons died with it.

In this year the change in computing time, from "Old Style " to "New Style," went into effect in England and its colonies by act of Parliament.

In 1753 a tax was laid upon coaches, chariots, chaises, calashes and riding-chairs. These were all then clumsy vehicles. The chaise was large, heavy- wheeled, square-topped. Only wealthy people had them, and they were only used on very important oc- casions-like a wedding or an ordination. A calash was like a very clumsy wagon-seat, set upon a heavy pair of low wagon-wheels, with shafts attached. In 1754 there was one chaise and nine calashes in Hav- erhill. In 1755 eighteen calashes were returned. Everybody rode on horseback, upon saddle and pillion, or walked.

CHAPTER CLVII.

HAVERHILL-(Continued).

The Boundary Line Dispute-Frontier Warfare-Demise of Proprietors of Common Lunds.

FROM the first settlement of Massachusetts there has been an intermittent controversy about a portion of its northern boundary. The charter of King Charles the First granted all " that part of New Eng- land lying between three miles to the north of the Merrimack, and three miles to the south of the Charles River, and of every part thereof in the Massachusetts Bay, and in length between the described breadth from the Atlantic Ocean to the South Sea." What was meant by the words "three miles to the north of the Merrimack, and of every part thereof?" The grantees construed the words as authorizing them to find a beginning for their line at the point three miles due north from the northernmost point of the Merrimac. They accordingly sent out an expedition in 1639 to follow up the river. The commissioners selected a rock near the place where the Merrimac issues from the Winnipiseogec Lake as the northern- most point of the river, and marked it (ever since known as Endicott's Rock). They then proceeded three miles north from the rock, and there selected a certain tree as their extreme northern bound. Three

miles south of the mouth of the Charles, and of every point thereof, would, of course, form the south - ern boundary. These lines would be extended to the Atlantic Ocean on the east, and the South Sea on the west. From the tree, three miles north of Endicott's Rock, a line, extended east to the Atlantic, and west, so far as it was judicious to do so, would take a re- spectable portion of what is now Maine, and a large share of New Hampshire and Vermont. True, a considerable part of the territory embraced in the patent, according to this construction, had been already granted to John Mason and others, and as the patentees approached the Hudson River on their way to "the South Sea," there might be other diffi- culties in the way of enforcing the title. But at the time referred to, neither Mason nor other individual patentees were in a position to enforce their claims as against Massachusetts. She accordingly granted lands and townships, according to her own interpretation of the charter. Haverhill, as we have seen, extended fifteen miles from the Merrimac.

The New Hampshire patentees, on the other hand, asserted that the northern line of Massachusetts could not at any point extend more than three miles north of the middle of the channel of the Merrimac. In 1677, at a meeting before the King and Council, the agents for Massachusetts reduced their claims to a jurisdictional line three miles from the river, according to its course ; that is, the line, beginning three miles north of the mouth of the Merrimac should run par- allel with the river at that distance to Endicott's Rock, thence three miles to the tree before men- tioned, and thence due west to the South Sea. This was a large abatement from the first claim, and it seems to have been considered that the more moder- ate pretension was well founded. Massachusetts, however, continued to exercise jurisdiction over those parts of the towns already granted, as Haverhill and Amesbury, that were more than three miles from the Merrimac, and New Hampshire complained without avail.

The charter of 1692, however, prescribed the north- ern boundary of Massachusetts in different language, "extending from the great river commonly called Monomack, alias Merrimack on the north part, and from three miles northward of the said river to the atlantic or western sea." Did this mean three miles northward from every point of the river ? Did it con- firm or restrict the bounds of the original charter? About 1720, at any rate, New Hampshire began to claim that the line should commence at a point three miles north of the month of the Merrimac, and thence run due west. This would have cut off considerable of the territory originally ciaimed by Massachusetts, but it would have left the whole of more than twenty New Ilampshire towns and parts of others, including the present city of Nashua, in Massachusetts.

When Londonderry was incorporated, in 1722, the enterprising Scotch-Irish people soon begun to have

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difficulties with the people living in the northwest- erly part of the original grant of Haverhill.

The same year, a committee was appointed by the General Court of Massachusetts to inquire into en- croachments upon lands to the north of Merrimac, belonging to the towns of Salisbury, Amesbury and Haverhill, over which Massachusetts, of course, was exercising jurisdiction, according to her original grants. Kingston, in New Hampshire, claimed that her grant included lands in the northeastern part of Haverhill, and there was trouble along the whoie northern border.

In November, 1726, a petition was presented to the General Court from Orlando Bayley, Jacob Rowell, and several others from Haverhill and Amesbury, in which they set forth that they have been prosecuted at law for land they had held for sixty years, on pre- tense that it was in the town of Kingston and province of New Hampshire. Writs in trespass had been served upon the petitioners on the ground that their land was "more than three miles from Merrimac River," and these cases were tried in New Hamp- shire.

The General Court informed their agent in London about these complaints, and voted that the Governor should remonstrate to the General Court of New Hampshire against the proceedings and ask that they might be stayed and all such, until the question of boundary was determined.

In February, 1728, however, the Council made an order reciting a petition of Richard Hazen, Jr., James Pecker, Ebenr. Eastman and Nathaniel Peaslay, all of Haverhill, in behalf of its inhabitants, "setting forth that notwithstanding the Ancient Grant of the sd Town, the many confirmasions and settle- ments of their Bounds by the Government, divers of the inhabitants of Londonderry, within the Province of New Hampshire, have encroached upon the Peti- tioners' lands, mowed their meadows, cut down and destroyed their Timber, and erected several Houses on their Lands and have prosecuted the inhabitants of Haverhill, in the said Province of New Hampshire, for improving their own lands, and therefore praying relief from this Board," and as it appeared to the board that there was great danger that the inhabit- ants in the two provinces would use violenceon each other unless they are speedly discountenanced by their respective governments, " for preventing where- of, voted, that the Inhabitants of this Province border- ing on the dividing Line and claiming Lands there be directed not to make any new Settlement on the said Lands or any improvements whatsoever thereon, and to desist from all prosecutions in the Law till the further order of this Government for the settle- ment of the said Line, Provided the Government of New Hampshire do give the like or some other effect- ual directions."

It appears from the Council records of that year that Nathaniel Peasley was twice allowed money from

the province treasury to defend himself against suits in New Hampshire-ten pounds and thirty pounds,- and that John Wainwright and Richard Saltonstall were granted twenty pounds to prosecute trespassers on provinee lands in Methuen.

The land in dispute between people in Haverhill and people of Londonderry lay in what were known in Haverhill as the " fourth division" and the "fifth division" lands, especially the latter. The " fitth division" had been laid out in lots January, 1721, as we have seen, by the proprietors of Haverhill. The grantees of the proprietors had entered upon the lots, cultivated and improved them. Thus collisions had arisen between them and the men of Londonderry claming the same lands. The proprietors of Haver- hill supported their own rights and those of their grantees with great resolution ; and after the pro- prietors had successfully asserted their rights against the non-commoners in their own town, and had con- ciliated opposition, in the manner already related, they seem to have had substantial moral support from the inhabitants of Haverhill in maintaining their grants against the claims and petty warfare of the people of New Hampshire. Not that there appears to have been much to choose between the contending parties. The New Hampshire people brought suits in their own courts against the Massachusetts men, whom they regarded as trespassers. The Massachusetts men

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 241

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