USA > New Hampshire > Colony, province, state, 1623-1888: history of New Hampshire > Part 11
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The town of Greenland was set off from Portsmouth in 1705, and incorporated as a parish in 1706. There were at the time about 320 inhabitants. Settlements had commenced within the terri- tory many years before ; and men, women and children had been accustomed to walk six and cight miles to attend services and meetings at Portsmouth. Rev. William Allen was ordained and
I Granite Monthly.
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HISTORY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.
[1704
settled as their minister in 1707 ; Rev. Samuel McClintock, D.D., in 1756; Rev. James Neal, in 1805 ; Rev. Ephraim Abbott, in 1813; Rev. Samuel W. Clark, in 1829; Rev. Edwin Holt, in 1848; Rev. Edward Robie, in 1852.
INHABITANTS OF GREENLAND IN 1714.
John Allen.
William Haines.
John Neal.
Daniel Allen.
Matthew Haines. Thomas Perkins.
Joseph Berry.
William Hodge. Thomas Packer.
Nathaniel Berry.
Nathaniel Hugen. Joshua Peirce.
James Berry.
Ebenezer Johnson.
John Philbrook.
Robert Bryant, Jr.
John Johnson.
John Philbrook.
John Bryant. Nathan Johnson.
Benjamin Skilan.
John Cate.
James Johnson.
Nathaniel Watson.
Samuel Davis.
Sarah Jackson.
Joshua Weeks.
Daniel Davis.
James March.
Jonathan Weeks.
John Docom.
Israel March.
Joseph Weeks.
Robert Goss.
Samuel Neal.
Samuel Weeks.
The year 1704 was remarkable for the renewal of the Indian war and dissensions between the lieutenant-governor and his council and the Assembly. The recorder refused to deliver the records to Penhallow, the secretary, without a vote of the Assem- bly. The latter appropriated thirty-eight shillings towards Usher's support, and voted him the use of two rooms at New Castle, - a rather meagre allowance, considering the wealth and state of the lieutenant governor. The decision of the English courts having been communicated to the Assembly by Gover- nor Dudley, they signified their consent to the proprietor's claim to the waste lands of the Province, but asserted that he had gone beyond his rights in taking possession of the commons within the incorporated township. In fact, Allen had served legal papers upon Waldron, and urged the governor's presence to enforce the Queen's decree ; but Dudley was attacked by a seasonable fit of sickness at Newbury, which prevented his attendance at court. At length, fairly worn out by the contro- versy with such determined adversaries, Allen made advan- tageous offers of compromise, in 1705, accepting for himself a tract forty miles long and twenty miles wide, at the head of the old township, and reasonably large farms in each of the settled
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ROYAL PROVINCE.
1715]
towns and £2,000 in cash, while he released all title to the bal- ance of the territory of the province. Death again prevented this happy arrangement, for Samuel Allen died in May, 1705, the day after the necessary papers were to have been signed. He was " a gentleman of no remarkable abilities, and of a soli- tary rather than a social disposition ; but mild, obliging, and charitable. His character as a merchant was fair and upright, and his domestic deportment amiable and exemplary. He was a member of the Church of England, but attended the Congre- gational services at New Castle." He died in his seventieth year, leaving one son and four daughters.
The year after his death, his son, Thomas Allen of London, renewed the suit in the inferior court of the Province, in 1706, and was defeated. On an appeal to the superior court, in 1707, he was again defeated. This was the most celebrated trial of the case. James Menzies and John Valentine appeared for the proprietor and John Pickering and Charles Story for the de- fence. The jury paid no attention to the Queen's directions, and the case was again appealed to the English courts. Then, on the account of the loyalty of the people, and their sufferings during the war, no decision was arrived at until the case was abruptly closed by the death of Allen, in 1715.
Hampton Falls, originally a part of Hampton, set off in 1709, was incorporated in 1712, when Rev. Theophilus Cotton was settled as the minister. He was succeeded in 1727 by Rev. Joseph Whipple ; in 1757, by Rev. Josiah Bayley ; in 1763, by Rev. Paine Wingate; in 1781, by Rev. Samuel Langdon, D. D., for several years president of Harvard College; in 1798, by Rev. Jacob Abbott, the last Congregational minister, who was dismissed in 1827.
PETITIONERS FOR INCORPORATION OF HAMPTON FALLS.
John Brown.
Jonathan Fifield.
Robert Reed.
William Brown.
Jonathan Filbrook
John Swayn.
Israel Black.
John French.
Caleb Swayn.
Nath. Bacheler.
John Gove.
Joseph Sweet, Jr.
Benj. Bacheler.
Ebenezer Gove.
Jacob Stanyan.
Moses Blake. Isaac Green. John Sanborn.
Philemon Blake.
Nathan Green.
Wm. Sanborn.
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HISTORY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.
[1716
Timothy Blake.
Ephraim Hoit.
Joseph Swett. Samuel Shaw.
John Cass.
Timothy Hutchins.
Joseph Cass.
Benj. Hillyard.
Caleb Shaw.
John Cram.
Saml. Healy,
Joseph Sanborn.
John Cram.
Nehemiah Heath.
Enoch Sanborn.
Thomas Cram.
John Morginn.
William Shipperd.
Benjamin Cram.
Saml. Melcher.
Joseph Tilton.
Zachariah Clifford.
Bonos Norton.
Daniel Tilton.
Israel Clifford, Jr.
Benj. Perkins.
Jethro Tilton.
Jacob Clifford.
Caleb Perkins.
David Tilton.
John Drown.
Jonathan Prescott.
Peter Weare.
John Eaton.
Nath. Prescott.
Nathl. Weare.
Joseph Emons.
James Prescott, Sen.
Nathıl. Weare, Jr.
Benjamin Fifield.
Thos. Philbrook.
Edward Wilkins.
During all these years of war, John Usher continued in his office of lieutenant-governor. "His austere and ungracious manners, and the interest he had in Allen's claim, prevented him from acquiring that popularity which he seems to have deserved." What was most remarkable, he had to serve for the honor of the office without any of the emoluments. His prede- cessor had been liberally paid, but even the great popularity of Dudley could not induce the Assembly to give Usher a salary. Their first allowance to him was less than £2 for travelling expenses from Boston, which amount they increased to £5, and in a fit of generosity, at Dudley's suggestion, they again in- creased it to £10. They also provided him with quarters on Great Island, which he complained of as not fit for his servants. Upon his retiring from office, in 1715, he returned to Medford, where he lived in state for nearly a dozen years, dying at the age of seventy-eight years.
He was succeeded in office by George Vaughan, in October, 1715. Governor Dudley had become very popular. His salary was freely appropriated, and petitions were sent to the Queen to keep him in office; but he was superseded in October, 1716, by Samuel Shute.
With the departure of Usher and the death of Allen, the Masonian claim was taken from the courts for the last time, but in another generation it was destined to arise and trouble people in another way for many years to come.
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ROYAL PROVINCE.
1714]
Newington was named, in 1714, by Governor Dudley, and had already been incorporated as a parish. It included the disputed territory called Bloody Point, which, in 1644, had contained twelve families. The settlers at that time were : James John- son, Thomas Canning, Henry Longstaff, Thomas Fursen, John Fayes, William Frayser, Oliver Trimings, William Jones, Philip Lewis, Thomas Trickey, John Goddard and one other. It had town privileges as early as 1737. Rev. Joseph Adams was ordained and settled in the town in 1715, and was followed, in 1795, by Rev. James Langdon, the last settled Congregational' minister.
- Cape Rung :
CHAPTER VII.
ROYAL PROVINCE, 1715-1722.
INTRODUCTION - GEORGE VAUGHAN - SAMUEL SHUTE -JOHN WENTWORTH -COMMERCE-TWO-MILE SLIP-SCOTCH- IRISH - LONDONDERRY -EARLY SETTLERS - CHESTER.
P
EACE having been assured, by a treaty with the French and
Indians, from 1715 to 1722 the Province took rapid strides in the line of progress. Commerce was fostered, and settlements were rapidly advanced upon hitherto ungranted lands. The power of the Indians had been broken by repeated contests, and only a few of them remained, scattered over the Province, to impede the advance of settlers. The rights of the proprietors, under the Masonian grant, had fallen into the hands of minors, or non-resident claimants, and were not very definite. From repeated suits the representatives of the claim had come to realize that the people of the Province would never submit to hold their lands as tenants under a landlord. The claimants watched the progress of events, but could not control them.
Up to this time the settlements had been confined to a narrow territory bordering upon the ocean and Great Bay. On account of the uncertainty of title, the inland valleys and meadows had not been occupied. Within ten years, the frontiers were advanced nearly fifty miles into the interior.
George Vaughan, the lieutenant-governor, who superseded John Usher, arrived in the Province and opened his commission in October, 1715. After his arrival, Governor Dudley, daily ex- pecting his successor, did not come into New Hampshire, but left the government to Vaughan. George Vaughan was the son of Major William Vaughan and received the office as a recognition
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ROYAL PROVINCE.
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of the services of his father, who had suffered financially and physically in defending the colonists from the rapacity of the pro- prietors. Lieutenant-Governor Vaughan held the office of chief magistrate one year before the arrival, in October, 1717, of Governor Samuel Shute. He summoned the Assembly, who re- fused to make appropriations for a longer time than one year, whereupon he dissolved them.
Samuel Shute, governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, made several changes in the council upon his arrival in Ports- mouth, confining his new appointments to residents of that town. This was not satisfactory to the rural portion of the Province, who remonstrated with the governor, and complained that the traders of Portsmouth were favored in imposing taxes to the injury of the farmers. The governor judiciously left the matter to be settled by his council.
In 1717, the authorities, at the recommend ation of the gover- nor, issued bills of credit or bonds, to the amount of £15,000, bearing 10 per cent. interest. A difficulty soon arose between Governor Shute and Lieutenant-Governor Vaughan. The latter claimed to be chief magistrate in the absence of the former and suspended councillors and dissolved the Assembly on his own authority. To this Governor Shute objected, and the council sustained him ; whereupon he suspended Vaughan, reinstated Penhallow, a deposed councillor, and recalled the dissolved Assem- bly. John Wentworth, sometime later in the year, received the appointment of lieutenant-governor, his commission arriv- ing early in December.
Wentworth had accumulated considerable property. He was prudent, obliging, and popular with the people ; and, having served five years in the council before he was appointed lieuten- ant-governor, he was familiar with the forms and duties of the office. As a merchant, he could develop the resources of the Province to the best advantage, and, as it was a time of peace, find for the lumber and naval stores a ready and profitable market.
Under Wentworth's wise administration various industries were fostered. An old Massachusetts grant was revived, and a
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HISTORY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.
[1722
strip of land bordering on Dover, called the two-mile slip, was given to encourage the mining of iron ore. Besides masts, there was considerable commerce in tar, pitch, and turpentine ; and a start was made in raising hemp. All the available land in the Province already granted was not sufficient for the wants of the people.
At this juncture, a large party of emigrants from the north of Ireland arrived in New England and requested of Governor Shute the grant of a township on which to settle. He sent a party of them along the eastern coast, but they returned to Boston with- out finding land that suited them. Hearing of a desirable place ungranted above Haverhill, they chose to locate their grant of a township there. This was in 1719. A new difficulty now arose. Who could grant the territory? The King could not do so without interfering with private property, for his predeces- sors had already granted it. Some three years before, the authorities of Massachusetts and New Hampshire had attempted to decide their boundary line, but could not agree. There were many claimants under the Masonian grant ; and there was an Indian title. The new settlers at first bought the latter title and applied to Usher, representative of the Masonian claim, for a deed from him for his interests, but could not obtain one. So they laid out their township, and, as they could do so, perfected their titles. They brought with them the cultivation of the Irish potatoes, and the necessary materials for the manufacture of linen. They came with their ministers and their school-masters ; and were pious, brave and frugal. They at once organized a church, and receiving an act of protection from the New Hamp- shire authorities, were permitted to have a justice of the peace, James McKeen, and a deputy sheriff, Robert Weir, among them. Their number was rapidly increased by later arrivals, so that, in 1722, the town was incorporated by the name of Londonderry.
The Scotch-Irish, so called in New England history, were of Saxon lineage, with their blood unmixed, in the seventeenth century, with the half barbaric Scotch highlanders, or their rude cousins, the Irish Celts. They were rigid Presbyterians, fol-
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ROYAL PROVINCE.
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lowers and admirers of Oliver Cromwell, enemies of Popery and the Established Church of England, brave, zealous, lovers of learning and liberty, and withal bigoted in their advanced notions. Cromwell had peopled the waste districts of northern Ireland with these, his most trusted and reliable troops, to pacify that land most effectually. A change in the government brought careless King Charles II to the throne, a Catholic at heart, an Episcopalian by profession, a voluptuary in practice, who withdrew his support from, and deprived of arms for defence, the Scotch colony planted in Ireland, leaving them to the mercy
of a revengeful peasantry. Who so ready to welcome a revolu- tion as these brave Scots, oppressed by the government, cruelly persecuted by their neighbors, and powerless to oppose ? William of Orange became their champion, and, like the Ironsides of Cromwell, their fathers, they drove the Irish from their borders, and withstood the most determined siege in history within the walls of Londonderry, resisting the power of the Irish and French troops seeking to reduce them.
They could present a brave front to an open attack, but they were not equal to withstanding the petty encroachments of the Established Church insidiously undermining their beloved Kirk. The Pilgrims had found religious freedom in a new and undeve- loped country, and thither the Scotch-Irish sent agents to spy out and report the condition of the land and its fitness for occupation. The Irish had not intimidated them ; they scorned the untutored Indian. Like an invading host they flocked to the sea-board and poured into New England, Pennsylvania, and the southern provinces, pushing the frontiers rapidly into the untrodden wilderness, and settling the fertile valleys and hill- sides far in advance of their predecessors. One stream striking Boston was diverted to Londonderry. The Scotch-Irish colony located there in 1719 came to stay. Hundreds followed in their footsteps, tarried awhile with their friends so happily settled, and pressed on into the wilderness, over the hills to the Falls of Amoskeag, up the Merrimack, by Hooksett Falls, to the fertile valley of the Suncook. still further to the blooming intervales of Penacook and the wide meadows of the Contoocook. They
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HISTORY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.
[1722
were cultivating fields in Epsom before the township was laid out to the grantees. The Massachusetts surveying party laying out Concord reported that they were in possession of the inter- vales, and were protected by a fort from disturbance of friend or foe. The law dislodged them from that favored spot, now the site of the village of East Concord, and was invoked to keep them out by the first settlers : for among the first regulations adopted by the proprietors of " Penacook " was one forbidding the alienation of any lot without the consent of the community under penalty of forfeiting the right to the lot to the proprietors - a rule evidently intended to exclude a "parcel of Irish people " known to be seeking homes in the neighborhood.
The proprietors of Suncook no doubt found the land occupied by these same strangers and aliens, but the same prejudice did not prevail, for early in the records of the township the Scotch- Irish were holding " original rights," were admitted as pro- prietors and freeholders, and even as early as 1737 were claiming a majority. No doubt they held the title to their lands first by possession and occupation, next by legal conveyance from the Suncook proprietors. Being in a majority they claimed a voice in the settlement of a minister to preach the gospel, but were "counted out," and paid their rates towards the support of a minister not to their liking with evident disrelish.
1 What wealth of associations is connected with the name of Londonderry ! The Scotch Covenanters, stern, brave men, who made a garden of the north of Ireland, who so stubbornly and successfully defended their devoted city, who helped so manfully to maintain the monarch and the cause that later would oppress them as aliens, surrounded by enemies at home, burdened by obnoxious laws enforced by their allies of the Established Church, sought in the wilderness of America liberty and that religious freedom which the Puritans, a century earlier, had suc- cessfully gained. A young man, Holmes by name, son of a Presbyterian minister, brought a good account of the promised land. Four congregations, led by their respective clergymen, commenced the exodus, which, in a few years, rendered possible
! Hon. L. A. Morrison, A. M.
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ROYAL PROVINCE.
1719]
the American Revolution. Governor Shute, of Massachusetts, was above the narrow prejudices of his contemporaries in the colony, and welcomed this band of hardy settlers, resolute warriors, scholars and skilled artisans, and generously granted them a large section of land. April 11, 1719, the congregation, under the spiritual guidance of Rev. James MacGregore, arrived at Horse Hill and commenced the settlement of the township of Londonderry, a tract, as originally granted, twelve miles square. It cornered on the present Massachusetts State line, and was bounded on the south by Pelham, on the west by Litchfield, on the north by Chester, and on the east by Hampstead. It in- cluded the present towns of Londonderry, Derry, and Windham, and tracts now embraced within the towns of Salem, Hudson, and the city of Manchester.
These settlers, whose descendants have removed the odium at- tached to the name of Scotch-Irish, and have written their names on the imperishable pages of history, receiving their original grant from Massachusetts, had it confirmed to them by the authorities of New Hampshire, purchased the right claimed under the Wheelwright deed and evidently entered into a compact with the Indians, for they were never disturbed in their possess- ions, although a frontier town. During the first summer they united in cultivating a field in common, amicably dividing the produce in the autumn. Although not rich, they brought with them considerable property from the old country, and very soon were surrounded with many of the comforts and even luxuries of civilization. A two-story house was built for their minister, and a commodious church for public worship. Schools were estab- lished in different parts of the town and much attention given to the education of the young. It is a characteristic fact that ninety-five out of one hundred of the original proprictors left their autographs in a fairly legible hand on various petitions.
The progress made by the town of Londonderry was remark- able. Its wealth and population increased rapidly. In 1775 it contained 2,590 inhabitants, ranking next to Portsmouth in im- portance. By 1820 Gilmanton and Sanbornton had outstripped it, and it held the fourth position among the New Hampshire towns.
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HISTORY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. [1719
The vanguard of the Scotch-Irish invasion which settled Londonderry, ac- cording to John Farmer, were :
Randel Alexander. James Clark.
John Nesmith.
Samuel Allison.
James Gregg.
Thomas Steele. Sterrett.
Allen Anderson.
John Mitchell.
James Anderson.
John Morrison.
John Steward.
John Barnet.
James McKean
Robert Weir.
Archibald Clendenin.
Within a few years they were followed by
James Adams.
Robert Gillmor.
Hugh Montgomery. John Moore.
John Adams.
John Goffe.
James Aiken.
John Goffe, Jr.
William Moore.
Nathaniel Aiken.
Samuel Graves.
James Morrison.
James Alexander. John Gregg.
John Andersen,
William Harper.
Robert Arbuckel.
James Harvey.
John Archbald.
John Harvey.
James Nesmith. Alexander Nickels.
Moses Barnett.
Abraham Holmes.
Hugh Ramsey.
John Barr.
Jonathan Hollme.
James Reid.
Samuel Barr.
John Hopkins.
Matthew Reid.
John Bell.
Solomon Hopkins,
Alexander Renkine,
James Blair.
Thomas Horner.
Samuel Renkin.
John Blair.
Samuel Houston.
James Rodgers.
James Caldwell.
William Humphrey.
Hugh Rogers. John Shields.
David Cargill.
Alexander Kelsey.
Archibald Stark.
Benjamin Chamberlain.
Robert Kennedy.
Charles Stewart.
Matthew Clark.
Benjamin Kidder,
Thomas Stewart.
Andrew Clendenin.
James Leslie.
James Taggart. John Taggart.
Peter Cochran.
Edward Linkfield.
James Thomson.
Robert Cochran.
Daniel McDuffie.
William Thomson. Robert Thompson. Andrew Todd.
William Cochran.
Robert McFarlin.
Thomas Cochran.
Nathan McFarlin.
John Conaghie.
James MacGregore.
Samuel Todd.
Hugh Craige.
David MacGregore.
Alexander Walker.
John Craig.
Robert Mckean.
James Walles.
Jesse Cristi.
Samuel Mckean. Archibald Mackmurphy, Robert Weir.
John Dinsmore.
John McMurphy.
Benjamin Willson.
Patrick Douglass.
Alexander MacNeal.
James Willson.
William Eayrs. John McNeill.
Hugh Wilson.
James Gillmor.
William Michell.
Thomas Wilson.
Robert Morrison. Samuel Morrison. David Morrison.
John Barnett.
William Hogg.
James Campbell.
David Hunter.
Ninin Cochran.
James Lindsay.
Archibald Wear.
John Cromay.
1720]
ROYAL PROVINCE.
143
And later by those of the name of
-- Taylor.
Pierce.
McAlester.
Gibson.
Spaulding.
Livermore.
Burns.
Prentice.
McClintock.
Parker.
Wallace.
Knox.
Proctor.
Choate.
Mann.
Thornton.
Patterson.
Cunningham.
Thom.
Fisher.
Daniels.
Simonds.
Pinkerton.
Martin.
The granting and incorporation of Londonderry to new com- ers was distasteful to men who for a generation had suffered to maintain a foothold along the coast against the attacks of a cruel and treacherous enemy, cramped for land as they and their large families had become ; and immediately all kinds of reasons were advanced why townships should be granted, both in New Hampshire and in what was then claimed as Massachusetts, bounded by a line parallel with the Merrimack river, extending to Governor's Island in Lake Winnipiseogee, and thence running due west across the present State of Vermont to the cast line of the Province of New York. Some of these petitions were favorably received and acted upon. In 1722, Governor Shute, as his last official act, granted and incorporated, in the name of the King, the four townships of Chester, Nottingham, Barrington, and Rochester.
1 The records of Chester commence with the proceedings of a meeting of the "Society for settling the Chestnut Country, held at said country, the fifteenth of October, 1719." The society had probably existed some time, and was composed principally of men of Hampton and Portsmouth. Afterward duplicate records were kept at Hampton. The number of the society was restricted to ninety. They had preferred a petition to the governor and council, and in March, 1720, it was with- drawn, and another presented. They also voted to keep three men on the ground, and a possession fence was built. They also laid out lots before obtaining any grant. This meeting was probably at Walnut Hill, near the south east corner of the town- ship. There was also another company of Massachusetts men,
I Benjamin Chase.
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HISTORY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.
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headed by John Calf, who were endeavoring to procure a grant. John Calf was a clothier at the Falls, in Newbury, and was a grantee under the charter of Chester, and moved and carried on the trade there. They also tried to have possession. There is a deed on the records to Samuel Ingalls of "Cheshire," blacksmith, dated Oct. 23, 1717. He appears afterward, indeed, to be of Haverhill, but he had a constructive residence in Chester, and a constructive possession of the territory. There seems, by the House and council records, to have been other parties endeavoring to obtain a grant. There is a deed on Rockingham records, dated May, 1722, wherein Stephen Dud- ley, of Freetown (Raymond), in consideration of affection, con- veys to Francis James of Gloucester, his right to 400 acres in Freetown, to be taken out of that tract bought of Peter Penuit, and Abigail his squaw, by deed, dated on Jan. 17, 1718.
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