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 20
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1 Prov. Papers, Vol. V, 880-1. & Ibid, 102.
2 Adjutant-General's Report, 1866, Vol. II, 99. 4 Committee's report, Bouton's Concord, 174-5.
182
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
In the prevalent anxiety among the dwellers in Rumford, the armed vigilance exercised by them allowed not the death or captivity of one of their number at the hands of the watchful savage, during the year 1747. Indeed, only one is recorded to have been wounded. This was the aged Joseph Pudney, who had an arm broken by an Indian's shot, as he was carrying "a wooden bottle of beer " from Timothy Walker, junior's, garrison, to men at work on the Eleven Lots. On petition to the New Hampshire government for relief, he was allowed to earn his livelihood by being held in the military service, and "posted as a garrison soldier." The Indian could depredate, not murder. The proprietors, sharing in the apprehension of possible mischief, had ordered, in March, their " books of record " to be car- ried "to Newbury, or any other town where " they might " be kept safest." The savages were always watchful for some advantage. In the summer they had haunted a large field of rye belonging to Benja- min Abbott, lying on the Bog road, as now called, to attack any who should go out to reap it. But when the rye was ripe, harvesters ral- lied in such force that the crop was reaped, and carted home early in the forenoon, during a brief absence of the savages, who relieved their disappointment by killing cattle, sheep, and horses, at pasture near Turkey pond.1 Later in the year a large party of Indians appeared in the southwest part of the town and remained some time, ranging the woods and committing sundry depredations. In particular, they made havoc of the animals turned by the neighbors into Jeremiah Bradley's " fine field for fall grazing." At length, an armed force of the inhabitants rallied and " cautiously proceeded in two divisions, towards the enemy. In the woods near the field, one party found numerous packs belonging to the Indians, and concluded " to halt there, and await, in concealment, the approach of the redskins. When they were seen approaching, one of the concealed men, "through accident, or an eager desire to avenge his losses, fired his musket, and alarmed the Indians, who, observing the smoke of the gun, filed off in " another " direction. The whole party then fired, but with little injury to their adversaries. The body of an Indian was, however, some time afterward, found secreted in a hollow log, into which, it is supposed " that, " having been wounded by the fire of the party, he had crawled and expired."
During the following winter no harm was done by the Indians in Rumford or its vicinity. But early in February, 1748, the inhab- itants began to be apprehensive, and, in town-meeting, chose Lieuten- ant John Webster and Dr. Ezra Carter to "make application to the general assembly for a suitable number of men to guard " them
1 Bouton's Concord, 178.
2 Annals of Concord, 27.
183
INDIAN HOSTILITIES.
" the ensuing year." 1 Savages were soon prowling about, and in April a considerable body of them passed " on rafts over Contoocook river," and killed " a number of cattle in that neighborhood," so that the governor reinforced "the garrisons at Contoocook and Canter- bury with ten men each for one month."2 Captain John Goffe had a company of twenty-five or thirty men, scouting and doing garrison duty, from May 28 to October 5. Of this company, John Webster was lieutenant, and of the other Rumford men in its ranks were Reuben Abbott, Joseph Eastman, Nathaniel Abbott, Joseph Putney, Sampson Colby, and John Chandler, Jr.3
In October, 1748, the war of the Austrian Succession came to an end in the Peace of Aix-la-chapelle, and with it King George's War. The peace, as to the former war, confirmed the "Pragmatic Sanction" and Frederick the Great's possession of Silesia; as to the latter, it settled nothing between France and England in regard to their re- spective territorial claims in America, but remanded everything to its former state, even Louisburg, much to the disappointment of New England, being restored to France. But savage violence had gained an impetus during four years of contest, which the declaration of peace could not at once overcome. That violence was not wholly stayed even until the next year; Rumford, however, suffered little or nothing after the peace, though the people kept themselves pre- pared for defense.
The war had tested the endurance and taxed the resources of the people of Rumford. Sometimes, in their extreme perils and " de- plorable circumstances," especially when feeling themselves unsup- ported by adequate aid from the province, the idea of abandoning their settlement had suggested itself to them. Varied exigencies drained their means and detained them from their vocations, to the loss of nearly "one half of their time during the most busy and valuable part of the year." But it could be, as it was, truthfully said of the inhabitants of Rumford and their conduct in that day of trial : " They have stood their ground against the enemy, supported themselves with all the necessaries of life, and also yearly spared considerable quantities of provisions to the neighboring villages, which must have suffered very much if they had not had their assistance. And they had been always ready, upon notice of dis- tress or danger among their neighbors, during the war, to go to their relief,-many times, in considerable companies, to places at a great distance,-all at their own expense." 4
1 Town Records, 97.
" Prov. Papers, Vol. V, 906.
3Adjutant-General's Report, 1866, Vol. II, 105-6.
Depositions in the Bow controversy, 1767. Bouton's Concord, 181-2.
184
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
During this time the men of Rumford had also duly exercised the town rights and privileges guaranteed them by the district act and its renewals, so as to meet the requisitions of an enlightened and well-ordered community. They regularly taxed themselves " to de- fray the ministerial and other necessary charges of Rumford." But, in the year 1749, Rumford lost its town privileges through the non- renewal of the district act. A town-meeting held on the 29th of March of that year was the last corporate one held upon the soil of Rumford for seventeen years; two of the petitions for incorporation as a town presented within that period having proved ineffectual. The incomplete 1 record of that meeting is a suggestive broken edge of the chasm in the town records between 1749 and 1766.
Amid the closing events depicted in this chapter, a leading actor disappeared from the stage. Death detached Ebenezer Eastman from the elect company of early settlers. His associates had entrusted him with most important responsibilities, and while public duties were always upon his hands, large private interests made drafts upon his activity. His wide influence was the reward of merit. In family relations, too, this civilian and soldier was happy, and his children grew up about him to imitate his virtues. In March, 1748, Ebenezer Eastman for the last time-after many years of continuous service- presided as moderator over the deliberations of his fellow-citizens in the annual town-meeting. Four months later, on the 28th of July, this pioneer of Penacook died, at the age of fifty-nine years, in his home by the Merrimack, leaving a name honored in the annals of the community, and a memory to be cherished.
NOTES AND INCIDENTS.
The Graves of those Massacred in 1746. Dr. Bouton, in his History of Concord, published in 1856, says : "The spot where the bodies were buried cannot now be exactly identified; but it was very near the place now enclosed and occupied as the burial plat of the Bradley and Ayer family."
The Bradley Monument. On the 22d (11th, old style) of Au- gust, 1837, ninety-one years after the massaere on the Hopkinton road, the commemorative monument-mentioned in the text-was erected in the presence of a large concourse, near the scene of the . event. A procession was formed under the direction of Colonel Stephen Brown as chief marshal, at the residence of Benjamin H. Weeks, in the following order: Teachers and scholars of public and private schools ; chief marshal ; music ; committee of arrangements ;
1 See "Rumford's Last Town Meeting" in note at close of chapter.
185
THE BRADLEY MONUMENT.
orator; New Hampshire Historical society ; descendants of the per- sons killed in 1746; his Excellency Governor Isaac Hill ; officers of the state government ; past officers ; citizens generally.
The procession moved to the site, and there the monument was raised into its place. The company then repaired to a grove of oaks on the south side of the road, where the follow- ing order of exercises was observed: 1. Hymn by the Rev. John Pierpont of Boston. Sung un- der the direction of William D. Buck. (Hymn printed beyond.) 2. Prayer by the Rev. Na- thaniel Bouton. 3. Address by Asa McFarland. Ode by George Kent. 5. Reading, by Richard Bradley, of an original petition of the inhabi- tants of Rumford to the governor, council, and assembly, for succor against the Indians, with autographs of the subscribers, followed by con- veyance of the monument and grounds made to the New Hampshire Historical Society by Mr. Bradley, and received by Rev. Nathaniel Bouton in behalf of the said society. 6. An his- torical ballad, written by Miss Mary Clark of Concord, and read by Mr. Timothy P. Stone of Andover, Mass., principal of the Concord Literary Institution. 7. Concluding prayer by the Rev. Ebenezer E. Cummings.
The Bradley Monument.
HYMN.
BY REV. JOHN PIERPONT.
Not now, O God, beneath the trees That shade this vale at night's cold noon, Do Indian war-songs load the breeze, Or wolves sit howling to the moon.
The foes, the fears our fathers felt, Have, with our fathers, passed away; And where in death's dark shade they knelt, We come to praise thee and to pray.
We praise thee that thou plantedst them, And mad'st thy heavens drop down their dew- We pray, that, shooting from their stem, We long may flourish where they grew.
And, Father, leave us not alone: Thou hast been, and art still our trust: Be thou our fortress, till our own Shall mingle with our fathers' dust.
186
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
Facsimile of Petition for Aid, 1744.
Querather June 14th 1744
We the Jubribery Inhabitants of ye town of Rumford typrelied. ing ourpelois greatly Exposed to gumiment ganger both from pe French & fusion Every . I being in no capacity to make a pro poe grand in case of are attack from theme, Joe therefore Constitute o appoints Col Benjamin Rolle as our Delegate requesting him in the capacity forth with to repair to Portsmouth & to represent our deplorable cape to hij Stelleny our Capt queral & ye Geweld Assenbly or to request of them on our behalf Paul aids, Both with respect of men a military flores of to their great window may from meet & which may be sufficient to Enable us with ye Divine Begging vigorously to repell all attempts of our to Evening againgh is.
Chinethey Walker Burachias Framan John Chandler. Jeremiah Stickney itaine etterrenos James Allost
Timothy Bradley
Samuel Bradley Joseph pridney Jonathan Bradley
Edward abbott. James Abbott june David Candlein Jefeph far num Nathanaël Abbott
Fran Walker Jacob that
nathaniel Rolfe William Walker Tunotty Walker gene Jam Dad way. Lat Colle faire. woodward
Samson fibra
Isaac walker Jungphrain farnuni Timothy Plements Samuel casman Gran Iert. Ebenezer Eastman
Abul Chandler
Econozimna Izra Carter.
Philips Saftmany Determinate Dressen O Banjamin fastor
Matthew Starile Danielterase (y Joseph Etman Joseph Hall. Isaac Web Jeon
Large Abbott fool Bilberry Ebenezer PartmännerDaind Pinball Philips timbal Jeremiah Eastman Stephen farmington contharriet Smith Alvalim kimball Nathan Stegny" Richard HalseStine Nathanael! Caffnien Jungenjamin Abbott Loteph Cafinn James (Squid)- Amateur Billy Atlust Hout
187
RUMFORD'S LAST TOWN-MEETING.
Rumford's Last Town-meeting. The following is the abruptly ter- minated record of Rumford's last town-meeting, as found in the town records, p. 104 :
At a Legal Meeting of the Inhabitants & Freeholders of the Town of Rumford on Wednesday ye 29th of March 1749.
Capt John Chandler was chosen Moderator of this present Meeting. Voted, that Dr Ezra Carter be Town Clerk.
Voted, that Capt John Chandler Dr Ezra Carter Lt Jeremiah Stickney Mr Ebenezer Virgin & Mr Henry Lovejoy be Select Men. Voted, that Mr Samuel Gray be Constable.
Voted, that James Abbott, Jeremiah Dreser, Dn George Abbott, Aron Stevens, Jacob Shute & Amos Eastman be Surveyors of High Ways.
Voted, That Edward
CHAPTER VI.
RUMFORD NEITHER TOWN NOR DISTRICT .- THE BOW CONTRO- VERSY AND MATTERS THEREWITH CONNECTED .-- COLONIZATION BY CONCORD SETTLERS.
1749-1762.1
The story of this chapter is that of the critical period in the his- tory of the town. The Bow controversy, previously referred to, had now reached its acute stage. King George's War was at an end. As a frontier town, Rumford had served as a buffer against Indian attacks for the more southerly settlements of New Hampshire. Relieved of the menace of Indian warfare, the settlers had precipitated upon them a legal controversy affecting the title of their land which threat- ened to dispossess them of their homes and give to strangers all that they had, through years of toil, reclaimed from the wilderness. Run- ford had been settled under a grant from the colony of Massachusetts, but had now become a part of New Hampshire, through a decision of the king in council in drawing a boundary line between the two colo- nies of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The control of the New Hampshire government was in the hands of those friendly to the Bow proprietors, who were claimants of the land settled in Rumford. The suits which these Bow proprietors brought to acquire title to this ter- ritory were to be tried in the New Hampshire courts, whose judges were in sympathy with these same proprietors. The settlers of Rum- ford were dependent for authority to direct their local affairs upon the government of New Hampshire, and this government had now refused to renew the act by which, as a district, they levied taxes to support their schools and their minister and maintain their control of municipal affairs. The efforts of the Bow proprietors, through their influence with the colonial government of New Hampshire, were directed to destroying the unity of action of the settlers by depriving them of authority to act as a town or a district at the same time that they harassed them with vexatious suits, purposely brought for so small amounts of damages that no appeal lay beyond the colonial courts. These Rumford settlers, numbering one hundred families, who had come into the wilderness under a grant which they had
11762. This date marks the second royal decision in favor of Rumford, the critical event in the Bow controversy; but to complete in this chapter the treatment of that controversy to its final settlement will require some anticipation of dates.
189
THE BOW CONTROVERSY.
every reason to believe valid, now found themselves an isolated colony under a hostile government, bereft of even the countenance of law to act as a community. In view of their situation at this time, the marvel is that the colony was not then and there broken up and its settlers scattered.
How they held together for many years by voluntary association, agreeing to support one another, pledging their all to that end, is an incident of New England settlements probably without parallel. The Bow proprietors were entrenched in the government of New Hampshire, and the leading spirits were men of means and influ- ence. The settlers of Rumford, on the other hand, had no capital but their homes and no outside support save occasional small contri- butions from the government of Massachusetts; yet they entered upon this unequal contest with undaunted courage, and, when they were cut off from appeal to the courts of England, they fell back upon the sacred right of petition, and through this ultimately tri- umphed over their antagonists. In the pages of legal documents the story of this litigation is told ; but these documents do not picture the anxiety of these years, the self-sacrifice, or the doubts, as they planted, without confidence of harvest, as they harvested, without hopes of eating the fruits thereof, and as they put off permanent improvements which they might not enjoy ; nor do they tell of the unity of spirit, which, without legal sanction policed their community and kept it from crime ; the willing contributions of each his share to maintain the gospel and the school and the hundred and one acts which each cheerfully performed when there was no assurance that in the end they might not be compelled to abandon all that they had struggled so hard to obtain and held so dear. What they suffered in fears and doubts, with what heaviness of heart they engaged in their daily toil, with what rumors they were frequently dismayed, how the law's delay disturbed their waking and sleeping hours, how often they were on the point of giving up the fight, and with what small solace the days and nights of these long years were cheered, no chronicler of that time records. It is left for the imagination to por- tray. But it is known from their surroundings that it was a contest of silent suffering, of strong resolution, and of fidelity to one another unshaken. While details are lacking of the daily life of Rumford dur- ing the period of this controversy with the Bow proprietors, the his- tory of the legal proceedings in the New Hampshire courts and before the king in council is quite complete and is here given.
As mentioned in the preceding chapter, Rumford had, by 1749, ceased to be either a district or a town. On the 24th of January, 1750, the people, through Benjamin Rolfe, petitioned the governor
190
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
and council to be incorporated into a township with their ancient boundaries, and with such privileges as any of the towns in the prov- ince enjoyed. In the memorial accompanying the petition, it was declared : " Your memorialists, by power given them by the district acts, . for about six years last past, have annually raised money for defraying our ministerial, school and other necessary charges .
. , and taxed the inhabitants accordingly; but the district act expiring some time last summer, there is now no law of this province whereby your memorialists can raise any money for the year current, for the charges aforesaid. And your memorialists have abundant reason to think that the Rev. Mr. Timothy Walker, who has been settled with us as our minister for about twenty years,- unless we can speedily be put into a capacity to make a tax for his salary,-will be necessitated to leave us, which will be to our great loss and inexpressible grief ; for he is a gentleman of an unspotted character, and universally beloved by us. Our public school will also, of course, fail, and our youth thereby be deprived, in a great measure, of the means of learning, which we apprehend to be of a very bad consequence ; [and] our schoolmaster, who is a gentleman of a liberal education, . . . and lately moved his family from Andover to Rumford, on account of his keeping school for us, will be greatly damaged and disappointed. And your memorialists, under the present circumstances, are deprived of all other privileges which a well regulated town enjoys."1 But this urgent representation was met by a remonstrance of George Veasey and Abram Tilton, select- men of Bow, presented on the 7th of February, 1750, and alleging that the bounds mentioned in " the petition of the inhabitants on a tract of land called Penacook to be incorporated with town privi- leges," made " great infringement on land belonging to the town of Bow." Action favorable to Rumford was thus prevented, for it had become the policy of the New Hampshire government, from motives made apparent in early subsequent narration, to ignore Rumford, even as a district, and to destroy its corporate identity by a complete merger in the township of Bow.
That government had, in May, 1726, sent its committee to Pena- cook to warn the Massachusetts committee against laying out the lands there, and, a year later, had chartered the township of Bow, out of territory lying on both sides of the Merrimack, in a grant of eighty- one square miles, made without previous survey, and " extremely vague and uncertain as to its bounds," 2 but stubbornly construed by its supporters to cover three fourths of the plantation of Penacook.
1 Benjamin Rolfe's Memorial, etc .; Annals of Concord, 85-6 (Appendix).
2 The Rev. Timothy Walker's Petition to the king in 1753.
191
THE BOW CONTROVERSY.
In 1728 the Massachusetts government, confident of the validity of its claim as to its northerly boundary line, had, regardless of the New Hampshire caveat, made two grants : in 1728 that of Suncook, lying in large part within the vague limits of Bow ; and, a few years later, that of Number Four, or Hopkinton, trenching, at an angle, upon the same grant. This grant of Bow was taken to lie obliquely upon that of Rumford, from southeast to northwest, leaving outside a northeast and a northwest gore, the latter being considerably the larger. The * bounds of the township were scantily described in the charter, in the following terms : " Beginning on the southeast side of the town of Chichester, and running nine miles by Chichester and Canterbury, and carrying that breadth of nine miles from each of the aforesaid towns, southwest, until the full complement of eighty-one square miles are fully made up."1 This tract of land was granted as a town corporate, by the name of Bow, to one hundred and seven proprietors, and thirty-one associates, comprising the governor, the lieutenant- governor, the members of the council, and those of the assembly, with sixteen others to be named by the lieutenant-governor, numbering in all one hundred and fifty-one grantees.2
Though Bow was, by the terms of the charter, a town from the 20th of May, 1727, yet not till twenty months later did its proprie- tors set foot upon its soil by way of entry. Then, by a committee, they surveyed the lands granted, and marked out the bounds.3 All they did, however, was "to run a chain, and mark some trees, at a a great distance round " 3 the busy settlers of Penacook, who were in occupation, as they had been, for more than two years, and who were there clearing and tilling the virgin soil, building their homes, and finishing their house for the public worship of God. The blazed lines run out by the proprietors of Bow were not, as these held, essential " as to the purpose of giving them the seisin," 3 or possession of the lands surrounded by them, but were " especially designed, that they might know and distinguish their township from others."3 For they claimed that "the grantees, by operation of law, were seized immediately upon the execution of their charter."3 Some clue as to those lines is afforded by the testimony of Walter Bryant, who per- ambulated them about 1749. " I began," says the surveyor, "at the reputed bound of the town of Chichester, at the head of Nottingham, and from thence run northwest, four miles, to the head of Epsom ; then there marked a maple tree with the word Bow and sundry let- ters ; and from said tree, which I called the east corner of said Bow,
1 See plan and explanations in note at close of chapter.
2 See names of grantees in note at close of chapter.
3 From statement drawn up by Judge Pickering, being one of the papers upon which the Bow controversy was decided in 1762. It is able and thorough, and will be frequently quoted from in subsequent pages.
192
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
I run northwest, four miles, to the west corner of Chichester ; then northeast, one mile, to Canterbury south corner, then northwest, five miles, on said Canterbury ; then southwest, nine miles, which runs to northwest of Rattlesnake hill and most of the pond that lies on the northwest side of said hill ; and said line crosses Hopkinton road, so called, and takes a part of said town in; then we marked a tree, and run southeast, five miles, and marked a tree; then one mile south- west ; then southeast, four miles; then northeast, nine miles, to where we began. P. S. I crossed Merrimack river within two miles of Canterbury line, and found all the inhabitants to the south of Can- terbury and east of [the] Merrimack, which are in Rumford to be in Bow." 1
.
At best, however, even with this perambulation, the lines of Bow did not lose their uncertainty, and remained too much like the boundaries, once wittily defined by Rufus Choate, in another case, "as beginning at a bluc-jay on the bough of a pine tree, thence easterly to a dandelion gone to sced, thence due south to three hun- dred foxes with firebrands tied between their tails." Especially is it to be noted that the beginning of these lines was marked by a fleeting thing ; for "the southeast side of the town of Chichester," which the charter had set for the beginning, became, in the survey, the southwest side of Chichester-the " blue-jay " having flown and alighted four miles away to the westward.
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