USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Portsmouth > Early Portsmouth history > Part 5
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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
According to one Edward Colcott, who went there in 1631,1,14 through 1630 only two other houses besides the house built by Thomson were erected along the
1
72
EARLY PORTSMOUTH HISTORY
Piscataqua River. In 1630 the settlement at Little Harbor, known originally as Pannaway, passed by lease into the hands of the Company of Laconia, to which reference is shortly to be made. The venture headed by Thomson was then practically ended. Capt. Walter Neale, who represented the Company of Laconia as governor, took possession of Pannaway at this time, and took up residence in "Piscataqua House." 10
In 1628 it appeared that Mr. Edward Hilton owned land at Dover Neck.12 According to Hubbard, much criticized for inaccuracies, writing about 1680, Edward Hilton came over with Thomson. Edward Hilton was granted a patent of the so-called "Hilton's Point" at Dover Neck March 12, 1629, old style dating. 10 This patent recited that Edward Hilton and his associates had already transported sundry servants to New Eng- land to begin a plantation at a place called Hilton's Point, lying some two leagues from the mouth of the River Pascattaquack. Mr. John S. Jenness says that the earliest record of the Dover settlement is 1628, or possibly 1627.10 The Hilton settlement was on land called by the Indians "Wecanacohunt." 10 William Hilton resided in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1624, and was not mentioned as living on the Piscataqua River until several years later.10 William Hilton's wife and two children, as stated, came to Plymouth in 1623. Apparently Edward Hilton came to Hilton's Point before his brother. A declaration made in 1654 to the Massachusetts General Court, by John Allen, Nicholas Shapleigh and Thomas Lake, recited "that Mr. Edward Hilton was possessed of this land about the year 1628."12 William Hilton planted corn in that part of Kittery that is now Eliot in 1634.15
73
SETTLEMENT
Mr. George Wadleigh, in his "Notable Events in the History of Dover, New Hampshire," says: "As to the fact of priority of settlement, if a mere fishing and trading post is to be regarded as such, it may be admitted that at Little Harbor, now in the town of Rye, the first planting of New Hampshire was com- menced." 16 Mr. John S. Jenness, in "Notes on the First Planting of New Hampshire," says that the settlement at Pannaway was several years anterior to that of Edward Hilton at Dover.
Neither Pannaway nor the Hilton settlement up the Piscataqua River was of much importance for a con- siderable time, and as a result the outside world for some years regarded the different groups of settlers on the banks of the Piscataqua as one, and knew them collectively under the name of the settlement of Pascattaquack.
It seems fitting that mention should be made of the Indian derivation of the word "Piscataqua," and of the various phases through which the name went before arriving at its present day spelling. Capt. John Smith was the first European that history records as making use of this word for the name of the river and for the name of the near-by country. He spelt it "Passataquack." A letter from England in 1631 to Ambrose Gibbons, who was then in the Piscataqua settlement, spelt it "Pascataquacke." Governor Win- throp's "The History of New England," referring to the year 1630, spelt it "Pascataquac," also "Pascat- aqua," and as of 1631 "Pascataquack." The grant of "Pescataway," 1631, referred to the settlement as the colony known under the name of "Pascataway, als Pascataquack, als Pascaquacke." York Deeds, under the date of 1642, used the spelling "Pascatta-
74
EARLY PORTSMOUTH HISTORY
quacke," also, in 1652, "Pischataqua." Among other spellings found are "Pascatoquack," "Pascatta- quacke," "Piscataquacke," "Pascattaway," "Passa- taquacke," "Passataway," "Piscataway," "Paskata- way," "Pascataqua," "Piscattowa," "Pascataque," "Pischataq," "Piscataquack." York Deeds in 1674 spelt it "Pischataqua." Hubbard about 1680 spelt it "Pascataqua." Hubbard also in one place spelt the word "Piscataqua," the earliest appearance we have found of this spelling. York Deeds in 1680 spelt it "Pischaqua," and, at last, in 1697, "Piscataqua.'
Mr. John S. Jenness says in his "Notes on the First Planting of New Hampshire" that the Indian name of "our noble river" was "Paskataquauke, or Paskata- quagh," as nearly as it can be expressed in English letters. Mr. Jenness says: "The syllable 'quauke', or 'quagh' is clearly the Indian word 'auke', signifying a place or locality, a word found abundantly scattered over the Abenaki country, in confirmation with vari- ous descriptive prefixes. The prefix 'pa-skata', as the Indians seem to divide the word, with a strong accent on the last syllable, we have recently been led to believe signifies a branch, division or separation." Mr. Jen- ness says that an Indian stated that the word meant "the place where three rivers make one." Another Indian stated to him, personally, so Mr. Jenness says, that the word meant "the branch or division of the river into two parts," the whole word meaning, "a place where boats or canoes ascending the river together from its mouth were compelled to separate according to their several destinations." Mr. Jenness goes on to say that it does not appear that the Indians had any name for the whole river. The upper rivers, he remarks, bore names very similar to the generally
75
SETTLEMENT
used Indian name Pascataquauke: Pascaquack, for Great Bay, for example. The Maine Historical So- ciety collection, Volume IV, page 108, in an Indian vocabulary defines "Piscataqua" - "Piscataquis," as. meaning "a river." This same volume includes a letter from Mr. C. E. Potter, dated November 10, 1855, from Manchester, New Hampshire, which states that the writer has worked out the following derivation from Indian word roots: pos - great; attuck - deer; auke - place.
At all events, the present-day name seems an Angli- cized and derived word from the original. Mr. Potter's letter is of value in bearing out the statement of Mr. Jenness that the word "auke" means place or locality, and that this root appears in the original word from which Piscataqua is derived. He does not seem to substantiate the appearance in the original word of the other Indian roots he uses, and the greater authority seems to rest with the meaning which Mr. Jenness attributes to the original word, which he confirmed, as he says, directly with Indians. The liquid sound of the word "Piscataqua" would seem to indicate a great rushing stream, and the fact that there is a Piscataquis River in northern Maine, which is a long, forking river, and whose name is apparently derived from the same Indian roots as Piscataqua, also strengthens the theory of Mr. Jenness.
The word "Piscataqua" is derived from the Abnaki (spelt also Abenaki and Abnaqui) language. The Abnaki race occupied the country between the Penob- scot River and the territory near the Piscataqua.24 To the east of the Kennebec dwelt the Tarratines, prob- ably a subdivision of the Abnakis, but a fierce race and one at deadly enmity with the Indians around the
'76
EARLY PORTSMOUTH HISTORY
Piscataqua. 14 Much information regarding the Indi- ans of eastern Maine comes from Father Rasles, a Frenchman who took residence at Naurantsouak, on the Kennebec, in 1691. His Indian dictionary found its way into the library of Harvard College. Hubbard intimates, about 1680, that there were a number of tribes about the Piscataqua,14 all of which probably owed fealty to the chief sagamore of the Pennacooks.24
The Pennacooks, a subdivision of the Abnakis, were, apparently, the nearest principal Indian tribe to the Piscataqua settlements. They dwelt, generally speak- ing, to the westward of the Piscataqua. 24 Around 1680 it was the Pennacooks who were especially con- spicuous. Minor tribal centers were close to the river on the west. Christopher Levett referred to the saga- more, or Indian king of the country near Pannaway, and the Wheelwright Deed in 1629 was signed by sagamores of Pennacook, of Pantucket, of Squamscot and of Newichwannock,3 - all places near or fairly near the Piscataqua River.
Hubbard's "A General History of New England," written about 1680, and the first published history of New England, describes the Piscataqua as follows: "The next river of note, on that side of the coast, about thirty miles from the former, [the Saco] is that called Piscataqua, which has been frequented ever since the country was first planted, by such as came this way for traffick with the inhabitants, natives and others, that have seated themselves in several planta- tions about the uppermost branches thereof. The channel is very swift and spacious, fit for vessels of great burden for the space of nere twenty miles, when itt divides itself into many considerable bayes and small branches, whose streams are, in their passage
77
SETTLEMENT
obstructed with falls of broken rockes that put a stop to such as, at the entrance, might by the help of its: streams, be in hopes of aspiring higher into the inland parts of the country. Merrimac is another gallant river."
One must traverse the Piscataqua to know its vir- tues. It is an unusual river, vigorous and interesting throughout its course. Excepting for several small tributary streams ten or fifteen miles from its mouth, the river is wholly tidal. Through its creeks and branches it penetrates deeply a wide area of the main- land, carrying individuality wherever it reaches, and adding character to what man has accomplished on its banks.
Recent years have not changed the actual river. There is, as previously, the same lower harbor, lending- its waters to two beautiful creeks and various back- waters behind islands that add to its charm. There is the same upper harbor, on the west bank of which now stands Portsmouth, while now on the opposite side is the United States Navy Yard. The river tears along at half tide just as it always did, here and there swirl- ing and eddying, again sweeping out broadly in steady flow.
The lower harbor, with a mile wide entrance where it meets the ocean, covers, first, about a square mile, and then makes a right angle turn behind what, in 1693, became Newcastle. After running westward about a mile and a quarter or so from this turning point, the lower harbor ends in the Narrows, made by the rapidly converging shores of the main river, both sides turning northwestward at this point. Just below the Narrows, on the south side, a mile of shallow waters, that make Newcastle an island, connect the Piscataqua.
78
EARLY PORTSMOUTH HISTORY
with the indent of the sea known as Little Harbor. Little Harbor lies a mile to the west of the main en- trance of the Piscataqua River. It was on a point on the mainland just south of Little Harbor that the first settlement in New Hampshire was effected.
If the first known explorer of this region, Martin Pring, when he rowed up the Piscataqua, reached the Narrows at ebb tide, he may have duplicated the name given a point just below the Narrows on the south shore - "Pull and be Damned Point." If he came up the river on the flood he passed rapidly through the Narrows into the upper harbor, which he saw had a slight westerly crook, and which stretched before him for a little over a mile. The current and the eddies in the upper harbor are very swift. The first widening of the river above the Narrows, at the southwest end of the upper harbor, was in the old days called "the Pool."
Four miles above where Portsmouth now stands the river forks, at what is called Dover Point, which stretches its apex southward on the line of the west bank of the main river just below. Dover Point is separated from the upper harbor of the Piscataqua principally by a beautiful reach of the upper river. It was at Dover Point that the first Dover settlement took place.
The western fork of the Piscataqua at Dover Point soon bends, in a southerly direction, and shortly widens into a large tidal bay, Great Bay, five miles long. Ultimately, through a tidal creek of some length, the waters of Great Bay reach what is now Exeter.
The northern arm of the Piscataqua stretches nar- rowly from Dover Point almost due north for six miles or so. Following this northern arm of the river for
79
SETTLEMENT
some distance from Dover Point one comes to the spot on the east bank of this same northern arm where oc- curred the early settlement of Newichwannock; also on this northern arm of the Piscataqua are Quampe- gan, now Salmon Falls, of early historic fame. On the west bank of this northern arm of the river, some little distance above Dover Point, a tributary river flows into the main stream. This river is known as the Cocheco River, and on it the city of Dover now stands.
Hubbard called the Piscataqua a "river of note." Those who know the river believe him justified.
CHAPTER IV
THE LACONIA ADVENTURERS
T HE Rev. William Hubbard, first historian of New England, who in 1682 received £50 from the General Court of Massachusetts for writing his history,1 says that the discovery of Capt. John Smith and others "of the north parts of Virginia," meaning New England, "being bruited abroad amongst the western country of Europe, no doubt filled the minds of many with the expectations of famous plan- tations likely ere long to be erected in those parts of the New World."1 It was on this basis that the settle- ment on the shores of the Piscataqua began. Hub- bard goes on: "Encouraged by the report of divers mariners that came to make fishing voyages upon the coast,"1 "some merchants and other gentlemen in the west of England, belonging to the cities of Exeter, Bristol, Shrewsbury, and the towns of Plymouth, Dorchester, etc.,"1 "sent over [1623] one Mr. David Thom(p)son."1 "How great a mind and so ever is, or hath been, made about the Province of Maine and the lands about the Pascataqua River, comprehended in sundry patents and grants, that were long since said to be jointly and severally made to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Capt. John Mason, the whole history thereof may be comprised in a few words, so far as anything may be found in either of them worthy to be communicated to posterity."1
This uncomplimentary notice of about the date of 1680 was not quite lived up to by the Rev. William
The Jackson House
Published through the courtesy of The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities
81
THE LACONIA ADVENTURERS
Hubbard. He devoted considerable space in his his- tory to the Piscataqua settlements.1 The Massachu- setts Bay Colony looked with no too friendly eye on their Piscataqua neighbors, and the Rev. William Hubbard, writing for a Massachusetts audience, may have had a somewhat biased point of view.
It is true that the settlement at Pannaway, and its offshoots, grew slowly. The colony apparently did not progress, yet the seven to ten original settlers must have been in touch with England with reason- able frequency. We know of several visitors the little settlement had in 1623 and 1624, as has been stated. Through the years 1625-1628, inclusive, so far as records go, little or no contact appears between Pan- naway and the home country; but it seems evident that more and more fishing and trading expeditions were touching at or near Pannaway. The Plymouth Colony had its own line of communication, and Thom- son's backers in England, and Gorges and Mason, as well as independent fishing vessels, must have had contact with Pannaway during this time. Probably a considerable number of vessels visited the Piscata- qua from 1625 to 1628, inclusive. Thomson is re- ported to have had his wife join him. Edward Hilton's grant of Dover Point, dated March 12, 1629, old style, March 23, 1630, new style,2 stated that he, Hilton, and his associates "hath already transported sundry servants to plant in New England, at a place there called by the natives Wecanacohunt, otherwise Hil- ton's Point, lying some two leagues from the mouth of the River Paskataquack in New England."2 There seems much proof of communication between the Piscataqua settlers and England from 1624 to 1628, inclusive, just as there was communication between
82
EARLY PORTSMOUTH HISTORY
Pannaway and the thin fringe of other New England coast settlements. This communication was sufficient in the latter case, in 1628, for the Piscataqua settle- ments to be assessed £2, 10s, as their share in the expense incurred in preventing the sale of firearms to the Indians.7
Mr. John S. Jenness, in "Notes on the First Plant- ing of New Hampshire," says that it was during the years 1628-1629 "that Mr. Edward Hilton, a member of the Ancient and Honorable Guild of Fishmongers of London, with the aid of a number of Bristol mer- chants, put up a few cabins at the point [Dover Point], which took his name."? The grant Hilton secured in 1629 came from the Council of Plymouth, but covered only that territory known by the Indian name of "Wecanacohunt, or Hilton's Point, with the south side of the river up to the fall of the river and three miles into the mainland,"2 a small tract of land. Mr. Jenness points out that Edward Hilton was himself away from his plantation, presumably in England, when he secured his patent,2 and that he soon after returned to the Piscataqua "with reinforcements and supplies."2 As stated, Edward Hilton was probably with Thomson at Pannaway before moving up the river. Thomson grew dissatisfied with Pannaway and left after a few years, as we have seen. It seems that Edward Hilton, perhaps of a more dogged nature, went where the Indians and where he himself saw a more attractive location than Pannaway provided, moving from Pannaway to Dover Point. On a new and on an independent basis he continued the work that Thomson had begun.
There were, between 1624 and 1628, further indi- cations of communication between Pannaway and
83
THE LACONIA ADVENTURERS
England. Capt. John Mason continued and probably augmented his interest in his New England project. This must have been largely because of reports from the Piscataqua. On November 7, 1629, the Council of Plymouth, that is, the Council for New England, gave Mason a new grant, based on his promise to establish a government. This grant covered the ter- ritory from the middle of the mouth of the Piscataqua, up the river to the farthest head, thence northwest for sixty miles from the mouth of the harbor, then across country to approximately a corresponding point above the mouth of the Merrimac. 3,7 This ter- ritory, the grant stated, Mason "with the consent of the President and Council intends to name New Hamp- shire," 7 this name being used because of Mason's regard for Hampshire, England. As has been stated, Mason lived at Portsmouth, Hampshire, England.
A Rev. John Wheelwright, with others, had, at about this time, bought rights to land near Exeter from the Indians.3,7 Jeremy Belknap, in his "History of New Hampshire," has suggested that Mason se- cured his grant of November 7, 1629, to frustrate Wheelwright. 3
It is to be noted that although the words "New Hampshire" appeared in Mason's grant, this title was little used for many years. As a matter of fact, it was the claim of Capt. John Mason's grandson, about 1674, that revived the name. One writer has gone so far as to say that the territory now known as New Hampshire might easily have continued to this day to bear the name of Piscataqua if it had not been for the legal and political pressure brought to bear by Mason's heir to recover the rights he then claimed. 4 This may be a considerable stretch of the imagination,
84
EARLY PORTSMOUTH HISTORY
but it is interesting. It was not until the existence of a commission, directly from the Crown, in 1679, that the name of New Hampshire became fixed.3
The difference in England between old style dating and new style, when the new was adopted, amounted to eleven days plus the change of having the new year begin on January 1 instead of on March 25, which was the official New Year's day up to 1752 in England. Pope Gregory XIII, in 1582, had reformed the calendar for all Catholic countries, and in March, 1582, had published an edict establishing the new system. He then instructed all Ecclesiastics under his jurisdiction to adopt his new method of dating, urging all Christian princes to do the same. In Great Britain popular prejudice for a long time prevented the gen- eral use of the Gregorian calendar, so called; but there was inconvenience from having two methods in vogue. As a result, in 1752, a statute was passed by Parlia- ment establishing the Gregorian or new style, the law becoming effective September 14, 1752. As Eng- land's old official dating had gained eleven days over the Gregorian or new method, these eleven days were canceled, what would have been September 3, old style, becoming September 14, new style, and the new year, with its new number, coming in on January 1 next thereafter, instead of March 25 next.6
"In 1629 peace was made with France, and the war with Spain was coming to an end."12 This may have paved the way for another grant, dated No- vember 17, 1629, about four months prior to the execution of the Hilton patent. This grant of No- vember 17, 1629, was in favor of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Capt. John Mason and seven associates whom Gorges and Mason were to admit.7,10 This referred
85
THE LACONIA ADVENTURERS
to a considerable territory, vaguely defined, bordering Lake Champlain,5,7 then called "Ye Lake of Ye Irro- quois" (spelt Troquois according to the Indian lan- guage).7 "This grant included all those lands and countries lying adjacent or bordering upon the great lake, or lakes or rivers, commonly called or known by the name of the River and Lake or Rivers and Lakes of the Iroquois."7 The territory was inhabited by savages of the Iroquois who, according to this grant, were supposed to dwell in the land running from Lake Champlain to the coast, between the Merrimac and the Kennebec Rivers.7 According to the deed, the large tract covered by this deed was to be called "the province of 'Laconia." דייי Records show that it was then believed in England that Lake Champlain was only about ninety miles inland, and could almost be reached from the headwaters of the Piscataqua. 2,7 A superlatively erroneous picture of the country as to its fertility and animal life was in the minds of the Englishmen interested in the undertaking.3 Great hopes of profit from trading with the Indians, of taking beaver skins, of discovering mines of precious metals, were built on this grant. Those who ven- tured under its provisions have become known as "The Laconia Adventurers."2 It is to be remem- bered that Gorges and Mason already had a grant of the coast line between the Merrimac and Kennebec, and for a considerable space inland between these rivers, a territory which was partially duplicated in the grant to Mason, dated November 7, 1629. The Laconia grant of November 17, 1629, apparently, did not conflict with either of these two other grants.7
The settlement at Pannaway was not flourishing in 1629. Gorges and Mason had not secured any bene-
86
EARLY PORTSMOUTH HISTORY
fits from their grant of 1622. Now, through this La- conia grant, a new lease of life was given the original joint enterprise of Gorges and Mason. Pannaway seemed the key to the new attempt. The Laconia Adventurers leased the buildings put up by David Thomson at Pannaway.2 From this time on sight was lost of the original merchant adventurers, who, with Thomson, banded together to commence the settle- ment at Pannaway. The Laconia Adventurers, having leased the Pannaway buildings, "established there a factory or entrepot, as a basis for their magnificent designs upon the New York lakes."2 At the same time these Laconia Adventurers fed in new blood to the settlement.
About 1631 there was an oasis of settlement on the upper easterly bank of the north branch of the Piscat- aqua, opposite and considerably above the Hilton settlement at Dover Point.8 It does not appear whether David Thomson commenced this settlement and made it a direct offshoot of Pannaway, or whether Gorges and Mason sent out a very few men to begin this up-river plantation. The settlement occurred at Ne- wichwannock,2 or Newichewannick,5 near the falls of the upper river (Quanpegan Falls) 2 now part of South Berwick. Part or all of this tract is said to have been purchased from the Indians.8 The post consisted of only a rude. building,1 and it was probably instituted for trading with the Indians and for trap- ping. This was, very possibly, the third house that Edward Colcott said that he found on the Piscataqua when he came there in 1631, the other two being one at Pannaway and one at Hilton's Point. It is stated that prior to 1631 no record exists of the settle- ment at Newichwannock.8 The Laconia Adventurers,
87
THE LACONIA ADVENTURERS
though not clearly as a company, took over the house and plantation at Newichwannock, as well as the one at Pannaway.8 .The principal house on the river, however, was the large house at Pannaway, built by Thomson and his men.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.