USA > New Hampshire > Coos County > Historical sketches of the discovery, settlement, and progress of events in the Coos country and vicinity, principally included between the years 1754 and 1785 > Part 7
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and his first attempt at writing was upon birch bark, with a turkey's quill. He further thinks that in 1772, not more than one school could be found in every ten miles, on either side of the river, from Orford to the Upper Coos. These were generally constituted by a few neighbors combining and hiring an instructor for a few weeks in the winter; their teachers being very inadequate, and their only books the Psalter and Primer. Compare these means with those now enjoyed by the rising generation ; and let those who have made themselves merry by reciting the grammatical errors and orthographical blunders of their ancestors, perform a more splendid part in the great drama of human life ; or let them ingenu- ously confess that they are debtors to those who re- ceived little, but did much, and left an example worthy of imitation by all their descendants ; for it is to be had in lasting remembrance, that by these men, thus educated, our freedom was obtained, and those institutions founded, which are our blessing and our boast, and are the admiration of the world.
Speaking of the first settlers, Mr. Wallace further says, "Those who first settled Haverhill and New- bury were, for the most part, men of some property, and were able to furnish themselves with land, some stock, and tools, to hire laborers, and, in a short time,
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their houses were well furnished, for that day. They were laborious, prudent, and economical, but were very kind to the poor and sick. They were strict in their religious principles, and all attended religious worship on the Sabbath, neither men nor women esteeming it a hard service to travel on foot, four or six miles, with children in their arms, to hear the gospel."
Another class of persons, he mentions, that were in more indigent circumstances. They labored hard in the house and in the field, and whose earthly fare was coarse, and sometimes scanty. Their beds con- sisted principally of straw, and it was no uncommon thing for families to lie on the floor, and some on the ground, before the fire. Their bowls, dishes and plates were all of wood, although in a few families, a little pewter was seen. This class of persons, he relates, more generally settled in Piermont and Brad- ford, although there were families there in more eligi- ble circumstances. The style of living in all the settlements was similar where they possessed the means. Boiled meat, peas or beans, and potatoes, formed their repast at noon ; at night and morning, · pea or bean broth, and sometimes milk porridge ; " but," says Mr. Wallace, " we never thought of hav- ing meat more than once a day, and I never drank a
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cup of tea during the three years and a half that I lived at Coos." Many wore Indian stockings and moccasins of raw hide, when tanned leather could not be obtained ; and some of the wealthier had In- dian blankets cut into box coats, and wore buff caps. Their clothing, in general, consisted of linen.
I will now leave the settlements at Coos for a time. in their peaceful and thriving situation, and proceed to give a concise history of some of the settlements in towns south of them, which brought neighbors to Haverhill and Newbury, and opened the wilderness between them and Charlestown. For seven years subsequent to the settlement of Coos, there was no inhabitant in the town of Piermont. But in the spring of 1768, Ebenezer White, Levi Root, and Dan- iel Tyler, came into the town, and settled on the meadows. In the autumn of that year, David Tyler, wife, and son Jonathan came on from Lebanon, in Connecticut. This is that Jonathan Tyler, who mar- ried Sarah McConnel, as already related. Tyler relates that wild game was exceedingly abundant in Piermont in the winter of 1769. Moose yarded upon the meadows that winter. Bears, wolves, and deer were ever present, and some of them quite officious. Several years after David and Jonathan Tyler came into the town, a bear came into their barn-yard at
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different times, "while men slept," and destroyed their sheep. This was sport for Bruin, but death to the Tylers. At length, Jonathan Tyler was aroused to a just sense of the injury and indignity inflicted upon them, and he resolved on revenge. He procured three guns, and charged them heavily with powder and ball, and retained them as " minute men," for any emergency. A few nights after this array of de- fence, Tyler heard the cry of distress in his yard. He sprang from his bed, threw on some light article of dress, seized his guns, and sallied forth, breathing slaughter and death. As soon as he came near the yard, he saw his bearship devouring his prey beneath his feet. Without preamble or apology, the three guns were "let off " in rapid succession, and every ball took effect. One penetrated the heart, and the assassin fell dead upon his prey, a huge enemy to the fleecy fold.
At this time, Tyler says, they went to Gen. Morey's mill at Orford, for grinding, which mill stood near where Capt. Daton's mill now stands. He had been to Charlestown for seed corn; and to Northfield, Mass., in a canoe, for bread-stuffs. But this must have been when the crops were cut off at Coos.
At one period of this settlement, the greater por- tion of the inhabitants bore some one of the following · 6
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catalogue of names :- Root, Crook, Cox, Stone, Da- ley, Bailey. They employed Dr. Samuel Hale, of Orford, for their physician. He was a high free-liver, and a facetious character, and used to amuse himself by speaking of his patrons in Piermont in the follow- ing couplet :-
"The Roots, and Crooks, and Elijah Daley, Coxes and Stones, and Solomon Bailey."
But the merry doctor had to bear the expense of his own amusement; for when these families came to learn the use he made of their names, they took it in high dudgeon, and would never afterward employ him as their physician.
Jonathan Tyler, of whom I have spoken repeatedly, served his country in the time of the revolutionary war, and when our troops retreated from Ticonderoga, at the approach of Burgoyne's army, he was taken captive, but did not remain long in captivity. The manner of his escape was on this wise :- He was held as a prisoner of war for a time on the west side of Lake George, now called Lake Horican. For a time, he and two or three others of his fellow-prisoners were kept in "durance vile," and were watched with the utmost vigilance ; but as they manifested no uneasi- ness themselves in their novel circumstances, their masters began to relax their vigilance, and they were
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permitted to go among the British troops, and to labor with them. At length, the British determined on building a block-house on the east side of the lake, and Jonathan Tyler, Daniel Bean, and another by the name of Cowdry, volunteered to go and help build it. After laboring a day or two, their axes needed grinding, and they were permitted to go to a spring of water just over a rise of ground, to bring water for grinding, and for other uses of the company. A bark had been laid down into the fountain, which conducted the water off, and rendered it very conven- ient in taking water at the lower end of the spout. Tyler hung his pail on the end of the spout, and while it was filling, he, Bean, and Cowdry, concluded to take French leave, and did so ; and Tyler says, "He don't know but his pail hangs there yet." But the poor fellows had like to have perished with hunger. They left without a particle of food, and without arms and ammunition, and the first four days after their elopement, while they were hid in the woods west of the Hudson River, they had nothing to satisfy the cravings of hunger but leaves, buds and twigs of trees, and the roots which they dug out of the ground. And between the Hudson and the Connecticut, they sustained a like fast; but when they came to settle- ments in the Connecticut Valley, they were the hap-
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piest of mortals, and concluded they had done their part towards the achievement of our independence. David Tyler and wife, the parents of Jonathan Tyler, both lived to a great age. They attained to nearly ninety-five years.
The Congregational church was constituted in this town in 1771. The Rev. John Richards was settled as their pastor in 1776, and labored with them twenty- six years, and took a dismissal in 1802. The Rev. Jonathan Hovey was settled over them in 1810, and continued his labors five years. Rev. Robert Blake commenced his labors among them in 1819, and con- tinued them, with some interruptions, until 1836: The statement in the Gazetteer of New Hampshire, that the first settlement in Piermont was in 1770, is an error.
ORFORD.
The town of Orford, which is ten miles south of Haverhill, and seventeen north of Hanover, was first settled in 1765. Daniel Cross and wife were the first who came into the place, from Lebanon, Ct. They came in June of this year, and pitched their tent near where the Sawyers afterward settled, upon the river road, south of Orford village. John Mann, Esq., and wife, whose maiden name Lydia Porter,
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both of Hebron, Conn., came into Orford in the au- tumn of 1765. Mann was twenty-one years of age, his wife seventeen years and six months. They left Hebron on the 16th of October, and arrived in Orford on the 24th of the same month. They both mounted the same horse, according to Puritan custom, and rode to Charlestown, N. H., nearly one hundred and fifty miles. Here Mann purchased a bushel of oats for his horse, and some bread and cheese for himself and wife, and set forward-Mann on foot ; wife, oats, bread and cheese, and some clothing, on horseback.
From Charlestown to Orford there was no road but a horse-track, and this was frequently hedged across by fallen trees ; and when they came to such an ob- struction, which could not be passed round, Mann, who was of a gigantic stature, would step up, take the young bride, and set her upon the ground ; then the oats, bread and cheese ; and, lastly, the old mare was made to leap the windfall ; when all was reship- ped, and the voyage was resumed. This was acted over, time and again, until the old beast became impatient of delay, and coming to a similar obstruc- tion, while Mann was some rods in the rear, she pressed forward, and leaped the trunk of a large tree, resisting all the force her young rider could exert ; and when Mann came up, which he did in a trice,
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there lay the bride upon the ground, with all the bag- gage resting upon her. The old creature, however, had the civility not to desert them in this predica- ment, and as no bones were broken, and no joints dislocated, they soon resumed their journey ; Mann, for the rest of the way, constituted the van instead of the rear guard.
When they arrived in Orford, they very naturally made Daniel Cross' tent their first resting place. They were received with all that cordiality and hospi- tality which characterize those who are separated from all friends, and are enclosed by the solitudes of a vast · wilderness. Cross had reared a shelter. for his cow adjoining his own tent, and for that night the cow was ejected, and Cross and his wife occupied her apartment, while Mann and his wife improved the parlor. But they were doomed to a sad adventure that night. Cross had felled a large tree, the butt end of which constituted no inconsiderable portion of one side of his house. Into this log he had bored two holes, about four feet apart, and sharpening two sap- ling poles, he had driven them horizontally into the log, to form the two side pieces of a bedstead. The other end of the poles were supported by two perpen- dicular posts, in the manner of ordinary bedsteads. Elm bark served for cord and sacking. This rigging
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was adequate to sustain Cross and his companion, a light couple ; but when Mann and his partner came into possession, it was another affair. Mann was of gigantic stature. Soon after all had retired to rest, this frail fabric of a bedstead suddenly gave way with a loud crash, which frightened the tenants of both apartments prodigiously. Mrs. Mann screamed, and this was suddenly responded to from Cross' apartment, " What is the matter ?" But after mutual explana- tions and apologies, Mann and his wife resumed a recumbent position upon the floor, and enjoyed a refreshing sleep, with the exception of an occasional interruption from a sudden burst of laughter in the cow apartment, where Cross and his wife lay, reflect- ing upon the startling scene through which they had passed unscathed. Esquire Mann related this adven- ture after he was more than eighty years of age, and he did it with that impassioned emotion, which tend- ed to impress the mind of the hearer as though it was an event that had recently transpired.
Soon after Mann came to Orford, he took a log- canoe near where Cross lived, and ascended the river to the place where the Orford bridge now is. He went ashore to reconnoitre and to spy out the land. The soil supported a huge growth of wood and a dense underbrush. The surface was covered with a
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tall, thick, and white moss, and had every appearance of being boggy. Mann thought he would penetrate a little way into the forest, and take some care and not needlessly wet his feet. He accordingly stepped with caution, jumped from one little mound to an- other, and when he got upon a windfall, he would improve the whole length of it. But while thus making his way, he lost the centre of gravity, when on an old log, and fell to the ground. But instead of plunging into a bog, as he expected, he came " plump on to hard and dry soil," that beautiful bottom land which he and others have so long cultivated to great advantage.
Mrs. Mann, after they were settled in their own tent, went to the river, and brought all the water they used in a three-pint basin, with the exception of washing days.
John Mann, Jun., Esq., was the first English child born in the town, May 21, 1766, and if now living, must be in his seventy-fourth year. The same au- tumn in which Mann came into Orford, Jonathan and Edward Sawyer, Gen. Israel Morey, and a Mr. Caswell, all from Connecticut, came in and settled.
The first church in Orford was constituted in 1770. The Rev. Oliver Noble, their first minister, was or- dained, November 5, 1771, and was dismissed, De-
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cember 31, 1777. Then there was an interregnum of about ten years, and the Rev. John Sawyer was ordained over them, October 22, 1787. He continued with them but about eight years, and was dismissed 1795. Rev. Sylvester Dana was ordained over them, May 20, 1801. He continued their pastor twenty-one years-dismissed, April 30, 1822. Rev. James D. Farnsworth was ordained, January 1, 1823. Mr. Farnsworth has been dismissed, and he has a success- or, Mr. Campbell; but the dates of those events I must leave to my successor in gathering statistics.
Mr. Mann relates that when he came into the town, and for some years after, deer and bear were very nu- merous, and some moose in the east part of the town. He has been up on the elevated ground, east of the river road, after a new-fallen snow, and seen deer tracks almost as plentifully imprinted as we see sheep tracks where the latter are yarded.
As Mann came on from Charlestown, he found in the town of Claremont, two openings by young men of the name of Dorchester. In Cornish there was but one family, that of Moses Chase. In Plainfield there was one family, Francis Smith. The wife was " terribly " home-sick, and she declared she " would not stay there in the woods." In Lebanon, there were three families, Charles Hill, son, and son-in- 6*
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law, a Mr. Pinnick. In Hanover, there was one fam- ily, Col. Edmund Freeman, and several young men, who were making settlements. In Lyme, there were three families, all by the name of Sloan-John, Wil- liam, and David. This statement differs materially from what we find in the Gazetteer of New Hampshire in respect to the first settlers in those towns. But I have long since lost all confidence in gazetteers, when they attempt to give facts anterior to recorded facts, and they never can be depended upon, so long as no better means are employed than those which have been used to gain information. The method has or- dinarily been to write to some post-master, justice of the peace, or some other man, and request him to furnish them with the early settlement of the town, both recorded facts and traditionary tales. But where is there a man, who, upon such an application, will devote one week to the examination of records, or to visit the aged to gain information ? Not one, we believe, in fifty, if there is one in a hundred. And in most cases, it would require all of one month to make a correct report. In general, there is not
one line on record in regard to first settlers. Their records begin with the charter, which might have come into existence years before the settlement, or years afterward ; but most persons are ready to take
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it for granted, that their town was settled the year it was chartered, and that some of the first names spec- ified in the charter were the first settlers. But noth- ing can be more uncertain than this. Besides, every town has its favorite stories derived from tradition, which they wish to establish ; and almost every man wishes to bring forward his ancestors to figure as principal characters, which never were such, and it may be, never were distinguished for anything, unless it were stupidity or knavery. But this application furnishes him with an opportunity to palm upon the public a bloated account of his pedigree, and, instead of going to the ancient records, if there are any, or to the aged, he sits down and writes what is most sat- isfactory to himself, and it soon appears as matter of history. I need not specify particular instances of this fraud. They are many. Almost every town, if they should make a thorough investigation, will find that they have been misrepresented, and in some in- stances grossly insulted. I invite the attention of the people of Haverhill, especially, to these remarks. I would not diminish the interest which the public may feel in Farmer and Moore's Gazetteer of New Hampshire. They have done well. Every family ought to possess it. It is worth a million of Thomp- son's Gazetteer of Vermont ; but they ought to have
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sent a competent agent into every town in the state to collect statistics, before they had published. Leba- non is made the first town settled north of Charles- town, before Haverhill or Newbury, contrary to the united testimony of the first settlers in all the towns above them. Esquire Mann and Esquire Otis Free- man agree in their statement in respect to Lebanon. .Has Lebanon authentic documents to show that their town was settled as early as 1760, or the spring of 1761 ? They can show that their town was chartered then; but can they show that it was settled? If they can, let the truth stand. Plainfield, Mann and Free- man tell us, had one family in it in 1765; our Gazetteer shows us two men there, L. Nash and J. Russell, in 1764, and the next year, when Mann and- Freeman came through, 1765, it tells us of a church organized, and a settled minister, Rev. Abraham Carpenter. , Has the town these documents ? If they have, it is the first instance in which I have found the first settlers deviating from the truth ; but they harmonize with wonderful exactness when we compare all their statements.
I have nothing further to speak of Lyme, that is prior to what is recorded and published. The church, according to the Gazetteer, was constituted in 1772. Rev. William Conant was settled as their
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pastor in 1773. Rev. Nathaniel Lambert, previously settled at Newbury, Vt., was settled in Lyme in 1811. Rev. Baxter Perry was settled, 1821. The Rev. Erdix Tenney is their present pastor.
The first family which came into Hanover was that of Col. Edmund Freeman, who lived in the east part of the town. He came in May, 1765, from Mans- field, Conn. He brought with him a wife and two children, and his brother, Otis Freeman, then of the age of seventeen. Several other young men came in the same season. Deacon Jonathan Curtis and son came ; but he did not move his family until 1766. Col. Edmund Freeman gave the name of Hanover to the town.
I have already related the circumstances of the first marriage in the town. The first death which occurred was that of a child in the family of Deacon Benton ; it died of consumption at the age of four- teen months. The first meeting-house was built of logs, and stood near the river, between Timothy Smith's and Mr. Tisdale's. The proprietors of the town first employed the Rev. Knight Saxton, of Col- chester, Conn., to preach to these settlers in the summers of 1766 and 1767. Subsequently, Dr. Mc- Clure, of Boston, was employed to preach to the people ; and Eden Burroughs, D. D., of Stratford,
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Conn., who had been previously settled at Killingly, Windham Co., Conn., was installed over this church and people in 1772. Dr. Burroughs was dismissed in 1809, and Rev. Josiah Towne was ordained, June, 1814. Mr. Towne has been dismissed, and another clergyman has been settled ; but I know not his name.
A full and satisfactory account of the origin of Dartmouth College, in the town of Hanover, of its progress and prosperity, has been given to the public through different channels, and is so far above my feeble praise, it needs not to be further noticed in these sketches.
I now pass on to the west side of the river, and speak of the settlement of Norwich, Vt. I shall re- late a plain story, which I took from the lips of Rev. Asa Burton, D. D., of Thetford, Vt., when he was at the age of 72, and sound, both in mind and body. He relates that his father, Jacob Burton, of Stoning- ton, Conn., came to Norwich first in the summer of 1764, and viewed the country for the purpose of lo- cating himself, provided he was suited with appear- ances. " At that time," he says, " there was no in- habitant in the town." The next year, 1765, his father returned to Norwich, and laid out a part of the town into lots ; and in June, 1776, he came with
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Asa, his son, then in his fourteenth year, and some other hands, and built a saw-mill, a little west of Norwich Plain. Dr. Burton says, "There were then but two families in the town; one by the name of Messenger, who lived at the west end of the present bridge leading from Hanover to Norwich ; and a Mr. Hutchinson, who lived near where the Military Acad- emy now stands. Hanover Plain was at this time a
thick pine forest." Messenger and Hutchinson came into Norwich either in 1765, or the spring of 1766. He further says, "There was no minister, at that time, nearer than Newbury and Haverhill, at Coos ; but in a few years Mr. Conant settled at Lyme, Dr. Burroughs at Hanover, Mr. Isaiah Potter at Leba- non, and Mr. Lyman Potter at Norwich." Where, now, is Rev. Mr. Carpenter of Plainfield, in 1765, at the distance of twelve or fourteen miles from Norwich ?
But now for Thompson's Gazetteer of Vermont, published at Montpelier, in 1824. He has it, that in 1763, Jacob Fenton, Ebenezer Smith, and John Slafter, came into Norwich from Mansfield, Conn .; that at this time there were two men settled in Han- over ; that in July, Smith and Slafter left Fenton on Wednesday, for the purpose of hoeing corn in Leba- non, and that on their return on Saturday, at even-
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ing, they found Fenton dead in their camp. It appeared afterwards, that a Mr. Freeman, of Han- over, happened over at Norwich, and found Fenton sick, tarried with him until he died, and then went to Lebanon to procure help to bury him, and he was buried, July 15, 1765 ; that there were four families moved into Norwich in 1764, and from that time the settlement advanced rapidly. Now, for the correct- ness of this statement. He says, that in 1763, there were two men in Hanover, and one of them, at least, was a Mr. Freeman. But the very Mr. Freeman here alluded to, which was Col. Otis Freeman, gave me the particulars of his finding Fenton sick in his tent-he had had a fit; and that it was the same year he and his brother came into Hanover, viz., 1785. Thompson further states, that Fenton was taken sick, and died in July, 1763, and was buried July 15, 1765. According to this, there were but three years which intervened between his death and burial ! But this might be owing to his sudden death, and the extreme warmth of the season. Again, four families moved into Norwich in 1764, and from this period the settlement advanced with considerable rapidity. But in 1765, when they con- cluded to bury Fenton, they had to depend on Free- man, of Hanover, to go after Smith and Slafter to
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