USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Windham > Supplement to The history of Windham in New Hampshire : a Scotch settlement > 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
SUPPLEMENT TO THE HISTORY OF WINDHAM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE
LEONARD A. MORRISON 1892
Gc 974.202 W73ma 1184626
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
A
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 00083 5907
E
சூ
SUPPLEMENT
TO
THE HISTORY OF WINDHAM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
A SCOTCH SETTLEMENT.
GIVING THE HISTORY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN RELIGIOUS SOCIETY, AND A LIST OF ITS OFFICERS FROM 1827 TO 1892; PROCEEDINGS ON THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEDICATION OF THE CHURCH, JAN. 14, 1885; HISTORY OF CANOBIE LAKE, AND ORIGIN OF THE NAME; LIST OF TOWN OFFICERS FROM 1882 TO 1892, AND RECORD OF MARRIAGES, BIRTHS, AND DEATHS FROM 1882 TO 1892 ; THE FLORA OF WINDHAM ;
PROCEEDINGS OF COLUMBUS DAY CELEBRATION, OCT. 21, 1892 ;
TOGETHER WITH
GENEALOGICAL RECORDS GATHERED IN LONDONDERRY, IRELAND; WITH HISTORI- CAL GLEANINGS IN DUBLIN, IRELAND; GIVING A LIST OF REFERENCES TO GRANTS TO SOME OF THE CROMWELLIAN SCOTCH OFFICERS OF 1649.
BY LEONARD ALLISON MORRISON, A. M.,
Author of " History of the Morison or Morrison Family," "History of Windham in New Hampshire," "Rambles in Europe: with Historical Facts relating to Scotch- American Families; Gathered in Scotland and in the North of Ireland;" "Among the Scotch-Irish: A Tour in Seven Countries; " and " Lineage and Biographies of the Norris Family."
"And he said unto me, write."-REV. xxi : 5.
BOSTON, MASS. : PUBLISHED BY DAMRELL & UPHAM, THE OLD CORNER BOOK-STORE.
1892.
PRINTED BY THE REPUBLICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION, CONCORD, N. H.
1184626
DEDICATION.
TO THE PEOPLE OF WINDHAM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, MY NATIVE TOWN,
and to their descendants in
ALL THE GENERATIONS OF THE FUTURE, this work is inscribed BY THE AUTHOR.
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/supplementtohist1892morr
PREFACE.
This work is not one to attract and entertain the reader by the fas- cination of its style and its glowing periods. It was intended to be just what it is : a book largely for reference ; to chronicle facts which should be preserved ; to put them in permanent form, and make them available to the historical student and to the public. Some of this information I alone possessed. It now appears in print, and is avail- able to all.
This "Supplement," together with the " History of Windham in New Hampshire," and with the recently issued "History and Proceedings of the Celebration of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Incorporation of the Settlement of Windham, in New Hampshire, Held June 9, 1892," presents as full, as elaborate, and as comprehen- sive a history of Windham and its people as is any record published relating to any other town and its inhabitants in the state.
My labor in the preparation of these historical works, and in send- ing them forth on their mission in the world, has been a pleasure, and afforded me the sweetest satisfaction in knowing that others had found in them information, pleasure, and profit. With the publica- tion of this "Supplement," it would appear as if my labor in this line for my native town was completed.
This work is now sent forth to those who wish to consult its pages. LEONARD A. MORRISON.
Windham, N. H., December 1, 1892.
The triumphant past is history .- B. L. BAXTER.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
-
PREFATORY.
PAGE
Title-page
i
Dedication
iii
Preface
vii
Table of contents
ix
HISTORY.
CHAPTER I.
The Scotch-Irish-who were they ?
1-9
Home of the Scotch-Irish in Ireland .
2
Their Saxon blood
2
They were Scotch still
3
Rev. J. S. MacIntosh's tribute
4-6
A picked class
6
No mixture of Scot and Celt
7,8
CHAPTER II.
The Scotch Presbyterian Society of Windham organized . 9-11
Officers
11-56
Constitution and By-Laws .
13, 14, 15
Members of Society
15, 16, 17
Outside interference not tolerated
17,18
Rev. Samuel Harris dismissed .
19
First tax list and tax payers, 1827
19-21
Officers 1828-'34
21-23
Union of church and state
23
Building of the meeting-house
24
Officers, 1834-'45
24-27
Death of Rev. Calvin Cutter
27
Ordination of Rev. Loren Thayer
29
The Committee in Trust
31, 32
Hills Fund .
34
Resignation of Rev. Loren Thayer
36
Settlement of Rev. Joseph Lanman
37, 38
28
The bell
X
Contents.
Voted to build a parsonage
37
Resignation of Rev. Joseph Lanman
39
Installation of Rev. Charles Packard
39
Meeting-house repaired and rededicated
40,41
Donation to the church
41,42
Death of Rev. Charles Packard
46
Installation of Rev. Joseph S. Cogswell ·
46
Legacy of Mrs. Sarah (Campbell) (Carr) Clark
47
Resignation of Rev. Joseph S. Cogswell
48
Hemphill, Harris, and Nichols funds
50
Installation of Rev. William E. Westervelt
52-54
The different funds of the church and society
54-56
Woodbury fund .
56
CHAPTER III.
Celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the dedication of the
Presbyterian church, January 14, 1885
57-60
Order of exercises 57,58
Anniversary hymn
58, 59
Members of the choir
60,61
Members of the church, September 15, 1892
61, 62
CHAPTER IV.
Homes of early and later settlers of Windham and London-
derry and of their ancestors
63-65
Home of Richard Kimball
63
Home of Adam Templeton
63
Home of Alexander Simpson
63
Home of John Dinsmoor
64
Home of Matthew Bell
64
Home of John Bell
64
Home of Rev. James McGregor
64
Home of Capt. James Gregg
64
Home of Lieut. Samuel Morison
65
Origin of name of Windham
65
Origin of name of Policy pond
65
CHAPTER V.
Canobie Lake, N. H.,-men, buildings, enterprises
66-68
Origin of the name
66
The railroad station built, 1885
67
Post-office established, 1886
67
Avondale conservatory
.
67
Contents. xi
CHAPTER VI.
Flora of Windham
69-97
CHAPTER VII.
Gifts for the cemeteries ; miscellaneous facts.
Mrs. Dora C. A. Haseltine s gift 98
Hon. George Wilson's gift
98
Census of Windham in 1890
99
Celebration, June 9, 1892
99
Literature of Windham
100
Works written and published since May, 1883.
Herbarium of Prof. W. S. Harris
100
The death of Miss Emmeline Marcia Westervelt
101
CHAPTER VIII.
Town officers and votes since 1882
102-106
Voters of Windham, March 8, 1892
. 106-108
CHAPTER IX.
Marriages, births, and deaths, 1882-1892 .
109-121
CHAPTER
Record of marriages, baptisms, and burials, taken from the church register of the parish of Templemere report in the cathedral in the city of Londonderry, Ireland .
122-130
Lands granted in Ireland to some of the Cromwellian Scotch officers, 1649
130-132
CHAPTER XI.
Columbus day, October 21, 1892.
Proceedings
. 133-161
Programme
133
President's proclamation
134, 135
Part taken by the schools .
135-138
Names of teachers and scholars
· 135-138
Address of Rev. William E. Westervelt
·
138-141
Song by the glee club
141
Address of William C. Harris, Esq.
141, 142 .
Prayer of Columbus
142
Address of Hon. Leonard A. Morrison
142-145
Reading of William D. Cochran, Esq.
145, 146
Address of Hon. William Henry Anderson, orator of the day . 147-161
Vote of thanks to Mr. Anderson
161
CHAPTER XII.
Obituaries,
.
.
.
162
CHAPTER I.
THE SCOTCH-IRISH-WHO WERE THEY ?
The pioneers of Windham and Londonderry, N. H., were Scotch or Scotch-Irish, which are the same in blood. They were not Irish. Such being the case it is well to remember it, and to so state the case that those coming after us may know the race from which they sprang, with corroborative facts.
For this purpose this chapter from a former work1 is intro- duced :
Many centuries had passed in the building of the Scottish as in the building of the English nation ; in each, different peoples helped to make the completed nation, and in blood they were substantially the same. The blending of these races in Scotland, and the sharp stamping of religious and political ideas, had developed and made the Scotch race a dis- tinctive and sharply defined people ; in their intellectual, mental, and moral characteristics different from all others a century before and as we find them at the time of their set- tlement in the Emerald Isle. Thus they have still remained since their settlement in Ireland. They were Scotch in all their characteristics, though dwelling upon Irish soil. This fact has given rise to the supposition by some and the asser- tion by others-to whom the wish was father to the state- ment-that in the veins of the Scotch-Irish flowed com- mingled the blood of the stalwart Scotch and the blood of the Celtic-Irish. Never was mistake greater.
The Scotch-Irish were people of Scottish lineage who dwelt upon Irish soil.
1 From " Among the Scotch-Irish: a tour in Seven Countries," pub. in 1891 by Damrell & Upham, Boston, Mass., and a companion volume to " Rambles in Europe: With Historical Facts relating to Scotch-American Families, Gathered in Scotland and the North of Ireland," by Leonard A. Morrison, pub. 1887.
2
Scotch Settlements in Ireland.
The locality about Coleraine, Aghadowey, and Crocken- dolge Macosquin, Money Dig, is inhabited by people almost wholly of Scotch origin. They are the "Scotch-Irish," i. e. Scotch people living upon or born upon Irish soil, but not mixed with the native people. Their ancestors, some of them, came to Ireland nearly two hundred and fifty years ago. They came in a body, they kept in a body, and they remain in a body or class by themselves, largely to-day. The Scotch are called clannish, and were clannish ; and the Scotch who settled in Ireland, and their descendants, were clannish. They stuck together and kept aloof from the native Celtic-Irish. They were sundered by the sharp dividing lines of religious faith and by keen differences of race.
Macauley says : "They sprang from · different stocks. They spoke different languages. They had different national characters, as strongly opposed as any two national charac- ters in Europe. They were in widely different stages of civ- ilization. Between two such populations there could be little sympathy, and centuries of calamities and wrongs had generated a strong antipathy. The relation in which the minority stood to the majority resembled the relation in which the followers of William the Conqueror stood to the Saxon churls, or the relation in which the followers of Cortez stood to the Indians of Mexico. The appellation of Irish was then given exclusively to the Celts, and to those families which, though not of Celtic origin, had in the course of ages degenerated into Celtic manners. These people, probably about a million in number, had, with few exceptions, adhered to the Church of Rome. Among them resided about two hundred thousand colonists, proud of their Saxon blood and of their Protestant faith." 1
And again, in speaking of the early Scotch and English settlers, he says: "One half of the settlers belonged to the Established Church and the other half were Dissenters. But in Ireland Scot and Southron were strongly bound together by their common Saxon origin ; Churchman and Presby- terian were strongly bound together by their common Prot-
1 Macauley's History of England.
-
3
Statements of Macauley.
estantism. All the colonists had a common language and a common pecuniary interest. They were surrounded by com- mon enemies, and could be safe only by means of common precautions and exertions." 1
In speaking of the differences between the races, he says : " Much, however, must still have been left to the healing influence of time. The native race would still have had to learn from the colonists industry and forethought, the arts of civilized life, and the language of England. There could not be equality between men who lived in houses and men who lived in sties ; between men who were fed on bread and men who were fed on potatoes; between men who spoke the noble tongue of great philosophers and poets, and men who, with perverted pride, boasted that they could not writhe their mouths into chattering such a jargon as that in which the ' Advancement of Learning' and the 'Paradise Lost' were written." 1
And again, speaking of Scotland, from which the Scotch of Ireland came, he says : "The population of Scotland, with the exception of the Celtic tribes, which were thinly scat- tered over the Hebrides and over the mountainous shires, was of the same blood with the population of England, and spoke a tongue which did not differ from the purest English more than the dialects of Somersetshire and Lancastershire differ from each other." 1
Such being the relative condition of the two classes as elo- quently described by the great English historian, it is the height of absurdity to claim that the blood of the distinct races was commingled except in isolated cases. They did not com- mingle. The Scotch, planted upon Irish soil, were Scotch still, and the Irish were Irish still. The Scotch took their language with them, and the dialect of the Lowlands fell upon the startled air and disturbed the mists arising from the peat-fields of the Emerald Isle. Their dialect lived in Ireland, was transplanted to American shores, and in all the New Hampshire settlements was understood and 'spoken for more than a hundred years after their settlement upon Am-
1 Macauley's History of England.
!
4
The Lowland-Scotch Dialect.
erican soil. Letters were written in it; and many poems by Robert Dinsmoor, " The Rustic Bard," in a printed volume, are written in the Lowland-Scotch dialect.
Though it has now almost entirely disappeared, being sup- planted by the purer English tongue, yet I have heard the rich brogue in the Scotch settlement in New Hampshire, and in the older Scotch settlement in Ireland, and know numer- ous families in New Hampshire, of Scotch blood, who since their coming to these shores one hundred and seventy-three years ago have not intermarried save with people of the same race, and they are of as pure Scotch blood and descent as can be found in the Fatherland. The sterling traits of char- acter of the Scotch in Ireland, their frugality, tenacity of purpose, indomitable will, must ever be an honor to their character. Their glorious achievements upon American soil will ever add lustre to their name, and the mighty men pro- duced of this race in all parts of the American Union will give enduring fame to that Scotch race, pure and unmixed, which through great tribulation passed in mighty phalanxes from Scotland to Ireland, there recruited its strength, and then swept across the stormy Atlantic into the American wilderness, subdued forests, founded mighty states, and has been foremost in the onward march of civilization. They are proud to stand alone. Scotch in blood, living or born upon Ireland's soil, the honor is theirs, and theirs alone, and none can deprive them of their glorious fame !
Rev. John S. MacIntosh, D. D., in an eloquent historical address at the Scotch-Irish Congress, at Columbia, Tenn.,1 in 1889, says of the Scotch and the Scotch-Irish :-
" Peculiar and royal race ; yes, that indeed is our race ! I shrink not from magnifying my house and blood with a deep thanksgiving to that Almighty God who himself made us to differ, and sent His great messenger to fit us for our earth- task,-task as peculiar and royal as is the race itself. I
1 Lovers of the Scotch race, whether living in Scotland, Ireland, or America, will find much of interest on " The Scotch-Irish in America," in the published Pro- ceedings of the Scotch-Irish Congress at Columbia, Tenn., published in 1889, by Robert Clark & Co., Cincinnati, O .; and also in the published Histories of the towns of Londonderry, Windham, Antrim, Bedford, Peterborough, Gilmanton, and Acworth, N. H.
5
A Peculiar Race.
shame me not because of the Lowland thistle and the Ulster gorse, of the Covenanter's banner, or the Ulsterman's pike. If we be not the very peculiar people, we Scotch-Irish are a most peculiar people, who have left our own broad, distinct mark wherever we have come, and have it in us still to do the same, even our critics being judges. To-day we stand out sharply distinguished in a score of points from English, Dutch, German, and Swede. We have our distinctive marks, and like ourselves, they are strong and stubborn. Years
change them not, seas wash them not out, varying hopes alter them not, clash and contact with new forms of life and fresh forces of society blur them not. Every one knows the almost laughably dogged persistency of the family likeness in us Scotch-Irish all the world over. Go where you may know it once, then you know it-aye, feel it-forever. The typal face, the typal modes of thought, the typal habits of work, tough faiths, unyielding grit, granitic hardness, close- mouthed self-repression, clear, firm speech when the truth is to be told, God-fearing honesty, loyalty to friendship, defiant of death, conscience- and knee-bending only to God-these are our marks. And they meet and greet you on the hills of Tennessee and Georgia ; you may trace them down the val- leys of Virginia and Pennsylvania ; cross the prairies of the West and the savannahs of the South, you may plough the seas to refind them in the western bays of Sligo, and beneath the beetling rocks of Donegal ; thence you may follow them to the maiden walls of Derry, and among the winding banks of the silvery Bann ; onward you may trace them to the roll- ing hills of Down, and the busy shores of Antrim ; and sail- ing over the narrow lough, you will face them in our fore- fathers' collier homes and gray keeps of Galloway and Dum- fries, of the Ayrshire hills and the Grampian slopes.
" These racial marks are birth-marks, and birth-marks are indelible. And well for us and the world is it that they are indelible. They are great soul features, these marks. They are principles. The principles are the same everywhere ; and these principles are of four classes, religious, moral, in- tellectual, and political."
6
A Picked Class.
The Rev. John S. MacIntosh says again, in his eloquent and almost classical address on " The Making of the Ulster- man," at the Second Congress of "The Scotch-Irish in America," held in Pittsburg, Penn., in May and June, 1890 :
" In this study I have drawn very largely upon the labors of two friends of former years,-Dr. William D. Killen of the Assembly's College, one of the most learned and accurate of historians, and the Rev. George Hill, once Librarian of Queen's College, Belfast, Ireland, than whom never was there more ardent student of old annals and reliable antiqua- rians ; but more largely still have I drawn on my own per- sonal watch and study of this Ulster-folk in their homes, their markets, and their churches. From Derry to Down I have lived with them. Every town, village, and hamlet from the Causeway to Carlingford is familiar to me. Knowing the Lowlander and the Scotch-Irish of this land, I have studied the Ulsterman, and his story of rights and wrongs, and that eagerly, for years. I speak that which I have seen, and testify what I have heard from their own lips, read from old family books, church records, and many a tombstone in Kirkyards."
The Scotch settlers in Ulster were a picked class, as he proves from official and state papers. In a letter of Sir Arthur Chichester, Deputy for Ireland, he says : "The Scot- tishmen came with better port (i. e. manifest character), they are better accompanied and attended, than even the English settlers. Just as to these western shores came the stronger souls, the more daring and select, so to Ulster from the best parts of Lower Scotland came the picked men to. be Britain's favored colonists."
Speaking of the race conflicts between the Scotch and native Irish, he says : " But these proud and haughty strangers, with their high heads and new ways, were held as aliens and harried from the beginning by 'the wild Irish.' The scorn of the Scot was met by the curse of the Celt."
And again : " It has been said that the Ulster settlers mingled and married with the Irish Celt. The Ulsterman did not mingle with the Celt." Great care was taken by
7
Their Scotch Blood.
the government that the Ulster Colonists should be so set- tled that they "may not mix nor intermarry " with the native Celts.
Dr. MacIntosh says again : " The Ulster settlers mingled freely with the English Puritans and with the refugee Huguenots ; but so far as my search of state papers, old man- uscripts, examination of old parish registers, and years of personal talk with and study of Ulster-folk, the Scots did not mingle to any appreciable extent with the natives. With all its dark sides as well as light, the fact remains that Ulsterman and Celt were aliens and foes. It is use- less for Prendergast, Gilbert, and others to deny the massa- cres of 1641. Reid, and Hickson, and Froude, the evidence sworn to before the Long Parliament, and the memories of the people prove the dark facts. In both Lowlander and Ulsterman is the same strong racial pride, the same hauteur and self assertion, the same self-reliance, the same close mouth, and the same firm will,-' The stiff heart for the steek brae.' They are both of the very Scotch, Scotch. To this very hour, in the remoter and more unchanged parts of Antrim and Down, the country-folk will tell you : 'We're no Eerish, but Scoatch.' All their folk-lore, all their tales, their traditions, their songs, their poetry, their heroes and heroines, and their home-speech, is of the oldest Lowland types and times."
In continuation of this subject, I will say, that in the Scotch settlements of New Hampshire, after a residence of one hundred and seventy-three years, there are families of as pure Scotch lineage as can be found in the Scotch settle- ments of Ireland or in the interior of the Scottish Lowlands. In no instance since their coming to America have they intermarried with any save those of Scottish blood.
They retain in a marked degree the mental characteristics of the race; there are the same lofty adherence to principle, the same pride of race, the same tenacity of purpose, the same manifestations of unbending and inflexible will-power and devotion to duty, as were shown by their forefathers at the "Siege of Derry," or by their Covenanting ancestors
8
Love for the Fatherland.
who, among the moors, the glens, and the cold mountains of Scotland, amid sufferings numberless, upheld loftily the ban- ner of the Cross, while some sealed their deathless devotion to the faith of their souls by sacrificing the bright red blood of their hearts.
In my veins flows, equally commingled, the blood of Scot and Puritan ; but I speak what I do know, and declare, with all the force and emphasis which language is capable of expressing, that after many years of careful historical and genealogical research, relating to Scotch-American families ; after tracing them from America to the Emerald Isle, thence across the narrow belt of sea to the Fatherland, Scotland ; that only in exceptional cases has there been an intermixture by marriage of Scot with Irish Celt.
I am somewhat familiar with the Scotch settlements in Ulster, have met and talked and am acquainted with many of her people of Scotch descent, and they declare with par- ticular emphasis that the mixture of Scot and Irish Celt has been of the slightest kind.
The love of Scotchmen, and the descendants of Scotchmen, in Ulster and elsewhere for the Fatherland and its history is phenomenal, and in America has existed for generations. It is as sweet, as strong, and enduring as that of Burns for the object of his affections as expressed in the following lines, and which all of our race can apply to Scotland :-
An' I will love thee still, my dear, Till a' the seas gang dry.
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi' the sun ;
I will love thee still, my dear, While the sands of life shall run.
1
CHAPTER II.
HISTORY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF WINDHAM, N. H., AND A LIST OF ITS OFFICERS, WITH A RECORD OF ITS PROCEEDINGS FROM ITS FORMATION IN 1827 TO 1892.
Such being the blood of the first residents of this town- ship of Windham, as shown in the preceding chapter, and such the vicissitudes through which they and their ances- tors had passed in Scotland and in Ireland, they had devel- oped and brought forth in most stalwart form those striking characteristics for which they were so widely distinguished. Their religious institutions they brought with them from the Fatherland and established them here. They fostered them carefully, clung to them fondly, lived in accordance with them, and transmitted them unshorn of their power, and but slightly changed in form, from generation to generation. They were Presbyterians ; had been reared in its protecting fold ; were taught and believed its tenets, and defended the latter from all attacks. They were familiar with the history of their church : knew the great tribulations through which it had passed, and the sad story of suffering and persecution which its members had endured. They were familiar also with that brighter page of its history, in which they were participants and actors, which blazoned forth to them its glorious triumphs, and the entrance of the church and its people upon an era of peace and prosperity upon Ameri- can shores, unperilled and unbroken by outward attack and undimmed by internal dissension. Thus the years rolled on, telling, as they always have and as they always will till time shall be no more, the same old story of human sorrow and human joy. Generations came and generations passed away, till more than a century's history had been written before any material change occurred,-but it came at last.
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.