USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Gazetteer of Grafton county, N. H. 1709-1886 > Part 44
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According to the best information that can be obtained, the following are the names of the settlers up to 1770, and approximately the date of their set- tlement, some being single men and dwelling probably in the families of others :-
Edmund Freeman, 3d. .1765
Dea. Jonathan Curtice. . . 1766
Benjamin Davis 1766
Benjamin Royce, (or Rice). 1766
Gideon Smith. 1766
Asa Parker .. 1766
Jonathan Lord. 1767 Isaac Waldbridge 1767
Timothy Smith. 1767
Deliverance Woodward. 1767
William Woodward 1768
Dea. John Ordway. 1768
Gideon Abba 1768
Isaac Bridgman. 1768
David Mason 1868
Dea. Stephen Benton 1768
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TOWN OF HANOVER.
Jeremiah Trescott
1768
Dea. John Wright
1769
Jonathan Feeman
1769
John House. .
1769
Daniel Wright .
1769
John Bridgman
1769
David Woodward.
I769
James Murch.
1769
John Tenney
1769
But an event now occurred that wrought a change in the town's prospects, and gave it its future. Rev. Eleazer Wheelock, a Presbyterian minister, had from a modest beginning, about 1740, in the private instruction of a few youths preparing for college, gathered at Lebanon, Conn., a large and flour- ishing school, maintained principally by charity, for the benefit of young men designing to enter upon missionary work among the Indians. As early as 1743 Wheelock had been persuaded to receive into his family an Indian youth from a neighboring tribe, named Sampson Occum. Having thus his thoughts and sympathies enlisted in that direction, by degrees he gave up his school very largely to the instruction of Indian youth, procured by his untir- ing efforts from the Delawares of New Jersey, and from the Mohawks and Oneidas of New York, as well as from the tribes immediately about him.
In the course of time his enterprise became widely known, and received the sympathy and support of benevolent persons and societies, and official patron- age from the Colonial authorities of Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Principally through Whitefield, with whom he was intimately associated, in labors and in persecution, at the time of the "great awakening" in 1740, his affair was made known in Great Britain, to the Earl of Dart- mouth and to other prominent philanthropists, and numerous generous dona- tions came to him from them. Finally, at the close of the year 1765, at the earnest solicitation of Whitefield, his earliest Indian pupil, Occum, now be- come a preacher among his own people of remarkable ability and power, was sent out to represent the cause and gather funds among the churches of Great Britain. He was accompanied by Rev. Nathaniel Whitaker, of Norwich, Conn., also an eminent preacher. The mission resulted in a success as unexpected as it was gratifying. Occum took the people by storm, and, in - spite of the jealous opposition of some of the church officials, in the course of two years he and his companion collected in England and Scotland about ten thousand pounds sterling for the support of the school, which was placed in trust partly in London and partly in Edenburgh, to be expended in pre- paring and sending missionaries among the Indians.
The location of the school was not considered wholly favorable to its object as thus developed, and for a number of years its removal into the Indian country had been in contemplation, but means were wanting. The funds obtained abroad rended this now feasible, and steps were at once taken by Wheelock to procure a suitable situation. Schemes without number were proposed and considered, extending all the way from New Hampshire to Virginia. Many flattering offers were received, as the school had by this time acquired a great reputation, and many places were desirous of sharing
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TOWN OF HANOVER.
its benefits. Wheelock's preference lay towards the country of the Six Nations, in New York or Pennsylvania, somewhere in the valley of the Susquehanna ; but circumstances constrained his acceptance of offers made by Governor John Wentworth, of New Hampshire. A prominent, if not the controlling motive, lay in the offer by Wentworth of a charter of incorporation, which Wheelock had been for years soliciting elsewhere in vain. But at the same time it can hardly be doubted that the recent emigration of many of his neighbors and friends to the " Cohos country "-as this whole region was then promiscuously styled-served to draw his attention and his desires in this direction.
The formal determination of the matter was referred to the English trus- tees, who promptly decided, conformably to Wheelock's wish, in favor of some part of that region ; but when it came to a specific selection of a site, the clamor, and with it his perplexities. were redoubled. The governor, with no selfish motive, was bent upon placing it in or near the township of Landaff, which was to be granted to the institution, while others urged the selection of other towns, and among them Hanover. At one time a spot in Haverhill was actually determined upon, but difficulties arose, and Wheelock, upon a peronal inspection, preferred Hanover, and was able so to present the matter to the governor and his associates that they unanimously acquiesced in that conclusion.
An ample charter had already been given by Governor Wentworth in the name of the Crown, December 19, 1769, and on the same day that the loca- tion was finally settled, July 5, 1770, ex-Governor Benning Wentworth gave to Wheelock, at Portsmouth, a deed in favor of the college of his 500 acre lot in Hanover, on which to erect it. The school in Connecticut had borne, in honor of one of its benefactors, a gentleman of Mansfield, the name of "Moor's In- dian charity school." The charter, designed at first merely to perpetuate this enterprise, was in its execution, with wise foresight, expanded to embrace a college, to which was appropriately given the name of Wheelock's principal English trustee-DARTMOUTH. Circumstances which it is not necessaryto relate made it afterwards desirable for some purposes to retain also the original style and organization, so that practically the school and the college have co-existed in a sort of ill defined relationship ever since, which has on several occasions given rise to serious complications.
The selection of Hanover for this purpose was the signal for the most bit- ter and persistent attacks on the college, and upon Wheelock and the gover- nor himself. The town was denounced in the public prints, the selection at- tributed to the worst of motives, and many persons who had subscribed for the college threatened to cancel their subscriptions. Though very little loss of that kind actually resulted, the jealousy thus inspired added strength to a small party in the state that was already hostile to the college, and able at various times and even in a succeeding generation to work considerably to its injury.
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TOWN OF HANOVER.
In addition to the governor's right, the proprietors of Hanover gave ad- joining it on the east 1,000 acres to the college, and 300 to Wheelock. be- sides 400 acres to Wheelock in the extreme northeastern corner of the town. The town of Lebanon gave also to the college a tract of 1,400 acres adjoin- ing the Hanover grant, on the south, while at the same time Wheelock him- self and members of his family purchased some of the proprietors' lots in Hanover abutting on the north, so that there came to be thus a compact body of nearly 4,000 acres of land subject to the college and its officers, though every rod of it was unbroken forest.
Thither Wheelock came in August, 1770, built a log hut eighteen feet square, and made an opening where the village now stands. The pines that covered the plain were of the largest size. The governor gave a dispensation for cutting them, and, before winter came, a circular space of six acres was cleared, and several comfortable buildings were erected, where the president, his family and the students found shelter. The fallen pines covered the ground to the depth of five feet. One specimen, of whose dimension a record is preserved, measured 270 feet from butt to top. In a few years more than 2,000 acres of land in the immediate vicinity of the col- lege were fitted for cultivation and pasturage, and a village grew up, which, in 1775, besides the college buildings, mills, barns, a brew and malt-house and blacksmith shop, comprised eleven comfortable private dwellings within sixty rods of the college, of which at least four were of two stories. Three of these are in good habitable condition to this day.
The impetus thus given to the prosperity of the town was very great. The price of land was doubled, and more. The town, till then despised by its neigh- bors, now began to take the lead. In 1775 its population was 380, exclusive of students. Its valuation in 1773 was the fourth in the county, surpassed only by Haverhill, Plymouth and Lebanon. In 1777 Hanover stood in that particular at the head of Grafton county, and retained its prominence fifty years. It ranked the seventeenth in the State in 1808, and now, with a population of 2,147, stands in that particular the twenty-first in the State, and the fourth in the county, and in valuation the twenty-fourth in the State, and the third in the county. Of the sixty-seven towns that surpassed it in valuation in 1777, but thirteen do so now; the balance of the twenty-four being manufacturing towns, mostly of recent growth.
This prosperity has been mainly due to the presence and influence of the college, so that the history of the town is inseperably connected with that of the college, which has been to it as its vital breath. At the same time circum- stances of location have, from the first, to a certain extent, isolated the "col- lege district." Remote from the other centers of population in the town, three to six miles distant, it had from the start a society of its own, and an independent religious organization. Moreover, there had been made by the governor and trustees, a condition of the location, that a tract three miles square carved out of Hanover and Lebanon, and covering the body of
20*
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TOWN OF HANOVER.
land before mentioned, should be set off as a distinct town to be under the jurisdiction of the college. At various times from 1771 down to 1792, at .. tempts were made to fulfill this condition. Both Hanover and Lebanon gave formal consent by repeated votes, but the General Assembly, from whatever motives, uniformily refused to sanction it. Once, as will be seen, the plan seemed about to be realized in another way-indeed, to have been already accomplished-but fate was unkind, and the scheme died in its infancy.
Prior to 1775 the town was not represented in the General Assembly. Efforts. were made to obtain that privilege, but without success. In the fourth Pro- vincial Congress, however, held at Exeter, in May, 1775, John Wheelock ap- peared for Hanover, and was received. Under the act of November 4, 1775, this town was classed with Lebanon, Relhan (now Enfield), Canaan, Cardi- gan (now Orange), and Grafton, and was designated as the leading town of the class. But such was the dissatisfaction with that measure of represen- tation, that under the lead of Hanover and Lebanon, the towns of this class refused to send a representative, and the refusal was reiterated upon a second summons. Influenced by their example, other towns took a similar stand, until the whole of Grafton county and part of Cheshire was in open opposi- tion to the Exeter government. At the call of Hanover and Lebanon, con- ventions were held, and printed declarations issued, which exerted the most profound influence throughout the valley. The movement first took definite shape at a convention held in 1776, in the college hall at Hanover. A pam- phlet address was sent out from this meeting, from the pen, as is supposed, of Professor Bezaleel Woodward. President Weare, in his correspondence, alluded to it as "fabricated at Dartmouth college," and ascribed to its influ- ence, "with the assiduity of these college gentlemen." The revolt of Graf- ton county, Hanover, under the lead of Professor Woodward and Jonathan Freeman, adhered warmly to this course. It joined in the union with Ver- mont in 1778 and in 1781, and with Lebanon was the last of all the disaf- fected towns east of the river to renew allegiance to New Hampshire.
It was fondly hoped to establish a new State extending over both banks of the Connecticut, and having its capital in the river valley. Nowhere else could have been found a more appropriate site for that purpose than in the immediate neighborhood of the college. The hope of realizing that arrange- ment gave a new stimulus to this community. Professor Woodward resigned his position in the college and devoted his great talents wholly to public affairs. A printer was obtained, who set up a press here in the summer or fall of 1778. Advantage was also taken of the opportunity to carry into execution the long cherished plan of erecting the college district into a town by itself. It was accomplished in March, 1778, with the assent of Hanover and Lebanon, by a formal declaration of independence, whereby the new town took the name of Dresden.
This action was based upon the principle, accepted by the disaffected town as a whole, and formerly declared by their convention a few months
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TOWN OF HANOVER.
earlier, that the cessation of the Provincial government left the towns inde- pendent corporate units, with power, of course, freely to combine and arrange their affairs as they should see fit.
Dresden took its place immediately in full standing alongside the other towns. Hanover and Dresden were separately enrolled and represented in the Vermont assembly, in both unions, and for a period of about six years, conducted their affairs in all respects, as distinct towns. Upon final recon- ciliation with New Hampshire, this arrangement fell to the ground, with the movement that gave it effect.
Both Hanover and Dresden were active in support of the war. Their dis- affection towards the Exeter government did not prevent their meeting, so far as possible, all the requisitions made upon them, though at times protesting with the other towns that they acquiesced in them as requests, and not as commands which they were bound to obey. They were prominent moreover in providing further for the safety of these frontiers, to which neither the Exeter nor Philadelphia Congress gave adequate attention.
In September, 1776, a voluntary independent company was raised at Han- over in the space of three days, and rendered important service at St Johns and at Quebec. There were numerous alarms from that time down to a late period of the war, in which the militia of these towns turned out at short no- tice ; but for some reason, though often threatened, this region was never ac- tually invaded. President Wheelock was accustomed to ascribe this im- munity to the presence here in his school of quite a number of Indian boys from Canada. It is said, however, that the party who destroyed Royalton in 1780, first, after being frightened from Newbury, turned their thoughts to- wards Dresden, but found the river too broad and deep for their purpose.
After the war Hanover, in common with other neighboring towns, was made the subject of vexatious proceedings for enforcement of delinquent taxes due to the state. Warrants were several times issued, and once, at least, executed by the imprisonment of the selectmen. After repeated solici- tation the taxes were in part abated, the towns having combined anew to present their grievances to the legislature.
The subsequent history of the town, apart from the college, differs little from that of other farming communities, except perhaps in the large num- ber of able and eminent men, scattered even in distant states, who first saw the light on these rugged hills.
The exclusive privilege of a ferry over the Connecticut river was granted to the college in 1772. With consent of the trustees a toll-bridge was built by a corporation in 1796, and a free bridge by the town in 1858. This was the first free bridge ever built on the Connecticut river.
In the second war with England the sentiment of Hanover was over- whelmingly federal, and bitterly hostile to the national administration. At a special meeting, called for the purpose, the town passed by a strong vote reso- lutions of the most pronounced character, and in 1814 furnished to the Hartford
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TOWN OF HANOVER.
convention. in the person of Hon. Miles Olcott, one of the two delegates from New Hampshire. The town adhered to the federal party as long as that party endured. It was afterwards for a time Democratic, but has been Republican by a hundred majority since the period of the civil war.
To the army in Mexico a few scattered recruits were furnished; but in the war of the Rebellion many in all ranks went from the town and college, though no special organization was recruited here.
The college came through the revolutionary period in better condition than was to be expected. Having expended its English funds before the war began, in erecting buildings and clearing lands, it found itself tolerably well prepared for self support, and, though harassed with burdens and debts, was enabled through all vicissitudes to pursue its course without material inter- ruption. The first president, Wheelock, died in 1779, and was succeeded by his son, John Wheelock, who was then in the Continental military service, as Lieut .- Colonel of Bedel's regiment, serving on the staff of General Gates. He entered soon upon efforts to relieve and enlarge the college, and made for that purpose a European tour in 1782-'84. He had little success in it, and suffered shipwreck on the homeward voyage. He maintained his position at the head of the college with considerable credit, until by certain arbitrary tendencies in his disposition, he got the enmity of the village people. and by degrees of the majority of the board of trustees. Finding himself, in 1815, in a hopeless minority in that body, he appealed to the legislature of New Hampshire, with bitter accusations against his associates. They in conse- quence immediately removed him from his position, and put Rev. Francis Brown in his place.
The affair assumed a party aspect. Federalists in general adhered to the college, and the democrats, under the lead of Isaac Hill, with his usual vio- lence, took sides for the party objects with Wheelock, though the antecedents of the latter and his immediate friends were wholly federalists. The result, from this cause with others, was a revolution in the politics of the State, and the passage by a strict party vote of a series of acts assuming to amend the char- ter of the college and transform it into a university, with an enlarged body of trustees and a new governing body styled overseers. The vote of the house of representatives stood ninety seven to eighty-three. Seventy-five members recorded a written protest. Unfortunately for the success of the scheme, the old college board was in undisputed possession of the property and franchise, and all but one of its members declining to act under the new regime. The board refused to assent to the modifications of the charter or recognize the new members. The latter not having themselves a quorum were unable to organize without further legislation ; and not until March, 1817, was the " university" put into actual operation. Its prestige, what it had, was so much weakened by this delay, and by the steady maintainance of the exercises of the college, that though its officers promptly dispossessed the old faculty and occupied the college buildings, only a single college student at the begin-
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TOWN OF HANOVER.
ning transferred to it his allegiance. A few others came in later, but the classes were always so far behind those of the college in numbers as to be necessarily of a peaceful temper. The college, besides numbers, had also the moral support of almost unanimous local sentiment and the hearty and gene- ral sympathy of its alumni and of the clergy. The result was that the two institutions existed side by side without serious conflict, notwithstanding the State court decided for the university in the first stages of the legal contest, until the final declaration against the validity of the acts by the United States supreme court, in February, 1819, when the " university " came to a peace- ful and an inglorious end.
As if to intensify the chagrin of those who had in good faith devoted their best efforts to the administration of its affairs and the instruction of its students, the State, whose servants they were, for several years refused to pay them. When at length a partial remuneration was granted it failed by the veto of a governor, whose son had profited by their instruction, and whose voice, as one of the judges of the State court, had joined in giving the univer- sity that delusive sanction which led them to persist in their adherence to its fortunes.
The college, though sadly embarassed, was yet in better condition than its rival, and began at once to recuperate. For several years there appeared be- fore the legislature from time to time hostile schemes directed towards the establishment elsewhere of another college under state patronage. No ac- tual legislation was ever had to that end, beyond the erection, in 1821, of the so-called "literary fund " by the taxation of banks for the purpose of accumu- lating a fund for a future university, amounting in a few years to more than $50,000 00. But it was applied in aid of education in another and wiser way, good feeling having by that time returned; and the college has ever since enjoyed the friendship and fostering care of the State. Twice has it received from it grants of land. and has been repeatedly aided in other ways. It has had also a munificent grant from the State of Vermont. All its funds but these have been derived from private generosity, by which it has reached a condition of assured prosperity, with ample buildings and grounds, and invested funds of more than a million dollars, though not all of it is at present available. Besides the ordinary academic course it has a flourishing medical department established in 1797 ; a scientific department established in 1852 ; and a special school of civil engineering established in 1870. The State college of agriculture and the mechanic arts is also located in Hanover and associated with Darmouth college, but not subject its control.
Chandler Scientific Department .- This department was established in 1851, in accordance with the will of Abial Chandler, Esq., of Walpole, N. H., who bequeathed $50,000 to the trustees of the college for this purpose. Mr. Chandler's idea may be gained from the following extract from his will :-
" The establishment and support of a permanent department or school of instruction in the college, in the practical and useful arts of life. comprised
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TOWN OF HANOVER.
chiefly in the branches of mechanics and civil engineering, the invention and manufacture of machinery, carpentry, masonry, architecture and drawing, the investigation of the properties and uses of the materials employed in the arts, the modern languages and English literature, together with book-keeping and such other branches of knowledge as may best qualify young persons for the duties and employments of active life."
The purpose of the new department or school of instruction was thus set forth in the outset by the college authorities. "The Chandler Scientific School, in its full course of instruction, aims at a liberal education on a scientific instead of a classical basis." The school was opened in the autumn of 1852, with seventeen students in attendance. The course of study was at first three years, but was extended to four years in 1857. It has sent out 327 graduates, of whom 98 are civil, mechanical, mining or electrical en- gineers, 34 are lawyers, 40 are teachers and 22 physicians. The catalogue for 1884-85 gives the attendance as seventy-four and the number of instruc- tors as twelve.
The New Hampshire College of Agriculture and Mechanic Art .- The col- lege was founded in accordance with the national law of 1862 which gave each State a quantity of land in proportion to its congressional representa- tion, to be used in establishing a college. Its leading object, as stated in the bill which made the appropriation, is "to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in order to promote the lib- eral and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life." The law gave New Hampshire one hundred and fifty thousand acres of land which were sold for $80,000.00. This as required by the law has been the fund to provide instruction, the State being made responsible for both principal and interest. After much discussion, and when the time allowed for organization had nearly expired, the legislature passed an act locating the college in Hanover, and making it practically a department of Dartmouth college. There were strong reasons that united to make Hano. ver the place selected for the college. The State at that time was heavily in debt and could not appropriate money sufficient for the support of a new col- lege. The trustees of Dartmouth college, anxious to prevent the founding of a college in any place in the State where it might grow to be a rival institu- tion, made the most liberal offers,-the free use of libraries, museums, recita- tion rooms, etc.,-and held out the further inducement that the Culver fund should be used for the benefit of the new department or college.
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