History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 243

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 243

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

mon beyond the Island Pond," as they had done to others that went at the same time.

The historian of Londonderry says : "Sometimes an inhabitant of this town, when employed in these meadows, would be seized and carried away by indi- viduals from abroad, who laid in wait for the pur- pose. Thus a Mr. Christie, while mowing in a meadow, was seized and carried to Haverhill, without being allowed to apprize his family of his situation.

" It also appears that eivil processes were com- meneed and carried on before the courts in Massa- chusetts, as they held their sessions at Newburyport and Ipswich, and that certain individuals were actual- ly committed to prison under the arrests which were made by the claimants in that province. We find frequent charges made for attendance at court at Ips- wich, also a vote of the town to pay the expenses of individuals imprisoned, and to perform for them the necessary work required on their farms during their imprisonment."

After many years of these troubles, we find Richard Hazzen, of whom we have heard so much, petition- ing the General Court of Massachusetts, May 31, 1753, to the effect that "upon the running of the divi- sional line between the provinces, about one-third part of the lands belonging to the ancient town of Haver- hill fell to the northward of the said line and within the province of New Hampshire," the government of which "claimed, not only the jurisdiction of these lands to the North side of the line, but also the property (contrary to the order of the Crown), and en- deavoured to ouste all the inhabitants, which were more than one hundred families, settled by Haverhill, to the Northward of it, and take away their property by force of arms, the people of Kingston and Lon- donderry oftentimes coming in Clans to the Number of forty or fifty at a time, and one hundred or more, to fence in our lands, build on them, &c."

That the petitioner, having some lands on the north side of the line himself, and seeing the distress the Haverhill people were in, moved into New Hampshire and aided them in their lawsuits, "which have now lasted almost ten years." He had made one hundred and thirty journeys to Portsmouth and sunk a thou- sand pounds. " Notwithstanding, he has had such success that no one Haverhill man has lost his estate nor are any new settlements made upon us, no new suites Commenet, and but two depending and them before the Governor and Councill." Meantime ho had been obliged to mortgage his estate and asked re- lief. The General Court voted to loan him four hun. {Ired and sixty-eight pounds free of interest for five years, upon security. But it is believed that he never got the money, dying next year.

The proprictors were put to large expenses in sus- taining their grantees, as their records show. Thus : January 15, 1748-49, one hundred pounds was voted "towards defraying ye action before ye King and Council wherein Nathaniel French (Kingston) is ap-

pellant, against Thomas Follonsbee and others, (Haverhill), appellees."

December 16, 175I, Henry Sanders was voted twenty pounds " to carry on his case against Wheel- right at Portsmouth," (a suit under the Wheelright deed). June 29, 1752, Edward Flint was voted thirty pounds " to carry on his case against Londonderry at Portsmouth," and forty pounds more in November, 1753, "to continue his case." January 1, 1753, fifty pounds was voted to prosecute trespassers on the land previously granted " the first minister of Timberlane, now called Hampstead." November 20, 1758, four hundred and seventy-eight pounds, twelve shillings, New Hampshire old tenor, was voted Nathaniel P. Sargeant "for his services in David Heath's and other cases."

By the running of the new line, in 1741, one-third of the population, territory and property of Haver- hill was cut off from it. Taken in connection with the loss of Methuen in 1725, more than one-half of its resources was stripped from it. Under instructions from the town, the selectmen took a list of the polls and estates falling into "New Hampshire province according to Mr. Mitchell's Line."

Two hundred and fifteen polls or taxable persons, one hundred and fifty-eight houses, nine mills, four hundred and fifty-eight acres of mowing, three hun- dred and eight of planting, one hundred and fifty-two of pastures and nineteen of orehard, two negroes, two hundred and thirty-nine oxen, three hundred and forty- six cows, one hundred and thirty-five horses and twenty swine had fallen on the north side of the line. Three hundred and forty-six heads or polls, two hun- dred and fourteen houses, seven mills, eleven hundred and twenty-six acres of mowing, seven hundred and fifty-one of planting, seven hundred and twenty-three of pasture, and one hundred and twenty-five and a half of orchard, ten negroes, two hundred and sixty- six oxen, five hundred and forty cows, one hundred and eighty-four horses and one hundred and twenty- eight swine fell south of the line.

Hampstead, N. H., incorporated January 19, 1749, was formed of two parts cut off from Haverhill and Amesbury respectively. It was originally Timberland or Timberlane, on account of the abundance of its timber. Richard Hazzen, the indefatigable agent of the Haverhill proprietors, removed to Hampstead and was one of its leading men. His nephew, Captain John Hazzen, removing from Haverhill to Hampstead and staying there a few years, led a company to found a new town on the Upper Connecticut, which, though his influence received the name of Haverhill. Many Haverhill people settled there.

Plaistow, a large part of which was originally in Haverhill, was incorporated February 28, 1749. The first settlers were nearly all from Haverhill. Charles Bartlett and Nicholas White were prominent among them. The meeting-house of the First Church, orig- inally the North Precinct of Haverhill, over which

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Rev. Mr. Cushing was pastor, fell a few rods north of the State line in 1741. Two-thirds of the inhabitants went with it. The minister's house and the greater part of the land belonging to the parish remained in Massachusetts. Difficulties arose in consequence, some of the parishioners on the south refusing to pay their minister's rate, for an alleged want of power to raise it. Whereupon the General Court of Massachu- chusetts, April 7, 1753, created the portion south of the line into a parish with all the powers thereto ap- pertaining. Atkinson was set off from Plaistow, and incorporated September 3, 1767. All its territory was originally from Haverhill .. The Pages, Dows and others, its first settlers, were all of Haverhill. They went there about 1727 or 1728, after the Indian Wars. The relations between Atkinson and the mother town have always been and still are very intimate. Many Haverhill youths were educated at its famous academy, which celebrated its centennial in 1887. Atkinson is still an admirable specimen of the pure, unmixed, New England country town.

Salem, N. H., was incorporated as a district soon after the line was run in 1741, and as a town in 1750. Policy Pond, partly in Salem and partly in Winham, was once Haverhill Pond.

The "Proprietors of the Common Lands" had held an important position in the town affairs, as has been set forth at great length, but they had sustained much litigation, their lands had been mainly disposed of and the organization was falling into decay. In 1748 they informed the General Court that " A Com- mon Right" was worth only three pounds, old tenor, and they were ready to sell at that price. They say that when the okl grants are all made good, they " don't think one penny will fall to the Proprietors." Nevertheless, the proprietors and their descendants held on to their " Rights " with great tenacity. They were like "French Spoliation Claims " at a later day. Something unexpected might turn up about them at any time. Peter Ayer owned two common rights, which descended to five daughters. One of the daughters divided her fifth of the two rights among her own four daughters.

The title to a great deal of land in the once immense township came from the "Proprietors." In 1739 they disposed of forty-seven parcels of land, many be- ing given to parties applying for them. In 1749 the "Proprietors agreed & voted yt all their Right, prop- ertee & interest yt they have in the land lying be- twixt ye head of ye lotts & Merrimac River, from Capt. John Pecker's wharfe down to ye plaine gate, so called (excepting a road all along by ye head of ye lotts so wide as ye Town shall think proper), be & hereby is given, granted & appropriated to ye use & benefit of sd town within ye Massachusetts, to be disposed of as the said town shall see cause; with this proviso, that the said Town do Disalow & Dis- continue the said road, laid out by the selectmen from Kent's lott down to ye plain gate, on February 11,

1724-5 : this above voted in the affirmative." Pecker's wharf was near the mouth of Mill Brook, and the Plain Gate, so called, was some distance east of Mill Street.

In 1751 there still remained to the proprietors the strip of land between Water Street and the river, ex- tending from the bridge to Mill Brook, excepting a few small lots, previously granted. There was then suddenly a great demand for lots to build wharves up- on. Enoch Bartlett wanted a lot to build a wharf "against the house of Joshua Bailey, Esq." This was the first lot below the present bridge. Seven or eight wharf lots were granted lower down. Richard Hazzen obtained a lot for a building yard "below Mill Brook." He now lived in Hampstead, and was probably going to bring some of the famous sticks of "Timberland" to the river for vessels. In 1759 the proprietors granted to Jonathan Buck all their rights and privileges in the Mill Brook, "below the Great Road." The "Great Road" was Mill Street. Buck owned the land on the west side, and one Morley the land on the east side of Mill Brook. Jonathan Buck, David Marsh, Enoch Bartlett, Isaac Osgood, James Duncan, James MeHard "and others " of Haverhill were, in 1760, granted six townships in the province of Maine, between the Penobscot and St. Croix Rivers. But Buck was the only one of the petitioners who settled on the lands. Ile was one of the found- ers of the town of Bucksport.

The numerous applications for wharves above mentioned indicate the beginning of a general in- terest in commerce by the people. Agriculture was ceasing to be their entire dependence.

In 1759 Samuel Blodgett put np " pot and pearl- ash " works on Mill Brook. They were among the earliest of that kind, continuing in successful opera- tion many years.

In 1754 the town for the first time voted a specific sum of money for repair of highways; one hundred pounds was the amount. Two shillings a day were allowed for a man, and the same for oxen " with a good cart or plow," or eighteen pence for oxen alone.

A proposition was also made to appropriate a speci- fic sum for schools. It was rejected that year, but carried the next. Fifty pounds were then appropria- ted for their support the current year ; the parishes were to receive their proportion of the money.

1755 was long famous as one of "excessive heat and drought," and for the most violent earthquake ever known in North America. In the same year and in the month of November occurred the terrible earthquake that shattered the city of Lisbon.

In 1760, there was again a severe drought in East- ern Massachusetts, and the following winter there was a great scarcity of grain in this vicinity. Joseph Haynes, of the West Parish, made a journey on horse- back to Connectient, where, in the vicinity of Hart- ford, he made arrangements for a cargo of corn, which, later, he brought to llaverhill, selling it for

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food and seed only, and refusing to sell for specula- tion or to those not in actual need.

In 1760 the town gave a lease to the ferry at IIolt's Rocks for ten years to John Swett, whose father had kept it already for forty years.

In the summer of 1763 the bridge over Little River, where Winter Street crosses it, was rebuilt. The fol- lowing materials were provided : two gallons and three quarts of rum, two pounds and a half of " Shug- ar," one hundred and twenty-one feet of two-inch plank, one hundred and thirty feet of two and a half inch plank, and twenty feet of white oak timber.

In 1764 the town voted down a motion to divide the parsonage lands among the four parishes.

In the custody of the city clerk of Ilaverhill are some of the records of the proprietors of common lands. An early book, the first entry in which is of the date of February 25, 1722-23, seems to have been bought at the "Boar's Head in Cornhill, near Stock's market, Boston." The last entry in that book is of October 15, 1745. During the latter days of the or- ganization, Colonel Nathaniel Peaslee was largely chairman of their committees and moderator of their meetings, and his grandson, Joseph Badger, Jr., was for years their clerk. From September 5, 1755, to November 20, 1758, there were no meetings. In 1759, Badger, the clerk just named. was a committee to settle with the claimants under the "Mason " patent for the township of Salem, N. H. The last entry of Joseph Badger as clerk is April 4, 1763. In the spring of that year he emigrated to Gilmanton, N. II., a new settlement, where he became a very influential citizen. January 31, 1763, doubtless in anticipation of his departure, Nathaniel Peaslee Sargeant was elected clerk. He was another grandson of Colonel Nathaniel Peaslee, whose daughter Susanna married Rev. Christopher Sargeant, first minister of Methuen. Young Sargeant, who graduated at Harvard in 1750, was soon after a practicing lawyer in Haverhill and 80 remained until appointed justice (afterwards chief justice) of the Supreme Court. June 6, 1763, at an adjourned meeting, Nathaniel Peaslee, moderator, swore the new clerk to his faithful performance of the duties of his office. "The meeting was at ye House of Mrs. Hannah Foster, inn holder, of Haverhill." The last record is as follows, and marks the quiet de- mise of a long, busy and powerful organization. Col- onel l'easlee, the moderator, was more than eighty- one years old.

" E-sex SS. Haverhill, October 10th, A.D. 1763. This being the time to which ye Props. meeting was adjourned, the Moderator did not come, and so this meeting ended, of course.

"Att. NATHI. PEASELEE SARGEANT, Props. Clerk."

CHAPTER CLVIII.

HAVERHILL-(Continued).

The French War-Fire Club-Theological War in the West Parish-Coming of Hezekiah Smith and Formation of the Baptist Society-The First Church and Parish-Minister Barnard.

THE Seven Years' War between France and Eng- land (1756-1763) again embroiled their American colonies. Haverhill seems to have borne her part. There were a few townsmen in the expeditiou to Nova Scotia, when the "Neutral French" were deported from Acadia. Some of those unhappy people fell to the share of Haverhill, in the general distribu- tion. In 1759 the town paid twelve pounds ten shillings towards the support of eight persons assigned to it, who were all women and children. In 1756 Capt. Edmund Mooers led thirty from the first com- pany in the town in the expedition to Crown Point; Maj. Richard Saltonstall seems to have led about thirty from the second company. The poll-tax of those in service was remitted to the town by the pro- vince. The same men served frequently on a number of different occasions, when calls were made. Capt. Mooers seems to have served substantially through the war. Capt. Henry Young Brown, of Haverhill, served through the whole war with such usefulness that in 1770 the General Court made him a grant of eleven thousand acres on Saco River, near Fryeburg to which he removed and where his descendants have resided.

Maj. Saltonstall, entering the service in 1756, was a major in the army at Fort William Henry, at its capitulation on Angust 9, 1757, enduring his share of fatigue and terror from the shameless assaults of the Indians. He commanded a regiment from 1760 to the close of the war, and was soon after made sheriff of the County of Essex. He was regarded as a good officer.

In 1757 there were three foot companies in Haver- hill. The first company was composed of 133 men, residents of the First Parish ; the second of 131 mien, residents of the West Parish, of which Maj. Salton- stall was then captain ; the third of 56 men, residents of the East Parish. There was hesides the Alarm List, including all between the ages of sixteen and sixty years, who were exempt from ordinary military duty, but liable upon emergencies to be called out for duty in their own town. The Alarm List in the First Parish carried 40 names, with the minister, Rev. Ed- ward Barnard, at the head; in the West Parish, 16 names, with Pastor Batcheller at the head; in East I'arish, 9 names, headed by Rev. Benjamin Parker.

On the "Last Alarm for the Relief of Fort William Ilenry," Angust "ye 16th," 1757, Ensign Joseph Badger, Jr., led as far as Worcester a detachment of 29 men from the first company, Lieut. Currier 10 from the third, aud Lieut. Bradley probably 22 from the second.

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Dr. James Brickett, then a young man, was sur- geon's mate in Col. Frye's regiment from March 30, 1759, to July 30, 1760.

In 1758 there were 28 townsmen in Col. John Os- good's regiment. Capt. John Hazzen had a company for the reduction of Ticonderoga and Crown Point.

In 1759 there were 54 Haverhill men in Col. Bag- ley's regiment. At least 44 were in service in 1760. Between November 2, 1759, and January 7, 1763, there were 117 Haverhill men in service, but not all different persons, some having served and been dis- charged several times. Some of them shared in the great glory of the fall of Quebec and the conquest of Canada.

By a valuation taken in 1767, it appears there were " 478 Polls ratable, 27 Polls not ratable." The valu- ation was exceedingly low. "Thus 281 Dwelling- Houses " were valued at £5 each. There were " 44 work houses," "2 Distill Houses," "3 warehouses," " 3320 superficial feet wharf," "19 mills," "10 servts for life at 40s. each," £4768 138. 2d. trading stock, " 242 tuns of Shiping," " £3855 128. 2d. Money at int. a 6 p c't.," 186 horses, 252 oxen, 716 cows, 1315 sheep, 59 swine, 1040 cow pastures, 13,765 bushels grain, 2736 barrels cider, 9163 tons English hay, 945 do. meadow hay. The whole valuation was £4791 138. 42d. lt must, however, be remembered that this was only the annual value, or worth per year, of lands, honses, money, live-stock and servants "for life."

In 1767 the first powder-house was erected, eight feet square.

Feb. 22, 1768, a Fire Club was organized and fire wardens were chosen. The latter were Cornelius Mansise, Enoch Bartlett, Samuel White, E-q., and Isaac Osgood. The object of the " Fire Club " was to assist in extinguishing fires, and "in saving and tak- ing the utmost care of each other's Goods," upon such occasions. There were originally only eighteen mem- bers, each of whom provided bags and buckets. The only officers were a moderator and a clerk. New members were admitted only by unanimous consent, and the number was limited to twenty-five. After- wards they enlarged their aims, by the protection of each other's goods from theft, and the pursuit of thieves, and the recovery of drowning persons and drowned bodies. The society included most of the leading citizens from 1768 to 1822, and was, no doubt, a useful organization, not only for social purposes, but as a centre of organization and effort. The annual sup- per was kept up long after the activity of the society had ceased, and was an important event in the life of the village. The first fire-engine was bought in 1769, by a company formed for the purpose. Cornelius Mansise was the first captain, with fourteen as-istants, The engine was bought, as well as kept in repair, by private subscriptions. March 19, 1770, according to the record, the company " took the engine out, worked her, and put her in again ; " in the evening "met at Capt. Bradley's for refreshments, etc."

In 1769 " salt works" were put up on Mill Brook by James Hudson, to whom the town voted, for en- couragement, £13 6s. 8d. But he was not successful.

In 1771 Nathaniel Walker and William Greenleaf were chosen "Weighers of Bread." Fifteen years after the office was joined to that of "Clerk of the market," chosen annually for many years. In 1786 the selectmen were ordered to regulate the size of all bread sold.

In 1773 there was a great tornado between Salisbury Point and Haverhill.

At the annual meeting in 1774 it was voted that the two schools should be kept in the year to come, " the one a Grammar School, and the other an Eng- lish School," probably in the First Parish only.

At that meeting, John Eaton retired, who had been a faithful town clerk for fifty-seven years. "Clark " Eaton lived below the " Buttonwoods," opposite the river. He was sneceeded by John Whittier, but when Whittier declined a re-election in 1778, the towns- men chose Eaton once more. He declined, being considerably over eighty years old.

For years there was great alarm about the small- pox. Vaccination was not yet resorted to, and there was great difference of opinion about inoculation. In 1777 the town refused to build a hospital for inocula- tion or to permit one to be built at individual cost. The next year the townsmen voted to permit inocu- lation and then "revoked" the vote, and "voted to proseente those persons that have taken the small- pox by inoculation in this town, or any that shall take it in future, without consent of the town first obtained." Three weeks later it was "voted to allow the inhabitants of the town to be inoculated at the hospital or houses near it." Tradition says the " Pest House " was near Kenoza Avenne, opposite the estate of Mr. Thomas West, whose ancestor, Dr. Kast, had charge of small-pox patients there. In- oculation was then regarded as a very serious affair. When small-pox was prevalent panic ruled the hour.

No chronicler would venture to pass over the year 1780, as that of the "cold day " and the " dark day." No one now living in Haverhill can remember either, but many, doubtless, have heard them described by those who remembered them well. Of the winter, Bailey Bartlett wrote in his journal : "Snow so deep and drifted that breaking a path on the common, we made an arch through a bank of snow, and rode under the arch on horseback."

For almost a century the town was the parish, and for more than a century the First Parish and its meeting-house was the centre of the municipal, ecclesiastical and social life of the place. The " Stand- ing Order" ruled supreme for just a century and a quarter. But no historical sketch of the town woukl deserve the name which should fail to allude, how- ever briefly, to the manner in which sectarianism came in.

The West Parish, incorporated by the General

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Court in 1734, was organized April 16th, and a meeting- house, at the corner of Broadway and Monument Streets, was ready for occupancy early in October of the same year. Seventy-seven members, dismissed from the First Church for the purpose, were consti- tuted the Third or West Parish Church October 22, 1735. Just two weeks later, Rev. Samuel Bacheller was ordained pastor. Mr. Bacheller graduated at Harvard in 1731. He was always regarded as an able and cultivated man. But from the beginning there were some dissatisfied with his settlement and watch- ful for occasions to excite prejudice against him. Yet there was no serious difficulty until 1755, when, after a settlement of twenty years, Mr. Bacheller preached a sermon, taking as his text the dying words of our Saviour, "It is finished," in the course of which he intimated the opinion, which was pounced upon as a heresy, " that the blood and water which eame from Christ when the soldier pierced his side, his laying in his grave, and his resurrection, was no part of the work of redemption, and that his laying in the grave was no part of his humiliation." Joseph Haynes, the leader of the opposition to Mr. Bacheller, who has heretofore been mentioned in a connection highly honorable to him, a man of strong natural parts and an able controversialist, had the address to seize at once the opportunity. " When this doctrine was delivered over three times in one sermon, the minister was interrupted and told before the congre- gation that he preached exceeding false divinity." There was a very aerimonious contest upon the sub- ject, which agitated the parish, the town and the neighboring churches for years. The Haverhill association, known as the " Minister's Meeting, " up- held Mr. Bacheller. In 1757, Haynes published an anonymous pamphlet at Portsmouth, of eighty-eight pages, entitled " A discourse in order to confute a heresy delivered and much contended for in the West Parish in Ilaverhill and countenanced by many of the ministers of the adjacent parishes .. . In this discourse their most material arguments to support their doctrine are answered and their doctrine proved to be corrupt. That the blood and water which came from ('hrist had a cleansing and redeeming virtue in it; and that his lying in the grave was his humilia- tion and a part of the sacrifice for sin ; and that his resurrection is a powerful means by which we are raised from a state of death in sin to newness of life ; and the meritorious and efficacious cause of the Res- urrection of the body; and consequently all of them must have a joint influence in the work of Redemp- tion, is proved. By a Lover of the Truth and a Ilater of Falsehood."

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 243

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