USA > New Hampshire > Coos County > Lancaster > History of Lancaster, New Hampshire > Part 1
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Gc 974.202 L22s 1127463
M. L.
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
James Conner. Lancaster Nest Hampshire.
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01096 2519
GENEALOGY 974.202 L22S
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/historyoflancast1900some
LANCASTER VILLAGE FROM HOLTON HILL.
HISTORY
OF
LANCASTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE.
WRITTEN AND EDITED BY
REV. A. N. SOMERS.
PUBLISHED AND ISSUED BY ORDER OF THE TOWN THROUGH
JAMES W. WEEKS,
HENRY O. KENT,
CHESTER B. JORDAN,
Its Committee.
FORT WAYNE AND ALLEN COUNTY IND
OF
THE PUBLIC LIBRARY
1898.
CONCORD, N. H. : THE RUMFORD PRESS. 1899.
BOBL MYXNE VAD VITEK CONNLA IND THE bnBrIC ГІВEVEN
1127463
TO THE MEMORY OF THE BRAVE MEN AND NOBLE WOMEN WHO DID AND SUFFERED MUCH TO MAKE LANCASTER WHAT SHE IS TO-DAY, THIS HISTORY IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE COMMITTEE.
EDITOR'S PREFACE.
A work of this kind neither calls for apology nor recommendation. It must be its own excuse for being, and stand upon its merits, or fall by its demerits. This history, being local in its scope, must necessarily please the many, while it may disappoint a few whose prejudices and traditions are not given as prominent a place as they might have desired. The editor has written strictly within the limits set for him by the committee to whom the town entrusted the task of having this history prepared and published. The story of the town's inception, growth, and present devel- opment, has been told without the desire or purpose to laud or blame any persons or institutions that have been connected with the history of the town. It has been the editor's constant aim in writing this history to give a plain, true, and unembellished narrative of the men, institutions, enterprises, and events which taken together, constitute the history of the town.
I wish to acknowledge here the fact that I have received much valua- ble assistance from many persons and institutions in collating the facts that are woven into this narrative of the town. Many interesting inter- views have been accorded me by citizens of the town, documents, both public and private, have been placed in my hands, without which I could not have learned the facts that enrich the pages of this history.
Especial acknowledgment of the courtesies and assistance rendered me by the different members of the committee is due them. I found them always ready to render me aid, and they have been untiring in their efforts to make this history reliable as well as interesting. Through their counsels and by their contributions of data, they have lightened what otherwise would have been a burdensome task, growing with every attempt to get at the bottom facts of the history of the town.
Certain portions of the history were compiled by them, requiring at my hands the simple task of editing, while the major portion of Part I is original, in the form in which it is given forth.
It is hoped that the citizens of the town, for whom it has been written, will find it satisfactory, and that it will preserve the many important events in the history of the town from falling into oblivion.
A. N. SOMERS.
Lancaster, March 8, 1897.
PREFATORY NOTE BY THE COMMITTEE
-
At the annnal March meeting, 1892, the town took its first steps towards a history. It was then contemplated that the history should embrace a narrative, an account of the trades and business, churches, schools, and the like, and also personal biography of the early settlers and their families. As the work grew it was found that all this could not be included within one volume, and it was therefore deemed best to exclude all personal biography and the genealogy of families, save as the same might appear in narrative and other form. The town has a large amount of biographical material to be used at some future day, when another volume of history may be published. It was gathered by the committee for this volume, but left out for the reason that it would make the book too large. The committee regret the necessity of such action, but congratulates the town that it now has in safe keeping much valuable matter concerning its pioneers, who acted so well their parts in founding a town and a civilization that we trust will bring no discredit upon them or their works.
JAMES W. WEEKS, HENRY O. KENT, CHESTER B. JORDAN, Committee
Lancaster, July 1, 1898.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PART I.
CHAPTER I. Discovery and Exploration of the Upper Coos I
II. Location and Charter of the Town 4
III. The Town as a Civil Organization II
IV. The Settlement of the Town 18
V. The Survey, Relocation, and Allotment of the Lands
28
VI. The Organization of the Town 38
VII. The Building of Roads and Bridges
VIII. The Revolutionary Period .
69
IX. The Town from 1776 to 1800
88
X. The Town from 1800 to 1850 II4
XI. The Town from 1850 to 1897 14I
XII. Education in Lancaster 164
XIII. The Establishment and Development of Religion in Lancaster 172
XIV. Lancaster in Relation to the Vermont Controversy 186
XV. Some Early Marriages and Deaths in Lancaster . 189
XVI. Some Early Private Accounts with the Town 194
XVII. Religious Holidays, Musters, Raisings 198
XVIII. Some Temperance Movements in Lancaster 207
XIX. The Political History of the Town 21I
XX. Some Authors of the Town and their Writings 246
XXI. The Early Post-riders and the Mails . 254
XXII. Some Epidemics that have Prevailed in Lancaster 259
XXIII. The Railroads 266
PART II.
CHAPTER I. The Natural History of the Town .
281
II. Localities, Streets, Parks, and Cemeteries 316 ·
III. Material Growth of the Town 328 .
IV. Domestic Life in Early Times
340
V. Games, Sports, and Amusements of Early Times 349
VI. Mercantile Enterprises and Merchants
. 363
VII. Manufacturing Enterprises of the Town
369
VIII. Banks and Other Corporations 392
IX. The History of Education . 402
X. The Churches . 421
XI. The Newspapers of the Town . 452
XII. The Learned Professions 460 .
XIII. Fraternal Societies
483
XIV. Public Buildings
505 .
XV. The Fire Department
523
XVI. The Civil List of the Town
53I
XVII. The Soldiers of Lancaster .
543
.
XVIII. The Centennial Celebration of the Settlement of the Town of Lancaster, 1764-July 14, 1864 . 563
53
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
-
Lancaster Village from Holton Hill
Frontispiece. face page 64
American House and Ice Freshet, 1870
Arch on Main Street, 1895
66 162
Barney, Dr. John W.
. . 477
Benton Fountain .
160
Benton, Jacob
466
Blacksmith Shop .
333
Boston and Maine R. R. Station
276
Brackett, Adino N.
94
Brackett Homestead
333
Bucknam, Mrs. Sally
..
94
Bunker Hill, View from
140
Bunker Hill, Village and Meadows from
140
Burns, William
466
Catholic Church
420
Cemetery, Old
. 6
327
Cemetery, Summer Street
327
Centennial Park and High School Building
324
Coaching Parade, 1895
. .
276
Colby, Enoch Libbey
. .
430
Congregational Church, 1898
430
Connecticut River and Toll-bridge
395
Court-house, 1868-1886
512
Court-house, 1887
512
Court-house, Brick, 1835-1868
510
Court-house, Original
332
Emmons Stockwell House
333
Episcopal Church and Rectory
430
Everett Homestead, 1844
334
Everett Homestead, 1899
334
Everett, Richard Clair .
94
Farnham, Joseph
378
Fletcher, Hiram Adams
6 6
466
Flood, Israels River, February, 1870
64
Freeman, Alonzo P.
66
378
Grange Village and Church
318
162
Coaching Parade, 1895
I37
Congregational Church, 1841
510
Edward Spaulding Farm on Stebbins Hill
ix
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Great Rock and Schoolhouse
face page 318
Greeley, Horace, in Lancaster, 1872
6 6 238
Heywood, William
466
High School Building
402
Holton House, 1780
332
Hunking, Dr. Benjamin
..
477
Ice Freshet, 1870 .
Israels River
Joyslin, Royal
..
64 4 365
Kent Fountain
160
Kent, Nelson
. . 365
Kent, Richard Peabody
365
Ladd, William S.
472
Lancaster House, New .
. .
516
Lancaster House, Old
514
LeGro, Samuel H.
516
Log Jam at Toll-bridge, 1895
395
Lyman, Dr. Eliphalet
477
Maine Central R. R. Station .
276
Main Street, 1872
. 6
I54 562
Main Street, above Court-house, 1868
562
Martin Meadow Pond
316
Masonic Temple and Town Hall
506
Methodist Church
יי
420 420
Noisseaux, Isadore H. .
506
Old Willow, near Lancaster House
248
Original Town Pocketbook
16
Plan of Town on Back of Charter, with names of Grantees
יי
8
Presidential Range from LeGro Hill
Primary Department, Lancaster Academy
Ray, Ossian
. .
4 402 472
Rix, James M.
464
Smith, Allen
378
Soldiers' Park
324
South Main Street prior to 1878
154
Spaulding, William D. .
I37
Stalbird, John
..
378 472
Stickney, Dr. Jacob E. .
477
Sugar Party at E. S. Freeman's
332
Summit Mt. Washington, 1862 (Col. Edward E. Cross) ·
160
Town Hall and American House
514
Unitarian Church
. .
420
Weeks, James Brackett .
365
Weeks, James W.
I37
Main Street, above Lancaster House, 1864
Old Meeting-house
Stephenson, Turner
X
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
face page 94
Weeks, Major John W.
Weeks, William D.
I37
Wells, John Sullivan
464
Whidden, Benj. Franklin
.. 472
White, John H.
66 464
White Mountains from District No. 10
316
Williams, Jared Warner, Governor .
.
.
464
HISTORY OF LANCASTER.
CHAPTER I.
THE DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF THE UPPER COOS.
The Indian name of Cohoss, or Cowas, was known to the settlers of the towns in the southern part of New Hampshire and Massachu- setts since the beginning of the troubles with the Indians and French. In a vague manner it signified a large and valuable tract of land along the Connecticut river. As early as 1704 we find this name appearing in the Provincial Records, Vol. VI, pp. 278, 874. Hun- ters had followed their craft within this territory for many years, and had brought to the settlements glowing accounts of its fertile meadows and richness of timbers, as well as its abundance of game. In the spring of 1752, John Stark, afterward known as General Stark, his brother William, Amos Eastman, and David Stinson were set upon by a party of St. Francis Indians while hunting on Baker's river, in the present town of Rumney. John Stark and Amos East- man were captured, while David Stinson was killed, and William Stark made his escape. These two prisoners were taken to the set- tlement of the St. Francis tribe in Canada, passing through the Cohoss country, halting to hunt at points along the route. They camped the first night at the mouth of John's river. These two young men had thus a good opportunity to view the famed " Co- hoss Meadows " so much talked of in the lower settlements of New Hampshire.
On the return of Stark and Eastman, who were ransomed in the summer of 1752, they gave a glowing account of the Cohoss country, which excited renewed interest in the previous desire and immature plan for its settlement. During that year Governor Wentworth made several grants of townships on both sides of the Connecticut river, by which he hoped to secure the settlement of this coveted country. Accordingly a party set out to lay out a township on either side of the river where Newbury, Vt., and Haverhill, N. H., now are. A prompt remonstrance on the part of the St. Francis Indians led to the abandonment of the plan for a period of ten years.
2
2
HISTORY OF LANCASTER.
In the spring of 1754, the governor sent Colonel Lovewell, Major Talford, and Captain Page out in command of a company, with John Stark as their guide, to explore the Cohoss country. They left Rum- ford (now Concord) on March 10, 1754, and in seven days reached the Connecticut river at Piermont, where they tarried but one night and then beat a hasty retreat, reaching Rumford after an absence of thirteen days. In the absence of any recorded reasons for such a failure to carry out an order of the government we are left to infer that these explorers were afraid of meeting the Indians who claimed the territory they had entered upon.
The same season another exploring party was sent out on the same mission. This party consisted of Captain Peter Powers, of Hollis, N. H., Lieut. James Stevens, and Ensign Ephraim Hale, of Townsend, Mass., with a company of soldiers. They left Rumford on Saturday, June 15, 1754, and proceeded with much difficulty from bad weather and swollen streams, up what Captain Powers called the " Great Valley," or Cohoss. From the journal of Captain Powers it is quite certain that his company reached Isreals river, within the present locality of the village of Lancaster, and remained but a single day, long enough to mend their shoes, and then returned on account of the exhaustion of their provisions. Captain Powers and two of his men marched up the Connecticut river five miles, where they discovered evidences that the Indians had been encamped within a day or two, making canoes. Captain Powers's party were prudent, at least in avoiding any chance of meeting the Indians. They were not sent out to conquer the inhabitants of Cohoss, nor to ' take any formal possession of the country, but to examine it and report to the government. Powers's description of the country through which he passed is accurate, terse, and clear. He named Isreals river Powers' river, in which he no doubt acted in good faith. It is not at all probable that he had any knowledge of its previous name in honor of Isreal Glines, who had his hunter's camp on it many years before, while John Glines, a brother of Isreal, had a camp on John's river. Powers gave as a reason for the river being called John's river the fact that John Stark had lodged on its banks while a captive of the Indians in 1752. He seems, from these con- siderations, to have known nothing of the Glineses.
The Glines brothers, as also one Martin, who hunted on the meadows and pond that bear his name, came here for no other pur- pose than to hunt and trap. Whatever information they conveyed to the lower settlements on leaving the Cohoss country about 1752, is merely a matter of conjecture. As hunters they were not interested in having the country settled. Powers's expedition, on the contrary, was sent out to gain accurate information of the country and report the same to guide the government in its designs to have the country
3
DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF UPPER COOS.
settled before the French should seize it and erect forts and hold it for France. Little or nothing resulted from the Powers exploring expedition, unless it had the effect to allay the fear of the French occupation of the Cohoss country. No effort was made by the authorities of the Province to form settlements above "No. 4" (now Charlestown), after the Assembly refused to concur with Governor Wentworth in granting townships in 1752, until 1761, although many petitions were made for authority to do so. The dangers and expense accompanying the formation of new settlements many miles away from the older fortified settlements, was the chief and only reason holding in check many families anxious to acquire lands in the rich "Cohoss Meadows." The projects of the governor and one Captain Symes, and Theodore Atkinson, who pressed the ques- tion upon the attention of the Assembly at home, and the agent of New Hampshire, and the king abroad, involved a military occupation of the country. They saw and urged the necessity of a strict mili- tary government of their proposed settlements involving the erec- tion of strong garrisons in the centre of the settlements. Such, indeed, would have been the situation had the Assembly concurred in the governor's plans, for not only was there a strong determina- tion on the part of the Indians to prevent further encroachments upon their hunting grounds, but the French were ready, and only too willing, to offer the Indians all possible encouragement to resist the extension of English settlements northward. The French had by that time made Crown Point as much of a stronghold on Lake Champlain as Quebec was on the St. Lawrence river, and were jeal- ous of any encroachments upon the territory above "No. 4." These projects only related to the " Lower Coös," as it came to be known later; but if such were the dangers confronting settlers at that point how much greater would they not have been in the " Upper Coos" ?
So great was the hostility and daring of the St. Francis Indians that they attacked "No. 4," as late as the 30th of August, 1754, which at the time was defended by a garrison under the noted Captain Phineas Stevens, and carried away into captivity eight per- sons. So great seemed the dangers from these Indian attacks that towns as far south as Fort Dummer (Hinsdale), Westmoreland, Keene, and Swanzey sent up petitions to the General Court, and even went so far as to petition the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony for protection against the Indians.
The controversy between Massachusetts and New Hampshire over the boundary question had been settled by King George II in favor of New Hampshire in 1740, which naturally lessened the interest of Massachusetts in the territory in dispute between the New Hamp- shire settlers and the Indians. New Hampshire was not strong
4
HISTORY OF LANCASTER.
enough at that time to invite the combined assaults of the French and Indians, hence many plans for the settlement of new territory in the north had to be abandoned until a more promising time.
That time came only with the close of the last French and Indian War, lasting from 1755 until 1760, when Quebec and Crown Point had been wrested from the French, and the St. Francis tribe of Indians had been almost annihilated by the famed Robert Rogers and his Rangers, who, returning from that memorable victory, passed down the Connecticut river through the "Upper Coos." This ever-memorable expedition of Rogers's Rangers did more to open the way for the exploration and settlement of the " Cohoss " country than all movements combined, for it crushed the hostile spirit of the Indians, and admonished the French that the English purpose to have and hold the Connecticut valley was indisputable. Rogers had been in the "Upper Coos" early in the season of 1755, and erected a fort near the mouth of the Upper Amonoosuck, which he named Fort Wentworth. The site of this old fort is a matter of some interest in the early traditions of the " Upper Coös." In his report of the expedition he says of " Coös" (he spells it Cohas), " it is a tract of twenty miles in length and six in breadth, which, for its beauty and fertility, may be deservedly styled the 'Garden of New England.'"
On their way from St. Francis, Rogers's Rangers passed through the " Upper Coos." Pressed by hunger and fatigue, some of them sought to get out of the wilderness by passing through the White Mountain notch. Several of them passed up Isreals river toward the " notch " with an Indian guide, who seems to have misled them.
Only one of their number, one Bradley, succeeded in making the trip, to tell the sad story of their sufferings. Others of the Rangers passed down the Connecticut river. Too weak to bear the burdens of their guns and knapsacks, they hid them among the rocks and passed on, empty-handed, to the settlements on the river below. Many of these relics have since been found in the town of Lunenburg, Vt.
CHAPTER II.
THE LOCATION AND CHARTER OF THE TOWN.
David Page of Petersham, Mass., having become dissatisfied with an allotment of land to him in Haverhill, N. H., of which he was one of the grantees, in 1762, immediately set about making arrange- ments to found a settlement, in which his fancied rights should be duly respected in the land allotments. In company with sixty-nine
-
ON ISRAELS RIVER, LANCASTER.
STARR KING MOUNTAIN.
PRESIDENTIAL RANGE FROM LEGRO HILL.
5
THE LOCATION AND CHARTER OF THE TOWN.
other persons, he procured a charter for a town in the Upper Coös country, then known to be very rich meadow-land on the Connecti- cut river.
Page had in his employment at the time a young man by the name of Emmons Stockwell, who is supposed to have been in this region before, as one of Rogers's Rangers. Whether he was one of the party that destroyed the village of St. Francis in 1759, is not certainly known. There is a chance that he might have accom- panied Major Rogers in 1755, when he built Fort Wentworth in Northumberland, near the mouth of the Upper Ammonoosuc river. On that occasion detachments from various companies were assigned to Major Rogers for that purpose, and we predict that the name of Emmons Stockwell will be found in some Massachusetts company, as he was a resident of that state. Then, too, young Stockwell, and even Edwards Bucknam, another young man of Petersham, in the employment of David Page, may have hunted in the " Upper Coös Meadows." At all events it was from the knowledge these young men had of the country that led Page to secure a charter for it, and enter into the scheme for its settlement. Knowing how desirous Governor Wentworth was to grant charters, and lay the whole country under the rule of the king, Page and his followers were encouraged to ask for a charter of the rich meadows, which was no sooner asked for than granted. In fact, many of the governor's warmest friends were among the grantees.
Without any previous survey of the lands, the governor, probably with the assistance, and at least by the suggestion, of his petitioners, blocked out a township of certain arbitrary dimensions, to contain a definite number of acres, and granted it under the name of Lan- caster. This grant was supposed to cover all the broad meadows, now in Lancaster, and known as the " Upper Coös Meadows," and the water power of Isreals river. How arbitrary the grants of towns were can readily be seen by a glance at the plots that were always made out on the backs of the charters, and are now repro- duced in the "State Papers, Vols. 24 and 25, Town Charters."
The north line of Lancaster was to be the same as the south line of Stonington, granted to John Hogg and others, Oct. 20, 1761. In consequence of the general ignorance of the governor's petitioners in respect to an unsurveyed country, it happened that the south line of Stonington was some eight or nine miles lower down the river than they supposed, and included all the coveted meadows of the Upper Coös. That threw Lancaster still further south ten miles, upon territory, now included in the towns of Dalton, Whitefield, and Littleton. As granted, and by the description in the charter, Lan- caster was to corner on the Connecticut river a short distance below the mouth of Beaver brook.
6
HISTORY OF LANCASTER.
But for the failure of the grantees of the town of Stonington to take possession of their territory and settle upon it, David Page and his followers would have found themselves forced to move off the rich meadows of the present Lancaster, and either content them- selves with the less desirable territory within their grant, or to have sought still another location. The desire of David Page to get as good land as there was within his supposed grant, led him to take possession of the broad meadows, then near the centre of Stoning- ton, under the supposition that he was within his lawful limits.
The charter for Lancaster was granted July 5, 1763, and David Page sent his son, David Page, Jr., and Emmons Stockwell to take possession of the territory that same year. Tradition says they came some time in the fall, built a log cabin on the meadows, cut grass, and stacked it to feed their cattle that were to be driven up early the following spring. One tradition says that after accomplishing this task they returned to Massachusetts, and came back with David Page and several other young men the following April to find that the spring freshets had carried their hay off and flooded their cabin. Another tradition says that these two young men remained here all winter and subsisted by hunting and fishing. This latter tradition is the more plausible one, and is probably true.
It would seem much more likely that the mistake of locating the Lancaster settlement on the territory granted to the Stonington people was made by these young men coming in advance of the elder Page. They knew something of the country, at least Stock- well did, and as it was supposed that under the charter they were going to take possession of the Coös Meadows, they pitched upon the most valuable lands. That was undoubtedly their instruction from David Page. Then, too, we must consider the fact that these young men would not have the charter to guide them in fixing the bounds of the town. It may be doubted whether David Page, Sr., himself would have done better even with his charter to aid him in fixing upon the bounds of the town.
There is no reason to suppose that the grantees of Lancaster intended to dispossess the grantees of Stonington of their valuable territory. The fact that the former found themselves upon the lands of the latter, after a renewed effort had been made by John Hogg and his followers to regain the land they lost by a failure to comply with the terms of their charter, does not convict them of stealing the lands of their more fortunate neighbors, who had received a prior grant of them. That the readers may better judge how easy it was to make mistakes in finding the rightful limits of the towns arbitrarily laid out without a previous survey of them, I will give here the descriptions of the bounds of Stonington that they may be compared with those of Lancaster in the charter which follows :
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