USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Littleton > History of Littleton, New Hampshire, Vol. I > Part 16
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The first settler, Nathan Caswell, was living at Orford in the spring of 1770. He was among the first settlers of that town, having accompanied Israel Morey from Hebron, Conn., to Orford in 1765. On the 10th day of April, 1770, he started with his fam- ily to establish the first home in this town. With the essentials of his household effects strapped upon a horse, accompanied by his wife
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and four children, he set out upon his journey. The improvements of five years had not served to render the road to Haverhill more than passable. As they travelled through Piermont they passed the clearings on the meadows and the log houses where dwelt the Whites, Roots, and Tylers. At Haverhill Corner they emerged from the gloom of the wilderness upon a scene of uncommon activity. The town was the most populous in the Province north of Penacook, having a population of nearly two hundred souls. On each side of the great river considerable clearings had been inade, and smoke curled from numerous cabins. It happened to be town meeting day, and as our little band of pioneers reached the inn where these democratic subjects of King George were transacting the business of the day, it is not improbable that they rested here and heard discussed the vote that day adopted to " give Rev'd. Elitzer (Eleazer) Wheelock, D. D., fifty acres of land in Haverhill lying on Capt. John Hazen's mill brook, where there is a convenient waterfall for a mill, provided Dartmouth College shall be erected in Haverhill." Here too, it is more than likely, they met John Hurd, Esq., and conferred with him in regard to the proposed settlement of Apthorp, in which they had a mutual interest. There were others present at that meeting destined to play an important part in the history of Grafton County and the stirring events of the next few years. We know that John Hazen and Charles Johnson were in attendance, for one was moderator and the other clerk of the meeting. The Bayleys, Ladds, and Woodwards were also among those who participated in its pro- ceedings. Their journey resumed, they passed through what is low one of the richest and most attractive agricultural portions of our country, by the island home of Joshua Howard, on through the reservation of Governor Wentworth, now the prosperous vil- lage of Woodsville, down the steep bluff at Wiser's Hill. Near this point they crossed the road built two years previously by the proprietors of Bath, which traversed that town over the ridge of hills west of the Ammonoosuc to the line of Lyman, an investment intended to hasten the settlement of the town, but which had not at that time contributed to such a result. The pioneers kept to the Indian trail which led through the valley and was marked by blazed trees. There was not a break in the dark forest until they reached Harriman's Falls, the site of Bath village. Here the weary travellers rested for the night in the deserted cabin built by Jasiel Harriman in 1766 and occupied by him until the preceding winter, when the family, discouraged by the privations and hardships of the situation, abandoned the settlement and moved to Chester.
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The following morning the Caswells' journey was resumed. The path wound around the hill over which the present road between the villages in Bath now passes ; beneath the bluff they passed Gardner's clearing ; on the meadows above, John Sawyer, Moses Pike, and William Eastman had made beginnings. After passing the Eastman cabin, the solitude was unbroken until they reached the meadows at Gunthwait. Here the proprietors had a party at work constructing a stockade 1 and making other arrangements for a settlement of the township. These men had built a cabin and cleared a piece of land for the first crop to be garnered by white men within the limits of Lisbon. From the Salmon Hole the trail ascended high land and passed the western border of Streeter's pond, thence it ran to the river. Above the rapids, where the mills of the Littleton Lumber Company now stand, there was a passable ford, which they crossed, and soon arrived at the hut on the meadow.
This route through the Ammonoosuc valley was little better than one unmarked would have been through any other part of this primeval forest. It had been traversed by hunting parties of Indians and a few times by some of the early settlers of Lancas- ter. Some of the windfalls, but by no means all, had been cut away, but each recurring spring found the path again obstructed by decaying giants of the wood. At the time this journey was made, the ground was like a sponge filled with water, and wide detours were often necessary to pass a morass or clump of fallen timber. Sometimes, too, the banks of a stream had to be followed for a long distance to find a fording place, and the opposite bank retraced to the trail. The hardship involved by such a trip can hardly be realized at the present day. When the travellers reached their destination, the day was far spent, and all were worn and weary from the toil of the journey.
The location of the cabin cannot be fixed with certainty. One of the grandchildren of Nathan Caswell, who often heard him relate the story, says that it was on the farm now owned by Noah Farr ; that it was near a brook, and was inundated and partly destroyed by a freshet in the spring of 1771. From his description, it is prob- able that it stood not far from the Parker brook and near the point where that stream mingles its waters with those of the Ammonoo- suc. During their weary journey the family had been sustained and their burdens lightened by the hope that at its termination they were to find a home of peace and rest. These anticipations were not to be realized ; they had hardly divested themselves of
1 Mrs. Bingham Caswell is authority for this statement. She had it from Captain Caswell.
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their burdens before they discovered signs indicating the presence of Indians in the immediate vicinity, whether friendly or hostile they did not know. These roving bands from St. Francis, while they could not be regarded as hostile in the sense the word implied before the conquest of Quebec, were seldom friendly to trespassers on their most valuable hunting and fishing grounds. Great pru- dence was therefore required to avoid attracting the attention of such as might be in the valley. No fire could be built for comfort or for the preparation of supper. They partook of a cold luncheon, and as the shadows of closing day crept up the eastern hills and night darkened around them, the boys nestled in the wild grass within the hut and soon forgot the danger of their surroundings in refreshing slumber ; the father, armed with his faithful gun, stood guard at the entrance to the cabin ; the solemn silence of the night was sometimes broken by the hoot of an owl or the distant bark of the wolf; and the interlacing arms of the mighty pine waved a sigh as an occasional gust of wind swept through their tassels of green. During the lonely vigils of that night, the first white child born within the limits of this town was added to the family of these hardy pioneers. In honor of the town, his parents bestowed upon him the name of Apthorp.
In the morning additional evidence of lurking Indians was dis- covered, and, alarmed for the safety of his family, Caswell sought safety in flight. From the trunk of a huge pine he fashioned a dug-out, and while the eldest son with the horse retraced the route of the preceding day, the remainder of the family in their primitive boat floated down the river, swollen by melting snows until it filled its wild and irregular banks. The ride must have been at- tended by many perils, but the venturous voyagers safely passed all danger and reached their haven in Gunthwait. They were welcomed at the stockade, and for several days shared the homely but generous hospitality of its inmates. Fear of the Indians having subsided, a reconnaissance was made in the direction of Apthorp, and it was found that the cabin had been burned. The Indians had also destroyed or appropriated all the property left by the Caswells in their hasty flight. A new cabin was built, and soon the family was reunited at this lodge in the wilderness, which was for many years to be its home.
The hut in order, Mr. Caswell at once entered upon the work of clearing land and subduing the soil for its first crop. The old growth on quite a tract had been destroyed by the Indians, but the debris still cumbered the ground; this was rolled into piles and destroyed by fire. Early in May corn, oats, rye, and potatoes
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History of Littleton.
were in the ground. During the period between sowing and har- vesting the family's main dependence was upon the abundance furnished by stream and forest. Several journeys were made to the mill at Haverhill and one to Orford, where a heifer was pro- cured and driven to the settlement in this town. The harvest was garnered in its season, and then the cabin was made ready for the long winter. The trials, privations, pleasures, if there were such, the hopes and fears of this family whose nearest neighbor was thirteen miles distant may be imagined ; they are not known. During the winter three acres were cleared of its timber, burned in the late spring, and planted. The tract cleared the preceding season was in grass.
The winter of 1770-1 was severe with a heavy fall of snow, and the freshet in April, 1771, was destructive to the property of the settlers in the valley of the Connecticut and those of its tributary streams. The Caswell cabin was demolished and a portion of its contents swept away by the rushing waters. The moving acci- dents by flood and field compelled a change, and a site for a new cabin was selected near the present residence of Noah Farr. Its exact location was easily traced eighteen years ago. It was on the east side of the highway, as at present located, and partly within the road opposite a point about midway between Mr. Farr's house and barn. The old well is still discernible, though filled with rocks and earth. The log house was built after the crops were in the ground and was of the most substantial character. Its foundation was of immense pines partly sunk in the earth and the superstruc- ture of smaller logs made to fit as closely together as the tools in use would permit, and the chinks filled with moss and clay. The windows and doors were of rived pine, fastened together with cleats attached with wooden pins ; the hinges were also of wood. No iron was used in the structure except the crane which hung in the stone fireplace. A little distance to the south a barn was built in a similar way and of like material. The remainder of the year was uneventful. Progress was made in clearing the land of small stumps and other encumbrances ; the buildings were rendered com- fortable and the general conveniences of life largely increased.
The spring of 1772 was memorable for the arrival of the second family of pioneers. Jonathan Hopkinson, who probably came from Rhode Island with his family, made a beginning on the Connecticut meadows at what is now known as the Cleasby place.1
1 The writer stated in an address prepared for the Centennial celebration of 1884 that the Hopkinsons came in 1773. Investigation since made has led to the belief that he was then in error, and that the true date should be as above given. See Littleton Centennial, p. 63.
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Mr. Hopkinson had four sons who were nearing manhood ; they were Jonathan, Jr., David, Caleb, and John. One of these sons, Jonathan, Jr., settled on the Parker Cushman farm, and David began on the Rix or Rounsevel place. The infant settlement made no further advance prior to the outbreak of the War of In- dependence. During that eventful period rumors of Indian forays were of frequent occurrence, and several times the settlers of Apthorp temporarily abandoned their homes and sought refuge in the Northumberland forts. During one of these excursions the Hopkinsons became interested in the rich alluvial meadows at Guildhal, and in 1779 Jonathan, Jr., and David removed to that town, abandoning their improvements on the meadows in Apthorp.
In 1781 Capt. Peleg Williams purchased of Moses Little the improvements made by Jonathan Hopkinson, Sr., on the Cleasby place, Mr. Hopkinson having abandoned the estate to join one of his sons at Guildhal. At the same time Robert Charleton settled on the Howard place, near the Waterford bridge. These men in character and attainments were a great addition to the settlement.
Moses Blake, under an arrangement entered into with Tristram Dalton, cut a road from Haverhill to Lancaster, and in payment for this service received a deed of three hundred and twenty acres of land at the confluence of John's river and the Connecticut, in the north part of Apthorp, and here he settled in 1782.
Such were the results of the attempt on the part of the pro- prietors to effect the settlement of Apthorp. The time was not propitious. Hardly was their work well begun before it was inter- rupted by the outbreak of the War of the Revolution. Every- where throughout the older settlements the Cohos country was regarded as perilous ground, liable to be overrun at any time by the St. Francis Indians, many of whom still claimed its streams and forests as their heritage. Under such circumstances, it was not an inviting region to the pioneer. Those who were here often left the care of the crops to the women and boys of their households while they enlisted as scouts and traversed the forests to guard against the threatened blow of the enemy. The only additions to the population prior to the division of Apthorp into Littleton and Dalton in 1784, other than births in the family of Captain Caswell, were the establishment here of Peleg Williams and Robert Charle- ton. The family of Captain Williams consisted of a wife and daughter. Mr. Charleton was a bachelor.
The town made little progress during the first decade of its existence. During that period it was not much more than a halting-
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History of Littleton.
place between the Upper and Lower Cohos. When the settlement was begun, there were seven persons in the Caswell family ; when the census of 1773 was taken, there were fourteen inhabitants in town ; in 1775, sixteen, and in 1780 the number had not increased. Some writers have suggested that the settlement was entirely aban- doned during the War of the Revolution. The statement is erro- neous. The Caswells and Hopkinsons were absent much of the time in the service of their country on the frontier, but their enlist- ment was not for long periods, and it is more than probable that the interim was passed with their families. If other evidence were wanting, the fact that four of Captain Caswell's children were born in this town during that period would be conclusive on the question of abandonment. The fact that they affixed their signatures to petitions addressed to the Committee of Safety while temporarily at the Upper Cohos probably had no more significance then than a similar act would have at the present time. They were there on duty, signatures were wanted to the petitions, and they signed them, while at the same time their legal domicile was in this town, where their wives and young children were cultivating the soil as well as attending to their domestic duties.
A glance at the surroundings of the settlers will not be without interest. In five years there had been a marked change in the Ammonoosuc valley below Apthorp. In Haverhill there were in 1775 three hundred and sixty-five persons ; in Bath, one hundred and forty-four ; in Lisbon, then Gunthwait, forty-seven ; in Lan- daff, forty ; in Lyman, probably twenty ; and in Franconia, then Morristown, there were three families. Bethlehem, Whitefield, Carroll, and the mountain region was an unbroken wilderness. In Lancaster there were sixty-one inhabitants ; Northumberland, fifty-seven ; Stratford, forty-one, and at Jefferson, then Dartmouth, there were but four. On the Vermont side at Lunenburg and Guildhal settlements had been begun and some progress made. There were prosperous settlements at Barnet and Ryegate. With these exceptions, the valley of the Connecticut to the north and the Passumpsic Valley were robed in virgin forest as dark and weird as it had been for centuries.
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The Pioneers.
XII.
THE PIONEERS.
T' HE men and women who penetrated the wilderness and endured the privations and hardships of frontier life, to lay the foundations of order and civilization in our town, long since passed to their reward. Their very names have well-nigh perished from the earth. The few who delight to pore over the musty records of the past or delve amidst the accumulated mass of fact and fiction stored in ancient repositories, may be familiar with their names but know little of their personality. To rescue, even for a brief period, their fading memories from the common fate, is one of the highest purposes of local history.
Until a very recent period there were living aged descendants of some of the pioneers of Littleton who preserved a vivid recol- lection of their ancestors, whom they knew in their childhood, and whose reminiscences may be regarded as authentic.
The first of these pioneers, Capt. Nathan Caswell, was born in Norwich, Conn., in 1740. He was apprenticed to a tailor, and served, as the law then required, a full term of seven years. In 1761 he married Hannah Bingham, a descendant in the fourth generation from Deacon Thomas Bingham, who was the common ancestor of the Binghams in New England. For two or three years he worked at his trade in his native town, and then estab- lished himself at Hebron, where he made the acquaintance of Israel Morey. When that gentleman came to Orford in 1765, Mr. Caswell with his family accompanied him to that town, of which they were among the first settlers. General Morey was interested with the Littles, Daltons, and others in this township, and upon him fell the work of supervising its settlement ; and to this end he induced Caswell to make his home on the Ammonoo- suc meadows in the spring of 1770. The family then consisted of Mr. Caswell, his wife and four sons, Nathan, Jr., Osias, Ezra, and Andrew. The eldest two were born in Connecticut, the others in
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History of Littleton.
Orford. Apthorp, the fifth son, was born on the night of the arrival of the family in this town.
There was something in this man which peculiarly fitted him for the life of a pioneer. Some strain in the blood, a tempera- ment that found restraint irksome, a love of nature and an untutored life amidst its solitudes seem to have kept him on the verge of civilization throughout his long and blameless life. He was hardy, bold, and enterprising within the sphere of his chosen activities. His education was better than that of most men of his time and in his rank in life. For five years the life of the family was that incident to the times and their surroundings : clearing the land for cultivation, subduing the soil, hunting for food and clothing, fishing, and adding to the security and comfort of their rude buildings. Their grain was for several years carried on the back twenty-five miles to Haverhill to be ground and brought home again by the same conveyance. Later a mill was built at Bath, which shortened the distance of this toilsome journey by ten miles.
When the War of Independence broke out, Caswell conducted his family to the fort at Northumberland for security against an antici- pated attack from the Indians. They did not remain long, as time served to dissipate their fear, and the care of the growing crops demanded the presence of some members of the family. Mr. Cas- well remained at the Upper Cohos a large share of the time until the establishment of peace. We find that in July, 1776, he was a member of a company of rangers, commanded by Capt. Jeremiah Eames, doing duty " scouting, guiding, and forting " at the Upper Cohos. The members of this company were volunteers in the full sense of the term. They were self-organized, and for a time sub- ject to no orders or authority from any civil power. In a petition to the Committee of Safety they state their situation and purpose as follows :
" We the subscribers Do Jointly & severally promise & ingage to Stand our ground providing the Honab'le Counsell sees Fitt to grant our request That is this, that you will please us your petitioners so far as to appoint Mr. Jere'h Ames of Northumberland our friend & Neigh- bour, Commander of our Fort which with a great deal of fatage we have almost accomplished & likewise for him the s'd Ames to have orders to enlist as many men as the Honab'le Cort in their wisdom will see fit, we do ingage to ourselves & obey his orders as long as he is stationed in upper Coos and Commander of the Fort."
This petition is dated July 6, 1776, and among its twenty sub- scribers, settlers in Lancaster, Northumberland, Stratford, Guild-
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The Pioneers.
hall, and Maidstone, are the names of Nathan Caswell and James Blake of Apthorp. Captain Caswell's name also appears on the roll of Capt. Samuel Young's Company of Col. Timothy Bedel's Regiment in February of the same year, as serving in the Northern Continental Army under General Washington. In fact, he was a member of several organizations for short periods of enlistment, but covering together nearly the entire period of the war. It will be necessary to give in another place a more full and detailed account of his services as a soldier, as well as of those of other settlers at that period. The record shows that he acquired his title of captain at a convention of towns in Coos held at Northumberland July 10, 1779, at which among the votes adopted was the following: " Chose Nathan Caswell Captain over these three towns for the Present." 1 It does not appear how long he served in such capacity, but probably for the full term of enlistment.
The war ended, he rejoined his family, and for twelve years was active in advancing the interests of the struggling settlement. He held during that time nearly all the different positions within the gift of his townsmen. In 1790 he disposed of his interest in the farm on the Ammonoosuc meadows, where he first settled, to Ephraim Bayley, a son of Gen. Jacob Bayley of Newbury, and began anew on the Connecticut on the farm now known as the Adams place. The lot next above was deeded to him by the Littles for his son Apthorp, who acquired a right to one hundred acres by virtue of the fact that he was the first child born in town. He remained here three years. In 1792 ill health compelled him to relinquish active labor, and for two or three years he lived with his son Jedediah in Lisbon, then Concord. In 1795, his health having been sufficiently restored, he returned to the Adams place, where he continued to reside until 1803, when he went with his son Nathan, Jr., to Canada, where many of his children had emigrated, and there he made his home alternately with Nathan, Jr., Apthorp, Osias, Ezra, and his daughters Mrs. Bishop and Mrs. Pierce. He died at Compton, Canada in the spring of 1824, aged eighty-four years.
Captain Caswell was of medium height, broad-chested, light complexioned, of great strength and very active habits. Up to the period of his illness in 1792 he had passed a life of great activity. In 1787 he held a contract to build several miles of the road connecting Littleton with "the road leading from Conway through the notch of the White Hills to the Upper Coos." He completed his contract to the satisfaction of the committee having
1 Lancaster, Northumberland, and Stratford.
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History of Littleton.
the matter in charge, and in payment for his services received a deed of several lots of wild land lying upon the line of the new road in what are now the towns of Bethlehem and Carroll. That he was a man of more than ordinary capacity is shown by his election to command the company of scouts employed on the frontier at the Upper Cohos, by his having been frequently chosen to fill two or more town offices at the same time when there was such excellent material to select from as Capt. Peleg Williams, Robert Charlton, and Thomas Miner. In fact, up to the time of his long illness he was the most enterprising man in the township, as well as its most trusted citizen.
Hannah Bingham Caswell was a suitable helpmeet for a man like the Captain. She was a woman of superior mind, as all agree who knew her. Brave and self-sacrificing, the isolation of the wilderness had no terrors for her. When the exigencies of the war took from her successively her husband and sons, there was no repining on her part. She took up the work they had aban- doned, and conducted it successfully until the close of the war. She died at the home of her youngest child, Mrs. Alice Caswell Pierce, in Brompton, P. Q.
Nathan, Jr., was born at Norwich, Conn., in May, 1762. He came to Apthorp with the family in 1770. In December, 1776, he enlisted in Capt. Samuel Young's Company of Colonel Bedel's Regiment as a waiter to Lieut. Benjamin Whitcomb. He re- enlisted several times, serving continuously until peace was de- clared in 1782. He resided in this town until 1786, when he went to the Upper Cohos and lived in that country, principally at Strat- ford, until 1803, when he followed other members of the family to Canada. We find his name among the grantees of Brompton, a town on the St. Francis River some six miles below Sherbrooke, in which township it is said he felled the first tree. He married November 1, 1785, Lois, daughter of Capt. Jeremiah Eames of Northumberland. This union was somewhat romantic and very unfortunate. A large number of guests were bidden to the cere- mony, and at the height of the festivities following the tying of the nuptial knot, the wife beckoned the husband aside and imparted to him the unsuspected information that she had become his wife under duress imposed by her father, and that her heart belonged to another. Pleadings and importunities on his part were in vain, and he finally informed her that he would not accept a bride whose affection did not accompany her hand, and with the last of the wedding guests he took his departure never to see her again. The shock is said to have unsettled his mind for a time. He sought
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