USA > Maine > York County > Buxton > Records of the proprietors of Narraganset township, no. 1, now the town of Buxton, York county, Maine, from August 1st, 1733, to January 4th, 1811 > Part 1
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.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33
GC 974.102 B98p 1138985
M. L
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01187 1370
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
http://www.archive.org/details/recordsofproprie00inbuxt
RECORDS
OF
THE PROPRIETORS
OF
Narraganset Township, No. 1,
NOW THE
TOWN OF BUXTON,
YORK COUNTY, MAINE,
From August 1st, 1733 to January 4th, 1811,
WITH A
DOCUMENTARY INTRODUCTION
BY 1
WILLIAM F. GOODWIN, CAPTAIN U. S. Army.
CONCORD, N. H .: PRIVATELY PRINTED. 1871.
PRINTED FOR CYRUS WOODMAN, CAMBRIDGE, MASS., AND WILLIAM F. GOODWIN, CONCORD, N. H.
Two hundred and ninety-one copies printed.
No. 9 Selectman's office, Burton, Cambridge , Mass: Feb: 15. 1872 .
PRESS OF BUTTERFIELD AND HILL.
Torino.
1
1138985
TO
HON. EDMUND BURKE, GEN'L SIMON CAMERON. HON. ICHABOD GOODWIN. and GEN'L FRANKLIN PIERCE,
This Book is Dedicated
BY THE EDITOR.
+
PREFACE.
-
This volume is the fruit of unwearied research extending through many years. prosecuted under the conviction that the materials embraced. consti- tuting the sequel to a memorable and trying struggle in the early annals of New England, are worth rescuing from oblivion as a monument of the courage and sacrifice which have given us our proud New England heritage.
The Narraganset war. under the subtle leadership of King Philip, the ambitious and heroic sachem of Mount Rope. suddenly bursting upon the eastern colonies. in 1675, brought indescribable terror and affliction upon the infant settlements. It is impossible to understand, and much less to describe. in any adequate manner. the misfortunes which this merciless war- fare visited upon the feeble settlers of the wilderness. The confederated savages, in the secret conclaves of the forests. under the inspiration of their powerful and relentless chief, had organized the bloody design to utterly extinguish the colonies, and, though defeated in their terrible purpose of extermination. they so far put their sanguinary work into execution, in the brief space of a year, as to have clothed all New England in mourning. Estimates, drawn from official records, show that no less than six hundred of the inhabitants, the flower and strength of the country, either fell in battle. or were murdered by the enemy ; and that there were few families, or individuals, who had not lost some near relative in the savage strife. Twelve or thirteen towns in Massachusetts, Plymouth and Rhode Island, were utterly destroyed ; others greatly damaged : and about six hundred buildings, mostly dwelling-houses, were consumed by fire. Nor do these statements furnish an adequate representation of the calamity ; and Trum- bull, the early and most reliable historian of the conflict. after a careful consideration of the sufferings of the colonists, affirms that about one fenei- ble man in eleven was killed, and every eleventh family burnt out ; or an eleventh part of the whole militia, and of all the buildings of the united colonies were swept away by this predatory war ; the debt. depredations, sufferings and earnage being greater. in proportion to the wealth and num- ber of the people, than in any other struggle in which the country has ever been engaged, not excepting even the terrible fratricidal strife from which we have just emerged, and in which s, many of our comrades have fallen, but not. we trust, without a hope, that justerity would mark their graves, or at least. cherish their memory.
Baneroft, in his aecount of the " Narraganset Fort Fight," says, " But the English were not the only sufferers. In winter, it was the custom of the natives to dwell together in their wigwams : in spring, they would be dis- persed through the woods. In winter, the warriors who had spread misery through the west, were sheltered among the Narragansetts ; in spring, they would renew their devastations. In winter. the absence of foliage made the
vi
PREFACE.
forests less dangerous ; in spring, every bush would be a hiding place. It was resolved to regard the Narragansetts as enemies ; and a little before the Dec. winter solstice, a thousand men, levied by the united colonies, and 18. commanded by the brave Josiah Winslow, a native of New England, invaded their territory. After a night spent in the open air, they waded through the snow from daybreak till an hour after noon ; and at last Dec. reached the cluster of wigwams which a fort protected. Davenport, 19. Gardner, Johnson. Gallop, Siely, Marshall, led their companies through the narrow entrance in the face of death, and left their lives as a testimony to their patriotism and courage. Feeble palisades could not check the determined valor of the white men ; and the group of Indian cabins was soon set on fire. Thus were swept away the humble glories of the Narragansetts ; the winter's stores of the tribe, their curiously-wrought baskets, full of corn, their famous strings of wampum, their wigwams nice- ly lined with mats,-all the little comforts of savage life were consumed. And more-their old men, their women, their babes, perished by hundreds in the fire."
The introductory chapter of this book is wider in its scope, than that of a local history. It pertains, in an essential sense, to the Narraganset war ; and its documentary pages will, it is confidently believed, be recognized as of some worth to early general New England history ; disclosing informa- tion essential to the right understanding of memorable events in our early annals ; correcting misapprehensions and removing unjust aspersions, which the conjectures of historians have perpetuated, pertaining to these transac- tions. In these introductory documents is found the origin of the system of donating from the public domain in recompense for military services. It appears from these papers that when the army was mustered on Dedham plain, in 1675, preparatory to the march against the strong-hold of King Philip, a proclamation was made to the troops, in the name of the Govern- ment, " that if they played the man, took the fort, and drove the enemy out of the Narraganset country, which was their great seat, that they should have a gratuity in land besides their wages." The message which the House sent up to the Council urging the claims of these soldiers, and which brought the Board into their views, in 1731, is a state paper of extraordinary dignity and power, presenting the whole merits of the case in language of the greatest dignity and propriety. It sets forth the hardships and perils incurred in storming the fort in the depth of winter, and the pinching wants they afterwards underwent in pursuing the Indians that escaped through a hideous wilderness, famously known throughout New England ever afterwards as " the Ilungry March ;" and that until this brave though small army did thus " play the man " and take the fort, the whole country was filled with distress ; and the inhabitants trembled even in the capital Boston itself.
These Narraganset officers and soldiers, who, in the language of the mes- sage already mentioned, are characterized as not vagabonds and beggars and outeasts, of which armies are sometimes considerably made up, who run the hazards of war to avoid the danger of starving, but the best of men of the province, the fathers and sons of some of her greatest and best of the fami- les, commenced effort to secure the promised land bounty, as this volume shows, as early as 1685. Within eight years after the signal service had been performed, they petitioned the General Court for a tract eight miles square, or any nnappropriated lands in the Nipmuk county, and the grant was made the same year, the conditions being that thirty families and an Orthodox minister should be settled thereon within the space of four years
vii
PREFACE.
next coming. This was some of the choicest public land in the colonies, and was promptly granted with an evident sense of the meritoriousness of the petition, the grantees numbering about five hundred. or two thirds of the Narraganset soldiers, who went from the colonies of the Massachusetts Bay and of Plymouth, all of whom " were either personally present at the fort and fight at Narraganset, or descendants from those that were, or in the strictest alliance to them." The conditions of the grant, one of which it is important to observe, was that of actual settlement, were not performed : and the lands were subsequently sell by the colony at a high price. Forty- two years afterwards, in July, 1727. the subject was again brought into the General Court on petition from the officers and soldiers of the Narraganset war from Massachusetts, asking for a tract of eight miles square from the unappropriated lands of the province in full satisfaction for the grant form- erly made them. The House at once responded in an act giving that amount of land to the soldiers, or their legal representatives. upon the conditions of settling within seven years from the date of the grant, at least, sixty families thereon, with a learned Orthodox minister, and of reserving three lots, one for the first settled minister. one for the ministry, and one for the school. In the Council the subject was postponed to the December session, when the petitioners further pre-sed their demand with an amendment, asking for two townships, each six miles square, instead of one tract eight miles square. The House and Council concurred in granting the tro tracts upon the same terms as had been affixed to the bill from the House in the previous session. setting forth expressly that it was the full intent and pur- pose of the General Court that every officer and soldier from the colony, who served in the said war, should have a compensation made them over and above what wages and gratuities any of them had already received. Pro- visions were made for the survey and location of the land, and for the se- eming of a list of all the survivors of the fight, and of the legal representa- tions of those deceased ; and in June. 1728, there was further action to the same end. In December, the Committee for that purpose presented pians of the two townships granted that were accepted and confirmed. one of which wis afterwards known as Narraganset, Number Three, now Amherst, New Hampshire. and the other, Narraganset, Number Six, now Templeton. Massa- chusetts. In December, 1729. the list of the claimers was presented and accepted, and an order passed for them to meet for organization at Boston if the small-pox were not there, otherwise at Cambridge, in June. 1730. In May. 1750, the meeting was ordered at Cambridge, but was finally changed to Boston by the action of the General Court in October, 1780. as the small-pox had then disappeared from the latter named place. the time of the meeting being fixed on the second Wednesday of the next session of the Court after a recess.
The claimers whose number had now been with some degree of fullness determined, were found to be so numerons that two townships were inade- quate to the objects of the grant. Accordingly, at the December session, 1780. they came to the Court. asking for an extension of the time for per- fecting the list and for an enlargement of the bounty which. as it then stood, would give so small a portion to each family as to be of little or no benefit. The House, therefore, ordered an extension of the time for com- pleting the list till the next April, and that each one hundred and twenty persons whose claims should be allowed by the Court. should receive a town- ship six miles square under the same conditions as prescribed for the former grants. The Council did not concur in the enlargement of the grant. In June, 1731, the petition for more townships was renewed, the Council still
viii
PREFACE.
persisting in its non-concurrence, and at the next session, the remarkable message to which reference has already been made, was sent up to the Ilonorable Board, reviewing with consummate ability the whole subject, and urging the justness of the petitioners' cause with such force and eleva- tion of argument that the Council, not yet persuaded to concur, did not venture to act upon the subject at all that session. At the session in January, 1732, the subject being again before the Court, the Council con- curred in the action of the House, restricting the number of claimers to the list which had already been allowed. This restriction was removed, however, in June. 1732, the grants being opened to all whose claims should be con- firmed within four months from that date. The list was, in due time, finally completed, and in April, 1733, presented, numbering eight hundred and forty ; and thereupon it was ordered that five additional townships be granted under the same couditions as in the case of the two already bestow . ed. This order passed without controversy between the House and Council, and received the signature of Governor Belcher. The work of determining the persons entitled to the bounty had been a matter of great difficulty inasmuch as it had now been nearly sixty years since the service had been performed, the original actors being mostly dead. The fact that the list had not been completed seems to have been a chief cause of the non-concur rence of the Council with the House, the opposition ceasing as soon as the number had been with some definiteness settled. There appears to have been, from first to last, both in the House and Council and on the part of the Executive, unanimity in the conviction that a bounty of the kind was due to the soldiers. Not only did Governor Belcher signify his favor of the transaction, but his predecessors, Governors Dummer and Burnet, did like- wise.
The grantees, eight hundred and forty in number, met on Boston Com- mon, in the autumn of 1733, according to order of the Court, and entered into due organization. Seven independent associations, each embracing one hundred and twenty members, were formed ; and a Joint Committee of twenty-one members, three from each sub-division, was appointed to assign the townships. This committee met at Luke Verdey's, in Boston, October seventeenth, 1733, and assigned* the grants as follows : Narraganset, Num- ber One, now Buxton, Maine, to Philemon Dane and one hundred and nine- teen others ; Number Two, " at Wachuset," now Westminster, Massachu- setts, to James Lowden and others :, Number Three, " at Souhegan- West," now Amberst, New Hampshire, to Richard Mower, and others ; Number Four, first laid out " at Amoskeag Falls," on Merrimack river, now Goffs- town and a part of Manchester, New Hampshire, and, subsequently, " part at a place called Quabbin, and part west of and adjoining to Hatfield," now Greenwich, Massachusetts, to Edward Shove and others ; Number Five, called "Souhegan-East," now Ledford, part of Manchester and part of Merrimack, New Hampshire, to Col. Thomas Tilestone and others ; Num- ber Six, bounded " Easterly mostly on Rutland, and partly on Narraganset, Number Two, by Wachuset," now Templeton, Massachusetts, to Samuel Chandler and others ; Number Seven, now Gorham, Maine, to Shubael Gor- ham and others.
History has strangely misrepresented the transactions connected with these Narraganset grants, attributing selfish and degrading purposes to the legislation, of no higher character than those which have inspired the gigan_ tic frauds, which, under the name of land grants to soldiers, have been per.
* Post, page 91, note .
ix
PREFACE.
petrated since that time. Hutchinson, who wrote soon after these grants were consummated, asserts that the Province of Massachusetts Bay whose policy prior to 1728, had been to grant its public lands to actual settlers, departing from its ancient wisdom at that time, "on a sudden laid plans for grants of vast tracts of unimproved land, " the first object of this unpreced- ented legislative bounty being the soldiers of King Philip's war and their posterity. Douglass, who wrote in 1749, says, that a few years before that time the General Assembly of the Massachusetts Bay was in the humor of distributing the property of much vacant or Province land with the probabie purpose of seearing to the Massachusetts people the property in lands, the jurisdiction of which was in controversy between that Province and New Hampshire, growing out of the boundary line dispute. adding that. under this motive, "nine townships were voted, but only seven granted, to the descendants of the Narraganset or Pequod Indian war soldiers 1637. called Narraganset townships," and that nine townships were also, in the same manner, granted to the soldiers and their representatives who served against Canada. in 1690, called "Canada townships." The fact that this Historian confounds the Pequod war of 1637, with the Narraganset war of 1675, call- ing them one and the same confliet. is in keeping with the error in the num- ber of townships voted and the unjust impogning of the motives inspiring the grants.
The Narraganset townships were granted to actual settlers under en- lightened conditions : and it is safe to affirm that a more merited bounty was never conferred upon military service. Governor Belcher who gave his signature to the grant as soon as it was sanctioned By the Council. was not only a public character of ability, but also of unsullied integrity ; and the aspersions, which the representations by careless historians have reflected upon him. in connection with these transactions, find no justification in the original documentary history bere presented.
, Researches into the foundation of American History are constantly dis- closing such errors and perversions, creating distrust in the representations of the whole body of our annals as every conscientious and exact student in the field of American history painfully understands ; and until this branch of literary work receives higher recognition than has hitherto been accorded it at the chief seats of American learning, there is little reason to expect any substantial change for the better. It is strange and astonishing that in all the liberality of the American people in founding and fostering educational institutions. so unworthy consideration has been given to the ace irate authoritative preservation and transmission of our history. There is no department of American History worthy of the name, and scarcely any pretension to such a department. in any university or college in the land : and what is still more deplorable there is manifested. among the great body of our educational classes, no deep-seated anxiety to correct the grave and acknowledged deficiency. Historical Societies are doing but little in this behalf. They are filled with superannuated professional gentlemen who take shelter there to cheat the asylums. and are as dogs in the manger. Until there shall be a Professorship of American History amply endowed, thoroughly organized and appropriately filled. in each of our great leading universities, no revolution in this matter can rationally be expected. We look with anxiety to the improvement and success of our Alma Mater.
The records of the proprietors of these seven townships are still preserved. Those of Number Three are the private property of the Hon. Charles II. Campbell, of Nashna, New Hampshire ; those of Number Seven, of Col. Hugh D. Mclellan, of Gorham, Maine ; the other five are in the offices of
x
PREFACE.
the towns. embracing the territories of those five numbers respectively.
The introductory portion of this volume furnishes a complete authorita- tive history of this whole subject. It embraces the official documents, re- lating to the entire grant of seven townships, from the date of the granting acts down to the time of the township organizations and assignments. in 1733, including the original grants and their confirmations ; appointments of committees to examine lists of claims ; orders for meetings of grantees to provide committees for the regulation of the several townships ; orders pertaining to the terms of settlement, and many other eurious and interest- ing historical faets, concluding with an official document which designates with precision the location of every dwelling-house in the town, the name of its occupant and owner. and its appraised value with the land belonging thereto at the time the document was made up, in 1798. The plan accom- panving the volume was copied hy Robert and Daniel Wentworth, in 1824, from the original plan of the proprietors. Mr. Robert Wentworth, from whom it was obtained, signed his name to it in the early part of September, 1866, and died the thirtieth of that month. He was a surveyor of ac- knowledged accuracy and intelligence, and largely employed in this line of business, in the town, throughout his life.
Following the introduction are the records of the proprietors of Narra- ganset township. Number One, containing the entire transaction of the association from August first, 1733. to Jannary fourth, 1811.
These documents are selections from a great mass of valuable papers, accumulated in the hands of the compiler, in the course of historical re- searches, looking to a history of his ancestral towns of Buxton and Berwick, which have been assiduously prosecuted from his early manhood, embracing a period of nearly twenty years. This volume forms a basis for the history of the town proper, and, at the same time, as already suggested, has a sig- nificance of a wider historical character as the final chapter in the history of the Narraganset war.
Our grateful acknowledgments are due to Jeremiah Colburn, Henry J. Coolidge. John Ward Dean, Alanson Hawley. Alfred Poor, David Pulsifer, William B. Trask. O. W. Holmes Upham, Walter Wells, and Henry Wheat- land, who have kindly lent their aid in the prosecution of this work.
With the desire to contribute something to perpetuate the memory of those, who laid the foundations of our country and institutions ; their self- sacrifice and sufferings ; their fortitude and their fidelity ; and, in the faith that " in treasuring the memorials of the fathers, we best manifest our regard for posterity," this work is submitted as an humble contribution to the materials for American history.
W. F. GOODWIN.
BOAR'S HEAD HOTEL, Hampton Beach, N. H., August 15, 1867.
CONTENTS OF THE INTRODUCTION.
ART. A .- Action of the General Court on the petition of William Bas- set and others.
B .- Action of the General Court on the petition of Joseph Sill.
C .- Action of the General Court on the petition of Samuel Chan- dler and Jacob Wright.
D .- Subsequent action of the General Court on the petition of Samuel Chandler and Jacob Wright.
E .- Action of the General Court on the petition of soldiers who served in the Narraganset war.
F .- Action of the General Court on a plan of one of the two townships granted to the soldiers who served in the Nar- raganset war.
G .- Action of the General Court on a plan of the other of the two townships granted to the soldiers who served in the Narraganset war.
H .- Action of the General Court on an account presented by Major Jolin Chandler.
I .- Committee appointed by the General Court to take a list of the claimers to the Narraganset townships.
J .- The grantees of the two Narraganset townships ordered to meet in Boston or Cambridge.
K .- The order requiring the grantees of the two Narraganset townships to meet in Boston or Cambridge, superseded.
L .- The grantees of the two Narraganset townships ordered to meet in Boston.
M .- Action of the General Court on the petition of Thomas Tile- stone and others.
N .- Action of the General Court on the petition of Thomas Hunt and others.
O .- Action of the General Court on their order of February sev . enteenth, 1730, relating to the petition of Thomas Hunt and others.
P .- Action of the General Court on another of the petitions of Thomas Hunt and others.
Q .- Message urging that the Narraganset soldiers should be gen- erously rewarded.
R .- Action of the General Court on the second petition of Thomas Tilestone and others.
S .- Action of the General Court on the the third petition of Thomas Tilestone and others.
T .- Action of the General Court on an additional list of officers and soldiers who served in the Narraganset war.
U .- John Ruggles and William Sawyer made grantees by order of the General Court.
V .- Action of the General Court on the petition of a Committee in behalf of the Narraganset soldiers.
IT .- John Moorey made a grantee by order of the General Court,
xii
CONTENTS.
ART. X .- Committee appointed by the General Court to examine the list of those who claimed the Narraganset townships.
Y .- Committee appointed by the General Court to consider the vote of June 13, 1733, relating to the list of claimers.
Z .- Action of the General Court on the plats of two Narraganset townships between Saco and Presumseut rivers.
AA .- Action of the General Court on a plat of Narraganset town- ship, Number Six.
BB .- Action of the General Court on a plat of Narraganset town- ship. Number Five.
CC .- Committee appointed by the General Court to rectify mistakes in the list of Narraganset grantees.
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.