USA > New Hampshire > Sullivan County > Goshen > History of Goshen, New Hampshire : settled, 1769, incorporated, 1791 > Part 4
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The Governor had been able to get his 200 miles of road through at a bargain-price, manifestly made possible only by good use of thoroughfares already existing in the various towns crossed.
No such good fortune was shared by his brother-in-law, John Fisher, Esq.,t whose newly-developing township, now Newbury, lay in difficult terrain surmounting height of land. Here costs ran up. It was in February, 1772, that Mr. Fisher received con- firmation of his grant from the Masonian Proprietors (N. H. Town Papers, Vol. 12, p. 666). Immediately, he and his partner, John Peirce of Portsmouth, "were called upon by the Govern- ment to clear the Province Road, so called, through said Town,
*Seventeen of the trees measured from 28 to 40 inches in diameter and from eighty to one hundred feet in length.
+Gov. Wentworth wrote of him to an acquaintance (Letter Book, N. H. Hist. Society) : "Again, my friend, permit me to recommend to you this much-loved Brother - as the Man whose happiness more warmly animates me than my own welfare. You may rely on his virtue and in Ev'ry Kindness to him will heap Occasion of increasing Gratitude & Delight upon my heart."
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THE PROVINCE ROAD
which was done accordingly & cost the said Fisher £101, 10, 10 L M'y."*
This should have completed the road to Boscawen, as Col. Edward G. Lutwyche of Merrimack, who, with Capt. John Church and Lieut. William Heywood both of Charlestown, had been duly appointed by the Governor a committee for oversee- ing construction, reported Sept. 23, 1771, (S. P., Vol. 28) that the road, save for a section in the Warner "Gore" and one in Fishersfield, was "fit for teams to pass," no doubt the "Horses and Sleds" that he had mentioned in a previous paragraph.
Yet events were fast shaping that were to profoundly affect the Province Road, as well as society in general.
On one hand, Portsmouth merchants were undeniably less aggressive in pressing the advantages of their port than were their Boston rivals and left the matter of bringing down the products of the rich Connecticut River intervals largely with their governor. On the other hand, travelers were seeking eas- ier grades. The old trail, coursing westward from the Merri- mack, led from one hilltop to another, the better "to view for Smoaks," or other signs of hostile raiding-parties in the distance. To the road-builders there were certain advantages in this, be- cause on high land the streams, being nearer their sources, were smaller and therefore more easily crossed.
As settlers increased, moreover, their saw-and-grist-mills had to be located where water-power was available and farmers looked with growing interest upon the flat-lands of the valleys. Side-roads for their convenience developed.
In time the Province Road would doubtless have fallen apart through these natural causes, but its demise was unquestionably greatly hastened by the coming of the Revolution, with the con- sequent removal of both its powerful sponsor and its source of revenue. Briefly, historical events may pass in review.
New Hampshire endorsed the Virginia Resolves of 1768-69, which denied the right of Parliament to tax the colonies. The
*It will be noticed that confirmation of all points in question is here established: (a) the time was 1772; (b) it was done by order of the State Government; (c) the road was "cleared"; (d) it was from the first named the "Province Road," not a title as- sumed for it in recent years and, lastly, the cost for the six miles across Fishersfield is given, a substantial sum for those days.
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HISTORY OF GOSHEN, N. H.
Boston Massacre, as it is known, occurred in 1770, the forced flight to safety with British forces of Governor Wentworth* in the spring of 1774, and on Dec. 13, 1774, came what is now recognized as the first overt act of the war, in the seizing of Fort William and Mary in Portsmouth harbor, with its gunpowder and light arms.
Stark's troops, flocking west to Number 4 and Bennington, made good use of the Road, but when peace was finally re- stored the scenes in what is now Sullivan County had materially changed. Replacing Charlestown as a general depot of supplies, many smaller market-places had sprung up, Claremont, Wind- sor, Cornish, Newport, each convenient to growing communi- ties. It now became apparent, too, that Boston had seized the region's trade away from its logical shipping-point, Portsmouth, and roads leading to Boston became the more heavily thronged.
All this had passed so rapidly, amidst such a titanic social and political upheaval, that we may not place too much blame upon the harried settlers of Saville and adjoining towns for forgetting their once Great Road, still great, by all standards, in the breadth and vision of its inception.
Why it was so consistently termed the "Road to Boscawen," has been something of a puzzle to present-day users of Highway 103, with Concord, the state capital, a most logical destination. The answer lies in the fact that one of the earliest roads out of Durham led, with more or less success, to the fort in Canter- bury, whence in the fall of 1745, Capt. Jeremiah Clough brought a cannon, their "great Gun," and was paid 50 shillings by the provincial government for his "trouble" in so doing.t
*Prof. E. D. Sanborn (Hist of N. H., 1875), says of Gov. Wentworth: "He possessed business tact, executive energy, a pacific temper and a cultivated taste. In ordinary times he would have made a popular and suc- cessful governor; but, at the perilous crisis of his administration, no man could serve two masters. If he was true to the king, he was false to the people. Still, during a considerable portion of his official life, he was highly acceptable. He went to England soon after leaving the province, and was there created a baronet and appointed lieutenant-governor of New Bruns- wick."
+Lyford's Hist. of Canterbury.
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THE PROVINCE ROAD
Capt. Clough's probable route is well described in a report of the committee of the original proprietors of Peeling, now Woodstock, as given in The Granite Monthly, 1907, p. 415:
"Minutes of the Journey. Nov. 8, 1763.
This day set out from Madbury for to lay out the Town of Peeling in the County of Grafton in the state of N. H., at Ten O Clock forenoon went through Barrington Notingham and arrived at Capt. Mac Claries in Ipsom and put up the ninth day it Rain'd and we set out for Canterbery Crost part Chichester and arrived at Insign John Moors in Canterbery at twelve O Clock and lay by that afternoon and the tenth day it being very Rainy the leventh day we Set out and Crost the ferry over to Contoocoock (Boscawen) then proceeded to Bakers Town (Salisbury) to Antoney Bo (w)ens at twelve O Clock ..
Boscawen's straggling up-river settlements held an important place in the province. Travel was largely alongside the river, save for "Long Street" a straight road extending from east to west across the northern end of the township. Of it Charles Carleton Coffin, in his "History of Boscawen," (p. 103), describ- ing events in the year 1770, says: "The Proprietors held a meet- ing and voted to clear a road leading to 'No. 4.' This road was Long Street, as laid out in the first survey by John Brown ... This great highway was opened under the direction of the province, and known as the Province Road." He describes Long Street as "the highway leading from High Street in Boscawen to Corser Hill and from thence by White Plains to Warner."
Dearborn's History of Salisbury, N. H., relates that "In June, 1777, Capt. Ebenezer Webster, Lieut. Peter Kimball of Bos- cawen and Ensign Richard Herbert of Concord, marched with seventy men (and ten baggage-horses) to relieve Ticonderoga."
The first two groups would unquestionably have followed the above route. The Concord men may have come practically all the way to Hopkinton on what is still the main road west; this is asserted because of such authentic markers as the Bradley monument, opposite the Christian Science Home, and the site of the Kimball garrison, near the junction of the road from Dunbarton, once Stark's Town. Capt. Baker's Candia company must have used the Dunbarton road to some extent, perhaps following the route oft taken by Capt. Robert Rogers and his Rangers. Several other companies, their muster-rolls given in
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HISTORY OF GOSHEN, N. H.
full in Rev. State Papers, marched over these roads, to con- verge in Warner upon the one thoroughfare that was to take them over Kimball's Hill in Sutton at Eaton Grange, thence past the village of South Suttton and over, or past, Nelson Hill to the Newbury town-line. At this point the Province Road is now discontinued, but is still easily traced and reappears on the dirt-road leading through the old Cheney neighborhood and ascends the hills to Newbury's ancient town-center.
Here, a century and more ago, was a now vanished village, very similar in planned location to the splendid villages of Washington and Acworth Town that are fortunately preserved to us. When visited by Mr. Upham, in 1920,* of the dozen or more cellar holes only one had any of the old timbers leaning over it. The meeting house was long-since gone (shown in a plan of 1809), only the stonewalled graveyard and the immedi- ately adjoining stonewalled village pound being in a recogniz- able state of preservation. Parts of the huge, old-growth, pine timbers which formed the gateway of the pound then lay on the ground, still showing the strokes of the axe where they were hewn. "The little churchyard is now overgrown with low-bush blueberries; men who fought in the War of the Revolution lie buried there. One thinks of the many sad processions that have left that little, hilltop graveyardt in years long past, of their descendants who have gone out into the great world, beyond the outline of the mountains blue in the distance, and forgotten whence they came."
To provide a village street running east and west across the breast of the hill, with a consequent southerly slope and pan- oramic view of Bear Hill and Bald Sunapee, may have been in John Fisher's plan, or that of his predecessors. If so, it caused a rather wide swing to the east and an added rise of around 200 feet (to 1500 ft.) above the altitude at which a direct course
*The Granite Monthly, Nov., 1920.
#Among the clustered graves, some are marked only with a rough field-stone, others with upright, lettered slabs. A few inscriptions, taken at random in 1946, will suffice to indicate the families once resident here: Lieut. William Dodge, d. 1797, and Sarah, his wife, d. 1830; Dorcas Farmer, d. 1804; Deacon William Gunnison, d. 1831, age 78, and Hannah, his (1st) wife, d. 1813, age 57; Wm. Adams; Mrs. Hannah Lain, wife of Mr. Robert Lain, d. 1817, age 44 yrs .; Joseph and Sally Cutler, 1816; Dexter, son of Benjamin and Sarah Twiss, d. 1814.
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THE PROVINCE ROAD
could have been followed to the south end of the Lake (alt. 1100 ft.), where for the first time since leaving Warner Village, the Province Road rejoins Route 103.
Within the last few years, coincident with the development of Mount Sunapee State Park, vast changes have been made in road-location in the short distance along the lake, between it and the crags of the mountain.
If it were not for some remaining traces of the old road, such as the sharp pitch and left curve at Newbury station and the road at Lakewood Manor, there would be a grave danger that its previous course would be quite overlooked, because un- suspected. It closely followed the indentations of the shore-line, we know, because of the beautifully-executed map in State Papers, Vol. 28, p. 94.
At the margin of "Lilly Bay," just before reaching the outlet of Mountainview Lake and the present Park bathing-beach, the road once came up a natural draw between sand-hills, past Zephaniah Clark's hospitable door - a fine, new house has been recently built nearby by Albert A. Ritchie - and turned south- west to compensate for the direction lost in rounding the end of the mountain. A small stone-bridge in good condition is still to be seen close by the main thoroughfare 103 and, until recent years, had carried the chance traveler up past the old Mount Sunapee schoolhouse, lately remodeled into a dwelling, to join the Park Road some ways above.
The State Park now dominates the whole area, the pride of visitor and native alike. No one can allow more than a fleeting regret for the old order. It has all been vastly improved and beautified. And the old road to Number Four is still there, though regraded and overlaid with blacktop to the park's en- trance. The dirt road keeps straight on, continuing on high ground toward the valley's headwall. For a quarter-of-a-mile at this point the wheel-tracks are laid squarely upon the Mason Curve Line, which, as we know, formed the boundary between Sullivan and Merrimack Counties and between the towns of Goshen and Newbury, as well. The Line persists in the geo-
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HISTORY OF GOSHEN, N. H.
graphical contours of many localities in New Hampshire, but this is one of its most interesting and accessible sections.
This mountain glen was early settled and houses still remain, with several cellar-holes marking the location of more. At the old Beck place in Goshen the road turns sharply right and, overhung with splendid oaks and other hardwoods, climbs steeply up over the headwall to plunge down again to the once well-known Maxfield farm. It is Morrison Hill, 1660 feet above sea-level, a flanking out-thrust of the mountain and justly famed for the view afforded to west and northwest, with Mount Ascutney and the Green Mountains in splendid per- spective across the Connecticut River valley in Vermont.
At a point somewhat below the farmhouse-site, the road from Cornish and Croydon, shown on the Holland map, p. 8, once made its entry. Local tradition and more recent research* are in accord on this. A short section of this road may be seen at the former Frank Muzzey farm, between the present blacktop Rand's Pond road and the newly-located main route 103. It thence passed through the hollow at the old Dea. Asahel Lear place and may still be traced, leading northerly through pasture and woodland, intermittently paralleled by crumbling stone- walls or carried over hand-laid culverts, to connect, within a mile-and-a-quarter, with the present highway in the Olney Nutting district. Undoubtedly, the traveled road that continues on down into Sunapee village and, south of Perkin's Pond, to Ryder Corner in the edge of Croydon, very closely follows the old location. It was designated a "mark'd road" on Colby's map, running from a "Stake: Newport & Croydon corner," to an un- determined position approximating Sunapee Harbor and de- termined the layout of adjoining lots as did Corey's Road at the town's southern end.
The importance of these early highways has been stressed because of their relationship to the Province Road, each "feeder branch" established providing fresh evidence of the importance of the main artery.
*The assistance of J. Leighton Russell, Mount Sunapee, has been deeply appreciated by the writer.
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THE PROVINCE ROAD
It must be borne in mind that within the present limits of Goshen three different towns were originally involved in the construction of the Province Road: Saville, with 21/2 miles, Newport, one mile, and Unity, with a very short portion, but with the development of their township presumably much to the fore.
No problems are presented in the Saville section. With but one exception the present country-road - good, save in the worst winter storms and in mud-time - may be declared upon original location. That exception occurs at the North Goshen cemetery where the present highway passes it to the north and into the hollow beyond. Yet it is evident that the previous road must have gone south of the cemetery-knoll in order to have reached its known position, much higher on the hillside than at present.
A well-preserved portion of the old road-grading was found in 1920, by Mr. Upham's field-party, of which the writer was a member, several rods up in the woods south of the Bennett- Kelly house. The old and the new are again joined near the former Weeks place. The re-location is described in surveyor's terms in Vol. 1, p. 13, Sunapee Clerk's records, the preamble reading: "We the subscribers, being called thereto with the assistance of Zephaniah Clark as surveyor, have laid out a high- way ... : Beginning at a stake standing two rods North 10° East from a Burch Tree standing in the Province Road, so- called, which tree is about eighteen Rods South East from the ruins of Mr. John Wendell's old log house." That "the above work was completed on the 21st day of September, A. D. 1784," is attested by Daniel Sherburn, Robert Young and George W. Lear, Committee.
The significance of ruins of an old log house beside the Province Road, in the year 1784, cannot be lightly dismissed, though Ex. Gov. Bartlett, in his "Story of Sunapee," easily hurdled the problem by saying (p. 41): "He (Wendell) built a log cabin near the first settlers from Portsmouth. It was later burned down." The authority for the latter portion of his state- ment is not given and the writer is of the belief that something
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HISTORY OF GOSHEN, N. H.
of historical value is still blurred in outline. Certainly, the natural processes of decay could hardly have caused a log house to be called "old" in the short span of fifteen years since known settlement. Its supposed site corresponds rather closely to that of the small buildings, now removed, but known twenty years ago as the Rafferty place, from its then owner. A spring of water, said to be of fine quality, is still preserved, just across the road in a hollow. The various theories that have been ad- vanced all fail of proof either of the reason for Wendell's build- ing, or of the date. Only in perusal of the Wendell papers may the answer be found.
Beyond Grindle's clearing the Province Road came into the edge of the town of Newport and soon received the branch way, already mentioned (footnote, p. 17), that came in from Sugar River, at or near Kelleyville, over Page hill. Much of this mileage, save from the Dr. Casagrande farm to H. G. Silver's at the top of Page Hill, is still used and some of it blacktopped.
At the Trudeau-Purmort farm, once owned by Arthur Hum- phrey, the present highway descends the rapid Gunnison Brook valley, with the consequent building of three expensive cement- bridges required, whereas the Province Road kept to the hillside where small culverts sufficed to bring it safely down beneath overhanging maples to the main Keene-Newport road at the Goshen library building, as before noted. The chimney-rock, "Lane's Chimney," on Walling's county-map, still stands sen- tinel beside it as of yore and beyond the narrow river-interval the bluff face of Oak Hill, that "Very bad hill," rises with a grimness that forces the traveler to choose whether he will pass it to the south on Blanchard's trail, or to the north with Oliver Corey. Direct ascent is impractical.
CHAPTER IV
Mason's Curve Line in the Saville Area
T 10 duly appreciate the lasting influence of this historic curve, it must be realized that some part of the boundary lines of thirty New Hampshire towns and of three counties were fixed by and today coincide with its famous arc.
It was in 1620 that King James I was graciously pleased to grant to forty men of distinction a charter for a corporation which became known as the Council for New England. Their grant to Gorges and Mason of the "Province of Maine" in 1622, and the ensuing claims of Capt. Mason upon the New Hamp- shire seaboard were, for more than a century, a source of trial and controversy, only settled when the heirs of Mason finally sold their interests, in 1746, to the so-called Masonian Pro- prietors, all of whom were New Hampshire men* desiring the advancement of their province. A survey to establish the western bounds of their domain was essential.
In 1751 the proprietors employed for that purpose Joseph Blanchard, Jr., son of Col. Blanchard of Dunstable, whose regi- ment crossed to Charlestown four years later. The young sur- veyor was twenty-one years old. He started at the southwest corner of what is now Fitzwilliam and ran straight lines for five miles as chords of the curve which was supposed to be sixty miles from the sea.
Blanchard and his party of nine men surveyed through swamps, over mountains, into the virgin forest, marking the trees in a manner that he was to recognize a half-century later.+ Their course took them west of Monadnock and Sunapee moun- tains. Sunapee Lake was crossed on a hastily-constructed raft of logs, the line cutting Great Island. At Newfound Lake, sixty- seven miles by measure from their starting-point, they desisted
*Hon. Elwin L. Page, Historical N. H., Aug., 1953.
tAn interesting transcript of Blanchard's deposition in 1804 is on file at the Cheshire County Registry, Keene.
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HISTORY OF GOSHEN, N. H.
because "some of the hands were Worried and the Provisions faild."
Beyond any question this was the first running of the Curve Line, but it is equally unquestioned that a second line not many years thereafter appeared inside the true curve, two-and-one-half miles, or more, in greatest width, at the southwest corner of Stoddard, and running out to a point at Great Island in Sunapee Lake, the well-known pivot that Blanchard's survey had estab- lished. When, or by whom, this was done is unknown to the writer. Blanchard acknowledged its markings were "ancient" in 1803 and, while carefully refraining from any charges as to the authorship of the spurious line, declared unequivocally that it was no portion of his survey, citing his own peculiar mark as proof .*
That the conflicting lines had become a matter of concern in 1767 is indicated by the depositions of Kendall and Farwell, two of Blanchard's original party, when they declared "that any Representation or Insinuation that the Line aforesaid (Blanchard's) is not well Run & Markd to all Intents and Pur- poses is false, Scandalous & without the Least foundation."
The attending uncertainty led to a decision by the proprietors to have the Curve completed to west and north and rechecked by Robert Fletcher, deputy surveyor, whom they had previously employed on the eastern boundary. June 1, 1769, eighteen years after Blanchard's survey, Fletcher was commissioned to set out at once upon this task. While surveying he was directed to note "the most remarkable monuments" met with on the line, as well as any parts of townships encountered and also "to note
*There had been many previous surveys, for varying purposes. Massachusetts early at- tempted the formation of a line of towns to the north, as a Barrier against the Indians. In January, 1735-6, eleven eminent men were placed in charge of the Line from Con- cord to Charlestown and for a time matters were pushed energetically. The 26th of the following March John Jeffries, Esq., brought down a plat of the towns, "in which Platt is set forth the true bearings and distances between the said Falls (Bellow's Falls) and the townships of Rumford (Concord) and Contoocook (Boscawen), as the same was run with a Chain by Col. Josiah Willard and others."
During the summer of 1736 a more extensive survey was made, with the discovery "that the North Bounds of the Equivalent Lands on the West side of Connecticut River did not run West as we platted it, but was twenty-two degrees thirty minutes North," which obliged them to alter their previous maps and send some of the committee to view and run the lines of the Ashuelot Townships, "that we might be certain of not interfering with them," the record explains and further, "we found that one of our towns did actually interfere with one of the Ashuelots, and we were therefore obliged to alter the Lines of all the four Townships on the East side of the said River and have reformed them in the said Grand Plat accordingly."
Smithe River
Small River
Sugar River
Pond
Bond.
mounten
Sonance
1) Branch of Ashroulett River
Raad
Branch of ashowlett River
Ga Road on the Banis
a Branch of Ashowlett River
a Road
ya Read
Province of the Massachusetts
' D. W.
Portion of Fletcher's Plan of the Mason Curve Line. "Taken," as he says, "at the Request of the Proprietors Purchasers of The Right of John Tufton Mason, Esq. in the Province Aforesaid - In pursuance of the Verbal Orders Given to Me by Isaac Rindge Esq. Surveyor General of All His Majesties Lands in the Province Aforesaid - from the 13th Day of August 1768. to the 29th day of the same Month ... by Robert Fletcher Deputy Surveyor." The troublesome offset in the Line is clearly shown. (N. H. State Papers, Vol. 29, p. 308)
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HISTORY OF GOSHEN, N. H.
any peices or Tracts of land between any of our Granted Town- ships and ye line, or between the Towns we granted, and also to get certain Information of what number of settlers are on our Granted Towns ... " It was an exacting order.
The mileage inland from the sea had been previously estab- lished on the base line, otherwise the northern boundary of Massachusetts, and the point of departure northward was fixed and well-known. From this definite point Fletcher proceeded north on a true course for twenty miles, which brought him to the southwest corner of Stoddard. Here he entered upon his map (reproduced in S. P., Vol. 29, facing p. 308) the offset to the east that denoted the second line. It is true that the town- lines between Sullivan and Nelson bear the same relative offset, yet Fletcher had not recognized the latter up to this point. Why, then, did he take it up at the Stoddard corner?
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