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 27
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1 Belknap, Vol. III, 281.
? Bouton's Concord, 250.
' Ibid, 249, 50.
4 Bouton's Concord, 252.
5 Ibid, 253.
.
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THE PARISH OF CONCORD.
separated from her home and friends in Concord. When the fact was announced to her that the dreaded event had transpired, and that she was no longer a slave, she burst into tears, exclaiming, " What will become of me!" But her late master and other friends, to her great joy "gathered round " to assure her that " she should remain in her old and only home." And there Nancy, the freedwoman, did remain, in the Herbert family, during the residue of a long life of seventy-nine years. Immediate arrangement was made for her com- pensation in future service ; and she was remembered in subsequent bequests. "She became a member of the church, and honored her profession. She was sensible and dignified in manners-faithful, affectionate and cheerful. She read much-usually the Bible. In her charities, she felt a particular interest in the Education Society, in the cause of Missions, and in all efforts for the elevation of her race." 1 This incident and others just cited tend to show what in- voluntary servitude was in Concord, and attest that though it was slavery, it was not oppression.
When the "Stamp Act " was passed, John Wentworth, a nephew of Governor Benning Wentworth, was in England, and, as co-agent of New Hampshire with Barlow Trecothick, successor of John Thon- linson, had presented the remonstrances of the province against the measure. The uncle had been governor twenty-five years, and had now reached the age of seventy. His administration had been, in many respects, a successful one, though somewhat difficult, especially from the two French and Indian wars. But certain charges made against it, including the taking of " exorbitant fees for the passing of patents of land," 1 had caused the English ministry to resolve upon a supersedure. Largely, however, through the influence of his young and popular nephew the veteran official was allowed to resign with- out censure, and in favor of that nephew.2 So John Wentworth became governor of New Hampshire, and entered upon the duties of his office on the 13th of June, 1767. His administration fell upon troublous times; at its beginning the great Revolution was darkly looming which was to burst in " hurricane " upon its end.3
The change of governors was agreeable to the people of Concord, if for no other reason than that Benning Wentworth was one of the official "Proprietors of Bow" from whose contentions they had suffered so much. He had, to be sure, as governor, twice attempted to give them representation in the assembly; but that commendable action was hardly sufficient to render a Bow proprietor persona grata
1 Bouton's Concord, 253-4.
2 Belknap, 335.
3 Ibid, 336.
"Governor Wentworth's letter to a friend in 1774; Belknap, 352 (note).
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
with them. The gratification felt at the accession of John Went- worth seems not to have been disappointed; for, six years later, in an address to the governor penned by the young Benjamin Thomp- son-afterwards Count Rumford-and adopted in town-meeting, the popular appreciation found warm expression.
This testimonial, presented in the spring of 1773, denotes that till then the administration of John Wentworth had well subserved the interests of the people, and had, by its prudence, tended to hold somewhat in abeyance that energy of revolutionary resistance which was, erelong, to be manifested in New Hampshire, as elsewhere.
One generally beneficial measure, early adopted under this admin- istration and going into effect, with the royal sanction, in 1771, was the division of the province into five counties. Hitherto all courts had been held at Portsmouth, to the great and growing inconvenience of remote localities. Even now the relief afforded by this measure to many other parts of the province was not felt by Concord, which was assigned to Rockingham county with Portsmouth and Exeter, as shire towns-the former fifty-five miles away and the latter forty. Accordingly, in March, 1773, the inhabitants, in parish meeting, appointed Andrew McMillan to petition the general court in their behalf that Concord might be annexed to Hillsborough county, pro- vided that a term of the inferior and the superior court, each, might be annually held in the parish; in other words, that Concord might be a half-shire town with Amherst. A petition to that effect was presented in Jannary, 1774, and a hearing was ordered thereon in March, but before the date of hearing the governor had dissolved the assembly, and the petition came to naught. Revolutionary commo- tion was stirring in earnest, and the assembly, by its unanimous approbation of measures suggested by other colonies "for the security of the whole against the designs of those who" were "for reducing them to a state of slavery,"1 had alarmed the amiable governor, who thought it best to try the virtue of abrupt dissolution. Indeed, it was becoming daily more and more difficult for John Wentworth to reconcile duty to his king, whose commission he held, with conces- sion to the will of his people.
Under the new county law jurors from Concord were, for the first time, impaneled in the courts, where, during the long years of the Bow controversy, now ended, the inhabitants of Rumford had had more than enough of burdensome experience as parties. In 1771 or 1772 Ebenezer Hall and Joshua Abbot served as jurors; and, on August 24th of the latter year at a special town-meeting, " Mr. Lot Colby," as says the record, " was drawn out of the box for a juror,"
1 N. H. Prov. Papers, Vol. VII, 358.
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THE PARISH OF CONCORD.
with compensation fixed at " three shillings a day." The same pay was also voted to future jurors, as well as to the two who had served before.1
The desire of the people of Concord to procure amendments of their charter in removing the restriction upon their power to lay out roads, and in making " the boundaries of the parish as extensive as" those of Rumford had been, was not gratified. In December, 1772, they had desired Andrew McMillan to present to the " Honorable General Court a petition for those purposes." But a request for such reasonable legislation, which, in ordinary times might have found compliance, could not find it in those days of revolutionary ferment. For the last three provincial assemblies were preoccupied with momentous questions concerning the defense of American liber- ties, and were constantly interrupted, in consequence, by an anxious governor's edicts of adjournment, prorogation, or dissolution.
Nor was Concord ever to be represented in a provincial assembly. On the first day of March, 1774, " Peter Green, Esq.," was " appointed agent to petition the Governor and Council for a Representative." 2 But nothing came of it. The governor summoned to the last pro- vincial assembly under his administration-convoked for the fourth of May, 1775-members from several newly-settled places, hitherto unrepresented, but he neglected older and more important ones, and among these the parish of Concord. Doubtless he wanted, at that crisis, as many men in the assembly as possible who would be more subservient to his anti-revolutionary purposes than any representative that patriotic Concord would be likely to elect.
While the parish was making the most of its municipal privileges in promoting the varied interests of a well-regulated community, the proprietary were contributing effective efforts to the same end. As written in another connection, the proprietors of Rumford succeeded during the years between 1762 and 1775 in adjusting difficulties with their Bow antagonists. It is to be added, that, on several occa- sions, lands were laid out to requite individuals for losses incurred in the controversy ; but a general division of "the common lands " was not made till near the close of the Revolution. Preliminary steps thereto had been taken in 1774, but it was not until 1781 that the purpose was accomplished. On the 5th of December of that year a committee, consisting of Benjamin Emery, Timothy Walker, Jr., and Robert Davis, reported that they had "laid out one hundred and three lots."3 The report having been accepted, "the proprietors proceeded at once to draw and pitch their lots ; "3 and the same com- mittee received authority "to sell the remainder of the common
1 Town Records, 131. 2 Ibid, 137. 3 Proprietors' Records.
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
land."1 So the proprietary lands of Concord had, at last, mostly come into individual ownership. Meanwhile, too, as elsewhere men- tioned, Massachusetts, in recognition of the trials of those who had planted and held the perilous outpost of her territorial claim along the upper Merrimack, had granted a new proprietorship of another Rumford, on the banks of the Androscoggin in the woods of Maine, by way of remuneration for " losses incurred in the controversy with Bow."
The proprietors, on the 7th of May, 1771, chose John Kimball clerk ; for Benjamin Rolfe, who had held the place forty years, was nearing the end of life. Seven months later, on the 21st of Decem- ber, he died in the sixty-second year of his age. His prominent effi- ciency in the settlement, as a plantation, township, district, parish, or non-corporate organization, has been noticed on foregoing pages. The father, Henry Rolfe, having been a leading spirit in planting Penacook and incorporating Rumford, had returned ere long to his Massachusetts home, leaving the son, a young man of liberal educa- tion and of good capacity for affairs, to identify himself with a people whose interests he was so faithfully to serve. This son enjoyed from the first the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and retained it to the last. He held all the important offices, frequently two or more at a time. He longest filled the position of town clerk, in which he was, upon declining further service, succeeded in 1769 by Timothy Walker, Jr. Though not a lawyer, Benjamin Rolfe was a capable legal adviser, and satisfactorily discharged the various duties of a civil magistrate. He also had military experience, particularly in the first French and Indian War, with the rank of colonel. By inheri- tance, and by his own industry and prudent management, he ac- quired a large property in lands, and, at his death, was accounted the richest man in Concord.2 Colonel Rolfe had remained single till his sixtieth year, when he married Sarah Walker, the minister's eldest daughter, thirty years younger than himself.2 The son Paul, born of the brief union, inherited his father's estates, inventoried at four thousand and eighty-two pounds lawful money.2 Before his mar- riage Colonel Rolfe " lived in a one-story house "8 at the Eleven Lots, but after that event he built and occupied the larger and more com- modious dwelling which still stands, as a venerable historic relic, and as part of an asylum sacred to the noble charity of relieving orphan- age in Concord.
Among those who were teaching school in the parish at that period, such as Abial Chandler, the surveyor, Joseph Emery, Patrick Quin- lon and Robert Hogg,4 with sundry " school-mistresses " whose names
1 Proprietors' Records.
2 Bouton's Concord, 555.
3 Ibid, 556.
4 See Town Accounts in Bouton's Concord, 258.
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THE PARISH OF CONCORD.
are not recorded, was Benjamin Thompson, of Woburn, already spoken of as anthor of a congratulatory address to Governor Went- worth. He came to Concord in 1772, upon invitation of Timothy Walker, Jr. He was then a youth of nineteen, without the advantage of liberal education, but of a scientific and philosophie turn, which had been gratified, three years before, by a course of philosophical lectures at Cambridge. Before this, he had been set to the study of medicine, but only to his disgust ; he had then been put at employ- ment in a store, and with much the same result, till, indeed, his widowed mother and other friends became impressed with a belief that he would never fix his mind upon any regular employment by which he could gain a support.1 But he tried his hand at in- struction in Bradford, and with better inclination and success ; and coming to Concord, he followed the same pursuit, to popular acceptance.
In the handsome, genial, gifted schoolmaster there was promise of greatness, and his generously endowed nature felt the pricking of concomitant ambition. By his marriage, in his twenty-first year, with the widow of Benjamin Rolfe, means became his with which the better to gratify his liking for personal display and the attractions of polite society. Accompanied by his wife, he journeyed to Portsmouth in a curricle, the most expensive carriage of that day, and won, by his fine manliness of presence and address, much attention in the provincial capital. Governor Wentworth conceived high admiration for the brilliant young man, and soon after commissioned him to be major of the Eleventh regiment of militia. This mark of esteem and confidence was gratifying to the recipient, who had military taste and aptitude. But the appointment brought with it dislike from many who took it as an act of gross favoritism and inexcusable supersedure. Besides, as the favor was conferred by a royal governor, already fall- ing into unpopularity for his support of the crown against the colo- nies, the favorite major was eyed with not a little suspicion. The Sons of Liberty2 were on the alert. In their view he who was not for the American cause was against it, and, of that cause, Major Thomp- son had been heard to speak doubtfully. When, to the disgust and indignation of the people of New Hampshire, their governor under- took to render aid to General Gage, nominal governor of Massachu- setts, it seems that Thompson, as Wentworth's petted friend, was induced to lend a helping hand. That he did so is attested by the governor himself, in the following words of a letter written to the Earl of Dartmouth, on the 15th of November, 1774 : " I have been success-
1 Annals of Concord, 55.
" An association of zealous friends of the American cause.
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
ful in prevailing on soldiers deserted from the King's troops at Boston, to return to their duty, through the spirited and prudent activity of Major Thompson, a militia officer of New Hampshire, whose manage- ment the General writes me, promises further success."1 It is likely that this spirited activity of the major upon the wrong side came to the notice of his watchful neighbors, and intensified the popular en- inity towards him. When, therefore, he ventured to entertain at his house two British officers of Gage's army in Boston, visiting Con- cord on furlough, patriotic feeling was so inflamed against him that, to avoid threatened personal violence at the hands of some of the more impulsive Sons of Liberty, he left his home, wife, and infant daughter, never to return to them. He found in his native town of Woburn, whither he had withdrawn, a similar intensity of feeling against him, rendering his stay there unsafe. He strove in vain to efface the mark of toryism which had been set upon him. At the coming of the war, the revolutionary measures leading to which he had not favored, the high-minded young man of twenty-two seems to have been ready, in good faith, to cast in his lot with his country- men and fight for American liberty. He offered his military ser- vices, but suspicion prevented acceptance. Enemies, actuated partly by patriotic motives, and partly by motives less praiseworthy, over- bore all his efforts to right himself, till finally he felt obliged to seek security within the British lines.
The promise of capacity for high achievement was not to be veri- fied in his own land ; the field for the brilliant efforts of his versatile genius in science, philosophy, military affairs, statesmanship, and philanthropy, lay in lands beyond the sea. In England, France, and Germany, the Concord schoolmaster and major of the New Hamp- shire militia was, in forty years, to accomplish the great historic life- work of Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford.2
The allusions to the militia just made suggest that in 1774 the military organization of the province embraced twelve regiments of infantry ; three new ones having been recently added to the nine that had existed in the time of the Seven Years' War. Concord was assigned to the Eleventh, and to this was ever afterwards to belong. Andrew McMillan was the first colonel of the new regiment, with Thomas Stickney as lieutenant-colonel, and Benjamin Thompson as major. McMillan having removed to Conway, Stickney succeeded him in the command of the regiment. Concord supplied two com- panies, of which Joshua Abbot and Abial Chandler were captains; Jonathan Stickney and Ebenezer Virgin, lieutenants; John Shute
1 N. H. Prov. Papers, Vol. VII, 418.
? See Countess Rumford in note at close of chapter.
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EVENTS OF THE REVOLUTION.
and Jonathan Eastman, ensigns. The names of the privates have not been preserved, but the number on the alarm list was one hun- dred and ninety.1 Governor Wentworth, as captain-general, had sought to improve the militia; but he was soon to see whatever military spirit and discipline he had succeeded in diffusing turned against the crown under which he held commission, and whose interests he was diligent to serve.
Revolutionary events thickened. When on the 8th of June, 1774, the governor dissolved the newly called assembly, because it had appointed a committee of correspondence to effect united action with the other colonies, he thought he had dissolved the committee.2 But he soon found his mistake when, on the 6th of July, a body of rep- resentatives, summoned by that committee, convened in the legisla- tive chamber. Hastening thither with the sheriff of Rockingham county, the representative of the king pronounced this meeting of the people's representatives illegal, and ordered them to disperse. They did not disperse, but taking time to deliberate, simply ad- journed in due order to meet at another place. There they decided to request by letter all the towns and parishes of the province to send deputies to a convention to be held at Exeter, on the 21st of July instant, for the choice of delegates to a general congress ap- pointed to meet at Philadelphia early in September.3 The request was answered by the appearance of eighty-five delegates in the first provincial convention at the time and place designated.4 The names of the deputies are lost; but it is probable that Timothy Walker, Jr., son of the minister of Concord, was in attendance.5 Major John Sullivan and Colonel Nathaniel Folsom were appointed to attend the first continental congress, and the sufferings of the people of Boston under the revengeful port bill were commended to the be- nevolent consideration of the people of the province.
The die of war was cast at Lexington. All have heard the oft- repeated story, how from the hills and valleys of New Hampshire straightway rushed hundreds of heroes to the scene of encounter. Nor were the men of Concord laggards then. Thirty-six volunteers, with Captain Abial Chandler at their head, were soon away for Cam- bridge, where they tarried a fortnight. Others of their townsmen closely followed. Unfortunately the names of the men of Concord who were thus of the first to fly to amins in the American Revolu- tion are not upon record. Their services, however, were recognized the following December in the vote "That Captain Abial Chandler and those men who went under him to Cambridge, upon the alarm
1 Bouton's Concord, 258, and note. + Ibid, 407.
2 N. H. Prov. Papers, Vol. VII, 399-400.
3 Ibid, 400-401.
5 See Town Accounts in Bouton's Concord, 259.
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
in April last, be paid by the parish at the same rates that other troops in this colony are paid." 1
While the men of New Hampshire, " fired with zeal in the common cause, were thus rushing to the assistance " of their Massachusetts brethren, "a special convention of delegates " was hastily called from accessible towns to consider the measures "expedient to be taken at" the "alarming crisis."2 This third convention met at Exeter on the 21st of April-only two days after the Lexington affair-with sixty-eight delegates from the nearest towns in attend- ance ; but by the twenty-fifth the number being swelled by accessions from remoter places reached one hundred and nine. Reverend Timo- thy Walker appeared as the delegate from Concord. The convention at once met one emergency by a vote requesting "Colonel Nathaniel Folsom immediately to take the chief command of the troops who have gone or may go from this government to assist our suffering brethren in the Massachusetts Bay." 3 Most of the measures con- sidered were, however, left for final decision to another " convention of deputies," already called by the provincial committee to be held on the 17th of May.4 In compliance with this call the " freeholders and inhabitants of Concord " chose Timothy Walker, Jr., as a deputy to the proposed convention, "for the term of six months from the said 17th day of May current." 5
Before this fourth convention met the last provincial assembly of New Hampshire convened at Portsmouth on the 4th of May. It contained thirty-seven members from as many towns. Concord and some other of the older and more populous places had not been invited by the governor to send representatives, but three of the newer and smaller ones-Lyme, Orford, and Plymouth-were favored with his writs of election, and sent members. The gov- ernor's address was conciliatory, but fell upon unwilling ears. Peti- tions complaining of the election of members from three towns hitherto unrepresented were read and referred to a committee of ominously patriotic make-up. Besides, a committee was forthwith appointed to request an adjournment to some time early in June next, in order that the members might have an opportunity of fully consulting their constituents respecting the several weighty matters necessary to be considered at the present session. The great motive of the assembly in seeking an adjournment was to await the action and advice of the coming provincial congress ; while, besides, there were some persons that had been elected to serve in both bodies. Annoying, humiliating even, though it was to the governor, that the
1 Town Records, 148.
2 N. H. Prov. Papers, Vol. VII, 461.
3 Ibid, 454.
4 Ibid, 461.
5 Town Records, 146.
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EVENTS OF THE REVOLUTION.
regular legislature should be put by to get its cue from what seemed to him but a rebellious organization usurping legislative functions, yet he deemed it best to comply with the request, and adjourned thie assembly to the 12th of June.
The fourth provincial convention assembled at Exeter on the 17th of May. Never before had any like assemblage in New Hamp- shire contained so full and fair a representation of the people. One hundred and thirty-three members,1 from one hundred and two towns and parishes, were in immediate attendance, though the roll of membership finally showed one hundred and fifty-one names.2 The convention proceeded promptly and boldly to its legislative work. At once it was ordered that a force of two thousand men be raised, including the volunteers already on duty in Massachusetts.3 The latter were largely comprised in a regiment already under com- mand of Colonel John Stark, who, on the 26th of April, had received commission from the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, to hold "till New Hampshire should act." Of the force now raised a brigade of three regiments was constituted, with John Stark in com- mand of the First, Enoch Poor of the Second, and James Reid of the Third.
A committee of safety was chosen, and endowed with authority to act as an executive body "in the recess of the Congress." 4 A committee of supplies was also raised, upon which much responsi- bility rested in procuring military stores and provisions, and in bor- rowing money on the faith of the colony for that purpose.5 Of this committee, Timothy Walker, Jr., of Concord, was a member.
A British army was occupying Boston : and New England troops had been centering about the distressed town ever since the affair of Lexington. The first and second regiments of New Hampshire, in command of Stark and Reid, having been put in order by the colonial congress, stood ready, at Medford, for any call to duty. In Stark's regiment were companies from Concord and the vicinity, commanded by Captains Joshua Abbot and Gordon Hutchins : the first having, as one of its lieutenants, Abiel Chandler; the second, Daniel Livermore. Captain Aaron Kinsman, then resident in Bow, had a company, with Lieutenant Ebenezer Eastman and a few men from Concord. The Concord officers and men in these three com- mands numbered between thirty and forty.6 Captain Joshua Abbot was of good fighting stock, being the son of Nathaniel, a proprietor of Penacook, and a lieutenant of rangers in the French and Indian War. Captain Hutchins had been a resident of Concord for three
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