USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Lebanon > July fourth, 1761: an historical discourse in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the charter of Lebanon, N.H., delivered July fourth, 1861 > Part 1
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01096 3962
4
JULY FOURTH, 1761: AN
HISTORICAL DISCOURSE
Commemoration of the One Hundredth Anibersary IN
OF THE
CHARTER OF LEBANON, N. H.,
DELIVERED JULY FOURTH, 1861,
BY REV. D. H. ALLEN, D. D., OF WALNUT HILLS, OHIO.
BOSTON: J. E. FARWELL & COMPANY, PRINTERS TO THE CITY, NO. 32 CONGRESS STREET. 1862.
LEBANON, December 8, 1861.
DR. ALLEN :
DEAR SIR : In behalf of the citizens of Lebanon, we return you their thanks for the interesting Historical Discourse, in commemoration of the One Hun- dredth Anniversary of the Charter of the Town, delivered July 4, 1861; and respectfully request a copy for publication.
Truly yours, CHARLES A. DOWNS,
For the Committee of the Town.
WALNUT HILLS, December 14, 1861.
TO THE COMMITTEE OF THE TOWN OF LEBANON :
GENTLEMEN : In placing a copy of my Address in your hands for publica- tion, agreeably to your request, permit me to express the hope that you will add to it such notes as will compensate for the haste with which it was neces- sarily prepared, and make it a much more valuable history of the town.
Very respectfully,
Your fellow-townsman,
D. H. ALLEN.
1231495
ADDRESS.
SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF LEBANON :
WE may be allowed to congratulate each other to- day, that this, our national anniversary, so dear to every true American citizen ; and especially, that the Fourth of July, 1861, when the Congress of these United States meets on the most important business that ever called them together, a day destined, there- fore, to be historic among all the fourths of July, past and future, that this day should be the centennial an- niversary of the charter of our town.
We meet to-day, by the invitation of the " old folks at home," to exchange friendly greetings ; to look once more upon these beautiful green hills, and these grand old rocks; to revive the memories of our common birthplace, and to take a rapid review of our family records for these hundred years past.
It becomes me at the outset, in the name of all who are gathered here from abroad, to thank the good people of Lebanon, adopted as well as native, for the generous invitation which has called us back to the home of our childhood, and for the spirit with which they have prepared for this celebration.
The idea of celebrating the settlement of New Eng- land towns, now that so many of them can number their years by the century, is worthy to be cherished.
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HISTORICAL DISCOURSE.
Nowhere else, either in our own or foreign lands, does the town sustain such relations to the state and na- tion. Nowhere else has the town system such a bearing upon the character and habits of the people as here. Out of New England, and especially in the South and West, except in localities which bear the New England stamp, the town or township is hardly known. It is lost in the county. Multitudes cannot tell the town- ship in which they live. They will speak of their na- tive county, seldom of their native town.
The distinguished French political philosopher, De Tocqueville, who studied Democracy in America more thoroughly, and unfolded it more correctly than any other foreigner has ever done, did not fail to discover the immense influence of the town system of New Eng- land upon the character and government of the nation. He begins his examination of our entire political sys- tem with the township.
His language is : [in New England] " The impulsion of political activity was given in the townships, and it may almost be said that each of them originally formed an independent nation. They are subordinate to the State only in those interests which are common to all the people; they are independent in all that con- cerns themselves. The sphere of the town is small indeed, and limited, but within that sphere its action is unrestrained. The New Englander is attach- ed to his township, not only because he was born in it, but because it constitutes a strong and free social body of which he is a member, whose government claims and deserves the exercise of his sagacity."
This testimony of De Tocqueville is just. The gov-
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ernment of a New England town is more nearly a pure democracy than can be found anywhere else under the sun. The " March meeting " is the annual session of this democratic legislature. The people come together to discuss, face to face, the measures to be adopted ; to assess taxes and vote appropriations ; to select and in- struct their officers. In these primary meetings of the people, the orators of New England, great and small, take their first lessons. Here are learned those princi- ples of freedom and self-government, which make the New Englander, politically, what he is, wherever he goes, the Democrat, in the true and proper sense of the term ; familiar with the foundations of the social struc- ture, and fit to be a citizen of a Republic, whose first principle is, that the will of the people is law.
Aside, then, from all matters of a personal and so- cial concern; aside from the cultivation of reverence for home and ancestry, in which, as a people, we Ameri- cans are sadly deficient, there are reasons enough for such a celebration in the very idea of a New England town.
The period of the settlement which we are met to commemorate was one of deep interest in the history of our country. George the Third had just ascended the throne of England. The old French war, which resulted in giving England the possession of the Can- adas, was drawing to a close. England was then in possession of almost the entire North American conti- nent. Her arms had been successful in every part of the globe. She had risen to the very heights of mili- tary glory. And now the project of taxing the colo- nies which had been laid aside during the war, was
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revived. His Majesty's subjects in America had sacrficed a multitude of lives in fighting his battles, and thereby added immensely to his territories and his wealth. And why should they not also pay the bills ?
The Stamp Act was passed in 1765 ; and the years following were filled up with those acts of encroach- ment and oppression, which were destined to result very soon in terminating forever British rule in the largest and fairest portion of her North American pos- sessions.
The immediate occasion of the settlement of this part of the Connecticut valley, was the French war. In the progress of that war, the New England troops had cut a road from the older settlements in the south part of the Province, through Charleston, then called No. 4, to Crownpoint. The soldiers in passing through this valley, became acquainted with its fertility and value, and as soon as the cessation of hostilities, consequent upon the battle of Quebec, would permit, a swarm of adventurers and speculators began to seek possession of these lands. The hardy yeomanry, too, of Connect- icut and Massachusetts, saw here a chance to better their condition ; consequently emigrants flocked hither, somewhat as they have done in these later years to the prairie lands of the West.
Benning Wentworth, then governor of the Province of New Hampshire, directed a survey of these lands to be made; at first, of sixty townships, extending sixty miles on the river, and three townships deep on each side. Soon after, new surveys were made, both north and west. In the year in which our charter is
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dated, sixty such charters were granted on the west of the river, and eighteen on the east side. The charter of Enfield is dated on the same day as that of Lebanon, as also those of Hartford and Norwich, the proprietors being from the same neighborhood. This number of grants was more than doubled in the next two years ; not inappropriately therefore, might this Fourth of July have been made the centennial anniversary of this central valley of the Connecticut, in which one hun- dred and fifty towns in this part of New Hampshire and Vermont should have met at White River Junc- tion, to celebrate the toils and sacrifices of their fathers in taking possession of these hills and valleys, and sub- duing them for their posterity.
We must now confine ourselves more exclusively to our own town. After the destruction of Louisburg, in 1758, William Dana and three companions, Connect- icut soldiers, came across Maine to the Connecticut River, designing to follow it down to their homes. In passing through this region, they found much to ad- mire and covet, and Mr. Dana determined to secure a home here. On his return to Connecticut, a company was formed, and the charter of this town was obtain- ed from Governor Wentworth, bearing date July 4th, 1761.
The main provisions of this charter are these: The town was to be six miles square. As soon as there should be fifty families resident in the town they were to have the privilege of holding two annual fairs ; and a market might be opened, and kept one or more days each week. The conditions of the charter were these : 1. That every grantee, for every fifty acres in his
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share, should plant and cultivate five, within the, term of five years.
2. That all white and other pine trees, fit for masting the royal navy, should be reserved for that purpose. 3. That from a tract of land near the centre of the town every grantee should have one acre as a town lot. 4. That for the space of ten years one ear of Indian corn was to be paid annually as rent, if lawfully demanded ; the first payment to be made on the 25th of December, 1762. After the expiration of ten years every proprietor, settler, or inhabitant, was to pay for every hundred acres owned by him, one shil- ling proclamation money, forever. One whole share of land (about 338 acres) was reserved for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts ; one whole share for a glebe for the Church of Eng- land; one whole share for the first settled minister ; one for the benefit of schools, and five hundred acres for the use of Benning Wentworth, the royal gov- ernor.
NAMES OF THE GRANTEES OF LEBANON.
John Hanks,
David Eldredge,
John Salter,
Nathan Arnold,
Obadiah Loomis,
Levi Hyde,
Elijah Huntington,
John Birchard,
Huckins Storrs,
John Allen,
Robert Barrows, Jun.,
Lemuel Clark,
Jesse Birchard,
Joseph Wood,
Richard Salter,
Moses Hebard, Jun.,
Constant Southworth,
John Hyde,
Hobart Estabrooks,
Josiah Storrs,
Benjamin Davis,
Nathan Blodgett,
Daniel Blodgett ye 3d,
Robert Hyde,
Thomas Storrs,
Jesse Birchard,
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HISTORICAL DISCOURSE.
Charles Hill,
James Turner, Jonathan Martin, Samuel Storrs,
John Storrs, Seth Blodgett, Nathaniel Porter,
Nathaniel Hall,
Joshua Blodgett,
David Turner, Joseph Martin,
Jonathan Yeomans, Jonathan Walcutt,
Judah Storrs,
Edward Goldstone,
Jabez Barrows,
Jonathan Blanchard,
Jonathan Murdock, John Birchard,
- Lutwhich, William Dana,
Daniel Blodgett,
Robert Martin,
James Nevins, Esq., Samuel Penhallow,
Thomas Barrows, Jun.,
Oniel Lamont,
Joseph Dana,
Jedediah Dana,
John Swift,
Mark Huntington Wentworth, Esq.,
Daniel Allen, Jun., John Baldwin,
Hugh Hall Wentworth, William Knight,
Clement Jackson, Esq.
Kunking
A majority of these persons were of Lebanon, Conn. They therefore gave the new town in the wilderness the name of their loved native home, - a name orig- inally given to that town in Connecticut, from the circumstance that there was found there a valley of cedars, suggestive of the " cedars of Lebanon."
You will notice that the governor reserved to him- self five hundred acres of land in this town. He did the same in every grant through all this region, thus securing to himself the title to some hundred thousand acres of land. His successor, John Wentworth, disap- pointed in finding that these lands were not willed to him, set aside all these titles, and, assuming what is now known as the squatter sovereignty principle, granted them to the actual settlers upon them.
2
Sulwych
Nehemiah Estabrooks,
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HISTORICAL DISCOURSE.
The first meeting of the proprietors under the char- ter, was held at Mansfield, Conn., October 6th, 1761. A committee was then chosen to lay out the lots and roads, with instructions to begin immediately.
To encourage the speedy settlement of the town, the proprietors " voted that those of their number, who shall settle upon their lands within the term of ten years, shall have the privilege of cultivating and im- proving such part of the intervals as shall suit them ; with these restrictions : that the interval so improved by them be in one piece or body, and when said inter- val shall be divided amongst the proprietors those persons aforesaid shall have their proportion of the interval so cultivated by them."
These intervals along the Connecticut were wonder- ful affairs in those days. In our boyhood, before we had looked upon prairies larger than the whole State of New Hampshire, we used to think them immense. We boys of the hills used to feel some envy of their fortunate possessors. We are not surprised, therefore, to find that the proprietors thought them a valuable prize.
The town was immediately surveyed and the work of clearing begun. How carefully the pioneers regarded the condition of their charter, to cut down no " pine tree fit for masting the royal navy," we are not in- formed. They probably had no great fear of his Maj- esty's officers before their eyes, inasmuch as the laws of England required that a breach of a condition in a grant of land should be proved before a jury commis- sioned by a court of chancery, and no such court ex- isted in the Province of New Hampshire.
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The labor of clearing these lands was very great. They were all burdened with an immense growth of the heaviest timber, never before disturbed by the woodman's axe. That woodman's axe furnished the révéille of those sturdy conquerors of the forest, and their morning gun of salutation to their neighbors was a huge pine, hemlock, or maple, thundering and crash- ing to the ground.
Notwithstanding the labor of providing for them- selves a home here, settlers came here rapidly. The second winter, 1762-3, four men remained here. Five years later the population of the town was 162, viz : males over sixteen years of age and under sixty, 42 ; under sixteen, 50. Females, married, 30 ; unmarried, including children, 40. In 1775, the total population was 347. The revolutionary war arrested, for a time, the tide of emigration to this vicinity, and made heavy drafts upon its scattered inhabitants for the army. The sixth company of the first battalion of the Continen- tal army of New Hampshire seems to have been made up chiefly, if not wholly, from this immediate neigh- borhood. John House, of Hanover, was captain, and Thomas Blake, of Lebanon, was ensign. Some twen- ty-five or thirty were in the army from this town. Lu- ther Wheatley, Edward Slapp, Eleazer M. Porter. David Millington, and Capt. Joseph Estabrooks, are said to have lost their lives in the war.
After the war the population increased quite rap- idly, so that, as early as 1790, it amounted to nearly 1,200. The character of these early settlers may be inferred, not only from the herculean labors they were obliged to undergo, in order to provide for themselves
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HISTORICAL DISCOURSE.
a home and support their families, but from the inter- est they manifested in education and religion.
It is a singular fact, and one well worthy of our no- tice, that the very first record of the town now extant is a vote passed May 13th, 1765, in respect to preach- ing in the town. That vote is as follows : " Whether we will have a minister in the town this summer, or will not? Voted the affirmative. 3d. That we first send subscriptions to ye neighboring towns, and get what we can subscribed, and what remains wanting to supply the pulpit six months, will stand 'sponsible for -to be paid at ye end of six months. 4th. Chose Aaron Storrs to carry a subscription ; to take care to get as much in ye neighboring towns as he can. 5th. Voted that the select men take it upon them to seek quarters for the minister, and provide for his ac- · commodation."
That they were disposed to deal liberally with their minister is evident from the first record in regard to a salary. In 1768 the town voted to give a Mr. Wales a call to settle in the gospel ministry. " His salary the first year was to be £ 50, and to rise annually £ 5 till it should be £ 70." If we bear in mind that money was then worth more than double what it now is, we shall see that this first salary, voted when the town numbered not more than two hundred inhabitants, all told, was equivalent to a salary of five or six hundred dollars at this day; and equivalent to a salary of six thousand dollars to be paid by the present inhabitants.
These, our fathers, had been accustomed for many years to an able and faithful ministry of the Word of God, under such men as Rev. Dr. Wheelock, pastor of
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the church of Lebanon, and Rev. Richard Salter, pastor of the church of Mansfield, Conn. They knew the value, to themselves and families, of the regular preach- ing of the Gospel on the Sabbath, and were ready to make any sacrifices to obtain it.
They knew, too, the worth of education. As early as 1767, we find on the town records a vote to estab- lish a school. September 7, 1768, twenty pounds were appropriated to support it, and a committee, consisting of Asa Kilbourne and Joseph Wood, was chosen to take charge of it. This first school was kept by Mr. John Wheatley in a log school-house, east of the for- mer residence of Capt. Joseph Wood.
In 1775, four school districts were established ; and in 1784, eight. In 1781, the land reserved in the char- ter for the Church of England, and for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, was appropriated for the support of schools. In respect to education, the town was highly favored by the location of Dartmouth College in its vicinity as early as 1769, by which the thirst for education was nurtured, and a supply of well-trained teachers furnished. This re- mark, of course, will not be understood to imply that all our good teachers were from the college. Indeed there can be no question, that the same causes which led to the settlement of this region at that time, also determined the location of Dartmouth College.
As early as 1758, there was a movement in the southern part of the Province of New Hampshire to obtain a charter for a college. Negotiations were in progress to this end, and several conventions of min- isters held for the purpose, when the plans of Dr.
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Wheelock were made known to them about 1763, and further proceedings were arrested. Dr. Wheelock's Indian Charity School, be it remembered, was in Leba- non, Conn. Our fathers, of course, were all familiar with his plans. His desire was to remove into the neighborhood of the Indians, in the hope that large numbers of them would avail themselves of the advan- tages of civilization and religion. In this town were not a few of his former parishioners, now opening their homes in the very presence of the Indians themselves. What more natural, then, than that in selecting a new locality for his favorite school, he should follow the steps of his old neighbors and friends, and choose for his permanent resting-place a spot, at once near to them and to the native Red men, whom he sought spe- cially to benefit ?
While speaking of Dartmouth College, I will men- tion an incident which, while it illustrates the charac- ter of the prominent actors, also shows the facilities for travel and transportation which our fathers enjoyed.
In the life of General Eaton, who was well known about the beginning of the present century in connec- tion with his expedition to Algiers, we read : " In May, 1787, with his staff over his shoulder, on which was suspended his pack, containing his linen and a few trinkets, which he expected to sell on his journey, and with one pistareen only of ready money, he started on foot from Mansfield, Conn., for Dartmouth College. He was admitted to the freshman class, and graduated in 1790. After a journey to Connecticut, he returned to Hanover and took his degree of Bachelor of Arts, August 28th. The object of that journey, his biogra-
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pher probably had no means of knowing. The early settlers hereabouts could have told him. It was to procure the first bell of Dartmouth College ; and, so far as we know, the first bell whose sounds were echo- ed through these forests. He went in a horse-cart to Hartford, Conn., and after an absence of two or three weeks, reached Hanover on the afternoon before Commencement. The bell was immediately suspended from a tree, and soon made the welkin ring with a new sound, to the great joy of all the inhabitants and of all the visitors on that occasion.
The location of Dartmouth College has proved in many ways a blessing to this town; and the town has contributed freely to the aid of the college. Fourteen hundred and forty acres of land were given to Dr. Wheelock for the use of the college; and money has been contributed freely, from time to time, for the re- lief of its necessities. Fifty-four of her alumni* were from this town, and one of the honored dead of her faculty.+
The first settlers of this town and their fellow- pioneers of this valley were fully up to the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. They would submit to no oppression, either by foreign or home governments.
Another will call your attention from the past to the present, and perhaps speak of the unhappy struggle through which our country is passing.
* See Appendix, No. 1.
t Ira Young, Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy. One other consequence of the vicinity of Dartmouth College should not be passed without notice. And that is the fact, that many of her graduates have found here what Solomon calls a "good thing " - a wife. - D.
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It may, however, serve to temper our zeal against the secessionists of the South, to be reminded that our fathers were the first secessionists. The history which records their uprising is not very luminous, as to details, but is substantially this: -
The original grant of New Hampshire was made to John Mason, and extended sixty miles from the sea. The line passed from Rindge through the west part of Concord, striking Lake Winnipiseogee. Later acts extended its western boundary to Lake Champlain. Under these last, grants of townships were made, as before noticed, on both sides of the Connecticut. In 1764, a decree of the King in Council was passed, limiting New Hampshire to the Connecticut.
The grants to New York were not very definitely bounded ; and in consequence, a fierce strife arose as to the right of New York to control the land between the Lake and the Connecticut River. The inhabitants of the towns on both sides of the river were mainly from Connecticut and Massachusetts, and their views of public policy coincided. They were hence not very well satisfied with the decree which separated them from each other ; and when, after the Revolution, mea- sures were adopted for framing a constitution for New Hampshire, their dissatisfaction and independence were made manifest. Vermont had petitioned Congress to be received into the Confederacy as an independent State ; and a portion of the people, in many towns on this side of the river desired to unite with them. In sixteen towns, of which Lebanon was one, this portion was a majority. They took the position, that, since the government of Great Britain was overthrown, they
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were left to their own natural sovereignty ; that the original grant of New Hampshire extended but sixty miles from the sea; that these townships were in- dependent grants, each in itself a sovereign political organization ; that they had been attached first to this and then to that larger sovereignty ; and now, as the power which had assumed thus to dispose of them was overthrown, they were in all respects their own mas- ters, and might attachı themselves to what State they pleased .*
On the other hand, it was maintained, that by their own acts, in receiving grants and protection from New Hampshire, they had acknowledged the sovereignty of that State over them. These views were the subject of fiery discussion and conflict through all the towns bordering on the river. Each town acted for itself, and every man in each town acted for himself. Their entire independence of each other will appear at once from the fact, that seceding towns were not in all cases adjoining each other. No common tie of domestic in- stitutions, or social relations, held together these first seceding sovereignties.
These towns were Cornish, Lebanon, Dresden, (now Hanover Plain,) Lyme, Orford, Piermont, Haverhill, Bath, Lyman, Apthorp, (now Littleton and Dalton,) Enfield, Canaan, Orange, Landaff, New Concord, (now Lisbon,) and Franconia.
These towns refused to send delegates to the Conven- tion which formed the Constitution of New Hampshire,
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