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M. E.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01188 5412
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HISTORICAL SHETCHIES,
01^
THE TOWN OF WARNER
NEW HAMPSHIRE.
BY DR. MOSES LONG.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT CONCORD, BY JACOB B. MOORE. 1832.
THIRTY COPIES, ONLY, REPRINTED IN SEPARATE FORM FOR CHARLES H. BELL. 1870., 1-
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Long, Moses Historical sketches of the town of Warner, New Hampshire ... 1870. 26pp
HISTORICAL SKETCHES
WARNER, N. H. OF
BY DR. M. LONG.
WARNER, a post town in Merrimack county, is situated . west of Boscawen ; fifteen miles northwest of Concord, in the latitude of 43 degrees 16 minutes north. It has Sut- ton, Wilmot, and Salisbury, on the north, Boscawen on the east, Hopkinton and Henniker on the south, and Bradford on the west, and contains 29,620 acres, including Kearsarge Gore, which was annexed to Warner by an act of the leg- islature, June 1818. The Gore, which is a strip of land lying between Salisbury and Sutton, extends from the orig- inal north line of Warner to the highest peak of Kearsarge mountain, and contains 1,620 acres.
Warner was first granted by the government of Massa- chusetts Bay to sundry petitioners in Amesbury and Salis- bury, in that then province, as carly as 1735. The condi- tions of the grant were specified in the report of a com- mittee to the legislature of that state as follows, viz :
At a great and general court or assembly for his Majes- ty's province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, began and held at Boston, upon Wednesday the twenty- eighth day of May, 173-4, and continued by several adjourn-
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ments to Wednesday the nineteenth day of November, and further continued by adjournments to Wednesday the thirty first day of December following, then met Thursday, Jan- uary 15, 1735.
Edmund Quincy, Esquire, from the committee of both houses on petitions for townships, &c., gave in the following report, viz : - The committee appointed the fourteenth cur- rent to take into consideration the several petitions for townships before the court, and report what may be proper for the court to do thereon, having met and maturely con- sidered the same, are humbly of opinion that there be a careful view aud survey of the lands between Merrimack and Connecticut rivers, from the northwest corner of Rum- ford [Concord] on Merrimack, to the great falls on Con- necticut, of twelve miles at the least in breadth or north and south ; by a committee of cleven able and suitable per- sous to be appointed by this court, who shall after a due knowledge of the nature and circumstances thereof, lay the same into as many townships of the contents of six miles square as the land in width as aforesaid will allow of; no townships to be more than six muiles cast aud west ; and also lay out the land on the east side of Connecticut river from said falls to the township laid out to Josiah Willard and others, into as many townships of the contents of six miles square as the same will allow of; and also the land on the west side of the river of Connecticut from said falls to the equivalent land into one or two townships of the contents of six miles square, if the same will allow thereof. Five of which committee to be a quorum for surveying and laying out the township on each, from Rumford to Con - necticut river as aforesaid; and three of the committee aforenamed shall be a quorum for surveying and laying out the townships on each side of Connecticut river as afore- said ; and that the said committee make report of their doings to this court at their session in May next, or as soon as conveniently they can, that the persons whose names
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are contained in the several petitions hereafter mentioned, viz. in the petition of Hopkinton, in the petition of Salis- bury and Amesbury, in the petition of Cambridge, in the petition of Bradford and Wenham, in the petition of Haverhill, in the petition of Milton and Brookline,. in the petition of Samuel Chamberlain and Jonathan Jewett, and in the petition of Nathaniel Harris, &c., in the petition of Morgan Cobb, &c., Jonathan Wells, &c., Lys- comb and Johnson, &c., in the petition of Isaac Little, &c., in the petition of Jonathan Powers, &c., John Whitman, Esq., &c., Samuel Haywood, &c., Josiah Fasset and others, John Flint and others, Jonathan How and oth- ers of Bridgewater, that have not heretofore been admitted grantees or settlers within the space of seven years last past of or in any former or other grant of a township or particular grant on condition of settling ; and that shall appear and give security to the value of forty pounds to perform the conditions that shall be enjoined by this court ; may by the major part of the committee be admitted grant- ees into one of the said townships ; the committee to give public notice of the time and place of their meeting to admit the grantees ; which committee shall be empowered to employ surveyors and chainmen to assist them in sur- veying and laying out said townships. The province to bear the charge and be repaid by the grantees who may be admitted. The whole charge they shall advance, which committee we apprehend ought to be directed and empow- ered to admit sixty settlers in cach township, and take their bonds payable to the committee and their successors in the said trust to the use of the province for the performance of the conditions of their grant, viz. That each grantee build a dwelling house of cighteen feet square and seven feet stud at the least on their respective house lots, and fence in and break up for ploughing, or clear and stock with English grass five acres of land within three years next after their admittance, and cause their respective lots to be
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inhabited ; and that the grantees do, within the space of three years from the time of their being admitted, build and finish a convenient meeting house for the public wor- ship of God, and settle a learned orthodox minister. And in case any of the grantees shall fail or neglect to perform what is enjoined as above, the committee shall be obliged to put the bonds in suit, and take possession of the lots and rights that shall become forfeited, and proceed to grant them to other persons that will appear to fulfil the condi-' tion within one year next after their last mentioned grant. And if a sufficient number of petitioners that have no grant within seven years as aforesaid, viz. sixty to each township, do not appear, others may be admitted, pro- vided they have fulfilled the conditions of their former grant. The committee to take care that there be sixty three house lots laid out in as regular, compact and defens- ible a manner as the land will admit of; one of which lots shall be for the first settled minister, one for the second settled minister, and one for the school ; to cach of which an cqual proportion of land shall accrue in all future di- visions.
Friday, January 16, 1785. In the house of representa- tives, ordered, that Joseph Gerrish, Benjamin Prescot, Jo- siah Willard, Job Almy, Esqrs. Mr. Moses Pearson, and Capt. Joseph Gould, with such as the honourable board shall join, be a committee to all intents and purposes to ef- fect the business projected by the report of the committee of both houses to consider the petitions for townships, which passed this day, viz. On the proposed line between Merri- mack and Connecticut rivers, and on both sides of Con- necticut river ; and that there be granted and allowed to be paid out of the public treasury, after the rate of fifteen shillings per diem, for every day he is in the service in the woods, and subsistence, and ten shillings per diem for every day to cach one of the said committee while in the
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service in admitting settlers into the said townships, and subsistence, to be paid as aforesaid.
In council, Read and concurred, and William Dudley, Samuel Wells, Thomas Berry, Joseph Wilder, and John Chandler, jr., Esqrs., are joined with the committee of the house for the line between Merrimack and Connecticut riv- ers, &c.
At a great and general court, held in Boston the twenty fourth day of November, one thousand seven hundred and thirty six, the following vote passed the two houses, and was consented to by the governor, viz .: Voted, that Mr. Thomas Stevens, of Amesbury, be and hereby is empow- ered to assemble the grantees of the township, number one, [now Warner] lying in the line of towns between the riv- ers of Connecticut and Merrimack, giving timely notice to the said grantees admitted into the said township by the committee of this court, to meet and assemble at some suit- able place, in order to choose a moderator and proprietors' clerk, and committee to allot and divide their lands and to dispose of the same, and to pass such votes and orders as by them may be thought conducive for the speedy fulfilment of the conditions of their grant, and also to agree upon methods for calling of meetings for the future. Provided, none of their votes concerning the dividing or disposing of their lands, that shall be passed while they are under the care and direction of the committee of this court, shall be of force before they are allowed of by the said committee.
By order of the great and general court to Deac. Thomas Stevens, the proprietors of the township No. 1 met April 25, 1737. After organizing their meeting, the proprietors chose a committee to lay out and divide the township ac- cording as they may receive instructions from time to time from them. At that meeting it was voted to divide the intervale equally among the proprietors according to quan- tity and quality ; also to divide the upland lots where it may be thought most eligible for settlements. The propri-
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etors appointed the third Wednesday of March as the time for their annual meetings. 1
At a meeting of the proprietors holden at Amesbury, Mass., March 15, 1788, it was determined to lay out sixty- three five-acre lots for settlement. Chose a committee for that purpose. Also chose their first board of selectmien. March 17, Thomas Rowel and Jonathan Barnard took the oath of office as selectmen, before Orlando Bagley, justice of the peace.
At a meeting of the proprietors of the township No. 1, June 23, 1738, the committee appointed to make some sur- veys for settlements, &c. reported, that they had laid out sixty-three house lots, containing about five acres cach. These lots were laid out in the vicinity of Gen. Aquila Da- vis' mills.
The following individuals drew for their lots at that time, and continued their interest in the town till its final settle- ment, viz : John Allen, John Hoyt, Jacob Currier, Josoph Quimby, Samuel Barnard, John Challis, Ebenezer Wells, Nehemiah Ordway, John Jewet, Joseph Jones, John Nich- ols, David Ring, Elihu Gould, Stephen Morrill, John Pres- sey, Stephen Sargent, William Straw, Benjamin Tucker, Aaron Rowell, Jonathan Pressey, Gideon Rowell, Jarvis Ring, Francis Davis, John Sargent, Jonathan Barnard, John Jewel, James Ordway, Paine Wingate, Sammuel Straw, Ichabod Colby, Jeremiah Flanders, Thomas Rowell. One lot was reserved for the first settled minister, one for the second minister, and one for the use of a school. As the remainder of the complement, sixty-three, were not con- nected with the proprietors till the town was settled, their names are here omitted.
At a meeting of the proprietors Jan. 21, 1733, they took some measures to clear a road from Contoocook River to the meeting-house lot in township No. 1, also to erect a saw-mill.
At a meeting of the proprietors of the township No. 1,
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holden in Amesbury (Massachusetts) March 21, 1739, Vot- ed to pay Orlando Colby, Joseph Jewell and John Challis, Jr. one hundred and twenty pounds in province bills of the old tenor, to build a good saw mill ; and if any proprietor should neglect to pay his proportion for said mill by the last of August, his right in the township should be exposed for sale at auction for the payment as the law directs.
At the same meeting the following preamble and rote passed, viz. " Whereas the proprietors of the township No. 1, before they had received any particular directions from the General Court to call a meeting in order to the laying out land in said township for settlement, supposed they had power to call a meeting for business aforesaid, and accordingly assembled on October the 7th, 1736, and then chose a committee to lay out a division of upland as by the record of said township may appear, whereas the commit- tee chosen laid out sixty-three forty acre lots and made re- turn of their doings to the acceptance of the proprietors, who drew their lots, as by said records may appear ; but whereas for want of direction and formal orders from the General Court to call a meeting and proceed in said busi- ness as aforesaid, the said meeting and the business done at that time and consequent upon them not being authentic and binding, it was proposed whether the proprietors of said township being now legally empowered to assemble and pass any acts for their own benefit, did approve of their original meetings and the division of land and draught of the lots referred to, and would prefer the same to the Gen- cral Court's Committee for confirmation. Voted in the affirmative."
The meetings referred to in the above preamble and vote, were held at Amesbury, the first in Oct. 1736, at which meeting David Ring, Benjamin Tucker, Timothy Colby, Joseph Jewel, and Isaac Chandler were chosen as a com- mittee to survey sixty-three forty aere lots, leaving it at their discretion to make the lots as near equal as may be as
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to quantity and quality. The second was holden Nov. 25, of the same year, at which time the committee exhibited a plan of surveys of the number of lots as above named, in four ranges, which report was accepted. In order to under- stand more fully the relative situations of places, reference should be had to the plan of the town.
May 28, 1740, the proprietors held their first meeting in this town for the purpose of examining the saw-mill and other improvements. The mill was accepted. At a meet- ing of the proprietors in June, 1740, provisions were made for building a dam at the saw-mill, and shortly after meas- ures were taken to induce settlers to move into the town. At a proprietors' meeting holden at Amesbury, August 29, 1740, they voted to give twenty pounds to each of the five first settlers that will settle on the conditions of the grant and make such improvements as are therein required. In October following, the proprietors chose an agent, Capt. Thomas Rowel, to petition the King's Most Excellent Maj- esty to allow this township to remain under the govern- ment of Massachusetts. Nov. 17th, the proprietors of the township No. 1, in the line of towns, as it was denominated on the clerk's book, chose two agents to petition the Gov- ernor and Council of New-Hampshire, to issue orders and direction to bring forward the settlement of said township. From the foregoing date to Jan. 1749, there was but very little done towards the contemplated settlement. In 1749, the proprietors erected at their expense four houses on the five acre building lots near where Gen. Davis' house now stands. The persons employed for that service were Thom- as Colby, Moses Morrill, Jarvis Ring, and Gideon Straw.
The war with France commencing about this time, occa- sioned a suspension of all proceedings relative to the set- tlement of the town. The saw-mill, which had never been put in operation, and the houses erected for the accommoda- tion of settlers, were abandoned by the proprietors, and finally destroyed by the Indians, and the place again left for
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years to the peaceable possession of the savages and thirteen wild beasts, that, for aught we can know, they had enjoyed for thousands of years before.
In 1763, the axeman's blows again broke silence in this then howling wilderness. June 21, 1763, the proprietors met at Amesbury, and voted to choose a committee to per- ambulate the lines of the town; chose agents to build another saw-mill ; also voted that a forty acre lot should be given to cach of the first ten settlers for their encourage- ment to settlement, provided they would settle immedi- ately. In August next following, the proprietors voted to give up their former division of lots, and that there should be sixty forty-acre lots laid out, and a plan of the same made out to be returned at the next meeting. The fol- lowing persons engaged to go to the township No. 1, in the line of towns which took the name of New-Amesbury, about this time to settle, on the condition of receiving a forty- acre lot for settling, viz., Enoch Blaisdell, Eliphalet Dan- forth, Barnard Hoyt, Elijah Blaisdell, Jeremy Fowler, Pasky Pressey, Thomas Jewel, Nathan Currier, Bartholo- mew Heath, Joshua Bayley, Daniel Chase, Isaac Chase, Abner Wadkins, Francis Davis and Nathan Goodwin. At a meeting, Oct. 10, 1765, the first eighty-acre lots were drawn by the proprietors. At the same meeting it was voted that six shillings should be paid on each right to Mr. Farrington to build a meeting-house. In 1766, a commit- tec was appointed to lay out a sixty acre lot to each pro- prietor ; also to make an equal division of the intervale lands. In the same year the proprietors voted to raise sixteen shillings on a share to defray the expenses of the surveys and to build a meeting-house, the first meeting- house having been by accident burnt. In 1740, the divi- sional lines between Massachusetts and New Hampshire were settled, and soon after this town was granted by the Masonian proprietors to sixty three inhabitants of Rye, by the name of Jennes-Town. This grant caused controversies
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and lawsuits between the Amesbury proprietors and Rye proprietors, which continued to 1773, when the parties mutually agreed to submit all disputes and contests respect- ing the claims to the final determination of Thomas West- brook Waldron, Benjamin Greenleaf, Humphrey Hobson, Benjamin Chadbourne, and Woodbury Langdon, Esqrs., or any three of them, and entered into bonds of a thousand pounds to abide their judgment. The arbitrators awarded 140€ lawful money to the Rye proprietors, and all contro- versies ceased.
The town was very irregularly laid out. The proprietors' first surveys were in 1736, sixty-three forty-acre lots ; next the same number of five-acre lots were laid out and drawn in 1738; and in 1765 an eighty-acre lot was laid out for each proprietor. The proprietors sent a committee to sur- rey sixty-three sixty-acre lots in 1766. The next survey was made of sixty-three forty-acre lots in 1770. In the above named surveys but little regard was had to the lines of the town, nor were the several surveys made with any apparent reference to each other, as to contiguity or regu- larity. The consequence was, many gores of land were left in very inconvenient and irregular forms. And what added much to these irregularities were the changes the proprietors were allowed to make in their lots, when they chanced to draw those of little or no value, by making out surveys of other lots where they pleased in the individual lands.
The first settlement was in 1762, by Daniel Annis and his sons-in-law Reuben Kimball and Daniel Floyd. Isaac Waldron, his two sons, and Pasky Pressy moved into town with their families the year following. It is difficult to ascertain the precise order in which the settlers came into town afterwards.
Those who came and occupied the settlers' lots were for the most part very poor and illiterate.
Those mentioned above, and the following persons, with
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their families, constituted nearly all the population in town in 1773, viz .: Daniel Flanders, Isaac Chase, Eliphalet Dan- forth, Francis Davis, Samuel Roby, Richard Goodwin, Joseph Currier, Philip Flanders, Abner Watkins, Elijah Blaisdell, Joshua Bagley, Daniel Chase, Daniel Young, Daniel Currier, Jeremy Fowler, Barnard Hoyt, Enoch Blais- dell, Parmenas Watson, Nehemiah Heath, Joseph Sawyer, Jacob Tucker, Moses Clark, Ebenezer Eastman, Theodore Stevens, Jonathan Fifield, David Gilmore, Seth Goodwin, Ezekiel Goodwin, Joseph Foster, Abner Chase, Stephen Edmunds, Hubbard Carter, Thomas Rowell, Robert Gould, Theophilus Currier and Nathaniel Trumball.
The customs and manners of the first settlers were very simple and plain. Being circumscribed in the social circles and very limited in numbers, each seemed to take an interest in, and seek his neighbor's welfare with fraternal affection. Before the roads were made comfortable for carriages, horses were not so much used for the transportation of heavy articles as oxen. Produce was carried to market by ox-teams. Oxen were used also to convey families to' and from meetings, funerals, &c. And when neither oxen or horses could be conveniently used, a ready substitute was found by the athletic husbandman in his handsled. In mid-winter, when the snow was deep and no paths were made, three men went to Hopkinton, five or six miles, and brought female help in a case of sickness, on a hand-sled. Three families in the south part of the town, living on the " Parson Kelløy hill," owned each a cow; they cut their forage for their cows in a meadow back of Caleb Jones', in the north part of the town, four or five miles distant, stacked their hay, and hauled it home in the winter, on hand-sleds. Some inhabitants on " Waldron's Hill," im- proved a meadow west of the Mink Hills, two or three miles distant, in like manner. Nor could even this vehicle be used in all cases. In the first years of the settlement of the town, several of the inhabitants had to carry their corn
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and grain at least thirteen miles on their backs, to Con- cord, to mill.
Marriages were then entered into in earlier life than lat- terly. It was not uncommon for females to marry at the age of fifteen or sixteen years, and sometimes the con- tracting parties closed their business in a very summary way. Rather a humorous instance of this kind occurred about sixty years since, between a young man of this town and a young woman of Hopkinton.
Our adventurer went to Hopkinton to attend an ordina- tion; while in the crowded assembly, and the faithful preacher was probably inculcating the doctrine of placing the affections on things above, his were directed to quite a different object. His attention was arrested by the appear- ance of a blooming youth, whose native beauty and fair form had never suffered martyrdom by tight lacing, the unhallowed fashion of modern times. By him her attrac- tions were irresistible. The more he gazed the more he admired. And when the exercises were closed, he, fixing his eye upon her, rushed forward in the crowd and caught her in his arms, exclaiming at the same time, " Now I have got ye, you jade, I have, I have!"' The sequel to this rude introduction was a marriage,-and might be considered one of Dr. Watts's " few happy matches."
In 1775 there were 262 inhabitants in town; in 1790, SG3; in 1800, 1569; in 1810, 1838; in 1820, 2246; and in 1830, 2221.
In the charter of New-Amesbury, now Warner, granted Dec. 1767, one right was reserved for the first settled min- ister, one for the use of the ministry forever, and one for the benefit of schools ; which rights were laid out in the same manner as the others were and free from any public taxes. The conditions of the grant were, that the proprie- tors build a meeting-house and maintain constant preaching from and after three years from the date of the grant.
To aid the settlers in fulfilling these conditions, the pro-
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prietors in November, 1770, voted to pay one dollar and an half on cach right for one year ; then one dollar a year for four years ; then half a dollar for one year, on condition that the inhabitants settle " a learned orthodox minister in town, on or before Dec. 1772." In 1769, a second meet- ing-house was erected ; the first, a poorly constructed log house, having been burnt one or two years before. This house was built on the site of the first, near the most ele- vated spot enclosed in the old burying ground. Its dimen- sions were about thirty by twenty-four feet on the floor, one story high, covered with long shingles, and boarded. But very little finishing was done till the pew ground was sold, three or four years afterwards, when the pews were sold at auction for from three to three dollars and a half each, and the avails of the sales in part laid out on the building; but at best it was a miserable house. The first candidate employed to preach in the town was Mr. Timothy Walker (afterwards Judge Walker, late of Concord,) in the former part of the year 1769. In Dec. 1770, the set- tlers, forty-five in number, found themselves jointly 'and severally in the penal sum of 10£ " to pay their propor- tion according to poll and estate, of the expense of support- ing an able and learned minister of the gospel, who should be approved by the pastors of the neighboring Churches." In the spring of 1771, Rev. William Kelley, a native of Newbury, Massachusetts, was employed to preach as a can- didate, and in the November following he received a call to settle in the ministry, with a salary of 40€ the first year, to increase 1.8 10s a year till it should amount to 60 £, and twenty cords of wood annually. This call he accepted, and was ordained on the 5th February, 1772, and on the same day a Congregational Church was gathered, consisting of seven male members. On this occasion the zcal of Isaac Waldron in forming the Church was, perhaps, more commendable than his discretion ; for, said he, though not a professor of religion, "rather than they
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