USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Portsmouth > Early Portsmouth history > Part 9
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John Crowther
William Berry
Anthony Brackett
Jno. Pickering
Michael Chatterton
Jno. Billing
Jno. Wall
Jno. Wolten
Robert Puddington
Nicholas Row
Matthew Coe
William Palmer 13
Rev. Lucius Harrison Thayer, D.D., of Portsmouth has pointed out, in "The Story of a Religious De- mocracy During Two and One-Half Centuries," that the use of the term "wardens" in this Glebe deed of trust probably accounts for the term "wardens" as applied today in various churches. He says that this term is "probably unknown in non-Episcopal churches, except in this region." 14 Twelve acres of the glebe land were situated in what is now the heart of Ports- mouth.14 The rest was on the road leading from the head of the north mill pond, to the plains, 14 near what was referred to as "Strawberry Banke Creeke."
Gibson was sent from England as minister to a fishing plantation belonging to one Trelawney.1 This
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THE PISCATAQUA SETTLEMENTS, 1635-1641
plantation was on Richman's Island, near what is now Portland, Maine. Gibson removed from Rich- man's Island to Pascataquack.3 After Massachusetts took over the Piscataqua settlements, the Bay gov- ernment found fault with Gibson. As Massachusetts put it: "He was wholly addicted to the hierachy and discipline of England and exercised his ministerial func- tion according to the ritual. He was summoned before the Court of Boston for scandalizing the government and denying their title, but upon his submission they discharged him."1 This incident occurred apparently late in 1640.1 In 1642 Gibson was entertained by fishermen at the Isles of Shoals, when he preached to them. 3
The Massachusetts Bay government was operated continually in a firmer manner. In 1637 the Pequot War against the Narragansett Bay Indians was waged.6 Again, in 1637, Mrs. Hutchinson was tried and con- victed of traducing the ministers, and on declaring her revelations she was banished.6 Those in command at the Bay did not waste time or effort in the administra- tion of their scope of duty, and they dealt sternly with those who were not in harmony with them.
When Dover, in 1639, had applied to Massachusetts for union, as has been stated, a commission was ap- pointed to treat with the settlers at Dover Point. This particular conference did not bring immediate results, but in 1640 the famous Hugh Peters, with two others, came to the Piscataqua River, sent by the Massa- chusetts Bay government, "to understand the minds of the people, to recognize some differences between them, and to prepare them." 7 "Peters spent a con- siderable time on the river, and upon his return, in the spring of 1641, he reported to Governor Winthrop that
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the Piscataqua people were, in his opinion, ripe for our government. They grone for Government and Gospel all over that side of the country. Alas, poor bleeding soules!" 7
A year or more of agitation followed the conference between Dover and the government of Massachusetts Bay, and the consequent appointment of a commission by Massachusetts Bay to treat with the Dover settlers.9 Although during this time no agreement was arrived at, there was a steady drawing together of the settlers on the Piscataqua, both at Dover and near the mouth of the river, and the Boston government. "Distraction in England had cut off all hope of Royal attention." 1 Finally, on April 14, 1641,1 the then patentees of the Dover colony transferred their title to the Dover Point territory, and the colony on it, to the General Court of Massachusetts, "to be forever annexed to this jurisdiction." 9 This transaction was concluded April 14, 1641, in the presence of the General Court of Massachusetts, certain of the patentees as of that date, of the Dover colony, signing for themselves and for their associates.1 On the basis of the consent of the settlers on the west bank of the lower Piscataqua River, these same signers of this document apparently included, in the deed of transfer to the General Court of Massachusetts, Strawberry Bank and the entire settlement grouped with it, situated on the west bank of the Piscataqua River. 6, 9
This submission was dated the 14th of the fourth month, April 14, 1641.1 It read as follows: "Whereas some lords, knights, gentlemen and others did pur- chased of Mr. Edward Hilton and some merchants of Bristol, two patents, the one called Wecahannet, or Hilton's Point, commonly knowne by the name of
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THE PISCATAQUA SETTLEMENTS, 1635-1641
Dover, or Northam, the other pattent set forth by the name of the south part of the ryver Pascataquack, beginning at the seaside or near thereabout and coming around the said land by the river unto the falls of Quam- scott, as may more fully appear by the said grant, and whereas also the inhabitants residing at present within the limits of both the said grants have of late and formally complained of the want of some good govern- ment amongst them, and desired some help from the Massachusetts Bay, whereby they may be ruled and ordered according unto God, both in church and com- monweal, and for the avoyding of such unsupportable disorders whereby God hath been much dishonored amongst them, those gentlemen whose names are here specified do, in behalf of the rest of the patentees, dispose of the land and jurisdiction of the premises as followeth: being willing to further such a good work have hereby for themselves and in the name of the rest of the patentees given up and set over all that power of jurisdiction or government of the said people dwell- ing or abiding within the limits of both the said pat- ents, unto the government of the Massachusetts Bay, by them to be ruled and ordered, in all causes criminal and civill as inhabitants dwelling within the limitts of the Masachusetts Bay." 7 The General Court, in an order of October 9, 1641,1 arranged for the necessary details as to the government of the submitting colonies, which had thus transferred their rights April 14, 1641.
Hutchinson, in reviewing the acquisition of the Piscataqua settlements by Massachusetts, says par- ticularly of Strawberry Bank, that is, Portsmouth, "although nothing is said of Strawberry Bank in the submission yet all the settlements seem to have con- curred, and Williams, the governor below, was made
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one of the magistrates." 6 Mr. Everett S. Stackpole, in his "History of New Hampshire," says of the lower river settlements: "Meanwhile the inhabitants of Strawberry Bank had expressed their desire to come under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, and on the ninth day of the eighth month [old style], 1641, the General Court formally took under its government the whole region west of the Piscataqua except Exe- ter." 9 Mr. Nathaniel Adams, in "Annals of Ports- mouth," says: "The government of Massachusetts, desirous of extending their jurisdiction over a territory which they thought was included in their charter, were willing to receive them [the Piscataqua settlements]. On the 14th of April, the terms of the union were agreed on, and the contract was subscribed in the presence of the General Court. By this contract Massachusetts was to have jurisdiction of government of the said people dwelling or abiding within the limits of the said patents, to be ruled and ordered in all causes, criminal and civil, as inhabitants dwelling within the limits of Massachusetts' government, and to be subject to pay in church and commonwealth as the said inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay do, and no other: and the freemen of the said two pat- ents to enjoy the like liberties as other freemen do within the said Massachusetts government: and that there shall be a court of justice kept within one of the two patents, which shall have the same power that the courts of Salem and Ipswich have. Exeter was not included in the contract, but was admitted into the union in September, the following year." 2
Massachusetts promptly, June 2, 1641, ordered com- missioners to the Piscataqua, 15 who appointed Francis Williams, Thomas Warnerton and Ambross Gibbins
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THE PISCATAQUA SETTLEMENTS, 1635-1641
of the lower river settlements as magistrates of their district. 16 The General Court at Boston confirmed these appointments.2 Because of the small number of settlers living at Strawberry Bank and its allied ter- ritory, these same commissioners, in 1641, refused to consider Strawberry Bank a town,13 on which point they had authority to decide. It is also to be noted that there is no record earlier than 1652 of Strawberry Bank sending the two deputies she was permitted to the General Court of Massachusetts. 13
The General Court of Massachusetts passed an order in October, 1641, including the words, "according to our patent the river of Piscataquack is within the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts." 6 The General Court then declared the inhabitants on the west and the south side of the Piscataqua, both at Dover and at Strawberry Bank, to belong to the jurisdiction of Massachusetts.1 So far as orders of the General Court could effect it, the inhabitants of Strawberry Bank, which was soon to change its name to Portsmouth, were at last included among the citizens of the Massa- chusetts Bay Colony, where it was claimed they had belonged since the date of the charter of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay.
CHAPTER VII
STRAWBERY BANKE
I N January, 1641, before the Massachusetts Bay government took over the Piscataqua settlements, "a shallop with eight men, though advised to the contrary, on the Lord's Day would go from Pascataqua toward Pemaquid, but by the northwest wind were driven to sea for fourteen days. At length they re- covered Monhegin. But four of them, in this time, had perished with the cold." 9 This was the year that "the bay before Boston" was frozen over from January 18 to February 21, so that "they passed over with horse and cart." 9 Of 1642, Winthrop wrote: "this winter was the greatest snow we had since we came into the country, but it lay not long." 10
As soon as Massachusetts gained control of the Piscataqua territory, the lower plantation, as Mr. John S. Jenness calls it, fell into the hands of strict Puritans, who used their new power, religious and civic, and allotted nearly all the valuable lands among themselves. 11
In December, 1642, "those of the lower part of the river Pascataquak" invited Mr. James Parker of Weymouth to be their minister.10 Mr. Parker was "a godly man and a scholar," 10 and one who, for many years, had been a deputy of the public court.10 After advising with divers of the magistrates and elders, Mr. Parker accepted the call, and spent the winter of 1642 and 1643 with the settlers on the lower Piscat-
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aqua. "It pleased God to give great success to his labors, so as above forty of them, whereof the most had been very profane, and some of them professed enemies to the way of churches, wrote to the magistrates and elders acknowledging the sinful course they had lived in and bewailing the same, and blessing God for calling them out of it, and earnestly desiring that Mr. Parker be settled among them." Later, so the records read, "most of them fell back again in time, embracing this present world." 12
Though the commissioners, appointed under the agreement of 1641 with Massachusetts, at first refused to consider Strawberry Bank a town,1 the lower settle- ments, as well as Dover, were now growing considerably. As the lower Piscataqua settlements grew, they became more a part by themselves in the eyes of Massachusetts and of other outsiders; that is, they were no longer grouped as they had been, vaguely, with the entire Piscataqua River group of settlements, upper and lower, but were looked on more generally as a unit. What had been known under the collective name of "Pascataquack," and later by the term "the lower Piscataqua settlements," now took on the name of the principal unit among the lower river settlements. This name was Strawberry Bank. The town that developed out of these lower river settlements was named "Strawbery Banke." 1 It was so spelt in the old Portsmouth town records, under date of August, 1643,1 in recording an order of the court at Boston. The settlement was referred to by the name of Straw- berry Bank in Dover, in 1645.14 In 1645 Strawberry Bank included Newcastle, Rye, Greenland and part of Newington.17 Later, as the separate parts of the lower Piscataqua River settlements themselves grew,
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EARLY PORTSMOUTH HISTORY
and needed distinctive names, the term Strawberry Bank was applied simply to what is now Portsmouth, to differentiate it from the near-by localities, - Great Island, Sandy Beach, Greenland and Newington. The term "the Bank" was applied to Portsmouth by dwellers in the near-by towns well into the eighteenth century, though seventy-five years or more before that time Portsmouth was Portsmouth in the eye of the law.
It was under the name of Strawberry Bank that the town organization was inaugurated, but on just what date we do not know, owing to the destruction of many of the earliest town records. We read: "At a town meeting held at Strawberry Bank the 15th day of August 1646, it is ordered that John Pickringe shall have four acres of marsh in the fresh marsh." 11 An entry of the same date refers to the "great house." 1 The first town record remaining, undated, provided that "Brian Pendilton, John Pickringe, Renald Fernald,
Sherborn, and James Johnson, shall have full power to - and lay out land according as they think best for the conveniency of the town; and we do fully agree that these before named towns-men shall have full power to hear all our town affairs as though our- selves the whole town were present."1 This entry was signed by William (Seavy), Elias Stileman, Robert Mussell, William (Brookin), Robert Davis, Walter Abbite, Francis Rand, Thaddeus Riddau, John Jones, Roger Knight, Oliver Trimings, Anthony (Bracket), Francis Trike, George Walton, John Jackson, John Sherburn, Thomas (Peverley), William -, Robert (Padington), Thomas Walford, Richard Cutt.1 Ap- parently the town organization first occurred spon- taneously, without further authority. 18
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For a number of years Brian Pendilton, or Pendle- ton, Renald Fernald, Henry Sherborn, John Pick- ringe, or Pickering, and James Johnson signed the early records, showing that this group acted as towns- men, and as such had charge of town affairs. Straw- berry Bank was growing quickly at this time into a. settlement of some size and importance. The town was conducted in a satisfactory manner, according to the best traditions of English towns. This was in keeping with the general procedure among all New England towns of the period.
Town meetings at this time, and later, did not hesi- tate to take up and regulate the lives of individuals within the respective town limits, to an astonishing degree. Apparently almost anything which any con- siderable number of those attending town meetings considered important, as affecting the interests of the entire town, was discussed, no matter how intimately it concerned a private individual. If the town, as a. whole, considered that a situation under discussion deserved regulation by the town, or would be bettered. for the good of the whole by such regulation, a town meeting regulated accordingly. The regulations gov- erning individual action in this country during the World War, under which so many felt that they were rigorously treated, and the fixing of prices occurring at the same time, were almost as nothing compared with the regulation of individual lives by town meet- ings, during the early colonial period of New England.
The inclusion in the town Strawberry Bank, later Portsmouth, of Great Island or Newcastle, Rye, Green- land and part of Newington lasted for many years. Greenland was part of Portsmouth until 1703, when it was separately incorporated.2 The settlement of
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EARLY PORTSMOUTH HISTORY
"Greenland" was so called in the Portsmouth town records in 1661.1 It had three hundred and twenty inhabitants in 1705.2 Newington was incorporated as a parish in 1713, and as a town in 1760.2 Rye, in- cluding Sandy Beach, was incorporated as a town in 1719,2 and Newcastle, which at first included Rye, was separately incorporated as a town in 1693.2
What is now Kittery, across the river, had been settled about 1635 by men who came over through Gorges and Mason and the Laconia Adventurers. Land was allotted in Kittery by Walter Neale, repre- senting the owners. Mr. Everett S. Stackpole says in "Old Kittery and Her Families" that the only deed by Neale on record was to Thomas Cammock, who, apparently, was on the Piscataqua in 1632. This deed, Mr. Stackpole says, covered what later became the Shapleigh farm in what is now Eliot. "It is prob- able," says Mr. Stackpole, "that Thomas Wannerton and Henry Jocelyn also had deeds from Neale of lands adjacent to Cammock's." Alexander Shapleigh built the first house in Kittery, in 1636, on the point now owned by Mr. Stephen Decatur. Nicholas Shapleigh, in 1635, owned this land, or land alongside of it, which was early known as "Warehouse Point." On Decem- ber 12, 1636, Arthur Champernowne was granted what is now known as Gerrish Island plus Cutt's Island. This estate was named Dartington in the deed, "from the name of an estate owned by Champernowne in England." 3 Arthur Champernowne's son, Capt. Fran- cis Champernowne, inherited this New England estate, which became known as Champernowne's Island. Capt. Francis Champernowne is buried on the far eastern end of Cutt's Island, part of his original estate, the stones marking his grave standing to this day.
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Francis Champernowne was a cousin of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and a leader in early Piscataqua days.3
Kittery was called in 1642 "Pascattaquacke in the Province of Mayne."4 The name Kittery probably comes from Kittery Point, on the river Dart, England, on the opposite side of the river from Dartmouth. There have been other traditions as to the name, but the association between Kittery Point on the Dart and Kittery Point on the Piscataqua seems logical and almost a certainty. "Francis Champernowne came from Dartington, about ten miles from Kingsweare, on the river Dart, where Kittery Point is located, also a village known as Kittery Court." 5 Alexander Shapleigh came from Kingsweare. "Either of these might have given the name to the settlement which afterward became the town of Kittery in 1647." The author wrote to the mayor of Dartmouth, England, asking for confirmation of the name Kittery Point as applied to a locality near Dartmouth, England. He received the following reply :
BOROUGH OF DARTMOUTH
TOWN CLERK'S OFFICE, GUILDHALL, DARTMOUTH, 23d, November, 1925.
DEAR SIR: - His Worship the Mayor has handed me your letter of the 9th instant, and in reply thereto, would inform you that Kittery point still exists on the Kingswear side of the River Dart.
Yours faithfully,
J. J. R. DAY, .
Town Clerk.
Eliot, at first part of Kittery, became a parish July 17, 1660, and a town March 1, 1810. The name of Eliot comes from the Eliot family. There was an association
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EARLY PORTSMOUTH HISTORY
with Robert Eliot who lived in Newcastle, and whose children married into Kittery families; and also the story goes that the Rev. John Eliot of Boston, "an intimate friend of Gen. Andrew Pepperell Fernald" of Kittery, desired that the town take his name, prom- ising a bell for the meeting house "as a christening gift." "Gen. Fernald strongly seconded his request, and so we have been called Eliot to this day." & "In regard to the bell, - no belfry was ever builded, and so the bestowment was never made!" 8
Above Strawberry Bank, the considerably larger settlement of Dover Point was growing at this time. In Dover, too, town affairs were well regulated. In Dover, in 1643, "George Webb was presented by the court for living idle like a swine." 14 In 1645 John Baker was fined ten shillings for drawing his sword and running after Indians with it drawn. He was further presented for beating another so that he was black and blue, and for throwing a fire shovel at his wife.14 In Dover, in 1649, the Oyster River falls were granted to Valentine Hill and Thomas Beard.14 The earliest record of any town meeting in Dover is dated October 1, 1647.6
At the Shoals the population was growing. Ulti- mately, Mr. Jenness says, the Shoals population ran up to about six hundred.16 In 1653 there were at least twenty there, for at that time "some twenty of the inhabitants petitioned that year to be made into a separate township." 16 Their petition was not granted at that time, and the inhabitants at the Shoals again petitioned, in 1659.16 In 1661 Massachusetts ordered that all the Isles of Shoals should be incorporated into the township of Appledore. 16 The name Apple- dore comes, probably, from the name of an English
Landing and Paneling, Moffat-Ladd House
Published through the courtesy of The New Hampshire Society of the Colonial Dames of America
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fishing hamlet in the parish of Northam, North Devon- shire. 16 Dover was first called Northam, and the sequence of the association seems to have carried over to the name Appledore. The name Gosport, which later was given to the township on Star Island, 16 prob- ably comes from Gosport, England, "a little village half a mile over the water" from Portsmouth, England. 20 It was at Gosport, England, that on August 18, 1642, one of the first battles was fought between the forces of Charles I and Parliament.20 Quoting from Dickens, "the war broke out at Portsmouth." 19 "Annals of Portsmouth" England, by W. H. Saunders, state that a Lord Wentworth was one of the leaders of the Royal forces in the town at the time of this attack. 20
So confused were the Gorges and Mason lands, and so closely allied, that for a considerable time nearly every important person dwelling in either territory seems to have lived a short time before, or a short time afterwards, in the territory belonging originally to the other patron, or in Dover.13 The same stock was up and down and across the river, and the fact that Mason or Gorges had been the original owner seems to have made no vital difference in the local point of view. By 1650,-Strawberry Bank, Dover and Kittery were fairly on their own footing, and each was distinct from any other town. But there was a homogeneous feeling covering the three towns. This was especially true of Strawberry Bank and Kittery, the association lasting to this day. In New Hampshire the four towns of Strawberry Bank, or Portsmouth, Dover, Exeter and Hampton were the only civic communities for a con- siderable period.
Land titles were a source of much regulation by the towns in the early days. York Deeds, Book I,
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EARLY PORTSMOUTH HISTORY
Introduction, gives the following statement of the point of view regarding land titles in Maine: "The source of all land titles in Maine is the crown of Eng- land. The first English settlement here was authorized by a royal license, which guaranteed to the emigrants all the liberties, franchises and immunities of English- men at home. They came as English subjects, and they brought with them the laws of England."4 This same authority declares that one purpose of the coming of these emigrants was to bring the savages living in this region to humane civilization and to a settled and quiet government. "The Indians occupied the soil as a boat occupies a river. They did not enclose and improve any considerable portion of it. They did not possess it as their property. The origin of property is the right which every man has to the fruits of his own labor. If he fences, clears and cultivates a piece of land, previously unimproved and unoccupied, he creates a value which is justly his. The Indian deeds conveyed no property of this kind. The King's license conveyed no property in this sense. King and Saga- more alike granted permission to English subjects to create property in American lands."4 The follow- ing deed of land, taken from York Deeds, Part I, Folio 12, illustrates one transfer: "Know all men by these presents, that I, Robert Mendam, of Pascata- quacke, have bought the house and four accors of ground of Thomas Crockett, wch he bought of William Wormwood. And I, the sd Robert Mendam am to give to the sd Thomas Crocket for his house and four accors of ground, the sum of £9 and 10 shillings, to be paid the next springe, £3 in money and the rest in comodities, at Mikellmus next in the year 1648." This deed was dated September 21, 1647.4
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In 1644 the "Annals of Portsmouth," by Nathaniel Adams, say that Warnerton died, and that at that time Sampson Lane, one of Mason's stewards, took possession of the Great House for two years.7 There were attached to the Great House at this time, Adams says, about one thousand acres of land, mostly under improvement.7
In Strawberry Bank, "at a town meeting held on the 10th day of July, 1648, whereas there was by a former act of the town, granted unto the parsonage house the full tenth part of the fresh marsh, with upland to be- long thereunto, and as yet the tenth part cannot be known, by reason it is not yet measured nor laid out; we whose names are underwritten, do assign unto said parsonage house, four acres of the before named fresh marsh next westward of the marsh of Mr. Francis Williams, which in his time he mowed, and upon the south side of the freshet or brook, the which marsh was never mowed." This was signed by Renald Fern- ald, William Seavy and Robert Padington.1
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