History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 242

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 242

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retaliated. Assaults were committed and fights occurred, which caused the participants to be arrested, fined and imprisoned in either State. Indeed, there was a long and angry border warfare-all the more bitter because rights of property were involved, and each party doubtless sincerely believed itself in the right.

It is rather difficult to see how the claim of London- derry could be upheld morally or in the law, because Wheelwright's deed of 1719 bounds its grant on the eastward " upon Haverhill line." Haverhill bonnds had been established since 1667, and everybody eould ascertain where "Haverhill line" was, It was a matter of record. However, this is immaterial to our purpose.

At a meeting of the Haverhill proprietors held in January, 1729, a committee was chosen to pros- ecute, "to final issne," all trespassers on the eom- mon lands; and another to perambulate the west line of the town. The reason of the latter aetion was that the west line of the town was the western boundary of the "Fifth Division Lots." They were in the northwesterly part of the town, the angle, or, as it was called, the " Peke of Haverhill."

At a meeting of the proprietors April 7, 1729, " Wm. Mudgete did remonstrate to the proprietors that he has lately been at great cost and charges in defending his title to certain lands in the fifth division, which were, and still are, claimed by the Irish, and that the matter is now in the law un- decided." He therefore prayed that the proprie-

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tors would " reimburse him what he has expended in removing the said Irish out of his house." A committee was appointed to examine his accounts and report. And at a subsequent meeting, Mud- gett was allowed forty-four pounds, seventeen shil- lings and six pence from the proprietors' treasury.

The same year, however, August 27th, the inhabit- ants of Londonderry petitioned the Governor and Council of New Hampshire,-" Inasmuch as the Inhabitants of the Towne of Haverhill do often disturb sundry of your petitioners in their quiet possession of their lands granted them by their charter, under their pretentions of a title thereto," they pray for assistance, on account of the "Law- snits which are daily multiplied by them."

The records of the General Court of Massachu- setts show that June 29, 1731, the House received " A petition of Nathan Webster and Richard Hazzen, Jr., Agents for the Proprietors of the town of Haver- hill, setting forth their Ancient and Legal right to the Lands they possess in said Town, as also the late eneroachments of the Irish people settled in the Province of New Hampshire, who have cutt down and carried away great quantities of their Hay and Timber and other ways disturbed them in the improvement of their lands, Praying relief from this Court." Paul Dudley, atterward chief justice, re- ported from the committee to which this petition was referred that, inasmuch as there was a hopeful prospect of a speedy settlement of the line, the Governor should be directed to issue a proclamation, directing the inhabitants of both provinces to forbear molesting each other for the present year. The House adopted the report, but the Council refused to concur, and " voted, that inasmuch as there are Courts of Justice established by Law before whom affairs of that nature are properly cognizable, the Petition be dismissed."

Soon after this, commissioners of the two prov. inces met at Newbury to negotiate, but without success. The New Hampshire commissioners then appointed John Rindge, a merchant of Portsmouth, agent to present a petition to the King, whose appointment was confirmed by their House of Rep- resentatives October 31, 1731.

The King issued an order at last, submitting the matter to a board of commissioners, compo-ed of five councilors from each of the governments of New York, Rhode Island and Nova Scotia. The tribunal was not regarded as favorable to Massachu- setts, as she had at the moment some controversy with the two former about boundaries, and the latter was thought to be prejudiced against her. Connecticut, which Massachusetts had proposed, was rejected, because of a supposed bias in her favor.

The time and place for the meeting of this commis- sion was August 10, 1737, at Hampton, N. II.

At a meeting held May 17, 1737, Haverhill chose Colonel Richard Saltonstall, Mr. Richard Hazzen and

Deacon James Ayer "to wait upon the Commissioners and represent the affairs and boundaries of the town to them, provided the Proprietors of the undivided lands pay the expense of the committee." Salton- stall and Hazzen had already been employed by the proprietors.

In the manuscript docket of Colonel Saltonstall, as justice of the peace for the county of Essex, is the record of two cases, heard before him March 15, 1735, at Haverhill, in both of which "Richard Hazzen, et al.,"' are plaintiff's, which are quite certainly a part of the proceedings by which the Haverhill proprie- tors were endeavoring to protect their grantees. They were actions of trespass, and in both of them the respective defendants plead in abatement- "1. That the justice before whom the tryall is, is a party concerned. 21y, that neither the originall Right to which this Land mentioned in the Writt is laid out, nor the number of the Lott are mentioned in the Writt." These pleas were overruled, and the defendants respectively plead not guilty. One of them, by the consideration of the justice, recovered " double his eost occasioned by the prosecution ; " in the other case, " It is considered that the plaintiff re- cover forty shillings sued for in the writt and costs of court, taxed at 12s. 7d.," from which judgment the defendant appealed. The proprietors' agent lost one case and won one before the magistrate.

The Assemblies of the two provinees met at Hamp- ton Falls and Salisbury respectively, on the day of the meeting of the commission, and Governor Bel- cher, who was Governor of both provinces, appeared with considerable military and other pomp. The commission decided upon the eastern boundary of New Hampshire, which had also been in earnest dispute, but the question as to the boundary depend- ent upon the original and second charters of Massa- ehnsetts Bay was left as they found it. By agreement, it was submitted to the King in England.

New Hampshire employed as agent, John Tomlin- son, who retained one Parris as solicitor-a man of skill and shrewdness. Massachusetts employed Colo- nel Edmund Quincy, as agent, a man of high char- acter, but he died in England in 1738, of the small- pox by inoculation. Her interests then fell into the hands of Wilks and Partridge, who are accounted to have been much inferior in diplomatie ability to the managers for New Hampshire.

In a letter writter by Richard Hazzen, the agent of the Haverhill proprietors, May 9, 1737, he says : " I should earnestly request that endeavors might be used that a line from Endicott's Tree to three miles north of Merrimack River at ye mouth might be ye dividing line of the Provinces which we take to be the true intent of the Charter; but the Province having put in a different claim, we forbear to mention it." This was a novel scheme for finding a boundary line, and had not, perhaps, much to recommend it. And, as Hazzen admits, it was just as well to forbear men-

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tioning it, for the province had long before intimated that it would be satisfied with much less. But New Hampshire also would have been satisfied with much less than she received, through the award of the King.

This town and the other towns interested, sent petitions directly to the King, setting forth their rights as they conceived them under the ancient grants. All of which was of no avail. The decision of Ilis Majesty, King George the Second, much to the mortification of Massachusetts and the inhabitants of the towns claiming jurisdiction under her, was en- tirely in favor of New Hampshire.

April 9, 1740, a decree of the King in Council passed the seals, by which it was adjudged, ordered and decreed " that the northern boundary of the prov- ince of Massachusetts Bay is and be a similar curve line, pursuing the course of Merrimac River, at three miles distance on the north side thereof, beginning at the Atlantic Ocean and ending at a point due north of a place in the plan returned by the commissioners (the commission already referred to), called Patucket Falls, and a straight line drawn from thence due west across said river till it meets with His Majesty's other governments." Pawtucket Falls is now the city of Lowell, and a continuing line following the course of the Merrimac west of that point would shortly turn towards the north. Doubtless one reason for the de- cision was the desire to avoid collision as far as pos- sible with claims under other patents.

The King's decree was sent to Governor Belcher, with instructions to apply to the respective Assem- blies of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, to unite in making the necessary provisions in running and marking the line conformably to the decree, and per- mitting the Assembly of either province to proceed e.r parte if the Assembly of the other should refuse. The Assembly of the province of Massachusetts de- clined having anything to do with the matter, but the Assembly of New Hampshire made the necessary ap- propriation for running and marking the line. Walter Bryant was therefore appointed by Governor Belcher and the Council March 12, 1741, to run the boundary between New Hampshire and Maine (then a part of Massachusetts) . March 16, 1741, Governor Belcher appointed George Mitchell to run the curve line from the Atlantic Ocean to a point three miles due north of Pawtucket Falls. Governor Belcher also issued a warrant or order to Richard Hazzen, direct- ing him to cause the line to be run from a point three miles north of Pawtucket Falls till it reaches His M jesty's other governments. George Mitchell had already been employed in drawing maps for the use of the commission. Richard Hazzen was without doubt the agent of the Haverhill proprietors, but he was not employed about that part of the line in which they and their grantees were interested, but in running that part of it west of Pawtucket Falls.

George Mitchell ran and marked his line in Febru-

ary, 1741, made a map of the river from the Atlantic to Pawtucket Falls, and March 8, 1741, at Ports- mouth, New Hampshire, made oath to a statement written upon the back of the map that the survey " is true and exact to the best of his skill and knowl- edge, and that the line described in the plan is as conformable to His Majesty's determination in Council as was in his power to draw, but finding it impracticable to stick to the letter of said determina- tion, has in some places taken from one province, and made ample allowance for the same in the next reach of the River."

In the month of March, 1741, Hazzen ran and marked a line from the point about three miles north of Pawtucket Falls, across the Connecticut River to the supposed boundary line of New York, on what was supposed to be a due west line from the place of beginning. By this line, under the King's decree, it is said that New Hampshire received a territory of about fifty-five miles by fourteen, more than she had claimed before the commissioners.

Bryant and Hazzen were both directed to allow ten degrees variation for the needle. Hazzen's line was fifty-five miles long ; Bryant's was one hundred and twenty miles long. If Hazzen, by this variation, therefore, took anything from New Hampshire im- properly, Bryant must have taken much more improp- erly from Maine for the benefit of New Hampshire. Bryant's line was run, and has since been accepted as the true boundary line between New Hampshire and Maine.

Mitchell and Hazzen's line, thus run in 1740, under the authority of Governor Belcher and the New Hampshire Assembly, at the expense of New Hamp- shire and in the absence of Massachusetts, is the only line ever run between the twogovernments. Returns of the surveyors were lodged in the office of the Board of Trade in Great Britain, by Governor Belch- er, and returns were also lodged in the offices of the respective secretaries of each of the provinces, the lat- ter of which have disappeared.

After the King's decision was made known, Thomas Hutchinson, of Boston, petitioned His Majesty " to direct that the several Line townships, which by the Line directed to be run by his Majesty's order in Council of ye 9th April, 1740, will be cut off from the Province of Massachusetts Bay may be united to that province." And it appears that the towns interested -Haverhill and Amesbury-also petitioned in their own behalf.

May 7, 1741, Gov. Belcher wrote to the Board of Trade in England, "concerning a difficulty arisen upon ye construction of his Majesty's Judgment re- specting ye Boundaries betwixt ye Province of Mas- sachusetts Bay and that of New Hampshire."

Belcher recites the King's decree and proceeds : " Your lordships will be pleased to observe that it is called the Northern Boundaries of the Massachusetts, but not the Southern of New Hampshire, nor the Divis-

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ional Line between the two Provinces. From this the people of both Provinces say, the lands from the Northern Boundary of Massachusetts, till they meet the Southern Boundary of New Hampshire, and so further westward, are not uuder any jurisdiction or Government, nor can the lands already ungranted be- tween these lines be granted for the Incouragement of New Settlers. If the matter remains thus, it may soon produce disorders and confusion between the King's subjects, now settled upon some part of those lands, who look upon themselves in a state of anarchy."

To enforce his suggestion, Belcher refers to the dif- ferent wording of the decree where it prescribes the other boundary (between New Hampshire and Maine) the language there being, "And as to the Northern Boundary between the Said Provinces, the Court re- solves and determines that the Dividing Line, etc." No answer appears to have been made to Governor Belcher's inquiry. The difficulty was probably re- garded by my Lords of Trade as rather imaginary than real, and as partaking of the nature of a quibble.

The King's decree was undoubtedly intended to fix the dividing line or boundary of both provinces. Greater precision in language might have been had, and doubtless the point suggested by Gov. Belcher was made much of by those disappointed at the King's decision, and may have raised illusory hopes of something more to be done, while it added to the confusion and perplexities of the poor people in the disputed territory. New Hampshire taxed the inhabitants there as soon as the line was run. Those portions of Haverhill and Amesbury falling north of the new line were incorporated by the General Court of that province into a district, under the name of " Haverhill District," which continued until it was divided and incorporated into towns.

The instructions given Benning Wentworth, who at this time was appointed to succeed Belcher as Gov- ernor of New Hampshire, cite the King's decree without comment as fixing the limits of his jurisdic- tion. George Mitchell's construction is not necessar- ily of much importauce, but in the title of his map he writes of " describing Bounds between his Majesty's Province of New Hampshire and the Massachusetts Bay, agreeable to his Majesty's Order in Council."

Dec. 8, 1742, Gov. Benning Wentworth, of New Hampshire, wrote to the Board of Trade, referring to the petitions to restore to Massachusetts the inhab- itants who had been set away from it against their expectation and desire-" unless it should be his Majesty's pleasure to put an end to applications of this nature, it will be impossible for me to carry his Royal Instructions into execution." " New Hamp- shire sits down by his Majesty's determination, and has showed the greatest obedience thereto by paying the whole expense of running and marking out the boundaries in exact conformity to the Royal determi- nation, and therefore thinks it a great hardship that Massachusetts should lead them into any new charge

in a dispute that had subsisted near four-score years, and which has been so solemnly determined." The Legislature of New Hampshire also begged the King not to allow any change in the boundary line. Gov. Wentworth and New Hampshire had their own way. The boundaries marked out " in exact conformity to the Royal determination " have never been disturbed, but never agreed upon between the two provinces or the two States. The supplemental chapter of history about this boundary is certainly an amusing one.

In 1825 Massachusetts appointed a commission to act jointly with a commission to be appointed by New Ilampshire, to ascertain the boundary between the two States. January 31, 1827, the Massachusetts commissioners made their report to Governor Lincoln, in substance as follows : In July, 1825, upon informa- tion from his excellency that the State of New Hampshire had acceded to the proposals of Massa- chusetts, to run and ascertain the boundary line be- tween their respective States aforesaid, and had appointed commissioners for that purpose, they put themselves iu communication with the New Hamp- shire Board, and met them about the business in- trusted to both boards. They recite the disappearance of the returns of the surveyors of 1741 from the American offices and say : "But it was now agreed by the commissioners from each State that a line ex- isted as the same was reputed, known and acknowl- edged as well by the authorities of the town on each side of said line as by inhabitants and others residing in the vicinity thereof. We, accordingly, commenced the survey," a surveyor and assistant surveyor being appointed by the Massachusetts commissioners and similar agents by the New Hampshire commis- sioners. "And we began at a large stone in the marsh, . .. which stone is three miles and two hun- dred and twenty rods northerly from where the Merrimack River now enters the Atlantic Ocean ; thence by several courses and distances we ran thirty- four miles and twelve rods to a point or station called the Boundary Pine, which is, by an actual measure- ment, two miles and three hundred and thirteen rods (5164} feet) due north of a point in Pawtucket Falls, called the great pot-hole place ; thence we proceeded west by the reputed line fifty-five miles, etc., ... which is a corner of New Hampshire and Vermont."

Meeting again, October 27th, at Nashua, in New Hampshire, when the surveyors' minutes and plans on both sides were compared, "no doubt remained but the line, as originally run and marked by George Mitchell, from the Atlantic Ocean to the place called the Boundary Pine, two miles, three hundred and thir- teen rods due north of Pawtucket Falls, was ascer- tained and found. And that the line due west from that station to the point on the west bank of the Connecticut River, as the same had been originally marked and returned by Richard Hazzen, was in like manner ascertained and found."

Whereupon the Massachusetts invited the New

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Hampshire commissioners to " reduce the same to a convention, and to proceed to erect durable monu- ments at each angle between the Atlantic Ocean and the boundary pine, and also at the end of the lines of the several towns," "in order to prevent future mis- takes concerning the same."

" The Commissioners from New Hampshire then informed us that they should proceed, ex parte, to survey the river.

The commissioners of 1825, therefore, failed to come to any agreement. But, in order that the line they had found might not be lost, Massachusetts caused granite monuments, fourteen inches square by four feet iu height, to be erected at every angle in the line, and at the intersection of all town lines. This work was done in 1827 by Varnum, assistant-sur- veyor for the Massachusetts commissioners in 1825, and these monuments have marked the line ever since.

In 1882, in the course of a perambulation of the boundary line between the city of Haverhill and the towns of Plaistow and Atkinson, in New Hampshire, some of the monuments referred to were found, and this, leading to the discovery that no boundary line between the two States had ever been agreed upon, an application was made to the Legislature of Massa- chusetts, which resulted in the appointment of three commissioners by each State, authorized to ascertain and establish the line. Copies of maps and docu- ments have been obtained from the Public Record Office, in England, giving the history of the whole subjeet, with copies of Mitchell's maps and lines. The line ruu by Mitchell and Hazzen in 1741 is fully identified, and that has ever since been the juris- dictional line between the two States, obnoxious as it

was to Massachusetts, and vastly more favorable to New Hampshire than she had ever dreamed of. New Hampshire alleges that a mistake was made in the survey by Hazzen in 1741, by which that State was deprived of a strip of land about three miles wide, on the Connecticut River, and terminating in a point in the town of Dracut, opposite what is now the city of Lowell, containing some fifty thousand acres. New Hampshire also appears to assert that Mitchell's

"But this proposal was rejected by the commis- sioners from New Hampshire. They proposed to us to run and mark a new line, proceeding from the Station north of Pawtucket Falls due west, as the line was wrong, because he only claims to have made a practicable line three miles from the Merrimac, hav- ing "in some places taken from one Province, and made ample allowance for the same in the next reach of the river." The New Ilampshire commissioners claim that the proper line under King George's fa- mous decree is one "every part of which is three miles due north of the corresponding part of the river, and is represented by an unbroken line." New Hampshire wants, or rather her commissioners want, to be absolutely accurate, and apparently that the line to which Massachusetts submitted with such re- stripped her of so great a territory, should be dis- turbed upon the theory that the New Hampshire agents, acting under her own direction, did not take quite so much land as they were mathematically en- titled to. The demand looks a little ungracious, to say the least. same should be now ascertained, to the River Con- neeticut, to terminate, as they stated, two miles, three hundred and two rods south of the aforesaid point on the west bank of Connecticut River, which included the meeting-house in Northfield, Massachu- setts, and to join with them in a survey of the Mer- rimac River, from the ocean to the said station against Pawtucket Falls, in order to ascertain whether the line aforesaid, as originally run, was more than three miles in all parts thereof distant from the river, leaving this line for a subject for future discussion after the survey should be made. The commission- | luctance one hundred and fifty years ago, because it ers from Massachusetts did not go into a full consid- eration of the fitness of either of these measures, being unanimously of opinion that their powers did not extend to the altering of any line, or ceding any portion of the territories of Massachusetts, but were confined to ascertaining the existing line be- tween the two States, as the same had been originally run and marked by George Mitchell.

King George's decree only settled the jurisdictional question. It was a condition of submission of the dispute to the decision of the King, that private property should not be affected, and this condition was incorporated into the decree. Questions of title were therefore left to be settled by the law.

In September, 1741, after the lines were run, the Haverhill proprietors chose a committee to prosecute all trespassers on the common and undivided lands, whether they were north or south of the New Hamp- shire line, or in that part of Methuen formerly Hlav- erhill; and they continued to sell and grant lands on the north side of the new line.

On the other hand, the inhabitants of Londonderry petitioned the General Court of New Hampshire to newly run the lines of their town, as " your petitioners for several years past have been very greatly dis- turbed and incroached upon in their possessions and in defence of the same has expended from time to time in the Law near two thousand Pounds against the iu- habitants of Massachusetts Bay." They complain that the last " carry off the small part of the timber that is yet growing there."

The sort of proceedings that were indulged in by both parties may be conjectured from circumstances like the following : In April, 1735, John Carlton and his brother George (sons of Thomas, of Bradford) petitioned the proprietors of Haverhill to make them some consideration for the services of themselves and teams "when constable Pecker went to fetch off those that were Tresspessers on that part of Haverhill com-

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 242

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