USA > New Hampshire > Colony, province, state, 1623-1888: history of New Hampshire > Part 2
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The map which Captain Smith made was presented to Prince Charles, who gave to the whole country the name of New England.
Early in the seventeenth century it was discovered that fish- .ng along the New England coast was more profitable in winter than in summer, a fact which soon led to permanent settle- ments, not only at the Isles of Shoals and at Little Harbor, but at Dover Point, York, Portland, Pemaquid and Mohegan, and at other points to the eastward. In fact, voyagers coming west attempted to make their landfalls at Mohegan and the Isles of Shoals, and took their departure from them, when returning to Europe.3
Before the advent of the first white settlers, there were living within the present limits of New Hampshire a powerful tribe of Indians. For how many generations they had occupied the country and who were their predecessors, are unsettled ques- tions. There are few or no traces of a more civilized race having lived here before the Penacook Indians, a tribe of the Algonquin family. Their chief rendezvous was in the neighbor- hood of Concord, where they rudely cultivated the Indian corn. They subsisted chiefly on fish and game, and made annual migrations from the interior to the seaboard. In prehistoric I John K. Lord. 2 John Farmer', Belknap, p. 2. 3 Charles Levi Woodbury.
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times there is a tradition that a fierce battle occurred between them and their enemies, the Mohawks of the west, on the east bank of the Merrimack, near the village of East Concord. In the early part of the seventeenth century their number is said to have been greatly reduced by a plague. One of their favorite haunts was about the shores of Lake Winnipiseogee, where many traces of them may yet be found. The names they gave to the lakes and streams and mountains have been adopted by those who came after them. They continued to live within the limits of the State for a hundred years after the first settlement by Europeans, and their history is closely linked with that of the settlers, until the remnant, left after many disastrous wars, withdrew and joined their people on the banks of the St. Law- rence. In the main they were friendly to the colonists, but seem to have been drawn into hostilities by neighboring tribes, under the influence of the French.
The importance of effecting permanent settlements on the coast having become apparent, King James, in 1606,1 granted a patent limiting the dominion of Virginia from the thirty-fourth to the forty-fourth degree of northern latitude. This territory was subdivided into North and South Virginia ; South Virginia was assigned to certain noblemen, knights and gentlemen of London ; North Virginia was granted to others of Bristol, Exeter, and Plymouth.2
In-1620,3 the King, by his sole authority, constituted a council of forty, by the name of " The council established at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling and governing of New England, in America." 4
They were a corporation with perpetual succession, by election of the majority, and their territories extended from the fortieth to the forty-eighth degree of northern latitude. This patent, or charter, is the foundation of all the grants that were made of the country of New England. For some unexplained reason, their affairs were transacted in a confused manner from the beginning, and the grants which they made were so inaccurately
1 April 10. 2 Farmer's Belknan.
3 November 3.
4 Hazard's Collection, 103-118.
.
1621]
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described and interfered so much with each other as to occasion difficulties and controversies of a serious character.1
Two of the most active members of this council were Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason. The former had been an officer in the navy of Queen Elizabeth, intimately connected with Sir Walter Raleigh, and had been appointed by King James governor of the fort and island of Plymouth. While he resided there, Captain Weymouth brought from Pemaquid into the harbor of Plymouth five American Indians, whom he had treacherously kidnapped.2 Three of these Gorges retained" in his service several years, treated them kindly, won their affection, and learned from them the character of New England. He became very enthusiastic about the new world, fitted out several expeditions to visit this coast, and upon the formation of the Plymouth Council was elected its president. Captain John Mason was a merchant of London, who became a sailor and was appointed governor of Newfoundland. While there he befriended two Indians, who had been forcibly abducted from New England and sold into slavery by Thomas Hunt, a lieuten- ant of Captain John Smith, and won their good will by sending them to their homes.
While in Newfoundland he acquired a knowledge of America, it being asserted by late writers that, in company with his friend Gorges, he personally explored the coast of his future province, and upon his return to England, receiving the appointment of governor of Portsmouth in Hampshire, he became interested in the Plymouth Council. A vacancy occurring he was elected a member and became the secretary. He procured a grant from the council, in 1621,3 of all the land from the river Naumkeag, now Salem, round Cape Ann to the river Merrimack, and all land embraced by these two rivers to their heads, and all out- lying islands within three miles of the shore. The district was called Mariana, and was granted on the supposition that the two rivers forming its bounds flowed directly east from their source to their outlet. The following year4 Gorges and Mason received
I Farmer's Belknap.
3 March 9, 1622. Palfrey, 204.
2 J. C. A. Abbott.
4 August 10, 1622.
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jointly the grant of territory, which included all the land between the Merrimack and the Sagadahock rivers, from the ocean to the great lakes and rivers of Canada.1
The grant of that date in the New Hampshire Provincial Pa- pers2 gives the name THE PROVINCE OF MAINE to the territory, which is thus described : " All that part of the main land in New England lying upon the sea-coast betwixt ye rivers of Merrimack and Sagadahock, and to the furthest heads of the said rivers, and soe forwards up into the land westward until three-score miles be finished from ye first entrance of the aforesaid rivers, and half way over : that is to say, to the midst of the said two rivers."
Under the authority of this grant, Gorges and Mason, who united with them several merchants of London, Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, Shrewsbury and Dorchester, attempted the establish- ment of a colony and fishery at the river Piscataqua.
3 The time when, the manner in which, and the individuals by whom the first settlements were made by Europeans at Little Harbor and Dover Point, where, it is generally acknowledged, the original " planting" of New Hamp- shire was commenced, are so obscure, and have been so frequently a matter of controversy, that historians gladly welcome all attempts which are made to elucidate them.
For more than two hundred years, on the authority of Hubbard, Prince, and other early historians, followed by Belknap, the facts in relation to these settlements, briefly stated and generally accepted, were, that Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Capt. John Mason, having obtained from the Council constituted by the King of England, " for the planting, ruling and governing of New England," a grant of all the land between the rivers Merrimack and Sagadahock, extending back to the great lakes and river of Canada, formed a company with several merchants of London and other cities, and styling themselves " The Company of Laconia," attempted the establishment of a colony and fishery at the mouth of the Piscataqua river. For this purpose, in the spring of 1623, they sent out David Thomson and Edward and William Hilton, who had been fishmongers in London, with a number of other people, in two divisions, furnished with all the necessaries for carrying out the design. Thomson landed at the river's mouth, at a place which he called Little Harbor, where he built a house, afterwards known as " Mason Hall," erected salt works, and made other preparations for carrying on his business, but the Hiltons set up their fishing stages eight miles further up the river, on a neck of land which the Indians called Winni- chahannet, but they named it Northam and afterwards Dover. Thomson,
I Palfrey and Belknap. 2 Provincial Papers, vol. i, p. 10. 3 George Wadleigh.
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1621]
not being pleased with his company or situation, removed the next spring, or a short time after, to an island in Massachusetts Bay, where he lived and soon after died, while the Hiltons and their associates remained and made a permanent settlement at Dover.
All efforts to ascertain the precise date of their arrival, or the ship in which they came, had proved unavailing. The day of the month and the month were unknown. In 1823, at the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the settlement of the State, at Portsmouth, when it was considered desir- able to fix upon the day of their arrival, if possible, for the purpose of suit- ably observing it, all efforts to do so were found to be in vain. It was then declared that " Prince, the most laborious of all antiquaries in New England, in 1736, could give no precise date, and no discovery of documents since has made it more definite " than that they arrived in the spring of the year. From the fact that no vessel was known to have arrived from England in that year until about June 1, it was conjectured that the colonists might have been landed at the Piscataqua late in May, and May 23 was accord- ingly selected for the celebration.
These statements remained unquestioned and were incorporated in all our histories and school books, until a document found among the ancient papers of Gov. Winthrop1 gave a different reading to our early history. This document is an indenture, dated Dec. 14, 1622, between David Thonison on the one part, and three merchants, Abraham Colmer, Nicholas Sherwill and Leonard Pomroy, all of Plymouth, England, on the other part.
The indenture recites that the Council for New England had granted to Thomson (Oct. 16, 1622) six thousand acres of land and one island in New England, and that Thomson had conveyed one quarter part of the island to the three merchants named and agreed also to convey to them one quarter part of the six thousand acres, on these conditions :-
1. That the three merchants, at their own charge, should provide and send that present year two men with Thomson, in the ship Jonathan of Plymouth, to New England, with such victuals, provisions, &c., as shall suffice them till they are landed.
2. The three merchants, at their own charge, were also to provide and send the same year three additional men in the ship I'rovidence of Plymouth, if they could so soon be gotten, or in some other ship, to New England; the charges of these three men to be borne equally by all the parties.
3. Two other men were also to be sent the same year in the Jonathan ; the charges to be borne by all the parties equally.
4. Thomson, with the seven men, as soon as landed, was to find a fit place and make choice of six thousand acres of land and a fit place to settle and erect buildings.
Further provision was made for dividing the property at the end of five years agreeably to the indentures, three fourths to Thomson and one fourth
" Now in the possession of his descendant, Hon. Robert C. Winthrop. A copy of it has been published in the proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, with notes by Charles Deane, Esq.
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to the other three. Three fourths of the charge for planting, building, Sc., was to be borne by Thomson, and one fourth by the others. All the profits from fishing, trading, &c., were to be divided equally, the three merchants having liberty to employ the ships to fish, at their own charge, if Thomson did not choose to bear his share of such charge.
From this agreement it appears reasonably certain that Thomson did come over as stipulated, arriving at the mouth of the Piscataqua sometime in the spring of 1623, as Hubbard has recorded. By the indenture he was to proceed " this present year" (1622). By the method of reckoning at that time, the year ended on the 24th of March following. It is equally certain, however, that he did not come out as the agent of the Company of Laconia, for that company was not then in existence, not having been formed until 1631. This error appears to have originated with Dr. Belknap, who knew that Mason and Gorges had a grant (Aug. 10, 1622) embracing the terri- tory between the Merrimack and Sagadahock, which they intended to call the Province of Maine, but of which they never made any use, as the council afterwards made other grants covering the same territory. Dr. Belknap also knew that Mason and Gorges, with other persons, were members of the Company of Laconia. From this and some statements of Hubbard, he doubtless concluded that the grant of 1622 was the Laconia grant, and that the associates, under the name of the Company of Laconia, began the settle- ment at Little Harbor and Hilton's Point in 1623. It is now known that the Laconia Patent was not issued until Nov. 17, 1629, and the company was formed soon after.
There is no direct evidence in the indentures, that the Hiltons were associated with Thomson in the enterprise, either as partners or servants. From this fact and other considerations drawn from contemporaneous history, Mr. Jenness, in his " Notes on the First Planting of New Hamp- shire," discredits the statement of Hubbard, and claims that the Hiltons never saw Dover Point until five or six years after Thomson and his party landed at Little Harbor, or at least that no settlement could have been made there in 1623, as has been generally believed.
To establish this position he quotes the early historians to show that no such place was known to, or once spoken of, by any of the visitors of Thom- .son, of whom there were several, during the years 1623 and 1624; that it is absurd to suppose that Edward Hilton, without any colony to assist him, should have gone so far from the succor of his friends, into the wilderness, in the midst of treacherous and cruel savages, when the whole country practically lay open before him, to go in and occupy where he would; that the " stages," which it is alleged were set up at the Point, were "large and expensive structures " intended for use in the fishing business, and that " no ·experienced fisherman would have selected such a site for a fishing estab- lishment, five or six miles above the mouth of the Piscataqua, a stream of such rapidity that it is often impossible for a boat to contend against it, while the great cod fisheries are several miles out at sea, which a fisherman, leaving Hilton's Point at the very turn of the ebb tide, could not reach and return from the same day, if he stopped to cast his hook."
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As to the fact of priority of settlement. if a mere fishing and trading post is to be regarded as such, we may as well admit that at Little Harbor (now in the town of Rye) the first planting of New Hampshire was commenced. There is no doubt that Thomson and his men first disembarked, at or near that place, and pitched their tents or erected such huts as were requisite for shelter. Its site is now known as Odiorne's Point, and was well chosen for defence against the attacks of an enemy. Seven men were to be furnished to assist him. Four were to come over in the Jonathan, and three more were to be provided the same year.
It is reasonable to conclude that Edward Ililton may have come over from England in one of the vessels which brought David Thomson and his men to th: Piscataqua, on his own account, if not as an assistant of Thomson, as Hubbard asserts. David Thomson is described by Thomas Morton, in " The New England Canaan," as " a Scottish gentleman that was conversant with those people (the natives), a scholar, and a traveller that was diligent in taking notice of these things, as a man of good judgment." The Hiltons had been fishmongers in London, and were acquainted with at least one branch of the business in which Thomson was to engage. They were just the men who would be selected to assist in the enterprise. William Hilton had previously been in America. He came to Plymouth in 1621, and his wife and two children came over in 1623. He may have gone back and returned with them, or they may have come over to join him here. Hubbard, who wrote in 16So, is supposed to have been personally acquainted with the Hiltons, and must have had some knowledge of their history and movements. William Hilton had a grant of land in Plymouth in 1623, but he left that place soon after. apparently on account of some disagreement in relation to church matters, and is found next at Piscataqua with his brother.
As the business of Thomson and his assistants was to be fishing, and trading with the Indians, it is not probable that they would all remain permanently in the same place. The Hiltons, with one or more of the party. after seeing the others safely established at the mouth of the river, may have come up to the Point, as Hubbard records. Or, as the party is said to have come over in " two divisions," it is more probable that they did not arrive until after Thomson and the four men who came in the Jonathan had estab- lished themselves at Little Harbor. Of the other three who were to be provided and sent over in the Providence, the Hiltons may have been two. The tradition has always been that Thomas Roberts was one of the original emigrants with them. If he was, this would complete the number which was to be provided.
The distance between Little Harbor and the Point was but six or seven miles, and the location at the Point was doubtless at first selected for the convenience of trading with the Indians about the falls of the Cochecho, a favorite resort with them. It was also in the vicinity of good fishing ground, for the various branches of the Piscataqua, up to their first falls. must at that day (as they did long after and do now at some seasons) have swarmed with fish, and there was no need of going far to cast the hook and obtain them.
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It is not supposed that a party of three men, at the most, would go miles at sea to the great fishing grounds, to obtain fish, when there was an abun- dance of fish so near them, or that large and expensive stages were required for curing them. By the terms of the indenture, the owners of the Jonathan were to pursue the fishing business independently of Thomson and his men, if he did not choose to bear part of the charge. It is probable that the vessels from England attended to the deep sea fishing, while the parties on shore confined their operations to the harbor and rivers.
If the Hiltons were never mentioned by visitors to Little Harbor in 1623. and 1624, the same may be said of the other men who were with Thomson. The name of no man who was with him - and there were seven - is known, unless we accept the statement of Hubbard.
It may have been that the fishing and trading post at the Point was at the outset regarded rather as a temporary than permanent settlement- a place to which at first they resorted only during the day, returning at night to the common rendezvous at the mouth of the river. But its advantages must have been soon seen and appreciated. The " whole country was open before them, to go in and occupy where they would," and they could hardly have found a more inviting place than the Point, either for fishing, planting, or trading with the Indians - exchanging such articles as they brought with them from England for the beaver skins and other peltries of the Indians. For safety, no resort could have been better than this narrow neck of land, and from which, by their boats, there were such immediate means of escape, if escape was at any time necessary. For planting, also, in which they were to engage, so far at least as they could contribute to their own wants, the Point was of all places the spot which they would select, and was far prefer- able to any land nearer to Little Harbor.
Thomson's enterprise, it appears, was not a success. He abandoned it after about three years' residence (by some accounts " the next year " ) and removed to Massachusetts, Hubbard says, " out of dislike either to the place or his employers." His son is said to have been the first white child born in New Hampshire. He never set up any claim afterwards to the patent, nor does it appear that his partners in England reaped any advantages from it. Thomson's men are supposed to have remained at Little Harbor after his departure, but even this is uncertain. The only evidence that it was occu- pied is that there was a settlement somewhere at " Piscataquack," besides Hiltons' in 1628, and that such a settlement paid £2 : 10 as its contribution for expelling Morton from Merry Mount. What is there more probable than that the Hiltons may have remained at the Point or in its vicinity, with some of the other men of the company, after Thomson left ?
If, as it is alleged, there is no authentic information of Edward Hilton's being in this vicinty previous to 1627 or 1628, the information which we get of him at that time is sufficient to show that he must have been settled here for some years and that he had a considerable stake in the country. In 1628, as recorded by Bradford, he was assessed £1 toward the expense of the war upon Morton of Merry Mount, already alluded to, the whole expense of the
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campaign being £12 :07, of which the Plymouth colony paid £2 : 10, or but little more than twice the amount contributed by Hilton. It is also evident that the Hiltons must have been among the men which the partners of Thomson provided and sent over in 1623, from the fact that they settled so near to Little Harbor, on territory which must have been included within that which Thomson's patent covered, where they would not have been, by any right, had they not been connected with Thomson's company, and that when in 1630 Edward Hilton obtained a patent from the council of Plymouth of the land upon which he had settled he had been for some considerable time established thereon, so long, in fact, that the place had come to be known by his name, for his patent included "all that part of the river Piscataqua called or known by the name of Hilton's Point, with the south side of said river, up to the falls of Squamscott and three miles into the main land for breadth," and it sets forth that Hilton and his associates had " transported thither servants, built houses and planted corn, and intended the further in- crease and advancement of the piantation."
It cannot be believed that Hilton founded a plantation at Hilton's Point in 1623, seven years before he got a deed of the land. If he came out with or soon after Thomson, it is seen for what purpose he came. He was one of the men sent out by Thomson's partners, the merchants in, England, to assist in the enterprise, and as a representative of their interest in it. He had no legal claim to the scil under the patent. Thomson gave up his claim and went off before the expiration of the five years. when the profits of the enterprise as well as the land were to be divided between the parties. The patent granted was evidently regarded by him as of little value, because neither he or his heirs, or his partners, ever afterwards set up any claim to it. All the interest which they possessed at Little Harbor passed into the hands of the Laconia Company, of which Gorges and Mason were chiefs, under a new grant from the council, when Edward Hilton, for his own security, finding himself aban- doned by Thomson and the company by which he had been employed, ob- tained, in 1630, a patent for the settlement at the Point. This patent he after- wards sold in part to other parties, who appointed Captain Thomas Wiggin their agent, by whom, in 1633, a considerable acquisition was obtained to the popu lation.
The Laconia Company, in the meantime, having obtained possession of the lands granted to Thomson at Little Harbor, appointed Captain Neal as their agent, not for the settlement of a colony, but for the management of a fish- ing and trading company, a speculation similar to that in which Thomson had been engaged. In a few years this company broke up and the servants were discharged ; the whole scheme proving a failure. On a division of the property Mason bought the shares of some of his associates and sent over a new supply of men, set up saw-mills, and soon after died.
The Thomson house erected at Little Harbor in 1623, though built of stone, could have been no such substantial structure as is imagined. It is not probable that "it presented the general appearance of the dwelling houses of the time of James I .. vast numbers of which still remain in good
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