USA > New Hampshire > Colony, province, state, 1623-1888: history of New Hampshire > Part 39
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In the meantime other sections were visited. Jason Lee, above named, labored in the lower part of the State to some extent. Some opposition was encountered, but in general a good work is not hindered by opposition, but, on the contrary, is usually advanced. During the year ISoo a society was constituted in Landaff and one in Hawke, now Danville ; in ISoI one in Han- over ; in 1802 one in Bridgewater and one in Kingston ; in 1803 one in Grant- ham; in 1804 one in Pembroke, one in Loudon, and one in Tuftonborough; in ISo5 one in Northfield and one in Centre Harbor; in 1806 one in Ports- mouth ; in ISo7 one in Canaan and one in Rochester; in ISIo one in Green- land.
The several places to which a minister was appointed constituted a " cir- cuit," receiving its name from the principal town; and this continued, espe- cially in country regions, until within a very few years. A circuit embraced two, three, or more towns. These the minister was to visit and hold evening or other meetings. When a circuit was very large, two ministers were assigned to it. On a circuit, a minister was much in the saddle, or travelling on foot in wilderness regions, finding his way by spotted trees.
During the times in which the above societies were established, and later, there were several distinguished ministers doing good service in the State> among whom should be named the following : -
Rev. Elijah Hedding, who travelled over some of the rough portions of the State, preaching the gospel to many, but subsequently became a bishop, and resided in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., where he died.
Rev. Wilbur Fisk, who was a presiding elder in New Hampshire, and
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afterwards became president of Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Conn., and was elected bishop, but died before serving in that office.
Rev. John Broadhead, a native of Pennsylvania, who was for some time a presiding elder-a man of sterling ability and an effective preacher, who resided at what is now South Newmarket, was a senator in the legislature, and for four years representative in Congress, and who died April 7, 1838.
1 In June, 1788, Benning Moulton, and fifty-one others, " in- habitants of Meredith Neck, the northern district of New Hamp- ton and New Holderness, and of the southern district of Moul- tonborough," petitioned the legislature to be severed from the respective towns to which they then belonged, and incorporated into a "township by the name of Watertown," for the following reasons : " That the lands aforesaid are so surrounded with ponds, and impassable streams running into and out of said ponds, and so remote from the centres of the respective towns to which they belong, that we have hitherto found the greatest inconvenience in attending public worship." The matter came before the legislature in January 1789, and a committee, consist- ing of Hon. Joseph Badger of Gilmanton, Daniel Beede, Esq., of Sandwich, and Captain Abraham Burnham of Rumney, was appointed "to view the situation of the premises petitioned for, ... and report their opinion thereon to the General Court at their next session."
The committee visited the locality in May following, with a copy of the petition, in which the bounds of the proposed town were described, and containing the names of the petitioners. They made up their report on the premises, and wrote it on the back of the copy of the petition, dating the same "Centerr Harbor May ye 28th, 1789." It seems from this, that there was a landing then called "Centre Harborr," eight years before the town was set off and incorporated.
Three men by the name of Senter signed this petition ; and as the committee had it before them when they made up their report, it is not probable that such men as Judge Badger, by whose hand the report was made, or either of the others, would have written " Center " if they had intended to write " Senter."
The aforesaid committee reported against the petitioners,
Il. W. Hammond.
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saying, " That while the lands proposed would make a conven- ient small town it would be a damage to Holderness and Mere- dith, and that neither of the towns would be able to support public worship," and the matter then dropped until 1797, at which time a petition was presented to the legislature, bearing date " New Hampton, June, 1797," signed by James Little and forty-six others, praying "That your honors would set off such a part of said town as is included in the following bounds as a town, and that it may be incorporated by the name of Centre Harbor." The bounds are then given, which they say are "agreeable to a vote of the town of New Hampton in the year 1786." The legislature appointed a hearing for their next ses- sion, and required the petitioners to post a copy of the petition and order of court in some public place in said town, eight weeks before said hearing, and serve a like copy on the select- men. There is preserved the copy which was posted, written in a plain hand, the corners showing the nail holes, and contain- ing a certificate dated November 18, 1797, stating that it was posted at the store of Moses Little in New Hampton, eight weeks prior to said date ; and also a copy containing an acknowl- edgment of the selectmen of service on them, in both of which the name of the proposed town is written "Centre Harbor." If it was the intention of the people to name the town Senter's Harbor, it is impossible that it could have been posted in a con- spicuous place, and undoubtedly read by nearly every man in town, and the error remain undiscovered.
Add to this fact that it has been spelt " Centre " in the town records from that time to this, and that the first petition from the town after its incorporation, which was for the appointment of Lieutenant Winthrop Robinson as justice of the peace, was dated " Centre Harbor, April, 1798."
The first settlements were made by Ebenezer Chamberlain in 1765 and Colonel Joseph Senter in 1767. A Congregational church was formed in 1815, over which Rev. David Smith was ordained in 1819.
One of the duties imposed upon the tithingmen in 1799 was to stop all persons travelling on the Sabbath, and interrogate
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them in relation to their business, names, and places of resi- dence. Proud of their brief authority, zealous in the cause, they were frequently a source of annoyance almost unbearable, seiz- ing upon the reins of the traveller's horse with the ungracious rudeness of the highwayman, rather than as the conservators of religious observance and civil order.
Eighty years after the event Colonel William Kent gave his account of how the inhabitants of Concord, few in number, at- tended the funeral services on the death of General Washing- ton, at the Old North meeting-house in Concord, February 22, 1 800. They formed a procession, old and young, and marched to the church.
" The solemnity of the occasion, the deep mourning dress of the pulpit and galleries, in connection with the sad countenances of the people, are vivid in my memory to this day. Concord at that time, and for many years after, had a population of about two thousand, with the same territorial limits as at present.
" In the precinct, in what may be called the city proper, there was only one street, now called Main street, and then only the street. The principal ave- nue to the street was then called Milk road (now called Pleasant street). It led to the grist-mill belonging to the late Jacob Carter, father of our esteemed citizen Jacob Carter, Esq., and at the present time owned and occupied by St. Paul's school. This road, or Pleasant street, had only ten buildings as far as the top of the hill opposite the asylum. On the north, beginning at the corner of the street now called Green street, and as far north as Centre street, was a swamp with a brook leading to the river, and a dense growth of trees or shrubbery to the top of the hill, the section now occupied by our most valuable residences. About the year 1815 Judge Green built the house now occupied as the Asylum for the Aged, on about sixty-five acres of the land connected therewith. As evidence of the greatly increased value, the house and land belonging were sold for $5000.
" On the south of Pleasant street, extending to Bow line, the land was occupied for cultivation and pasture, with the exception of a few scattered house-lots, not exceeding twenty in all.
" Main street at that time, according to my recollection, from the south end to the north, had five public-houses ; one of which, called the Butters' Tavern, is now the only one standing; six stores; and the whole number of dwellings did not exceed seventy-five. The first and only brick building in Concord was erected in 1806, and is now occupied by the First National Bank. At that time there was no public conveyance in any direction. This fact I can fully realize, as I was a student at Atkinson Academy, and the only means of coming home at vacation was by the post-rider, who carried the mail once a week on horseback from Haverhill, N. H., to Haverhill, Mass., who led my
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horse by his side for me to ride. The post-office was kept by David George, in a small 6 by S room in his hatter's shop. The whole contents of a mail for Concord might not have required more than a good-sized hat. Correspond- ence was rare, and mostly of imperative necessity, on account of the expense of postage. Letters directed the shortest distance took ten cents for postage, and the expense proportionally increased with the distance; love letters were few and far between. The only meeting-house in town was the Old North, standing on the spot now occupied by the Walker school-house, and it continued to be so until the year 1826, when the First Baptist church . was dedicated; and in 1829 the Unitarian. The churches have continued in- creasing with the increase of population, now numbering, in all the city, fifteen."
1 The second New Hampshire turnpike road was incorporated December 26, 1799. It ran from Claremont through Unity, Lempster, Washington, Mar- low, Hillsborough, Antrim, Deering, Francestown, Lyndeborough, New Boston, Mont Vernon, and to Amherst, though as respects several of these towns it merely " cut the corners." It was fifty miles in length.
The third was incorporated December 27, 1799. It ran from Bellows Falls and Walpole, through Westmoreland, Surry, Keene, Marlborough, Jaffrey, and in a direction towards Boston. The distance was fifty miles.
The petition for the fourth New Hampshire turnpike road was presented to the legislature in 1800, and was signed by Elisha Payne, Russell Freeman, and Constant Stoors."
On November 25, 1800, the House "voted that the prayer thereof be granted, and that the petitioners have leave to bring in a bill accordingly," with which the Senate on the next day concurred.
The population of the State in 1800 was 183,868; but the population of the towns through some portion of which the turnpike passed was less than 10,000.
1 Before considering the act of incorporation, it may be useful to advert briefly to some of the more salient of the almost innumerable provisions of the English Turnpike Acts.
They provided that two oxen were to be considered the same as one horse ; that cattle straying on a turnpike road might be impounded; that nails in wheel tires should be countersunk so that they should not project more than one-fourth of an inch above the surface; that carriers' dogs should not be chained to the wagons; that teams should not descend hills with locked wheels unless resting on skid pans or slippers ; that supernumerary "beasts of draught" should not be used without licence; that no goods should be un- loaded before coming to a turnpike gate or weighing machine; that drivers should not turn from the road to avoid such machine; that children under thirteen years should not be drivers ; that all drivers must give their names ; that no driver should ride, etc., without some one on foot or horseback to I John M. Shirley.
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guide the team; that drivers when meeting other carriages " must keep to the left side of the road ;" that no person should pull down, damage, injure, or destroy any lamp or lamp-post put up in or near the side of a turnpike road or toll house, or extinguish the light of such lamp; and that no wind- mill should be erected within two hundred yards of any part of the turnpike road.
It was made the duty of the turnpike surveyor to prevent and remove all annoyance by filth, dung, ashes, rubbish, or other things whatsoever, even if laid upon a common within eighty feet of the centre of the road, and to turn any watercourse, sinks, or drains which ran into, along, or out of any turn- pike road to its prejudice, and to open, drain, and cleanse watercourses or ditches adjoining the road, and to deepen and enlarge the same if the owners neglected so to do after seven days' notice in writing.
With very trifling differences the same rule was applied to obstructions of highways and turnpikes.
No tree, bush, or shrub was allowed within fifteen feet of the centre, un- less for ornament or shelter to the house, building, or courtyard of the owner. Hedges and boughs of trees were to be kept cut and pruned, while the possessors of the lands adjoining the roads were to cut down, prune and lop the trees growing on or near the hedges or other fences in such a manner that the highways should not be prejudiced by the shade, and so that the sun and wind should not be excluded from them to their damage, with the pro- viso that no oak trees or hedges must be cut except in April, May, or June, or ash, elm, or other trees except in December, January, February, or March. The surveyor could not compel the cutting of hedges except between the last day of September and the last day of March.
The hedges were to be cut six feet from the surface of the ground, and the branches of trees, bushes, and shrubs were also to be cut, and were treated as a nuisance if they overhung the road so as to impede or annoy any person or carriage travelling there.
When a turnpike road was laid out, which rendered an old road unneces- sary, the trustees, etc., could discontinue the old road, which thereby vested in them, and they might sell and convey the same by deed, or they might by agreement give up the same to the owners of adjoining lands by way of exchange, or the old road might be sold to some adjoining landowner, or in case he refused to purchase to some other person.
Upon the completion of the contract the soil of the old road vested in the purchaser and his heirs,- saving fossils, mines, and minerals to the original proprietor.
The exceptions under the English Acts were much more minute than un- der section six of the Act under consideration.
No toll could be collected for horses or carriages which only crossed the turnpike, or which did not pass one hundred yards thereon, or for horses or carriages conveying any one to or from the election of a member of the county where the road was situate; or for the mails or the military service, nor for any inhabitant of a parish, etc., attending a funeral therein, nor for any curate, etc., visiting any sick parishioner or attending to any other paro-
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chial duty within his parish; nor from any person going to or returning from his parochial church or chapel or usual place of religious worship toler- ated by law, on Sundays or any day on which divine service was by authority allowed to be celebrated.
The first meeting of the corporation was duly warned by Elisha Payne, January 28, 1801. The meeting was held at the dwelling- house of Clap Sumner, " Innholder," in Lebanon, on March 24, 1801, at ten A. M. Elisha Payne was chosen moderator, Benja- min J. Gilbert of Hanover was chosen clerk, accepted his ap- pointment, and was "sworn accordingly."
An examination of the list shows how largely the people at Portsmouth, at Hanover, and at Lebanon were interested.
The shareholders at Hopkinton were headed by Judge Harris. Herriman, or Harriman, also resided there.
The list shows, with the exception of Bowers and a few others in Salisbury, how few shareholders there were in the outset along the line from Boscawen ferry to Lebanon.
The next step was to provide for locating the road. This was, if possible. more delicate and difficult than the raising of funds. The feelings of the rival interests along the line were very strong. With the exception of that part of the road from Fifield's mills to Horse-shoe Pond in Andover, a distance of about three miles, there was likely to be a sharp and bitter controversy about the location of the entire route. Strange as it may seem, Roger Per- kins and General Davis at this time had not discovered how vital it was for the interest of that section that the turnpike should run from the Potter Place to Hopkinton. Through their efforts, mainly, this route was afterwards laid out by order of the court, and partially built. It was overthrown by Ezekiel Webster, who never forgot the hostility of the people of Hopkinton towards him in a celebrated case, upon the ground mainly that for a portion of the way it ran along or over old highways.
The corporators in the outset determined to select people outside the State to make the location in order to avoid the huckstering and log-rolling which had made so much trouble in other cases, and which afterwards caused so much feeling in the location of railroads. Accordingly at the adjourned meeting, May 29, 1801, the following votes were passed :-
"Voted that General James Whitelaw of Ryegate, General Elias Stevens of Royalton, and Major Micah Barron of Bradford, all in the State of Vermont, ... be a committee to survey and lay out the route for the fourth turnpike road in New Hampshire.
The great question before the legislature at the June session, 1800, was on the memorial of certain persons asking for the estab-
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lishment of another bank in Portsmouth.1 Soon after the estab- lishment of the New Hampshire bank, a company was formed in that town, which issued bills and transacted the ordinary busi- ness of a bank, though unincorporated. The old bank was in the hands of the Federalists; the new one, established by Langdon, Sherburne, Goddard, and other Republicans, was not a mere money concern, but was intended as an engine of poli- tical power. They had the year before applied for an Act of incorporation, which was denied them ; and a law was passed making all such unincorporated banking associations unlawful. The State had, also, became a stockholder in the old bank. The March elections had turned mainly, in many places, on this bank question ; and the Republicans had gained largely by the votes of men who regarded the old bank as a monopoly, the State subscription as a bribe, and the new bank as the only sure remedy for the financial evils of the times.1
The question came up in the House on a memorial of the few bank, praying for the repeal of the prohibition on unin- corporated banking associations, the law not having gone into operation. The Federalists were opposed to the request on party grounds, and were represented by William Plumer; the petitioners were represented by Mr. Goddard, the ablest debater on the Republican side. After a heated debate, the law was not repealed.
The session closed on Monday, the governor refusing to ad- journ the Houses on Saturday lest some of the members might travel towards their homes on the Sabbath. Mr. Sheafe was elected to the United States Senate by a small majority.1
The Federalists were evidently losing ground, and the new bank at Portsmouth was gaining friends in every part of the State. It required the utmost personal popularity of some of the tried Federal leaders to secure their election to the legis- lature. When the legislature met at Hopkinton in June, 1801, though the Federalists had a decided majority, John Langdon, the Republicans' candidate, wanted but two votes of being elected speaker. Prentice owed his majority of one to the vote
I William Plumer, Jr.
:
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of a man whom he had grossly insulted at a former session,- proof at that time of the influence of party over individual con- duct, especially as Prentice was much inferior as a presiding officer to Langdon. The proprietors of the Union Bank re- newed, at this session, their application for an Act of incorpora- tion. The Federalists being divided in opinion, the bill passed the House but was rejected by the Senate ; at the next session, however, the Union Bank obtained its charter. The Repub- lican party had, in the meantime, by the election of Mr. Jeffer- son to the presidency, gained the ascendency in the general government, but were still in a minority in New Hampshire. Accessions to their number were owing to the local question of the bank. The system of paper money, except in the old form of State notes, which had everywhere proved disastrous to public credit, was at that time a novelty in the State. For years the Union Bank confined its loans to its political friends, or to those whom it hoped to make such. The old bank was not more liberal in its policy. The system of State banks spread in all directions, and on the whole was beneficial to the public interests, and continued in force until the establishment of the National Bank system.
At the June session, 1802, William Plumer was elected to fill the unexpired term in the United States Senate of Mr. Sheafe, who had resigned. Nicholas Gilman, the candidate of the opposition, was also a Federalist, but less pronounced in his views than his brother, Governor Gilman. At that time Mr. Plumer was considered the ablest man in his party.
1 Prior to the appointment of Judge Smith in 1802, the law in this State as a science had no existence. For this there are two principal reasons : -
I. Under the proprietary government of Mason we had no law of our own, either statute or common. As late as 1660, Mason claimed that New Hampshire and Maine were governed by the law of the mother country. Portsmouth, Dover, Exeter, and Hampton were little principalities, and did substantially as they pleased. The Province, as such, had no existence be- fore the union with Massachusetts, in 1641, nor until after the forced separa- tion in 1679.
The first code of laws enacted in this Province, in 1679-16So, was in sub-
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stance a re-enactment of the Mosaic code, was sent to the mother country for royal sanction, and was disallowed by the Privy Council, as many others afterwards were.
During the reign of james II. the laws were silent. A trinity of pro- consuls ruled and robbed the people. In 1692, seventy years after the settle- ment, we were entirely destitute of what is called written law. Many statutes were enacted after this time which never received the sanction of the King and Council.
No laws were published until 1716, when an edition of sixty pages folio was published in Boston. In 1718 seventy-two pages were added, and in 1719 twenty-four pages more. After this, and before 1728, sixteen pages more were added, making in all a volume of one hundred and seventy-two pages. There was no printing press in this Province till 1756. An edition of the statutes was published here in 1760, but discarded as not authentic, and a new and carefully printed edition was published in 1771. After the Revolution, the statutes were printed in folio till 1789, when an octavo edition, containing the public and some of the private laws, was published by order of the legislature. The dissatisfaction of the public compelled the publication of a new and revised edition in 1792, which was followed by the edition of 1797, and afterwards by the more copious one of 1805.
The statute law, when Judge Smith came to the bench, was in a crude, chaotic, and unsatisfactory condition, and the common law far worse.
2. With notable exceptions, like the Livermores, which prove the rule, the bench was filled with broken-down ministers, lumbermen, bankrupt traders, and cheap lawyers. From two to four of these judges, as the quorum varied, attended each trial term, if they did not, as sometimes happened, forget the time; and not unfrequently they all charged the jury in the same cause, dif- fering oftentimes as much as the opposing counsel.
Smith was a strong man. It needed some iron hand to purge the Augean stable, and he came. He was one of the best representatives of that industri- ous, tough, enduring, Scotch-Irish stock, who regarded it as recreation to work or fight from dawn till set of sun, and then to spend half the night in jest, and song, and story. At forty, Smith was a profound lawyer. He had absorbed the history of New England, and especially of this Province and State, as a sponge does water. At this time he was the greatest master of probate law in New England. No one since has equalled him ; and no one in this State has approached him except the late Charles H. Atherton. He prepared two large manuscript volumes on the subject. It cost a vast amount of time and labor, and was an able work of great value. It was the reservoir from which Webster, Chief Justice Richardson, and others hardly less emi- nent, continually drew. Notwithstanding he was a busy man of affairs, he was top-heavy with law learning when he came to the bench, and when he retired, at the age of fifty-six, he had accomplished more than ought to be expected of those at seventy-five, who now stand in the fore-front of the profession with the aid of all the modern appliances.
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