USA > New Hampshire > Sullivan County > Goshen > History of Goshen, New Hampshire : settled, 1769, incorporated, 1791 > Part 3
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In the grouping by Farmer and Moore of the first settlers of Goshen, we have better success with Grindle's deed *; which places Grindle in Saville in the summer of 1770 certainly. The date of the deed is Oct. 4, of that year. Several items of interest will be noted by the reader, besides the relatively large purchase- price.
"Know all men by these Presents That I John Wendell of Portsmouth in the Province of New Hampshire, for and in consideration of the Sum of Seven Pounds ten Shillings lawful money of said Province to me in hand paid before the Delivery hereof by Daniel Grendal late of said Portsmouth but now of the Township of Saville in said Province Mason.t * do hereby * convey *
All that Seventy Five Acre Lot of Land which was pitch'd upon to the original Right of Joseph Moulton in the Township of Saville afores'd, being the Lot No. One in ye first Division on ye South Side of ye Great Road & begins on ye Line between Newport and Saville at a stake & to run from thence South Seventy five Deg. East about Sixty Rods to a tree marked -1-2-
*N. H. Province Deeds, Vol. 80, p. 560.
+"Province Mason" here seems used as though synonymous with Province of New Hampshire, even though we know - and the writers of this deed must also have known - that Saville was outside Mason's Curve Line, to the west, and therefore could have no part in the title "Mason."
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EARLY SETTLEMENT
& thence runs South Ten Deg West on a parralel line with the aforemen- tioned Line two hundred and ten rods to contain about 79 acres, allowing the privilege of a Publick Highway or road thro the same two rods wide, provided nevertheless and it is agreed that ye Grendal shall reside on the same and pay all future tax and quit rent in proportion as the said Seventy Five acres bear to the whole right. *
This conveyance was acknowledged in Portsmouth by the grantor, Wendell, before no less a person than Governor John Wentworth, who, however, signed himself merely, Justice of the Peace. John Wendell was deeply interested in the development of Saville and became its most powerful and substantial patron. It is of interest that he married, first, 1753, Sarah Wentworth, a distant relative of Governor Benning Wentworth, and, upon her death, he married again, in 1778, Dorothy, daughter of Henry Sherburne of Portsmouth, akin to his first wife. "By the two he had some twenty children . . (he was) a lawyer of specu- lative disposition, much concerned with the development of the unsettled regions of New Hampshire and Vermont and patri- archally prolific." ("Barrett Wendell and His Letters," 1924)
Of the third settler, William Lang, Province Deeds, Vol. 90, p. 280, records the transaction whereby he purchased of John Wendell, on Sept. 20, 1770, for the sum of five shillings, the lot containing 53 acres which was thereafter to be his home. It was a part of Lot No. 2 "on the South side of the Great Road thro' said Township" and had been originally granted to Theo- dore Atkinson, Esqr. The bounds were an "ash staddle" and hemlock stakes that were appropriately lettered "WL" and "2 & 3". A closing stipulation providing that "said Lang, Yeoman, of Portsmouth, actually settles on the said Land with his Family."
Henry W. Hardon, attorney and genealogist of New York City, accepted this deed as proof that the Langs removed to Saville in 1770, a course of action possible only if a cabin had been erected during the preceding summer months. William3 was a soldier in the French and Indian War (Att'y Gen'l's rep., vol. 2, p. 206) and is believed to have had two brothers in Rye, John and Benjamin (Parson's Hist. of Rye, p. 405). He was bapt. about 1730, and married Dec. 9, 1751, Elizabeth Rand,
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HISTORY OF GOSHEN, N. H.
daughter of Thomas and Hannah (Pray) Rand, born about 1730 (Parson's Rye). In 1758 he was a soldier in Ewett's Co.
The son William was bapt. at Portsmouth, Sept. 4, 1756, third child. He enlisted in the First N. H. Regiment Feb. 18, 1777, (Kidder's History, 1868) and saw much service and was in important engagements* throughout the Revolution. In a report from Col. Cilley's N. H. Regt., stationed at Valley Forge, Jan. 10, 1778, young William was absent, "sick." He was then 22 years of age, 5 ft., 7 in. in height, with light complexion, light hair and eyes; of Capt. Nathaniel Hutchin's Co., Sgt. He served at Stillwater, designated a Lieutenant; was discharged May, 1781 (Moore). He died, probably unmarried, before 1789.+
The time-honored custom of passing a certain given name down from father to son and to son's son is a source of much grief to genealogists. If William was thus favored by the Langs, it was Benjamin among the Rands, even to the fourth genera- tion. With the Lears of Portsmouth, Tobias was repeated over and over - Goshen had one Tobias Lear - and in the Gunni- son family, Samuel was borne by many related men and is still carried on.
In the author's early Sketch of Goshen, 1903, the statement was made, for reasons then deemed good, that two, at least, of Goshen's accredited first settlers were unmarried in 1769. This conclusion, which had occurred naturally enough through fail- ure to differentiate between dates that could relate to either the pioneer or his son, has, unfortunately, been quoted in works of rather wide distribution. Unfortunately, we say, for it did not prove to be true.
Grindle, indeed, was unmarried. The other two were mature men with wives and families.
*H. P. Moore, 1935.
+Many references are given in N. H. State Papers, viz: Vol. 14, p. 578, 610; Vol. 16, p. 647; Vol. 15, p. 439, 717; Vol. 13, p. 448, 501.
CHAPTER III
The Province Road
TN the shaping of the territory now Goshen, two contributing factors have been mentioned, Mason's Curve Line and the Province Road. That the latter was a branch of a proposed state-wide system of roads, to be built by the Province of New Hampshire, is now known and does not in the least minimize its early importance, although a distinguishing title is sorely needed, as the east side, from Durham north through Gilman- ton and beyond, has its own Province Road, the main stem of the system as it may be termed. The other branches of the Province system have received appropriate names through com- mon use: the Road to the Lower Coos at Haverhill, on the Connecticut River; the Governor's Road to Wolfeborough, with planned penetration of the White Hills to Lancaster and Nor- thumberland, in the Upper Coos, and the College Road to Hanover.
Strangely enough, memory of our strategic east-west Province Road lapsed with the passing of its generation; in Goshen, at least, it was forgotten and became merely a back-road of no importance. Indeed, Mr. Upham's published re-discovery in 1920, brought protests from some of the old-time residents. Did not their forbears find their way into the wilderness by marked trees? A road? - certainly there was no road! This denial has been echoed, too, in later years .*
Yet positive proof of the road's existence was never far afield, nor hard to find. A casual glance at the map of Wendell (Colby, 1821) in the selectmen's office at Sunapee would have shown that the southern tip of Saville, where its first settlers made
*Ex-Gov. Bartlett, in his Story of Sunapee, 1941, p. 23, says: "On the day of Saville's grant there was not a road of any kind from it to any other town - none at all, not even to Newport." This statement, as will be seen, could easily have been corrected from data within his reach. In fact, the map of Saville, on page 14, in his history, shows a "mark'd road," with direction and location coinciding with the Province Road, which he did not try to explain.
32
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HISTORY OF GOSHEN, N. H.
their clearings - from Portsmouth, a matter here of major im- port - was crossed by a road that gave a head-line for their lots. Upon the formation of the new township of Goshen, this road shaped its northern boundary. On the map it is named "Corey's Road," the layout of the lots being designated "North (and South) of Corey's Road." Were not the deeds of Grindle and Lang based upon the "Great Road that runs through said Town- ship" (p. 18). It will be noted that, construction having been ordered by the Provincial Assembly, the whole route to Bos- cawen, regardless of local terms or methods of finance, may properly be called "The Province Road."
Charlestown records state that in March, 1767, a committee was appointed to mark a road to Boscawen. In the following December the committee reported, though the transcript of their report was omitted, and it was "Voted that the same Commitee will finish marking the road to Sunapee Pond."
During the succeeding spring and summer of 1768 the project expanded, and Oct. 18th of that year the selectmen of Charles- town petitioned the Governor and "his Majesty's Council & House of Representatives . . that the Inhabitants of said Charlestown with those of adjoining Towns have Looked out and marked a Road, and in part Cleared* the same, between said Charlestown & Boscawen and are of opinion the same may be made a good Carriage Road" providing "a much nearer and easier Communication with the Metropolis (Portsmouth) . . . which is tho't would greatly Fecilitate the settlement of many new Townships, hitherto much retarded by want of good Roads."
*Mayo, in his "John Wentworth," p. 41, says:
"Roadbuilding in New Hampshire in the eighteenth century was not a matter of crushed stone and tar. Far from it. First the surveyor and his party explored the country to be traversed and blazed a rough trail; Then followed a crew with axes, who felled the trees and removed the underbrush until there was an avenue three rods wide through the wilderness. This process was known as "cutting and clearing." The great trunks were hauled out of the way by teams of oxen, or, if the land was boggy, they were laid together in rows and thus formed a solid though uneven causeway.t The completed road was probably little more than a wide, rough bridle-path, bristling with stumps and flanked with brush, but one could easily travel over it on horseback or even persuade oxen to plod through it with wagons. The rest was left to time and development, and usually it was many a long year before the road became smooth enough for a coach or other horse-drawn vehicle.
+Belknap's Hist. of N. H., 111, 75 et seq.
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THE PROVINCE ROAD
The House voted "that the Petitioners have liberty to bring in a Bill to Oblige the Proprietors of the Several Towns through which Said Road Marked out as mentioned in the Petition passes, to Clear and make Said Road Passable" (State Papers, Vol. 9, p. 98-99).
Thus, at the behest of the Charlestown selectmen - and, we must believe, other important figures who wished to remain in the background - the state was poised to issue directives in the building of the road to Number 4, quite apart from the other branches then proposed. However, when the bill came before the House on Oct. 29th, "a sharp divergence of opinion developed between the executive and the House," over the ex- emption of non-resident owners from taxation for the building of the road and the Governor prorogued the session before ac- tion could be taken, though it was passed with the exempting clause a short time later.
A description, purely local, of the Charlestown end is found in the town-records for that year, although the use of names so long vanished makes it meaningless to all but the local student:
"Begins and turns out of ye road that leads to Aaron Brown's on a 30 a lot No. 24 belonging to Jonathan Wetherbee and proceeds easterly through a 50 a No. 26 and through a 50 a and 30 a laid out to Wm. Heywood, thence easterly as ye marks direct to ye east line of ye town."*
Mr. Joseph S. Hunt, a native of Charlestown, in a paper written for the Acworth Woman's Club, in 1933, explained this:
"The Indian trail from Charlestown (and he included in this term the Province Road) follows the old road south of the cemetery (in said Charles- town) which was used until 1793 by all who went north towards Claremont, or southeast to Keene. The branch in the road near the corner of the cemetery is marked by the old sycamore tree."
With equal accuracy High Street could be considered the beginning of the trail; both branches came together outside the village. Itemizing every turn and deviation of the road with
*Data furnished from town records by Mrs. Martha Frizzell, recently engaged upon a new history of Charlestown. She notes that Col. William Heywood seemed to be the chair- man of the committee.
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HISTORY OF GOSHEN, N. H.
minute care, Mr. Hunt placed its course slightly to the north of Acworth village.#
Research for the material for Mr. Upham'st articles had been conducted both in this country and abroad. His work is of vital interest; our excerpts from it are necessarily condensed. He wrote (The Province Road, p. 428-30): 1253517
"We know that Champlain, in 1609, found the Iroquois on the lake that bears his name. We know that the early settlers at Penacook were told by the Indians that they had long dwelt in that vicinity and had been attacked repeatedly by the Iroquois .* We further know that Otter Creek and Black River, the latter emptying into the Connecticut nearly opposite Charles- town, Number Four, formed a favorite Indian route from Lake Champlain to the Connecticut River, so the white men called it the "Indian Road." This trail doubtless continued from the mouth of Black River to Penacook, pass- ing the southern end of Sunapee Lake. To have gone north of it, or south of Sunapee and Lempster Mountains, would have been much out of their way. Authorities on early American history agree that scouts, trappers, traders and settlers followed the Indian and that the road followed the trail. (Encl. Brit. Vol. XIV, p. 475) If therefore we can find the line of the first road we can also, probably, trace both the scouting path and the Indian trail.
As early as December, 1742, the importance of means of communication between the Connecticut River, at a point near Number Four, and the Merrimack River was recognized by Gov. Benning Wentworth when he 'Impowered Josiah Willard, Esqr. and Ebenezer Hinsdell to Imploy four faithfull men in whom you can confide &c to Survey & mark out a Suitable & Convenient Road from Connecticut River beginning to the Northward of No. 4 ... , to run due East to the River called Merrimack, if the Land will admit of it . .. and you are directed to make a return hereof as soon as you can with Conveniency.' (N. H. State Papers, Vol. 18, p. 142). It does not appear that Willard and Hinsdell ever made any 'return.' The frequency
¿Special credit must be given Mr. Hunt and, also, Mr. Frank B. Kingsbury, who is now living in Keene, but Acworth reared, for their painstaking work in tracing the Province Road across their respective towns.
#George Baxter Upham, attorney and man of affairs, born in Claremont, died at his home in Boston, Mass., January, 1944, at the age of 87. Known as the "Father of the Boston Subway," he was the instigator of many measures for the public welfare; was the first in America to propose the establishment of the "one-way street.'
In the leisure of his later years he wrote of the valley of the Connecticut River above and below Claremont, of Indian days, early settlement, flat-boating days. In this work he came upon repeated references to an old thoroughfare which he believed must have been used in the French and Indian wars, as well as in the Revolution. So carefully did he weigh his evidence in his published work that none of his statements have been seriously challenged. Supporting details have since been added, particularly by the late Prof. Lawrence Shaw Mayo the following year in his authoritative "John Wentworth" (Harvard University Press, 1921).
To this substantial background the late Prof. J. W. Goldthwaite, geologist and professor at Dartmouth College, added very interesting and detailed description of the East Side Province Road system, in the departmental "New Hampshire Highways," during 1931-2. Collected and published in one volume, these contributing articles would constitute a reference-work of great value.
*Bouton's Hist. of Concord notes the early existence of an Indian fort of great size on the east bank of the Merrimack, near "Sugar Ball."
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THE PROVINCE ROAD
of Indian attacks probably made it difficult 'to Imploy four faithfull men' for the small stipend then paid for such services.
Had the victory at Quebec in September, 1759, been delayed for a year or two longer, the road from Charlestown to 'Pennycook' would, probably, have been completed by General Amherst's order and by men experienced in building the 'Crown Point Road.'"
"That a fairly good trail existed between these places (Gran. Monthly, Aug., 1920, p. 313) at least as early as the summer of 1754 may be gathered from the fact that Capt. Peter Powers, who in that year went from Rumford to the Cowass (Haverhill and Newbury) Intervales via Baker's River, sent four of his men who were disabled 'by reason of sprains in the ankles and weakness of body,' sixty miles down the Connecticut in a canoe to return to Rumford from Number Four. (See Powers' Coos Country, p. 25) The distance from the latter place to Rumford was nearly as far as direct from Cowass, but by the direct route there was no well-worn trail.
Late in July, 1755, Col. Joseph Blanchard of Dunstable sent his regiment of five hundred men from the fort near the Merrimack, then recently built at Bakerstown, now within the limits of Franklin, 'directly to Charlestown,' Number Four, and thence via Fort Dummer to Albany to join General Wil- liam Johnson's command. With Blanchard's men as captain was Robert Rogers, as lieutenant, John Stark, both as yet unknown to fame. Two months later a part of these men rendered effective service in turning de- feat into victory over Baron Dieskau at Lake George (N. H. State Papers, Vol. 18, p. 432).
No report or diary has yet been found describing the route taken by this regiment between Bakerstown and Number Four, but a little study . . . leads to the confident belief that it was just south of Sunapee Lake, be- tween it and the mountain .. , and thence over the hills of what are now Goshen, Unity and Acworth, where thirteen or fourteen years later the first road from the Connecticut to the Merrimack was built across western New Hampshire. . . [Upham's thoroughly reasoned position has been sustained by the recent writer, William Howard Brown, (Col. John Goffe, p. 115), who has added some details: "By Tuesday afternoon, (July 22, 1755) the last of the troops had left Stevenstown, although Blanchard himself stayed on until Wed- nesday to complete the breaking of camp. He then hurried on after his men, expecting to catch up with them at the Connecticut River. Trudging on with only the most necessary supplies in their packs, these men cut across New Hampshire, probably following the Indian trails which later became the Province Road, bearing west from Boscawen past the southern tip of Lake Sunapee, to Number 4. From there they were to go down the river to Fort Dummer, where Blanchard expected to join them."]
During the 'Seven Years War' several other regiments marched across western New Hampshire to Number Four, some of them doubtless by this same trail."
Those stirring days ended with the capture of Louisburg in 1758, the fall of Quebec in September, 1759, and the final treaty of peace at Paris, 1763, thus ending the French power in Amer-
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HISTORY OF GOSHEN, N. H.
ica and opening the way to peaceful settlement of all the northern country.
On Aug. 13, 1759, General Amherst wrote from his "Camp at Crown Point" to Governor Wentworth:
"For the easier Communication of your two provinces with this Post, I have Already for Some Days past had a Number of Men in the Woods, that are Employed In Cutting a Road between this & No. 4, which will be finished before You Receive this; to Compleat it quite up to Pennycook -- which must be of Still Greater Advantage to Your Province - Whom I doubt not will very Gladly Improve so favorable and promising an Oppor- tunity; the Rangers Who are Busy on the Road to No. 4 are Ordered to Mark the Trees In the proper direction, So that your people will have only to Cutt them to make the Communication open between Pennycook and No. 4 Which I Would have You to Recommend to Set about without de- lay." (S. P., Vol. 18, pps. 497-49).
As it proved, Amherst was over-sanguine in his expectation of the early completion of his military road across Vermont; it was not actually finished until the following year and then by John Stark's neighbor and friend, Col. John Goffe. It is doubt- ful if much was accomplished on the trail to "Pennycook" by men of Amherst's army.
The way was open for "up country" development. The need- ful spark was provided in the appointment by the Crown, Aug. 11, 1766, of young and energetic John Wentworth to succeed his uncle, Benning Wentworth, as Royal Governor of New Hampshire.
Of his great project the young governor wrote, on the 23rd Dec., 1768, to his kinsman, Hugh Hall Wentworth "at the Grenadoes":
"As you'll find Cargoes from this port (Portsmouth) will be daily made up with more valuable goods, And that large Quantity of provisions must be exported from hence - For this purpose I have been making roads to Connecticut River, so much shorter and better than formerly and than are now to Boston that we cannot fail to soon be the first provision Market in New England. It seems therefore important to secure this Growing Commerce to your House ... " (Wentworth's Letter Book, p. 189.)
"Wentworth would have preferred to have the Assembly make an out and out appropriation for thoroughfares across New Hampshire ... * But since the economy and sectionalism of the
*Mayo's "John Wentworth," p. 40.
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THE PROVINCE ROAD
legislature made outright appropriations impossible, the Gov- ernor conceived an interesting substitute. Land in New Hamp- shire was held in fee simple, but grants made after 1741 were supposed to yield a small quitrent to the Crown each year. The proprietors and inhabitants of new towns were free from this incubus for ten years after the date of their charter, but when that period had elapsed every landowner was expected to pay a quitrent on the basis of a shilling for every hundred acres. In this matter, as in some others, Benning Wentworth had been decidedly easy-going, and his nephew was now confronted with the unpleasant task not only of collecting quitrents coming due in the future, but also of extracting arrears from the 'poor peasants.' He knew well enough that this kind of land tenure was detested by the colonists, and that they found paying quit- rents to a royal official suggestive of oppression. Nevertheless the dues must be collected. How could this be accomplished with the least irritation to the people? John Wentworth de- cided that the solution lay in expending the revenue conspicu- ously for the good of the public, and from his point of view the money could be used to the best advantage in the construction of roads from the interior to Portsmouth.
His scheme was as statesmanlike as it was astute, and for- tunately it met with approval in England. In 1771 he devoted 500 pounds of quitrent receipts to this purpose, and reported to the Colonial Secretary that he thus 'procured more than two hundred miles of road to be opened and made passable from the western limits of the province to the seacoast, in parallel directions'."
It is a matter of no small importance that he had personal knowledge of "the Lands on Sugar River" (Letter to Col. Eli- phalet Dyer, June 25, 1767). A remarkable stand of virgin pine, reserved for masts for the King's navy, then grew in the area where the Sugar River empties into the Connecticut. In January, 1769, positive information reached Governor Wentworth that these mast-trees were being illegally cut at what is now Windsor, Vt., but then described by him as "in the County of Cumber- land, Province of New York."
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HISTORY OF GOSHEN, N. H.
"As it was of essential Consequence to make an Example of these Offenders who defyd the Law," he wrote afterward (Letter Book, p. 252), "I under- took the journey and in sixteen days having travell'd 300 miles in excessive cold and Snow, thro' a Wilderness almost uninhabited, I return'd to Portsmo. having found and seized upwards 500 Logs which were then on the River frozen, and not withstanding all possible care of the Men whom I left to guard them, went down the River in an unexpected and uncommonly high freshet . . . This Example has putt a final Stop to ye destruction of Mast Timber in that Country which abounds with Great Qtys. of the finest white pine Timber on this continent."*
This incident, which has been little publicized, reveals a phase of Wentworth's character vastly different from that usually held. Dressed for the woods and without the entourage and calculated publicity that attended his dramatic trip to Dartmouth College, in August, 1771, he took his way upon snowshoes through the wintry forest to confront men whom he would have every rea- son to believe hostile. That he performed his delicate mission so successfully is a compliment to his firmness and utter in- trepidity. He nowhere enlarges upon his statement that he went "thro' a Wilderness almost uninhabited," but as the Province Road would have afforded the only known way of reaching the Sugar River country, beyond doubt he followed the guidance of its blazed trees through the snowy maze.
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