History of Carroll County, New Hampshire, Part 7

Author: Merrill, Georgia Drew
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Boston : W.A. Fergusson & Co.
Number of Pages: 1124

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Mark Hunking Wentworth, whose name appears so often in the charters of towns, was a brother of Benning Wentworth, and father of John Went- worth, who succeeded his uncle as provincial governor.

EARLY HISTORY.

Townships granted. - The country in Vermont and New Hampshire along the Connecticut, the territory along the Androscoggin, the Saco, and in the Winnipiseogee lake section was speedily disposed of. Sandwich and Moulton- borough were granted in 1763; the various grants constituting Adams, in the decade from 1764 to 1774 ; Conway, 1765 ; those organized into Bartlett, from 1765 to 1772; Burton, Eaton, and Tamworth in 1766; Chatham, 1767; Wolfe- borough, 1770; Chadbourne's and Hart's Location, 1772.

Settlements were begun almost simultaneously in Sandwich, Moulton- borough, Conway, and other places in 1763, 1764, and 1765. The forests resounded with the woodman's strokes ; the hand of industry rapidly, and as if by enchantment, laid open new fields and erected commodious habitations ; commerce was extended. The ways over which came the early pioneers could not be dignified with the name of roads ; they passed through deep and tangled forests, over rough hills and mountains, often along and across trouble- some and dangerous streams, not unfrequently through swamps of jungle-like growths, and miry and hazardous, where wolves, bears, and catamounts obstructed and alarmed their progress. The forests they could not cut down as they passed along; the obstructing rocks they could not remove; the swamps they could not make passable by causeways; over the streams they could not make bridges ; but over and along these paths (often but a mere trail indicated by "blazes " or " spots " cut from the sides of trees) men, women, and children ventured through the combination of evils, penetrated the recesses of the wilderness, climbed the hills, wound their way among the rocks, carefully avoiding surprises from venomous reptiles warming themselves in the rays of the sun, struggled on foot or on horseback through the ooze and mire of the swamps, and swam or forded among the treacherous quick- sands of deep and rapid streams.

In 1773 a census of the province was taken by order of "His Excellency, John Wentworth, Governor." There was now a permanent population of 1,194, divided thus : East Town 248, Leavitt's Town 111, Moultonborough 263, Sandwich 204, Wolfeborough 165, Conway 203.

In 1775 there had been a gain of nearly thirty-three per cent., as the population was 1,579, divided as follows : Wakefield 320, Leavittstown 83, Wolfeborough 211, Ossipee 26, Conway 273, Tamworth 151, Sandwich 243, Moultonborough 272.

In 1777 were taxed on polls and real estate on towns reported, Sandwich 60 polls, £53 3s. Op., ratable estate ; Wolfeborough 44 polls, estates £107 4s. 7p .; Wakefield 81 polls, estates £135 8s. 3p.

The growth was now rapid and valuable. The families of wealth and consideration, who had waited for the pioneers to prepare the way for their coming, had now brought flocks and herds, and cast in their lot with the advance guards of civilization. By 1790 the population had increased 200

HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.

per cent. in fifteen years. It was now, in spite of the losses of the Revolution, 4,850, distributed in the towns of Conway 574, Eaton 253, Effingham 154, Ossipee 339. Wakefield 646, Wolfeborough 447, Tuftonborough 109, Moulton- borough 565, Sandwich 905, Tamworth 266, Albany 133, Bartlett 248, Chat- ham 58, Hart's Location 12, Burton 141.

The increase and influx of inhabitants during the last decade of the last century was nothing less than marvelous. The nineteenth century com- mences with fifteen towns in Carroll county territory, having 9,519 inhabitants : Adams 180, Bartlett 548, Brookfield 504, Burton 264, Chatham 183, Conway 705, Eaton 381, Effingham 451, Moultonborough 857, Ossipee 1,143, Sandwich 1.413, Tamworth 757, Tuftonborough 357, Wakefield 835, Wolfeborough 941.

Town organizations had early introduced the law and order of old commu- nities. Four towns had duly elected selectmen in 1773. Conway elected Abiel Lovejoy and John Webster; Sandwich, Bagley Weed and Daniel Beede ; Moultonborough, Bradbury Richardson and John Adams; Wolfe- borough, Benjamin Folsom, Thomas Taylor, and James Connor.

Within less than forty years from the granting of the first town in this territory, the land of the Indian and his barbarous companions, the wolf, the panther, and the bear, had been reclaimed to civilization, and a new epoch commenced. The history of one race upon this soil had been closed, and the history of another, a higher and a civilized race, begun, and the materials for a fruitful and a promising chapter wrought out. Savage possession was succeeded by Christian occupancy.

CHAPTER VIII.

EARLY LAND GRANTS, TITLES, ETC.

Grants by James I - North Virginia - Plymouth Company - Captain John Smith - New England - Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason - Province of Maine - Laconia - First Settlement of New Hampshire - Annulling of Plymouth Charter - Death of John Mason - Litigation - Robert Tufton Mason-Governor Benning Wentworth -Twelve Proprietors and Their Grants - Legislative Settlements of Mason's Grant.

I N 1606 a belt of twelve degrees on the American coast, embracing nearly all the soil from Cape Fear to Halifax, was set apart by James I for two rival companies. One, North Virginia, included the land from the forty-first degree of north latitude to the forty-fifth; the other extended from the thirty- fourth to the thirty-eighth degree.

EARLY LAND GRANTS, TITLES, ETC.

The northern portion was granted to the " Plymouth Company," formed in the west of England. The king retained the power of appointment of all offi- cers, exacted homage and rent, and demanded one fifth of all the gold and sil- ver found, and one fifteenth of all the copper for the royal treasury. "Not an element of popular liberty was introduced into these charters ; the colonists were not recognized as a source of political power; they were at the mercy of a double-headed tyranny composed of the king and his advisers, the Council and its agents."

A new charter was given to the Council of Plymouth, November 3, 1620, granting the lands between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of north lati- tude, from sea to sea, as "New England in America." All powers of legisla- tion, unlimited jurisdiction, and absolute property in this tract were given by this charter. The name originated with the celebrated Captain John Smith, who, during the years from 1605 to 1616, was the greatest American explorer. He made a map of the American coast from Cape Cod to Penobscot in 1614 and called it "New England." The name came into favor with the sovereign, and has been indelibly stamped upon this section of America.

Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason were prominent members of the Council of Plymouth. A man of intellect and courage, a most brilliant naval officer, and a leading spirit in many prominent historical events in Eng- land, Gorges had always a desire to create a new nation in the barbaric lands of America. He had been associated with Raleigh in founding the settlements in Virginia, and it was through him that the exploration and map of New Eng- land were made by John Smith. Fitting out several expeditions which came to naught, he at last became associated with Captain John Mason, a kindred spirit, who had been governor of Newfoundland. The meeting of such men struck coruscant and rapid sparks of enthusiasm. In quick succession they secured various charters, which were intended to, and really did, cover most of the territory now in this state.

The "Province of Maine " was granted by King James to Gorges and Mason, August 10, 1622. This grant was bounded by the rivers Sagadahoc (Kennebec) and Merrimack. Palfrey says : " In the same year (1622) the Coun- cil [of Plymouth] granted to Gorges and Mason the country bounded by the Merrimack, the Kennebec, the ocean, and the river of Canada, and this terri- tory was called Laconia." It received its name from the number of lakes lying within its territory, and by some was considered to reach beyond the Great Lakes. The imperfect knowledge of the country possessed by the Council caused them to make such vague description of the lands in the patent and the intended extent of territory as to cause innumerable disputes in after years.

The first settlement of New Hampshire was undoubtedly made in two places in the same year (1623). An " Indenture of David Thomson " has been preserved that shows that David Thomson came over in the spring of 1623 in

HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.

the ship "Jonathan," and settled at "Little Harbor " (Portsmouth), in pursu- ance of an agreement he had made with Abraham Colmer, Nicholas Sherwill, and Leonard Pomerie, merchants of Plymouth, England, and that neither Gorges and Mason nor the Laconia Company had anything to do with this. In the same year Edward and William Hilton made a settlement at Dover under a patent from the Plymouth Council, which conflicted with that given to the Laconia proprietors.

The first ship which came out in the interests of the Laconia Company was the " Warwick," which sailed from London in March, 1630, with Walter Neal, governor, and Ambrose Gibbons, factor; instead of commencing a settlement, they found one of several years' existence when they reached the mouth of the Piscataqua.

Varions patents were granted. Mason and Gorges divided their territory. Mason's patents covered the Upper and Lower Plantations, and the settlers obtained patents from the Council to protect their rights. In 1634 Thomas Williams was appointed governor, and under his wise administration great improvement was made in the settlements. Laborers, materials for building, settlers, cattle, and everything necessary for prosperity came rapidly over from England. In 1635, however, the Plymouth Council was compelled to give up its charter to the king, and the different provinces from the Hudson to the Penobscot were assigned by lot to the twelve living members of the corpo- ration, and the colonists had no title to the lands they had subdued and cultivated, nor any hope of redress.

The annulling of the charter caused New Hampshire and Massachusetts to belong to Gorges, Mason, and the Marquis of Hamilton, who drew them by lot. Neither Mason nor Gorges ever realized his hopes of an English manor here. Mason died within a year from the annulling of the Plymouth charter, and " his immense estate was swallowed up in outlays, supplies, and wages, and at his death his New Hampshire claim was valued at £10,000." By will he devised his manor of Mason Hall to his grandson, Robert Tufton, and the residue of New Hampshire to his grandson, John Tufton, requiring each to take the name of Mason.

John Tufton Mason died in infancy. Robert Tufton Mason became of age in 1650, and in 1652 Mrs Mason sent over Joseph Mason to secure her rights. Massachusetts courts decided adversely to her claims, and matters rested thus until after the restoration of Charles II, when the king's attorney-general (in 1662) decided that Robert Tufton Mason "had a good and legal title to the province of New Hampshire." The colonists had a long season of trouble and persecutions under the various royal governors appointed in the interest of Mason, but defeated all his attempts to recover the cultivated lands.1

1 In 1661 Fluellen, head chief of the Sokokis, conveyed to Major William Phillips, of Saco, Maine, a tract of land bounded In part by " a line running up the Ossipee river from the Saco to Ossipee pond, thenee to Ossipee mountain, thence to Humphrey Chadbourne's logging camp." No title to lands In New Hampshire was perpetu- ated from this conveyance.

EARLY LAND GRANTS, TITLES, ETC.

In 1686 Mason leased a tract of a million acres of unoccupied lands in the Merrimack valley to twenty individuals for an annual rent of ten shillings.

The Masonian claims were afterward presented by one Allen, who died in 1705. His son Thomas renewed the suits commenced by his father, and on petition to the queen was permitted to bring a writ of ejectment in the New Hampshire courts. After a full hearing, the case was decided against him. Taking an appeal to the English courts, the case had not come up for hearing when he died. Then litigation was stopped for years.

There is scarcely a land controversy on record which has created so many lawsuits, or continued so many years, as this claim of Mason to New Hamp- shire. And the end was not yet. During the contentions over the boundaries between New Hampshire and Massachusetts more than thirty years later (1738), some astute lawyer discovered a lineal descendant of Captain John Mason, bearing the name of John Tufton Mason, and succeeded in getting him to make elaims to all the lands granted to Captain John Mason, alleging a flaw in the conveyance to Allen. The claim proved a good one, and the heirs of Mason were again in possession.

After George II had quieted the boundary question alluded to above, he made New Hampshire an independent royal province (1741), with Benning Wentworth, Esq., as governor. The same year Mason came again to New Hampshire, and in 1744 Governor Wentworth brought a proposition to buy Mason's claim before the Assembly. Action by that body was, however, delayed by the excitement incident to the Louisburg expedition, in which Mason was personally engaged. After his return from military life, Mason, in 1746, informed the Assembly that he would sell his elaim to private individuals if that body did not take speedy action on his proposition. After prolonged discussion, the Assembly accepted his terms; but while they were delaying, Mason deeded the property to these twelve prominent gentlemen of Ports- mouth, receiving therefor the nominal price of £1,500: Theodore Atkinson, Mark H. Wentworth, Richard Wibird, John Wentworth (son of the governor), George Jaffrey, Nathaniel Meserve, Thomas Packer, Thomas Wallingford, Jotham Odiorne, Joshua Pierec, Samuel Moore, and John Moffat. Atkinson had three fifteenths, M. H. Wentworth had two fifteenths, and all the rest one fifteenth each. These men were afterwards known as the Masonian proprietors.

Professor Sanborn says: "This deed led to long and angry disputes between the purchasers and the Assembly. They at one time agreed to surrender their claim to the Assembly, provided the land should be granted by the governor and Council. The Assembly was jealous of these officers, and would not accept the offer. The people murmured, the legislators threatened ; but the new proprietors stood firm. They proceeded to grant new townships on the most liberal terms, asking no reward for the lands occupied by actual

HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.

settlers, only insisting on immediate improvement in roads, mills, and churches. They reserved in each town one right for a settled minister, one for a par- sonage, one for a school, and fifteen rights for themselves. This generous conduct made them friends, and they soon became popular with all parties. The heirs of Allen threatened loudly to vindicate their claim, but never actually commenced a snit. So the matter ran on, under the new proprie- torship. till the Revolution, like a flood, swept away all these rotten defences, and gave to actual settlers a title, in fee simple, to their farms."

The bound of these grants on the west was limited to threescore miles, and in time a dispute arose on two points: where the exact limit should be fixed, and whether the western boundary should be a curve or a straight line. Dr Belknap says on this : -

The Masonian proprietors claimed a curre line as their western boundary, and under the royal government no one had controverted that claim. When the war with Great Britain was terminated by the peace of 1783, the grantees of some crown lands with which this line inter- fered petitioned the Assembly to ascertain the limits of Mason's patent. The Masonians at the same time presented a petition showing the pretensions which they had to a curve line, and praying that a survey of it, which had been made in 1768 by Robert Fletcher, might be established. About the same time, the heirs of Allen, whose claim had long lain dormant for want of ability to prosecute it. having consulted counsel and admitted some persons of prop- erty into partnership with them. entered and took possession of the unoceupied lands within the limits of the patent, and, in imitation of the Masonians, gave general deeds of quitelaim to all bona fide purchasers previously to the first of May, 1785, which deeds were recorded in each county and published in the newspapers. They also petitioned the Assembly to estab- lish a headline for their patent. After a solemn hearing of these claims, the Assembly ordered a survey to be made of sixty miles from the sea on the southern and eastern lines of the state, and a straight line to be run from the end of one line of sixty miles to the end of the other. It also passed an act to quiet all bona fide purchasers of lands between the straight and curve lines, so far as that the state should not disturb them. This survey was made in 1787 by Joseph Blanchard and Charles Clapham.

The line begins on the southern boundary, at Lot No. 18. in the town of Rindge. Its course is north, thirty-nine east. Its extent is ninety-three and one-half miles. It ends at a point in the eastern boundary which is seven miles and two hundred and six rods northward of Great Ossapy river. This line being established as the headline or western boundary of Mason's patent, the Masonians, for the sum of forty thousand dollars in publie securities and eight hundred dollars in specie, purchased of the state all its right and title to the unoccupied lands between the straight line and the curve. The heirs of Allen were then confined in their claim to those waste lands only which were within the straight line. They have since com- promised their disputes with the proprietors of eleven of the fifteen Masonian shares by deeds of mutual quitelaim and release. This was done in January, 1790.

In the original grant to Mason. November 7, 1629, it was made to include " all that part of the mainland in New England lying upon the seacoast, beginning from the middle part of Merrimack river, and from thence to proceed northwards along the seacoast to Pascataqua river, and so forwards up within the said river and to the furtherest head thereof, and from thenee northwest ward, until threescore miles be finished from the first entrance of Pascataqua river: also, from Merrimack through the said river and to the

EARLY LAND GRANTS, TITLES, ETC.

furtherest head thereof, and so forwards up into the lands westwards, until threescore miles be finished; and from thence to cross overland to the three- score miles end, accompted from Pascataqua river."

This grant, as modified and confirmed April 22, 1635, kept the same bounds and language. The Masonians, says Hammond, in their eagerness, perhaps, to make the most of their patent, claimed that the crossline from the southwestern to northerly bound should be a curve line, or the arc of a circle of sixty miles from a point on the seacoast. But evidently the quantity of land taken in by a sweep of sixty miles would depend much on the starting-point, and much more whether it would be a straight line or a curve. This caused much dispute and litigation. The curve line drawn on Carrigain's map (1816) commences at the southwestern end, in Fitzwilliam, and in its sweep across to the north- eastern bound passes through Marlborough, Roxbury, Sullivan, Marlow, Wash- ington, Goshen, New London, Wilmot, Orange, Hebron, Plymouth, Holderness, Campton, Sandwich, Burton, to or near the south line of Conway. In a note on his map, Mr. Carrigain says : " A survey made in 1768 carried the eastern end of the Mason curve line ten miles further down ; hence the straight line of 1787 runs to the S. W. corner of Rindge." In conformity to this statement, the straight line drawn on Belknap's map (1791) commences on the western end, in Rindge, and runs through Jaffrey, Peterborough, Greenfield, Frances- town, Weare, Hopkinton, Concord, Canterbury, Gilmanton, across Lake Winni- piseogee, Wolfeborough, Tuftonborough, to Ossipee.1 It will be seen that the difference in land between the two lines was well worth some litigation. The act of June 28, 1787, quieted the titles of all bona fide purchasers of the lands in dispute. The Masonian proprietors held title to much of the land in the southern half of what is now Carroll county, and the controversy we have thus reviewed is a part of its history.

1 The committee appointed to run this line says in its report to the House, February 1, 1788, that they did run it from "about 70 rods below Colonel Badger's house [Gilmanton] across a small part or corner of the Gore over Rattlesnake Island in Winnepeseochee Pond to Wolfborough, about 2 rods north of Ebenezer Ilorn's barn, and other places as noted on the plan."

HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.

CHAPTER IX.

EARLY SETTLERS.

Character of Early Settlers of New Hampshire - Concerning the Houses, Manner of Living, etc. - "The Meeting-house " - Minister - Traveling - Labor - Children - Carroll County Pioneers - Hardships - Privations - Sufferings - Education - Dress, etc.

C HARACTER OF EARLY SETTLERS OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. - The people of Carroll county, as well as those of the other counties of the state, have a personal interest in the characters and aims of the early settlers of -

New Hampshire. It is of interest to them and their descendants whether the early proprietors and settlers were actuated merely by a sordid love of gain, or whether, with the business enterprise they manifested, there was not also a design to plant on these lands the Christian religion and to uphold the Chris- tian faith. Were we to believe all that was said by the men of the Massachusetts Colony, we would pronounce them godless, lawless persons " whose chief end was to catch fish." Rev. James de Normandie, in his excellent "History of Portsmouth," in speaking of the long and bitter controversy on this subject, says : " All of the proprietors interested in the settlement were of the Established Church, and it was only natural that all of the settlers who came out with them should be zealous in that faith. Gorges and Mason, Godfrie and Neal, Gibbons and Chadbourne, and Williams, and all the names appearing on the colonial records, were doubt- less of this faith. Among the earliest inventories of the colony's goods we find mention of service-books, of a flagon, and of cloths for the communion table, which show that provisions for worship were not neglected, and of what form the worship was." Gorges, in defending his company from various charges before the English House of Commons, asserts that "I have spent £20,000 of my estate and thirty years, the whole flower of my life, in new discoveries and settlements upon a remote continent, in the enlargement of my country's commerce and dominions, and in carrying civilization and Christianity into regions of savages." In Mason's will were instructions to convey 1,000 acres of his New Hampshire estate "for and towards the maintenance of an honest, godly, and religious preacher of God's Word, in some church or chapel or other public place appointed for divine worship and service within the county of New Hampshire :" together with provisions for the support of a "free grammar school for the education of youth." No better proofs could be given

EARLY SETTLERS.

that the aspirations of these energetie men, from whom many of the citizens of this county elaim descent, were high, moral, and religious.

Concerning the houses, manner of living, etc., of the early inhabitants of New Hampshire, Professor Sanborn says : "The primitive log-house, dark, dirty, and dismal, rarely outlived its first occupant. The first framed houses were usually small, low, and cold. The half-house, about twenty feet square, satisfied the unambitious. The double house, forty by twenty feet in dimensions, indicated progress and wealth. It was designed for shelter, not for comfort or elegance. The windows were small, without blinds or shutters. The fireplace was suffi- ciently spacious to receive logs of three or four feet in diameter, with an oven in the back and a flue nearly large enough to allow the ascent of a balloon. One could sit in the chimney-corner and see the stars. All the cooking was done by this fire. Around it also gathered the family at evening, often numbering from six to twelve children. The furniture was simple and useful, all made of the wood of the native forest trees. Pine, birch, cherry, walnut, and the curled maple were most frequently chosen by the 'cabinet-maker.' Vessels of iron, copper, and tin were used in cooking. The dressers, extending from floor to ceiling in the kitchen, contained the mugs, basins, and plates of pewter which shone upon the farmer's board at the time of meals. The post of the house- wife was no sinecure. She had charge of the dairy and kitchen, besides washing and mending for the 'men-folks,' spinning and weaving, sewing and knitting. The best room, often called the 'square or spare room,' contained a bed, a bureau or desk, or a chest of drawers, a clock, and, possibly, a brass fire- set. Its walls were entirely destitute of ornament. It was an age of simple manners and industrious habits. Contentment, enjoyment, and longevity were prominent characteristics of that age. Prior to 1826, there were nearly four hundred persons who died in New Hampshire between the ages of ninety and a hundred and five years. Fevers and epidemies sometimes swept away the people, but consumption and neuralgia were then almost unknown. Their simple diet and active habits were conducive to health.

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History of Carroll County, New Hampshire, Part 7

Author: Merrill, Georgia Drew Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Boston : W.A. Fergusson & Co. Number of Pages: 1124

Author: Merrill, Georgia Drew
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Boston : W.A. Fergusson & Co.
Number of Pages: 1124