History of Bedford, New Hampshire, from 1737 : being statistics compiled on the occasion of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town, May 15, 1900, Part 11

Author: Bedford (N.H. : Town)
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: Concord, N. H. : The Rumford Printing Co.
Number of Pages: 1202

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HISTORY OF BEDFORD.

in winter. They soon came over this side the river, and for a time they occupied the same house and cultivated the same farm. It is the farm known as that of Lieut. Josiah Walker. Later, James removed to what was known as the Jesse Walker farm, afterward part of the farm belonging to the late William McAllister. But the bears and catamounts were so numerous, and at night made so much noise about his house, that he could not stay. He said his bull was able to keep them off only by climbing to the top of the ledge near the barn and pawing and bellowing all night long. So he exchanged farms with his brother, returning to the river farm, while Robert Walker tried the bears.1 When the house he built was removed in 1870, a human skeleton was found under the eaves of the roof. How it came there no one could explain at the time, or has ever been able to explain. In the field near the river, on the site of the first house erected by the Walkers, their descendants have erected a stone tablet to mark the spot where the first settlement of the town was made.

ORIGIN AND SETTLEMENT OF THE TOWN.

In giving some account of the origin of the township, it will be necessary to call the attention of the reader to the first general Indian war, which occurred in 1675. It was a war between the settlers of the province of Massachusetts and the Narraganset Indians, and was known as "King Philip's war." It was attended with great distress and cruelties ; many towns in Massachusetts suf- fered exceedingly, but the enemy was at last scattered and King Philip slain. Hutchinson, in his History of Massachusetts, thus relates the slaughter: "Philip fled from one swamp to another, divers times very narrowly escaping, losing one chief counselor after another. His uncle and sister, and at last his wife and son, were taken prisoners. Being reduced to this miserable condition, he was killed August 12, 1676, as he was flying from a pursuing party out of a swamp near his residence, at Hope, now Bristol, Rhode Island. One of his own men, whom he had offended and who had deserted to the English, shot him through the heart. Instead of the scalp, he

1 Samuel and John Moor went to Gofftown a hunting one winter after they had ben out through the Day they came to Butterfield Place and found a lot of hunter theare and they gut to Bating on Samuel and John head to see witch was the best gunner and thare Mark was a Large snow Ball to shoot at Distance 19 rods John was to fire first and Burred the bignus of the Ball in the side of the snow Ball than Samuel was to fire but he said was now use for he Could not beat it nor any the rest of them but they sad he should try he fired and Did the same as John. -From an old Manuscript.

HISTORICAL NOTICES OF BEDFORD.

cut off his right hand, which had a remarkable scar, well known to the English, and which was exhibited as a curiosity." Many of the Indian chiefs were executed at Boston and Plymouth. The people were greatly exasperated, every person in the two colonies having lost a relative or near friend, but, adds the historian, " this does not excuse the cruelty." The cause of this exterminating war was, in fact, the encroachments of the English upon the Indians. With the shrewdness and sagacity of an Indian, Philip no doubt saw that in this way his people must melt away before the white man. As a matter of curiosity, it may not be out of place to give an authentic letter from King Philip to Prince, of Plymouth, with the original spelling and expression, exactly as given by Gookin in his account of the Indians :

King Philip desire to let you understand that he could not come to the court, for Tom his interpreter has a pain in his back, that he could not travel so far, and Philip's sister is very sick. Philip would entreat the favor of any of the magistrates, if any English or Engians speak about any land, he pray you to give them no answer at all. This last summer, he maid the promies with you, that he would not sell no land in 7 years time, for that he would have no English trouble him before that time-he has no forget that you promise him. He will come a sune as posible he can, to speak with you, and so I rest your very loving friend,

PHILIP, dwelling at Mt. Hope neck.

To the much honored Governor,

Mr. Thomas Prince, dwelling at Plymouth.

This letter from Philip to Prince was written before the war, probably about 1660 or '70.

There had been a long-drawn-out dispute between the govern- ment of the province of Massachusetts and that of New Hampshire, as to the boundary which separated the two.

Massachusetts claimed that under her charter of 1629, her north- erly line was three miles north of the head waters of the Merrimack, and ran through Lake Winnipiseogee. New Hampshire, claiming under the grant to Mason and Gorges in 1622 and under the subdivi- sion of the territory made by the grantees in 1629, declared that its south line ran west from the mouth of the Merrimack.

The details of the dispute are not necessarily a part of this his- tory, but the question itself has a singular bearing on the origin of our town. After the appointment of many boundary commissions by both the provinces, the line of division remained undetermined.

HISTORY OF BEDFORD.

However, the people living within the debatable territory were natu- rally much excited on the subject. Many of them were claimed and taxed by both provinces, with the result that most of them so situ- ated refused to do service or pay taxes anywhere. By 1708 the diffi- culty had become serious. New Hampshire named a committee to meet a similar committee from Massachusetts. When they met, Massachusetts renewed her claim to the Winnipiseogee boundary- The New Hampshire men, after pointing out that in 1677 Massachu- setts had abandoned the Winnipiseogee boundary claim, refused to consider it, and so reported to the general assembly of the province. The truth is, the province of Massachusetts did not desire to have the boundary settled. With Massachusetts claiming a large portion of the territory of New Hampshire, and that claim unsettled, the chances were that the two provinces would remain under one gov- ernor at a handsome salary and many perquisites. Land speculators also were obtaining grants of the best lumber and tillage lands in New Hampshire. The interests of New Hampshire were, of course, opposed to this. Our people desired an independent government, believing that permanent occupation of the land would bring greater prosperity, and desiring that New Hampshire lands should be secured to New Hampshire people. In 1719 commissioners were again appointed to settle the boundary, but again they met in vain. Then New Hampshire appealed to the king, in council, for an order settling the question, and went on to put people in possession of the disputed territory, granting Chester and Londonderry to the actual settlers there. These same towns had been repeatedly granted by Massachusetts, but since the grants had been made to speculators, the lands had not been settled by the grantees, but were in the pos- session of others. Alarmed at this attitude, and fearing the outcome of the appeal to the king, Massachusetts changed her policy and began to grant the lands in question to their actual settlers. If she lost jurisdiction over the lands, her people would still have the fee in the soil. In 1725, Penacook, now Concord, was granted to Massa- chusetts settlers from Andover, Bradford, and Haverhill, and other towns in the immediate vicinity of the disputed line. About the same time, it was proposed in the legislature of Massachusetts to grant a range of towns from the Merrimack to the Connecticut, under the pretense of having a line of settlements on the frontier as a protection against the Indians-in reality, to secure the lands to the people of that province. Massachusetts also proposed a new

HISTORICAL NOTICES OF BEDFORD.

commission to settle the boundary. New Hampshire declined, say- ing, "We have appealed to the king, and will abide his decision." It was thereupon decided by Massachusetts to immediately secure the lands to settlers from Massachusetts, and the services of men long dead were used as a pretext. Douglass, in his Summary, Historical and Political, etc., of the British Settlements in America, has this to say :

About the middle of the last century the general assembly of Massachusetts was in the humor of distributing the property of much vacant or province land, perhaps in good policy and forethought, to secure to the Massachusetts people by possession the property of part of some controverted lands.

Our assembly at that time were in such a hurry to appropriate vacant lands that several old towns were encouraged to petition for an additional township, and when they were satiated the assembly introduced others by way of bounty to the descendants of the sol- diers in the Indian war of King Philip, so called, in 1675, and these were called Narraganset townships, and others to the soldiers in Sir William Phipps' expedition into Canada, 1690, which were called Canada townships.

Upon the meeting of the grantees of the Narraganset townships, it was found that their numbers were greater than had been sup- posed, amounting in all to 840 persons. They, therefore, petitioned the legislature for an additional grant of land, "so that every sixty claimants might have a township of six miles square." Upon this petition, the legislature of Massachusetts in 1732 granted them five townships, so that every 120 claimants should have a township six miles square. The governor did not approve of this act, but in April of the next year a similar petition was presented and the fol- lowing act was passed :

At a Great and General Court or Assembly, for his Majestie's Province of the Massachusetts Bay, begun and held at Boston, upon Wednesday, the Thirty-first of May, 1732, and continued by adjourn- ment to Wednesday, Fourth day of April 1733 and then met.

April 26, 1733.

A petition of a Committee for the Narragansett Soldiers, showing that there are the number of Eight Hundred and Forty Persons, entered as officers and soldiers in the late Narragansett War. Pray- ing that there may be such an addition of Land granted to them, as may allow a Tract of six miles Square to each one hundred and twenty men so admitted.

In the House of Representatives, Read, and Ordered that the Prayer of the Petition be granted, and that Major Chandler, Mr.

HISTORY OF BEDFORD.

Edward Shove, Col. Thomas Tileston, Mr. John Hobson, and Mr. Samuel Chandler, (or any three of them,) be a Committee fully authorized and empowered to survey and lay out five more Tracts of Land for Townships, of the Contents of Six miles Square, each, in some of the unappropriated lands of this Province ; and that the said land, together with the two towns before granted, be granted and disposed of to the officers and soldiers or their lawful Representa- tives, as they are or have been allowed by this Court, being eight hundred and forty in number, in the whole, and full satisfaction of the Grant formerly made them by the General Court, as a reward for their public service. And the Grantees shall be obliged to assemble within as short time as they can conveniently, not exceed- ing the space of two months, and proceed to the choice of Commit- tees, respectively, to regulate each Propriety or Township, which is to be held and enjoyed by one hundred and twenty of the Grantees, each in equal Proportion, who shall pass such orders and rules as will effectually oblige them to settle Sixty families, at least, within each Township, with a learned, orthodox ministry, within the space of seven years of the date of this Grant. Provided, always, that if the said Grantees shall not effectually settle the said number of fam- ilies in each Township, and also lay out a lot for the first settled min- ister, one for the ministry, and one for the school, in each of the said townships, they shall have no advantage of, but forfeit their respec- tive grants, anything to the contrary contained notwithstanding. The Charge of the Survey to be paid by the Province.

In Council read and concur'd.

Consented to, J. BELCHER.

A true copy of Record : Examined, Per

SIMON FROST, Dep. Secretary.

It is hereby Certified, that by an order of the Great and General Court, pass'd the eighteenth of April, 1734, Seven years from the first of June, 1734, was allow'd the Narraganset Claimants.

Attest : SIMON FROST, Dep. Secretary.

By referring to the Proprietors' Book of Records, it will be found the above conditions of the grant were complied with, as respects provisions for the gospel, though a minister was not settled till after the act of incorporation.1

These seven towns were laid out immediately, and were desig- nated as Narraganset townships No. I, II, III, etc. Narraganset townships Nos. III, IV, V, and VI were located in this immediate neighborhood. Narraganset No. III was also called Souhegan West, and was situated on the north side of Souhegan river. It was

1 There appears to be no evidence that sixty families were settled, or that a "learned, orthodox ministry " was established within seven years of the date of the grant, but it is evident that earnest efforts were made toward meeting the conditions, which undoubtedly satisfied the grantors.

HISTORICAL NOTICES OF BEDFORD.

incorporated by the name of Amherst, in 1760. Narraganset No. IV was located on the west side of the Merrimack, at Amoskeag falls. It was laid out to 120 grantees, living in forty-one towns in Massachusetts. It is curious to notice that No. I was in Maine, now called Buxton; No. II in Massachusetts, now called Westminster; No. III was Amherst, or Souhegan West; No. IV 1 adjoined Hat- field, Mass .; No. V was Bedford, or Souhegan East; No. VI was Templeton, Mass .; No. VII was Gorham, Me.

Since the Indian war a considerable time had elapsed-more than fifty years-and many of the officers and soldiers who served in that expedition were dead. Of the 120 persons to whom this township was granted, only twenty veterans were living in 1733. All the grantees or their representatives assembled on Boston common June 6, 1733, at which time they divided themselves into seven dis- tinct societies, of 120 persons each, and entitled to one of these townships. From each society, three persons were chosen as a com- mittee, who, on October 17, 1733, assigned the several townships among their respective societies. Of the individuals to whom this township was assigned, fifty-seven belonged to Boston, fifteen to Roxbury, seven to Dorchester, two to Milton, five to Braintree, four to Weymouth, thirteen to Hingham, four to Dedham, two to Hull, one to Medfield, five to Scituate, and one to Newport, R. I. Of the original proprietors upon the book of records, which is preserved with the town books, very few became settlers, the greater part dis- posing of their claims to those who became occupants of the soil.

There were but two of the original grantees who came to take up their lands in the town, Zachariah Chandler, of Roxbury, Mass., who signs his name on the record as in right of his wife's father, Thomas Bishop, and John Barnes.

MASON AND GORGES CLAIM.

The town Narraganset No. 5, thus granted by the province of Massachusetts as part of their unappropriated lands, was included,

1 No. IV was originally at the falls of Amoskeag, on the Merrimack, and embraced the present town of Goffstown. In 1736 the proprietors of this township requested of the general court liberty to take up their land elsewhere, and in 1737 the court granted them, instead of the land at Amoskeag, a tract at Quabbin, now Green- wich, in the county of Hampden, Massachusetts, and another tract west of Hatfield, in the same county, both to contain six miles square, or 23,040 acres. In July, 1739, the general court accepted the report of a committee granting to the proprietors of township No. IV 15,779 acres at Quabbin, and 7,261 acres west of Hatfield, making 23,040 acres. In 1739 the proprietors complained of ponds, swamps, etc., in these tracts, and the general court added 3,500 acres to the grant west of Hatfield. The lands west of Hatfield were included within the township of Chesterfield, and after that was divided part of them were in Chesterfield and part in Goshen, though most of them are in Greenwich .- Taken from foot note in 1851 edition, History of Bedford.

HISTORY OF BEDFORD.

however, within the limits of the territory which had been conveyed many years before to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason. In the year 1622, James I had granted to these two men a large tract of land of vague and uncertain dimensions, out of his New England territories. The vagueness and uncertainty were natural enough, in view of the fact that no maps or survey of this part of the world had been made up to this time, but when in 1629 he chartered the prov- ince of Massachusetts bay, its boundaries were so wide that they included part of the territory formerly granted to Gorges and Mason. In 1733 Gorges and Mason had long been dead. The claim to their lands had passed to John Tufton Mason, a great-grandson of the grandson of the original grantee of that name. He in turn sold this claim to a company known as the "Proprietors of the lands pur- chased of John Tufton Mason, Esq., in the province of New Hampshire."

The story of the Masonian claim, as it was called, is a romantic and interesting one, and we might digress for a moment to insert it here.

The title to land discovered for the first time by any explorer belongs by the law of nations to the sovereign of the discoverer. In accordance with this law, the result of the discoveries and voyages of exploration made by John Smith and Sebastian Cabot along the coast of New England lodged the title to the land they discovered in the crown of England. .

During the reign of James I, a grant was made to two of his sub- jects jointly. Their names were John Mason and Sir Ferdinando Gorges. The date of this grant was 1622. Of course, the king and his advisers had no accurate knowledge of the geography of the land granted. It was a vast, unexplored, unchartered wilderness. A few prominent headlands on the coast had been noted, and here and there the explorer had marked the spot where some river entered the ocean. But the interior was then entirely unexplored. A great deal of confusion arose in the early title to these lands because of these facts, for grants of territory comprised in these discoveries were made by the king from time to time to different people and different companies, and in many cases the boundaries of the lands granted conflicted.

As we have said, Mason and Gorges in 1622 received a grant of all the land between the Merrimack and the Sagadahoc (Kennebec) rivers. In 1629 they agreed to divide their land, and the Piscataqua

HISTORICAL NOTICES OF BEDFORD.

river was taken as the dividing boundary. Mason received the west- ern portion, or that which would include New Hampshire, and Gorges the eastern, or Maine. Mason died about 1635, leaving his grant of land in the new world to the oldest son of his daughter and to the latter's issue forever. On failure of issue, title was to pass to the other sons of his daughter, in the order of their birth, thus estab- lishing what the law called " an entail." The grant came in time, and by this course, to Robert Tufton, a descendant of the original John Mason, and in his honor he added the name Mason to his name, and was called Robert Tufton Mason. From him the grant descended to his sons, John and Rob- ert, and they, in order to break the entail, joined in a con- veyance to one Samuel Allen. The date of this was about 1690. Robert Tufton Mason and his sons had not been in possession of the territory granted for some years, inasmuch as it had been claimed by Massachusetts as being within the bounds of the territory granted to the Massachusetts Bay company in 1629. When Samuel Allen became the purchaser of the grant he renewed the efforts which his predecessors in title, the Masons, had been making for some sixty years, to obtain absolute possession of his property. In 1679, per- haps for the purpose of further complication, there had been created the province of New Hampshire, by letters patent of the king. The territorial limits of the new province included those of the Masonian grant and of territory claimed by Massachusetts, as well as some other territory lying to the north and west of it, not previously granted. The authorities of the new province became immediately interested to have the boundaries of their jurisdiction definitely established. Samuel Allen's son, who had inherited his father's property, joined in this effort, but one John Tufton Mason, a son of that Robert Tufton Mason who with his brother had sold to Samuel Allen, now endeavored to have that sale annulled, claiming that under the law of entail, his father and uncle could not convey title to the land in fee, but could sell only their life interest in it. The divi- sion of the Masonian grant, which took place in 1629, described the bounds of the western portion of the territory as a line running up the middle of the Piscataqua river for sixty miles from its mouth to its (supposed) head waters, and for the same distance up the Merri- mack river. The western boundary was a line connecting these two northerly points. John Tufton Mason had not established his claim that the sale by his father and uncle to Samuel Allen was invalid, S

HISTORY OF BEDFORD.

when he died, in 1718. His son, however, another John Tufton Mason, carried on the litigation after his father's death. Massachu- setts recognized his claim, whether for the purpose of further com- plicating matters and so annoying the New Hampshire authorities (for there was considerable jealousy between the two provinces), or for the purpose of enlarging the boundaries of her territory to the north, and purchased of him for £500 all the land he claimed between the mouth of the Merrimack river and an east and west line to Pawtucket Falls (now Lowell). This they did, on condition that he go to England and champion their contention as to where the boundary line between Massachusetts and New Hampshire should now be run. Mason then offered to sell the balance of his claim to the New Hampshire authorities for £1,000. They delayed accepting it. Meanwhile the boundary between Massachusetts and New Hampshire was established by an order in council in 1740. It ran from a point three miles north of the mouth of the Merrimack river to a point three miles due north of Pawtucket Falls, then on a straight line due west to New York.

Impatient at the delay of the New Hampshire authorities in pur- chasing his claim, Mason now sold it to twelve men who were known as the Masonian proprietors, for £1,500. This was in 1746.

The names of the original Masonian proprietors, and the amount of their interest, was as follows : Theodore Atkinson, three fifteenths ; Mark Hunkins Wentworth, two fifteenths; each of the following, one fifteenth : Richard Wibird, John Wentworth (son of Mark, the governor), George Jaffrey, Nathaniel Meserve, Thomas Packer, Thomas Wallingford, Jotham Odiorne, Joshua Pierce, Samuel Moore, John Moffatt.

The determination of the boundary line between Massachusetts and New Hampshire made it logical for the Masonian proprietors to run their southerly line upon that boundary for sixty miles from the coast, that being the closest approach to the bound given in the original charter (running from the mouth of the Merrimack for sixty miles to its head waters),-and which carried it as far west as the town of Rindge; then, at the end of that sixty miles, to run north- easterly to meet the line coming up the Piscataqua, sixty miles from its mouth. This territory included Bedford, and although actually west of the Merrimack, the town thus came within the claim of the Masonian proprietors. With them, therefore, the proprietors of Nar- raganset No. V had to treat, as their records briefly show.

HISTORICAL NOTICES OF BEDFORD.

To insure a good title to the lands granted them by the province of Massachusetts, it was necessary for the grantees to extinguish whatever claim to them might rest with the Masonian proprietors. Application was accordingly made, with the following result :

Province of New Hampshire :

At a meeting of the Proprietors of the Lands purchased of John Tufton Mason, Esq., in the Province of New Hampshire, at the Dwelling-house of Sarah Priest, widow, in Portsmouth, in said Prov- ince, on the ninth day of November, 1748, by adjournment :

Voted,-That the rights of the original Proprietors of Souhegan- East, otherwise called Narraganset, No. 5, be and hereby are con- firmed to them, according as they have been already surveyed and laid out, excepting and reserving only seventeen shares or Rights, as according to said laying out; the particular rights or Shares so excepted and reserved, to be determined and ascertained hereafter; but that the particular rights and shares of Maj. Edward White, and the Rev'd Doctor Ebenezer Miller, be not among the excepted and reserved rights as aforesaid, but that their said rights and shares among said Proprietors as aforesaid, be hereby granted and con- firmed to them, their heirs and assigns.

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History of Bedford, New Hampshire, from 1737 : being statistics compiled on the occasion of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town, May 15, 1900, Part 11

Author: Bedford (N.H. : Town) Publication date: 1903 Publisher: Concord, N. H. : The Rumford Printing Co. Number of Pages: 1202

Author: Bedford (N.H. : Town)
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: Concord, N. H. : The Rumford Printing Co.
Number of Pages: 1202