USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Boscawen > The history of Boscawen and Webster [N.H.] from 1733 to 1878 > Part 1
USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Webster > The history of Boscawen and Webster [N.H.] from 1733 to 1878 > Part 1
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55
Library of
RSITY OF NEV
ER
1866
69.
THE UN SHI . 1923 .
NOSTI
HAMPSHIRE
STATE . OF . N
Agriculture
Mechnology
Liberal Arts
The University xf New hampshire
Charles Carleton Goffin
THE
HISTORY OF BOSCAWEN
AND
WEBSTER,
FROM 1733 TO 1878.
1
COMPILED BY
220 EL
CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN.
WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
CONCORD, N. H .: PRINTED BY THE REPUBLICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION. 1878.
NHarry F
C6 1/78 -
R4
CONTENTS.
Page.
PRELIMINARY CHAPTER,
V
CIVIL HISTORY,
1
Chap. I. Plantation of Contoocook, .
1
II. Settlement of Contoocook,
15
III. The Second Decade,
28
IV. The French and Indian War,
51.
V. The Town,
81
VI. Preparing for the Great Struggle,
103
VII. Beginning of the Revolution,
111
VIII. Close of the War, 122
IX. Under the Constitution,
136
X. First Decade of the Century,
157
XI. Progress, .
172
XII. From 1820 to 1830,
188
XIII. Temperance,
194
XIV. From 1840 to 1850,
203
XV. From 1850 to 1860,
211
WEBSTER, . 217
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY,
226
MILITARY HISTORY, .
246
EDUCATIONAL HISTORY,
279
BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY,
301
GENEALOGICAL,
451
MISCELLANY,
619
4078
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE.
Charles Carleton Coffin,
Frontispiece.
John Kimball, .
xvii
I. K. Gage,
xxiii
Map of Boscawen and Webster,
XXV
Alfred Little, .
1
Crossing to Contoocook,
5
Duston, Neff, and Leonardson,
9
Hezekiah Fellows,
15
S. B. Little,
23
First Meeting-house,
24
William H. Gage,
29
Abraham Burbank, .
37
Nathan Pearson,
45
Moody A. Pillsbury,
51
Indian Medicine,
56
Moses Fellows,
61
Hale Atkinson,
71
William Temple,
91
Benjamin T. Kimball,
111
Thomas Little,
123
Worcester Webster,
137
Town-house, Webster,
141
Abial R. Chandler, .
157
Breaking and Swingling,
173
Plow,
173
Hay-scales,
177
Friend L. Burbank,
189
E. K. Webster,
203
Jacob Gerrish,
211
Congregational Meeting-house, Boscawen,
227
Congregational Meeting-house, Webster,
237
Congregational Meeting-house, Fisherville,
239
Methodist Meeting-house, Webster,
245
Bennington Battle-ground,
257
Plan of Bennington Battle,
259
D. E. Burbank,
265
C. M. Burbank,
269
W. H. Sargent,
273
D. A Macurdy,
277
Boscawen Academy,
279
81
Eliphalet Kiburn,
101
Thomas Gerrish,
vi
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE.
Penacook Academy,
293
Enoch Little, .
301
John Aldrich, .
315
Edward Buxton,
Jonas Call,
Moody Currier,
John A. Dix,
Birthplace of John Adams Dix,
Moses G. Farmer, .
Early Home of Prof. M. G. Farmer,
375
Residence of Dea. Thomas Gerrish, Martha Clough Gerrish,
Nath'l Greene,
Chas. G. Greene,
D. F. Kimball,
Henry Little,
421
J. L. Pillsbury,
Fred P. Stone,
Daniel Webster,
Ezekiel Webster,
Henry Atkinson,
Coffin Arms, .
497
John P. Farmer,
F. S. French,
The Home of Enoch, Isaac, Enoch, and F. L. Gerrish,
Enoch Gerrish,
Almon Harris,
555
Enoch Kilburn,
563
Peter Kimball,
569
Thomas Little,
Charles Little,
577 587 613 621
W. W. Call,
B. A. Kimball,
S. B. Gerrish, .
631 635 641
Carding and Spinning,
J. W. Gerrish, .
645
Duston Monument, .
649
F. L. Gerrish, .
657
J. E. Pecker,
659
A. B. Winn,
661
323 335 345 349 357 361 371
W. P. Fessenden,
379
384 387 393 399 413
Jacob Little,
429 439 447 453 469 491
Enoch Corser, .
525 533 539 551
Peter Stone,
PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.
There is but one municipality in the world bearing the name of Boscawen. The township, thus named for Lord Boscawen of the English navy, is situated on the west bank of Merrimack river in New Hampshire. 'Originally it was seven miles square, and, from the date of its settlement in 1733 to 1760, bore the Ind- ian name Contoocook. After a corporate existence of one hun- dred years. from 1760 to 1860, the township was divided into two parts nearly equal in area, the eastern retaining the original cor- porate name, the western taking the name of Webster, in honor of America's great orator, jurist, and statesman, who received his education, in part, in Boscawen, and who for three years was one of its honored citizens.
The first movement to obtain a history of the town was inau- gurated sixty years ago, by Capt. Joshua C. Plummer, Henry, Enoch, and Simeon B. Little, and others, at whose solicitation the work was undertaken by Rev. Ebenezer Price, pastor of the Second Congregational church. George Jackman, born in 1735, town-clerk for many years, was then living, and many other indi- viduals whose memories reached back to the early years of the town's history, from whom Rev. Mr. Price obtained authentic in- formation to supplement the town records. The result of his labor was the publication of a pamphlet entitled "A Chronological Register of Boscawen, Merrimack county, State of New Hamp- shire, from the first settlement of the town to 1820."
The town voted fifty dollars to Rev. Mr. Price as compensa- tion for the writing, but appropriated nothing for publishing the pamphlet, the expense of which was borne by the public-spirited
viii
PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.
iner. who started the enterprise, to their pecuniary loss. The his- tory was written with much care, and, though brief, presented an admirable outline of the civil affairs, and a record of the most im- portant events of the period.
Fifty-eight years have passed since the publication of that history, during which period great changes have taken place. Many of the former citizens and their descendants are to be found upon the prairies of the West, or amid the mines of Nevada and California ; while others have taken up their abodes in the manufacturing towns of New England, or in the cities of the sea- board, turning their attention from agricultural to mechanical or mercantile pursuits. Emigration, railroads, and the employment of machinery, supplanting manual labor in a great degree in the shop and on the farm, have changed society. Apprenticeship, and trades once acquired under it, together have disappeared. Many of the employments and occupations of fifty years ago have disappeared forever. New habits and customs have taken the places of those of other days. The children of to-day do not stand bare-headed, with cap in hand, by the roadside, and " make their manners" when the minister rides by. The minister is no longer an oracle, nor are the town esquires embodiments of the majesty of law, as in days of yore.
Since the publication of Rev. Mr. Price's history, the academy, and the graded and normal schools, have supplemented the schools taught by the masters and mistresses of the olden time, in which the catechism was regarded as an important study. No newsboy rides his weekly post-route now, as Simeon B. Little rode in those first years of the century, carrying the Concord Gazette to his patrons ; no canvas-covered wagons plod their way along the turn- pike, from Vermont to Boston; no gaily painted stage, with horses all afoam, rolls along the dusty way; the tavern sign no longer swings in the wind; the hospitable landlord, the bar with its row of glass decanters, the generous fire flaming on the hearth, the heated loggerhead, toddy-stick, flip, and punch,- all have disappeared.
There are new methods and new forces in the civilization of to- day. The railroad, the telegraph, the printing-press, and other forces equally powerful, are coming in to transform society ;- the telephone, which enables us to talk with friends far away, as if
ยท ix
PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.
they were by our side; the phonograph, which preserves the words we speak-which will bring back to us from the eternal shores the voices of our departed friends, so that even from the spirit land we may still hear their voices as when they were with us in the flesh.
Fifty-eight years ago, the world at large knew nothing of these forces of civilization. The reaping-machine, the sewing- machine, the multitudinous devices and arrangements of mechan- ical forces to make iron, steel, steam, and water-power do the work of human hands, were all unknown. The period since 1840 has been the world's great era of invention, surpassing all other pe- riods in history.
Fifty-eight years ago, when Rev. Mr. Price laid down his pen as historian, the world had not heard of the men whose names to-day are written large in the history of the republic. In 1820, Daniel Webster was a lawyer of renown in Boston ; but ten years passed before the nation heard of him. In that same year, John Adams Dix was a student-at-law, poring over Blackstone ; William Pitt Fessenden a sophomore at Bowdoin; Jacob Little a soph- omore at Dartmouth ; Henry Little at work on his father's farm ; Moses Gerrish Farmer an infant in his mother's arms ;- to-day, all except Rev. Henry Little and Prof. Farmer have accomplished their life-work, and have passed on to the great Hereafter.
The citizen best qualified to gather up the memorials of the past, to summarize the life-work of his compeers through this period of nearly three-score years, was Simeon B. Little, born in 1797. He had an inquiring mind, a retentive memory, and a compre- hensive grasp of men and things. In his boyhood he talked with men whose memories ran back to the first years of the town's set- tlement. His father had been a soldier at Bennington, a magis- trate, a man conversant with public affairs. Through the old men of his early years he became intimately acquainted with that in- valuable history and tradition of the past, that had no record save in the memories of men. Active in private and public life, he came in contact with the whole community. As moderator of town-meetings, he knew every voter; as administrator of estates and executor of wills, and as a magistrate, he became acquainted with the histories of individuals and families. He loved history, and for many years intended to gather up the records and memo-
x
PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.
rials for the basis of a complete history ; but, beset by the cares of a busy life, he never found time to carry out his intentions.
It was in 1871, after partial paralysis had incapacitated him from labor, that I talked with him upon the subject of employing some one to write at his dictation.
" It is too late ; somebody else must do it," he said.
Wishing to preserve what would be lost forever when his mem- ory failed, I made notes of his recollections, not with the inten- tion of myself embodying them in a historic volume, but to turn them over to some one who might be induced to undertake the work.
A few months later I met Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Bouton, then editing the Provincial Records of New Hampshire, who was keenly alive to the importance of preserving town histories.
" You must write the history of Boscawen," he said. "No other town has exercised a more potent influence for good ; none can show a brighter record, or such a roll of honor. If you do not undertake the work, its history never will be written."
Impressed by the earnest remarks of Dr. Bouton, and at the solicitation of Isaac K. Gage, Esq., and others of my native town, I began the collection of materials. The field of research has been wide, embracing the archives in the office of the Massachusetts secretary of state, the secretary's and adjutant-general's offices at Concord, the libraries of the New Hampshire Historical, Massa- chusetts Historical, and New England Genealogical and Histori- cal societies, the records of the proprietors of Contoocook, and the records of the town since its incorporation up to 1878.
Lord Macauley, in writing his History of England, confessed that he had obtained valuable information from old almanacs, and from the fly-leaves of books scrawled by hands that had long before crumbled to dust. Although this volume is but the history of a town instead of a period in the history of a kingdom, I may with equal propriety express my indebtedness to scraps of paper found in old chests and bags, to files of almanacs, diaries, account-books, and other memoranda obtained from garrets.
The preparation of the volume has necessitated a wide corre- spondence ; for the sons and daughters of Boscawen are to be found in nearly every state and territory of the Union. I am indebted to Gov. John A. Dix for reminiscences of his boyhood in
xi
PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.
Boscawen; also to Hon. G. W. Nesmith, of Franklin, for valu- able information relating to the Colonial and Revolutionary periods ; also to Levi Bartlett, of Warner, who in his early years was a resident of Boscawen, and whose acquaintance with the chief men of the town dates back to the early years of the cen- tury.
It is a pleasure to express my indebtedness to Benjamin Jack- man, Enoch Pillsbury, David Sweatt, and Luke Corser,-all born in the eighteenth century, and who are still able to recall the scenes of their early years.
I am under special obligations to Dea. William Temple, of East Woburn, Mass., long a resident of Boscawen, an officer of the militia and of the church, antiquary and genealogist, who has enriched the volume by his contributions.
To my co-laborers, Isaac K. Gage, John C. Pearson, Hon. John Kimball, Maj. Alfred Little, and Ephraim Little, who have especially aided in the preparation of the volume, who have labored with no hope of reward except that enjoyment which comes from serving others, I express my sincere gratitude, and ask for them the thanks of the public.
The citizens of Boscawen are indebted to Mrs. Ezekiel Webster for the portrait of her husband, and also to Mrs. Charlotte G. Cumston, of Boston, through whose liberality the volume is adorned by portraits of her father, Col. Charles G. Greene, and her uncle, Nathaniel Greene; and they are under like obli- gations to Hon. Moody Currier, of Manchester, for his portrait ; to Mrs. Mary G. Wood, of West Lebanon, and Mrs. Betsy Wil- son, of Contoocook, for the restored view of one of the historic mansions no longer existing,-the birthplace of Nathaniel and Charles G. Greene and William P. Fessenden. They are under like obligations to Prof. Moses G. Farmer and Mrs. C. C. Coffin for a view of their early home ; and to Col. Enoch Gerrish for a view of his birth-place and home of his ancestors.
I am under obligations to Rev. Nathaniel Bouton, D. D., lately deceased, to Benjamin Chase, historian of Chester, and to Robert B. Caverly, of Lowell, Mass., for illustrations, which add much to the attractiveness of the volume.
To those who have contributed portraits of themselves, to those filial sons and daughters who have given portraits of fathers, to
xii
PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.
all who have contributed biographies and genealogies, the thanks of the public are due.
To Henry Rolfe, of Winchester, Mass., the citizens are indebted for the account of manufactures at Fisherville.
Through the kindness of A. J. Coolidge, of Boston, the volume has been enriched by a view of Bennington battle-field.
I wish to express my thanks to Edward A. Jenks, through whose care and watchfulness the pages of the volume are so fair and free from errors. Thanks are also due to W. H. Forbes, of Boston, for the care taken in printing the lithographs contained in the volume.
To aid the publication of this history, the town of Boscawen voted, in 1875, with great unanimity, the sum of three hundred dollars. The town of Webster not having appropriated any money, and it being manifest that a history worthy of the town could not be published without the cooperation of individuals, fifteen public- spirited citizens obligated themselves, in the sum of eight hun- dred and fifty dollars, to bear whatever expense might be incur- red in the publication. The citizens signing this compact are
Isaac K. Gage, Nathaniel S. Webster,
Peter Coffin,
Charles J. Chadwick,
E. G. Wood,
John C. Pearson,
D. F. Kimball,
Geo. Little,
M. A. Pillsbury,
Sherman Little,
Henry H. Gerrish,
Wm. W. Burbank,
F. B. Sawyer, Ephraim Little,
James L. Gerrish.
It is a pleasure to record their names, for had it not been for their public spirit the history would never have reached the hands of the printer. Coming generations will accord them the honor which is their due.
The citizens of Boscawen have a right to know to what uses the money voted by the town has been appropriated, and it is a pleasure to say that they will find the entire amount in the outline map of the two towns, and in the views of the churches, academies, the Duston monument, and the portraits of Daniel Webster, John A. Dix, and William P. Fessenden.
The compiler of this history has given many days and nights
xiii
PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.
to the undertaking, many weeks and months, has experienced much weariness of mind and body, without hope of any pecuniary recompense ; but he has the satisfaction of knowing that the memorials are rescued from oblivion, to be preserved forever. Mistakes there are, some of which have been corrected on the page of amendments. No one can be more sensible than the writer to the incompleteness of the work, nor can any one who has not engaged in collecting historical data understand how difficult it has been in many instances to verify information. A historian should be unbiassed; and it has been the aim of the writer, in this respect, to divest himself of all predilection that would swerve him from correct statement concerning parties in politics and denominations in religion, and a just judgment of men and events.
The volume has grown upon the compiler's hands, containing some two hundred pages more than was first contemplated; and yet the material at his command, statistical and documentary, of great interest, would have swelled the volume to one thousand pages. The record of service in the Rebellion is limited to the names of those who enlisted. Little is recorded of their march- ings, their sufferings, their heroism in battle, their wounds, their deaths ; and space also has been wanting to set forth the services of those who have been educators of the community-a long list of honorable names.
The history of Boscawen covers a period of one hundred and forty-five years, reaching back to the time when the colonies of England embraced only a narrow strip along the Atlantic coast, when by far the largest portion of the continent was under the dominion of France. It covers the period of the great struggle between those powers for supremacy in the Western world. Citi- zens of Boscawen took part in those struggles, and aided to supplant the banner bearing the lilies of France for that emblaz- oned with the cross of St. George. From 1733 to 1756 Bos- cawen was the outpost of civilization. From the log cabins on King street to the St. Lawrence there were no human habi- tations, with the exception of those in Salisbury, from which the settlers were forced to flee; yet, keeping watch and ward, the stalwart citizens of Boscawen boldly maintained their ground against the savage foe. They traversed the pathless wilderness
xiv
PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.
to the upper Connecticut, or served at Ticonderoga and Crown Point against the common enemy.
In the Revolution every citizen was a patriot. Twenty men of Boscawen stood unfalteringly behind the rail fence at Bunker Hill with John Stark, and gave that resistance which made the repub- lic of the United States a possibility. Twenty-six of them were in that storming of the enemy's works at Bennington, which, in its results, made the republic a certainty.
In the war of 1812, and in the Rebellion of 1861, there was no diminution of patriotism. Whenever soldiers were called for, there were men ready to enlist ; whenever money was wanted, there was no stint in appropriation.
Whoever peruses this history will notice that the first settlers recognized religion as essential to the welfare of the community ; that at the outset they erected a meeting-house, organized a church, and settled a minister; that through all the proprietary meetings, the first business done was to vote the necessary sup- plies for the support of their pastor; that during the years when they were compelled to live in garrison, doing their work in the field with sentinels on guard, and during all the hardships of the Colonial and Revolutionary periods, they maintained public wor- ship.
It will be further noticed, that during the Colonial war, when taxes were burdensome, and through the Revolution, when their currency was worthless, they supported public schools.
"New Hampshire produces granite and men," was Daniel Webster's answer to one who sneered at the rock-ribbed state that gave him birth. Is there any other locality in this republic that can present such a roll of honorable names as Boscawen ex- hibits to the world ? True, Daniel and Ezekiel Webster were born just outside its corporate limits, but the influence of such a civilization as the first settlers of Contoocook inaugurated is not confined by lines run by a surveyor's compass, measured by a chain, and blazed on the pines of the forest. Such a civilization illuminates all the surrounding country. The early settlers of Salisbury sat in its light, as did they of Canterbury, attending meeting in Boscawen. Not till 1773, thirty-three years after the settlement of Rev. Phineas Stevens, was there a minister in Salis- bury. Although Canterbury was incorporated as a town in 1727,
XV
PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.
and was settled in 1733, there was no church organized till 1760. Not till 1772, when Rev. Eden Burroughs was ordained, was there a minister in Hopkinton. Through all those years, dating back to 1738, the log meeting-house on King street was the one spot between Concord and Canada where public religious service was always maintained. As upon the yielding sand we trace the footsteps of those who have gone before us, so on the pages of this history we shall see what those first settlers-what Rev. Phineas Stevens, Rev. Robie Morrill, Rev. Samuel Wood, those early ministers of Boscawen-did for those who have succeeded them in the march of life.
To Rev. Samuel Wood came Daniel Webster, at the age of fif- teen, to supplement his few weeks of study at Exeter, preparatory to entering Dartmouth college. In the library established by the citizens of Boseawen he found mental aliment which gave him strength in after years. To Boscawen he came to begin the busi- ness of life : from it he went forth, with the impress of its civili- zation upon him, to enter upon his great career.
To the same faithful teacher and pastor came Ezekiel Webster to prepare for college. He made Boscawen his home, lighting his torch at that fire kindled seventy years before by those men and women, who, in their poverty and feebleness, estimating their moral and spiritual welfare as of greater moment than all things else, reared their meeting-house and established a church.
Not only these two men, but those other distinguished men, whose names are recorded in this volume, who have left their mark upon the age, are the natural outgrowth of the seed sown by those first settlers of Boscawen, who obtained a learned min- ister from Harvard college as their teacher in moral and spirit- ual things.
The reader will be interested to see how the influence of that act, like a river, having its source in an ever-flowing fountain, has broadened and deepened ; how it has fertilized the nation; how the forces brought into action by those self-denying men and women have been felt in the pulpit, the forum, the university; in the legislative halls of states and of the nation; in diplomacy; in finance; in the founding of churches and the establishment of Sun- day-schools ; in education, science, journalism, authorship; in the moulding of public opinion ; in missionary effort,-felt to-day not
xvi
PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.
only in the United States, but in Asia and Africa ! Would Jacob Little have stamped the impress of his religious character upon the churches of Ohio, if there had been no church in Boscawen dur- ing those early years ? Would Henry Little have been such an organizer of Sunday-schools and churches throughout the West, if Rev. Phineas Stevens had not been ordained pastor of the little church in the Contoocook wilderness ? Would Henry S. G. French have gone a missionary to Siam, or Myron Pinkerton to South Africa, if Joseph Gerrish, Joseph Coffin, Jacob Flanders, and their fellow proprietors, had not reared that first meeting-house ? Did the life-work of Phineas Stevens, Dea. George Jackman, and godly Joanna Hale Gerrish die out in their generation ? "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, and their works do follow them."
The reader of these pages will have occasion often to recall the words of Jacob Little to his beloved pastor, Rev. Ebenezer Price (p. 434): "Mr. Price, you will never die. What you have taught, by precept and example, is spreading wider and wider, and going on to the third generation, and will keep going."
Rev. Phineas Stevens, Rev. Samuel Wood, Rev. Ebenezer Price, Rev. Edward Buxton, and all who have labored for the moral and spiritual welfare of the community, are living on in the labors of those whose lives and characters have been moulded by their in- structions. Institutions that have their origin in the moral and spiritual needs of men live forever. The first rude meeting-house disappeared; the second was licked up by the flames four score years ago,-but the church lives on. Rev. Phineas Stevens is preaching still. How far that little candle, lighted by the Chris- tian men and women of Contoocook, throws its beams ! How, as the years roll on, it will burn with ever increasing brightness !
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