USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Concord > History of Concord, New Hampshire, from the original grant in seventeen hundred and twenty-five to the opening of the twentieth century, Volume I > Part 11
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up within said river-to the farthest head thereof; and thence northwestward until threescore miles be finished from the entrance of Pascataqua river ; also, through Merrimack river to the farthest head thereof; and so forward up into the lands westward until threescore miles be finished ; and thence to cross over land to the threescore miles' end, accounted from Pascat- aqua river ; together with all islands and islets within five leagues' distance of the premises."
This grant, Captain Mason named New Hampshire. His patent was inconsistent with the Massachusetts charter, previously granted, as to the Merrimack boundary line; the description of which in both was founded upon the misconception, that the river runs easterly the whole distance from source to sea ; as it does run, from the almost rectangular bend occurring in its longer southerly course. Out of this misconception was to spring a mischievous controversy of the lines, not to be settled for more than a hundred years, and then only by the royal fiat ;- a controversy which was seriously to affect the interests of the civilized settlement which was to occupy the wilder- ness of ancient Penacook.
Massachusetts, enterprising and ambitious, found her territory too much straitened by the literal signification of the terms defining her northern river boundary, and early sought by liberal interpreta- tion to expand her border. After the death of Mason,-a royalist churchman, and no friend of hers,-her puritan authorities ventured to take measures to push back her northerly line upon New Hamp- shire. This, by 1639, contained the four settlements of Dover, Portsmouth, Exeter, and Hampton. The last was claimed as a Mas- sachusetts township, notwithstanding the protest of the agent of Mason's estate. About that time, men were sent out to discover the " head " of the Merrimack, as its " farthest part." They reported that they "found some part of the Merrimack about Penkook,"-as Governor Winthrop has it,-"to lie more northerly than forty-three and a half." Soon the " head " was located at the junction of the Pemigewasset and Winnepesaukee rivers. A pine, to be known as " Endicott's Tree," standing three miles north of the confluence, was selected to designate the point through which the northern boun- dary line of Massachusetts passed, east to the Atlantic ocean and west to the Pacific. By 1642 Dover, Portsmouth, and Exeter had
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come into union with Massachusetts, and under her jurisdiction ; a result brought about not without much adroit manœuvering on the part of the ambitious colony. Hampton had always been under that jurisdiction; so that New Hampshire, being at that time comprised in these four towns, which " were then of such extent as to contain all the lands between the rivers Merrimack and Pascataqua," was merged with Massachusetts, as part of her county of Norfork, in a union which lasted forty years.
It may also be recalled here that a little later (1644) Passacona- way gave in his formal submission to the government of Massachu- setts. In 1642 the sachems, Passaquo and Saggahew, had, " with the consent of Passaconaway," conveyed by deed " the lands they had at Pentucket," a township then recently settled, and which, as Haverhill, was eighty years later, through some of its enterprising inhabitants, to take an important hand in the settlement of Pena- cook.
Robert Tufton, the surviving grandson and heir of Mason, having reached majority and taken the surname of his grandfather, attempted, in 1650, by a test suit, to recover his legacy of New Hampshire, but with no success ; while Massachusetts, two years later, determined to push back still farther her northern boundary line so as completely to include the territory of Mason's grant. Accordingly, in the sum- mer of 1652, Captain Edward Johnson, one of her commissioners, with two surveyors, John Sherman and Jonathan Ince, and several Indian guides, passed up the Merrimack through Penacook in a boat, on a nineteen days' trip, to find the " head of the Merrimack." They found it this time at the " Weirs," where the river "issues out of the lake called Winnapusseakit," as the surveyors reported. The location was designated by a large stone which lay in the bed of the river, and which, inscribed with the name of Governor John Endi- cott and the initials of the commissioners, Edward Johnson and Simon Willard, was to become historic as "The Endicott Rock." A straight line drawn through a point three miles due north from this " farthest part " of the Merrimack, and extending east and west from ocean to ocean, was decreed to be the northern boundary line of Massachusetts in that quarter.
Penacook carly attracted attention as a desirable place for civilized settlement. In 1659 some men of Dover and Newbury,-towns under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, in the Union, -- made petition to the General Court for " the grant of a tracke of land .
to the quantity of twelve miles square " at "a place which is called Pennecooke." The name of Richard Walderne, or Waldron (which often occurs in the preceding chapter), headed the list of twenty-two
8
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signatures1 to the petition. The petitioners prayed,-in ease the grant were made,-" the liberty of three yeares to give in their res- olution, wheather to proceed for the settlinge of a town or noe, after vewinge it and considering fully about it;" and they further prayed, in case they did proceed, " the grant of their freedom from publique charge for the space of seaven yeares after the time of their resolution given in to this honerd Corte ;" this, they added, to be "for our eneorragement to settle a plantation soe furre remote, as knowinge that many will be our ineonvenyenees (for a long time), which we must expeekt to meet with. The deputies, or lower house, replied on the eighteenth of May of the same year to the petition, by granting, on their part, "a plantation of eight miles square, upon condition " that the petitioners " make report to the Court, at the session to be held in October 1660, of their resolution to p'seeute the same . and to carry on the work of the said place in all eivill and eelesiastieall respects, and that within two years then next ensuing, there be 20 families there settled ; also, that they may have imunity from all publique charges (excepting in eases extraordinary), for seavern yeares next ensuing the date hereof." Whether the magistrates, or the upper house, consented or not, noth- ing practical came of the movement. For on the 16th of May, 1662, the deputies adopted the following preamble and order: " Upon informaeon that Penieooke is An Apt place for A Township, and in consideration of the lord's great blessing upon the countrie in multi- plying the inhabitants and plantations here ; and that Allmost All sueh places are Allreadie taken up : Tis ordered by this Court, that the lands at Peniecook be reserved for a plantation till so many of such as have peteeioned for lands there, or of others, shall present to settle A plantation there." 2
The same year (1662), moreover, sundry inhabitants of Malden presented a petition for " a traet of land about four miles square, at a place called Pennyeooke, as an addition " to their township, whose bounds were " exceeding streight." But the prayer was not granted, and Penacook did not become Malden-Addition. The next year, 1663, inhabitants of Chelmsford petitioned for the grant of a town- ship at Penacook, but without sueeess. In October of that year, however, the petition of sundry inhabitants of Salem received favor in the grant to them of "a plantation of six miles square at Penni- eook, if getting twenty families on it within three years." The eon- · ditions were not fulfilled ; but some of the petitioners did ereet " a trading-house at Pennicook,"-being, possibly, the same as that of
1 See note at close of chapter; also, Bouton's Concord, 52.
2 N. H. State Papers, Vol. XXIV, 33.
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Waldron and Coffin, which stood in 1668 on or near a five hundred acre tract, not devoid of historic interest.
These " five hundred acres of land in the wilderness at Penni- cooke " comprised fine interval on the east side of the Merrimack, and an island close by, reputed to have been a favorite abode of Pas- saconaway. In 1668 this land was surveyed and laid out, under a right granted to Governor John Endicott eleven years before. The title having been sold by Governor Endicott to John Hull, the weal- thy mint-master of Massachusetts, and the latter dying, his daughter Hannah, and her husband, Samuel Sewell, the inflexible but manly judge in the days of witchcraft, petitioned the General Court, in 1695, that " this tract might be confirmed to them," and the prayer was granted.1 Sewall's Farm was the first permanent grant of land in Penacook made by Massachusetts.
The confirmation of the Endicott grant to Judge Sewall, in 1695, occurred sixteen years after New Hampshire was detached from Massachusetts, and made a royal province. For upon the restoration of the Stuarts, and the accession of Charles II to the throne of Eng- land, in 1660, Robert Tufton Mason had urged his claim anew, till Massachusetts, in 1677, was compelled to disclaim before the king in council " all title to the lands claimed by Robert Mason, and to the jurisdiction beyond three miles northward of the river Merrimack, to follow the course of the river as far as it extended." It was found by the chief justices of the king's bench that, while " the four towns of Portsmouth, Dover, Exeter, and Hampton were out of the bounds of Massachusetts," Mason had no "right of government within the soil he claimed." The finding was approved in 1677 by the king in council. Moreover, it being admitted that Mason's title to the lands " could be tried only on the place,-there being no court in England that had cognizance of it,-it became necessary to the establishment of that title, that a new jurisdiction should be erected, in which the king might direct the mode of trial and appeal at his pleasure." 2 Accordingly, on the 18th of September, 1679, a " commission passed the great seal for the government of New Hampshire," inhibiting and restraining " the jurisdiction exercised by the colony of Massachu- setts over " the four towns, " and all other lands extending from three miles to the northward of the river Merrimack, and of any and every part thereof, to the province of Maine ;" and constituting "a president and council to govern the province." 2
This commission, while restraining the jurisdiction of Massachu- setts over certain lands, did not settle the divisional line between that
1 See N. H. State Papers, Vol. XXIV, 62-3-5-7.
2 Farmer's Belknap, 88.
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colony and the new province, nor curtail Mason's claim, which ex- tended sixty miles inland from the sea. It did not declare that Massachusetts might hold, to the exclusion of Mason or anybody else, all the lands to the southward of a line " three miles to the north- ward " of " any part " of the Merrimack, but merely inhibited the jurisdiction hitherto exercised by her over those extending from that line to Maine. Massachusetts, however, acted on the assumption that the line was a settled divisional one ; and that a prohibited juris- diction over specified lands somehow implied a permitted jurisdiction over lands not specified. The description of the line, given in the commission, was, to be sure, that of the charter of Massachusetts, but this had been issued in total ignorance of the true course of the Merrimack. Hence she was obliged, though to the utter confusion of the points of the compass, to construe the term " northward " as identical with eastward, when applied to two thirds of the river's course. But such a liberal, not to say audacious, interpretation of the terms of her charter was deemed necessary, since otherwise, as has been before suggested, she would be nudged out of coveted terri- tory by the river's sharp elbow. And to this construction of her charter line, Massachusetts held steadfastly ; her claim, in plain and consistent description, covering all the lands south and west of a line, beginning at a point three miles north of the Merrimack, thence run- ning inland westerly and northerly, at the same distance from the river, and on its right, as one ascends the stream, to the confluence of the Winnepesaukce and Pemigewasset rivers, thence north three miles to Endicott's Tree, thence running, bent at right angles, indefi- nitely west. For it should here be observed that she had never insisted upon her claim that Endicott Rock marked the head of the Merrimack, nor, for years, upon her other claim to a line running east from Endicott's Tree to the Atlantic ocean. Of the lands, south- ward and westward of the line claimed, and as far as the Connecti- cut river, she made grants at pleasure, until the settlement of the lines in 1740. Sewall's Farm, in the wilds of Penacook, belonged to those lands, lying, as it did, eastward-or northward as Massa- chusetts called it-of the Merrimack, and within the distance of three miles therefrom.
One purpose of erecting New Hampshire into a royal province was, as has been seen, to facilitate the establishment of Mason's title to the lands. In this respect, the scheme failed as " to the inhabited part of the province." Accordingly, in 1686, to lay a foundation for realizing his claim to the waste lands, Mason, by deed, with a reser- vation " to himself and his heirs, of the yearly rent of ten shillings, confirmed a purchase " made " from the Indians,"-probably, through
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Wonolancet, still living,-" by Jonathan Tyng and nineteen others." This " Million-Acre-Purchase," as it was called, embraced "a tract of land on both sides of the river Merrimack, six miles in breadth, from Souhegan river to Winnepiseogee lake."1 This speculative enterprise entirely disregarded Sewall's five hundred acre grant ; but it never proved of any practical consequence, either to Mason or the purchasers.
No further movements to procure the granting of the soil of Pena- cook, either for speculation or settlement, appear to have been made till 1714, after the Peace of Utrecht, when Salem people again peti- tioned the government of Massachusetts, that " the grant of a planta- tion of six miles square at Penacook," made in 1663-fifty-one years before-might " be confirmed to them." They alleged, in valid excuse for not having fulfilled the conditions of the former grant, that they "had been embarrassed by Indian wars"; and, indeed, such wars, and bloody ones, had raged for nearly half of the years intervening between the petitions. This movement was, however, ineffectual.
New Hampshire and Massachusetts had now for some years had a single governor, but each its lieutenant-governor. The boundary lines, and Mason's claim-which, by sale, had temporarily become Allen's-were still in dispute, and both governments were coy in making grants. Futile attempts had been made at sundry times to settle the line controversy, In 1719, under the administration of Governor Samuel Shute and Lieutenant-Governor John Wentworth, New Hampshire proposed to Massachusetts the establishment of a line, beginning at a point three miles north of the mouth of the Mer- rimack, and thence running due west to the western boundary of that province. The proposition was rejected by Massachusetts ; whereupon Henry Newman, the New Hampshire agent in England, was instructed to solicit approval of it from the lords of trade.
The same year (1719) sixteen families of Scotch Presbyterians made a settlement of Nutfield, "a tract of good land above Haver- hill." 2 They had arrived the year before in Boston, with many others, from the north of Ireland, where a colony of their race, the result of migrations from Scotland, had existed since 1609. This accession of Scotch-Irish inhabitants was unexpected, but valuable, though for a time misappreciated, there being a strong prejudice against the Irish proper, with whom the new-comers were confounded. This planting of Nutfield, or Londonderry, and the presence of this new and vigorous element of population, stimulated the settlement of other places " on the waste lands." Indeed, the adventurous men
1 Farmer's Belknap, 116.
2 Farmer's Belknap, 192, 2.
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of Nutfield soon began to look for more room, as their numbers swelled by fresh immigration, and they cast their eyes northward, with shrewd discernment, even to Penacook.
But some of the sagacious and enterprising men of Essex county, in Massachusetts, notably of the towns of Andover, Bradford, and Haverhill, had also spied out the land in the same quarter. On the 31st day of May, 1721, one hundred and nineteen 1 of these joined in a petition to Governor Shute and " to the Honerable, the Council and House of Representatives in General Court assembled," setting forth, in substance, that "being straitened for accommodations for them- selves and their posterity," they had " espied a tract of land situate on the river Merrymake (the great river of the said country), where- on they " were " desirous to make a settlement and form a town." They prayed that there might be granted them " a tract of land for a township, which " lay " at the lower end of Penniecook : to begin three miles to the eastward of Merrimake river, at the place nearest the mouth of Conduncook (Contoocook), to extend to Merri- make river, and over it, to and up Conduncook river, eight miles ; thence to run southerly seven miles parallel with Merrimake river : and at the end of the said seven miles, to run directly to the mouth of Suncoot river ; and then up Suncoot river till it " came "to the distance of three miles from Merrimake river; and then on a straight line to the first mentioned bound :" the tract being " computed to contain . . about eight miles square." 2
The petition having been received and considered, a committee, consisting of Captain John Shipley, Colonel Joseph Buckminster, and Mr. Joseph Winslow, was appointed "to take exact survey of the land on each side of the Merrimack, between the rivers Suncook and Cuntacook, and lay the same into two townships, if the land be capable thereof." 3 The committee appointed William Ward and John Jones to make the survey ; and this they did in May, 1722. They found the upper portion to comprise 69,500 acres, of which 2,000 were interval. The south line, crossing the Merrimack at its junction with ShooBrook (Soucook), measured eleven miles ; or 1,530 rods on the east side and 1,990 on the west. The north line, cross- ing the Merrimack at or near the mouth of the Contoocook, 1,450 rods east, followed the course of the Contoocook west. The line, joining the eastern termini of these lines, was ten miles; that drawn from the western terminus of the south line till it struck the Contoo-
. cook was nine miles and fifty rods.4 The committee reported to the
1 See note at close of chapter; also, Bouton's, Concord, 54.
2 Bonton's, Concord, 53-4.
9 N. H. State Papers, Vol. XXIV, 34.
4 Bouton's, Concord, 55.
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THE GRANT OF THE PLANTATION OF PENACOOK.
General Court on the 15th of June, 1722, the result of the survey of the land " between the Suncook and Cuntacook," with the conclusion that the tract contained " a great quantity of waste land, and some good ; and that the same " might " be accommodable for settling a township, if laid out large enough."1 The surveyors had also re- ported that, in performing their " service, they observed a new line marked upon several trees, particularly on one corner tree marked with the letter N,-and several other trees,-which tree " was " not more than one mile and a half from Merrimack river; and discours- ing with some Irish people," the latter " declared that they had a grant, from the government of New-Hampshire, of the land home to the Merrimack river, from Amoskeag falls, and that they were re- solved to make a speedy settlement there." Thereupon, on the same 15th of June, 1722, the house, startled by this intelligence, ordered a committee of three forthwith to inquire of the governor " whether the government of New-Hampshire have granted any such tract of land, that this government may prevent any such encroachment on the lands and properties of this province." In the confusion inci- dent to the non-settlement of the boundary line, the governments of the two provinces were beginning to watch each other more and more narrowly. Massachusetts had reason, in this connection, to keep an open eye upon the lively "Irish people," to whose settlement at Nut- field she had refused patronage, by declining to confirm to them her previous grant of lands of their own selection, "at the eastward," on the ground that their present location was not within her jurisdic- tion. But New Hampshire, while at first withholding "a grant in the king's name," had given "them a protection,"2 and "they re- membered with much gratitude the friendly offices of Lieutenant- governor Wentworth."3 The government which had protected the plantation of Nutfield, and had made,-or was just about to make,- of it the town of Londonderry, might favor these "Irish people " in other attempts at settlement, and do so, too, without squeamish re- gard to that line, "three miles to the northward of the Merrimack," so pertinaciously insisted upon. Indeed, no such regard had been shown in the previous incorporation of Chester in that chestnut region.
The petition of 1721, however, did not receive the assent of the General Court for four years, though a committee of the petitioners, consisting of Benjamin Stevens, Andrew Mitchell, David Kimball, Ebenezer Eastman, John Osgood, and Moses Day, perseveringly reit- erated and enforced its prayer in earnest requests. The house re-
1 N. H. State Papers, Vol. XXIV, 35.
2 Farmer's Belknap, 194.
8 Whiton's New Hampshire, 66.
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sponded promptly and steadily in favorable action, but the council failed to concur. Thus, in December, 1723, the house, on its part, voted the grant of a township, according to the survey of Messrs. Ward and Jones, and similar action was taken the next year. Why the council delayed concurrence is not known; though, possibly, the preoccupation of the government with Lovewell's Indian war, which was then raging, and did not cease till 1725, may have been one cause, while another may have existed in the critical condition of the line question, which New Hampshire had referred to the king, and to meet which, it may have been thought, required, just then, special prudence on the part of Massashusetts in the disposal of territory. But the men of Essex county did not give over in face of procrasti- nating legislation, and with Scotch-Irish adventurers for their sturdy rivals. This rivalry finds illustration of its character and spirit in the brief journal of an expedition made to "Pennecook," in the spring of 1723, by Captain James Frie and Lieutenant Stephen Barker,-the latter a petitioner of 1721,-with thirty men. The party having " moved from Andover," on the 19th of March, " came," on the fourth day out, " to Pennecook Plains, at the Intervale lands, about 11 of the clock ; " having " lodged " the three preceding nights, respectively, at, "Nutfield, Amiskege, and Suncook." The record thence sent home under date of March 22d, to Benjamin Stevens, one of the original petitioners, and of their committee of six already mentioned, proceeds in this wise :
" There we found five of those men which came from N. Ireland. Mr. Houston was one of them. They came to us, and we chose Cap- tain Frie to discourse them with 4 men. They say they have a grant of this Penacook on both sides of the river. They call us rebbells, and command us to discharge the place, both in the King's name and in the Province's ; and if we don't in a fortnight, they will gitt us off. We therefore desire you, Justice Stevens, with the committee, to send us word whether we have any encouragement to stay, or else to draw off. But Captain Frie's courage is so that he will stay allone rather than let them userpers drive us off." 1
There were, however, more words than blows on the Merrimack at that time ; but the " usurpers " from " North Ireland," though they did not "get" the Massachusetts " rebels off," still held their ground ; for, by 1724, they had built a fort upon the interval on the east side of the river, within eighty rods of Sewall's Farm,2 with a view to per- ' manent occupation. It was at that "Irish Fort," so called, that Col- onel Tyng, at the head of a scouting party bound for Lake Winnepe-
1 N. H. State Papers, Vol. XXIV, 36.
2 See Wainwright's Journal in next chapter.
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saukee, in pursuit of Indians, quartered on the 5th and 6th of April, 1725, " the snow being so thick upon the bushes that " the company "could not travel without injuring their provisions."1 From that structure, also, the settlement east of the river-the modern East Concord-was long called " The Fort."
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