USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Littleton > History of Littleton, New Hampshire, Vol. I > Part 18
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To the Honorable the Council and the House of Representatives of the State of New Hampshire in General Court assembled -
„Humbly shew the Subscribers owners of the Town of Apthorp in the County of Grafton within the said State, that the said Town of Apthorp is large and capable of making two Towns by a proper division of the same ; that in its present undivided situation the settlement and culti- vation thereof must be attended with very great difficulty if practicable ; that the subscribers are greatly desirous to settle and improve their lands there as well for the benefit of the State & the country adjacent as for themselves - That Tristam Dalton and Nathaniel Tracy Es- quires two of the subscribers own in fee simple in severalty from the other proprietors of that Town the following part thereof that is to say begining at the Easterly corner of said Town, thence running South fifty-six degrees west eighteen hundred rods adjoining on the South East side line of said Town thence running North twenty-six degrees west about Six miles or be the same more or less until it comes to the Connecticut River ; thence by Connecticut River Easterly till it comes to the Northerly corner of said Town then North twenty-six degrees East adjoining on the North Easterly side line of said Town about five miles until it comes to the Easterly Corner of said Town. That your petitioners apprehend that the lands owned by said Dalton & Tracy are sufficient to form one Town & that the residue of the lands in said Apthorp are sufficient for another Town -- and that a division of the Town in that manner into two towns would be exceedingly beneficial to the proprietors and the public - Wherefore the Subscribers humbly pray that your honors would in your wisdom and goodness divide the said Town as aforesaid and of the lands therein owned by the said Dalton and Tracy erect and incorporate a Town by such name as shall be agreeable to your honors ; and of the residue of the lands in said
188
History of Littleton.
Apthorp your honors would erect and incorporate a town by the name of Apthorp. And as in duty bound shall ever pray.
TRISTRAM DALTON, NAT. TRACY.
June 1783.
In the Legislature this petition was referred to a committee of three and an order made for a public hearing during the legisla- tive vacation. Who appeared or what was done at this hearing is not known, but at the fall session of the General Court in 1784 the committee reported favorably and introduced a bill for the erection of two towns out of the territory embraced in Apthorp, with metes and bounds as prayed for in the petition, the divisional line being the same which now separates the towns of Dalton and Littleton. At the hearing it is probable that the names to be con- ferred upon the towns were selected. To the upper part was given the name of Dalton, in honor of its principal proprietor, Hon. Tristram Dalton. It appears that the selection of a name for the lower town was for some time a matter of doubt. The prayer of the petition even left it in question ; as originally drawn, it was to retain the old name of Apthorp, but a slip was loosely pasted over that word on which " Franklin " was written, and from this incident it seems we narrowly escaped depriving the prosper- ous city on the Merrimack of its name. Colonel Little finally con- cluded to perpetuate his own name in that of his town, and it was christened Littleton.
The act of incorporation, after prescribing the divisional line and enfranchising the town of Dalton, provides that "Capt" John Young" shall call the first meeting in that town. The provisions of the act referring to Littleton are as follows : -
And Be it further ENACTED by the authority aforesaid, that the rest & residue of said Town of Apthorp, not included in the foregoing lines & boundaries Be & hereby is erected into a Town by the name of LIT- TLETON & the inhabitants of said Tract are erected into a body Politic & Corporate, to have continuance & Succession forever, & are hereby invested with all the powers and enfranchised with all the rights, privi- leges, benefits & immunities which any Town in this State by Law holds & enjoyes, to hold to the said Inhabitants & to their successors forever - And Col® Timothy Bedel is hereby authorized & empowered to call a meeting of said Inhabitants for the purpose of choosing all necessary & customary Town Officers giving fourteen days notice at least of the time, place & design of such meeting ; & the officers then chosen shall be invested with all the powers & authority that the Officers of any other Town in this State are by Law invested with ; & the annual meeting of said Inhabitants shall be held in said Town for that purpose on the third Tuesday of March forever.
CHISWICK. APTHORP. LITTLETON. DALTON, -
RIVER
4 MILES.
P
Johns River
R
DALTON
CONNECTICUT
P
LITTLETON
ART. 6 MILES
un
A
CHISWICK
# Littleton
village
# Apthorp
1
WE
N.E. COM. OF LYMAN
3 MILES AND 92 Rods
THOSE SOLIWE
Un'soon
Ammonoo
-
Abt . 6 MILES
Jeeter Pond
S
MAP OF CHISWICK. APTHORP, LITTLETON AND DALTON AS CHARTERED. SCALE 3 MILES = ONE INCH. BY Ray T. Gile.
,Pond
ART . 7MILES
ENIVADO6 ONY SETIWOL
River
C
T ! H
189
The Organization of Littleton.
STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Novem'. 2ª 1784.
The foregoing Bill, having been read a third time - VOTED - that it pass to be enacted -
Sent up for Concurrence GEO : ATKINSON Spk!
In SENATE November 4th 1784
This Bill was read a third time - & VOTED that the same be enacted M WEARE President.
By this division the town of Dalton was supposed to contain 16,455 acres, and Littleton 26,000 acres, this acreage representing the respective holdings of the proprietors of these towns in that of Apthorp. But, as a matter of fact, the Littles got much the better end of the bargain, as Littleton actually contained 34,300 acres as constituted by the Act of November, 1784.
With this legislation the town of Apthorp was wiped from the map of the State after an existence of but thirteen years. Its life was brief and uneventful, save in the fact that during the struggle for Independence it probably contributed to that cause a larger proportion of its citizenship than any other town in the Colonies.
The successful close of the war brought to this section of the country the first real peace it had known since the settlers pene- trated the wilderness. The interval between the French and In- dian War and that of Independence offered no real protection or encouragement to settlers. The peace rested upon such an in- secure basis that on both sides of the Canadian line the French and Indians and New Englanders remained in a state of armed neutrality, and forays by unorganized bands were of frequent occurrence and were always expected. Settlers flocked into all this region, but the policy of the proprietors to give bonds instead of deeds continued to operate adversely upon the development of Littleton. Slow progress was made until James Rankin induced the Littles to give him a deed of the mill privilege, and the lands he divided among his children in 1791. Previous to this event the new-comers were John Chase, who purchased the betterments on the Parker Cushman place in 1782; Luke Hitchcock the same year on the Bemis place, or a part of it, now occupied by George W. Fuller, just above Caleb Hopkinson's. He remained in town but a few years, and all attempts to trace him have failed. John Wheeler, an educated gentleman, a brother of the woman who accompanied Capt. Peleg Williams as companion or wife, bought the improvements of the Hopkinsons on the Rounsevel
190
History of Littleton.
place in 1783. He was unmarried, and by occupation a surveyor. Finding the contentions in his sister's family too disagreeable for endurance, he returned to Charlestown early in the nineties. Whitcomb Powers came in 1784, purchased a fifty-acre tract of Luke Hitchcock, the most northerly portion of his farm, and located upon it. Sargent Currier was the next to establish him- self in town. He came in the winter or spring of 1785, and located upon the Connecticut meadows above Capt. Peleg Williams.
In the next decade the additions to the population of the town, both in numbers and character, were large. Capt. Thomas Miner moved in from Haverhill in 1786. He was originally from Stonington, Conn., had resided in Woodstock, Vt., and for a few years at Maidstone. The outbreak of the War of Independ- ence led all the settlers at Maidstone to abandon the settlement. Mr. Miner removed with his family to Haverhill, where he re- mained for ten years previous to settling here. He was a man of high character, and for twenty years was active in town affairs. He located on the place now occupied by the late Curtis L. Albee, building a log house near the site of the present building. At that time there was no settlement at the west part of the town. His nearest neighbors were Samuel Learned, who a few months be- fore had located on the farm now owned by James W. Merrill, at North Littleton ; and Solomon Parker, at Parker Hill in Lyman. Samuel Learned came to Littleton from Maine. He had several children ; a son, Samuel, Jr., then seventeen or eighteen years of age, was for some years the most active citizen of the town. Soon after locating here he married Hannah, eldest daughter of Captain Caswell, the pioneer, and entered upon an active business career under his father's name. He had a store, the first in town, near his cabin ; both were built of logs, and were not replaced with frame buildings until the last year of the century. Samuel Nash, an old Indian fighter and scout who had become acquainted with Captain Caswell while they were in the service at the Upper Cohos during the War of Independence, located at the north part of the town a few years before its organization. He did not remain long, and his after life is wrapped in obscurity.
The act of the General Court constituting the town of Littleton provided that Col. Timothy Bedel should warn and govern the first town meeting. It appears that neither the proprietors nor the inhabitants were ready to assume the duties and responsibili- ties imposed by law upon organized towns at the time of the passage of this act. The residents were few in number, and separated by forests and streams which constituted a natural .
191
The Organization of Littleton.
barrier to anything like neighborly association other than such as was compelled by stern necessity. As late as 1787 there was not in the township anything that, in the modern sense, could be termed a highway. The proprietors of Apthorp employed Moses Blake about 1780 to cut away the trees and bushes on the route between Haverhill and Lancaster, and as compensation for this service gave him three hundred and twenty acres of land adjoin- ing Lancaster line near the mouth of Johns River, where he built a cabin in 1782. This path was sufficiently wide for the passage of an ox team, but was filled with stumps and was without bridges. It followed, with unimportant deviations, the course of the present road through Bath, Lisbon, Littleton, and Dalton in the valleys of the Ammonoosuc and Connecticut rivers. A path starting from a point near the present junction of the road from the village and that down the Connecticut led to the new home of Capt. Thomas Miner. These paths of communication between the settlers, the proprietors claimed, absolved them from all further demands on account of the clause in their bonds to construct "roads and bridges." The promise in regard to the grist-mill was fulfilled by Gen. Jacob Bailey, who about 1782 constructed a rude mill on the Rankin brook. Five years later it was so much out of repair as to be useless. There was no settlement near the mill, and each patron had to be his own miller.
Another, and probably the principal, objection to the organiza- tion of the town was the controversy between the proprietors and settlers, and both with the State, in regard to "back taxes." From the time of the first organization of a provisional state Government in 1776, a state tax had been levied upon this town, but never paid until a compromise was effected a quarter of a century after the first precept had been issued. A town govern- ment would furnish the machinery through which the collection of these long accumulated taxes might be enforced. The inhabitants were poor, - so poor, it has been asserted, that the payment of the demands of the State would have deprived them of the last far- thing of their worldly possessions. But the time came when even these considerations could not avail longer to defer the obvious advantages, moral and political, of a town government. In response to a request preferred by some of the residents of Lit- tleton, Colonel Bedel having deceased, the Legislature passed an enabling act authorizing John Young, Esq., of Concord, now Lisbon, to warn and govern a meeting of the inhabitants of the town for the purpose of establishing a town government. Warrants, calling the first meeting, were posted early in July,
192
History of Littleton.
1787. Where they were posted we do not know ; all evidence as to the fact, oral or documentary, long since disappeared ; but we have reason to believe that they were fastened with wooden pins, one at the inn kept by Captain Caswell on the Noah Farr place, the other at the tavern of John Chase at the upper end of the town.
The warrant is given as spread upon the records.
STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
GRAFTON SS. July 3rd 1787
The Freeholders and other inhabitents of Littleton in sd county are hereby notified and warned meet at the house of Captain Nathan Cas- well in sd Littleton on Thirsday nineteenth Day of July Current at two o'Clock P.M. 1st to Chuse a town Clerk Selectmen and other Town Officers Necessary for Transacting Town Business
2ª to Transact any other Business Necessary
By order of the Genneral Court Sind JOHN YOUNG.
The record of the meeting follows on the same page of the records, and is as follows : --
July 19, 1787.
At a meeting of the inhabitants of sd. Littleton held this Day at Capt. Nathan Caswells warned & Governed by John Young Esqr by order of the Ginneral Court of sd State.
1. st Made choise of Robert Charlton town Clerk for sd Littleton For the Present year or til another is chosen & sworn in his sted.
JOHN YOUNG Moderator.
2nd Made choise of Samuel Larned First Selectman
3rd Made chose of John Chase Second Selectman
4th Made choise of Peleg Williams Third Selectman For the Present year or until others shall be Chosen in March next.
5th Chose Sargeant Currier Constable for the Present year.
6th Voted to disolve this meeting
ROBERT CHARLTON, Town Clerk.
Thus, for the first time in its history, Littleton assumed its position among the municipalities of the State. Its political ex- istence had covered a period of twenty-three years. During that time it had received two charters from royal governors, a third from the General Court of the State ; had borne three different names and, by its membership in an arbitrary arrangement of " classed towns," had been represented in the Legislature without having a voice in the selection of its representative. Henceforth it was to become a factor in the religious, educational, and political
A True Plan of the Public Road Laid out through the towns of Dalton and Littleton by the Committee afrointed by the General Court of the State of new Hampshire at their last Session holden at Concord in June 1793 ~
nov. 27th 1793 Protracted by a Scale of 200 Rods to the Inch by
Edwards Bucknam William Cargill &Committee Peter Carleton Edu' Bucknam.
mile
o applebee
Concord
14 mile
Ammonoosuck River
D.Ba
Large hill
13 mile
Littleton
nur's
2ml
Cedar swam/
- South End Rice hill
Émile
Dalton
north
unmundo bridge
John' river
kill
Hold road
hill
moore
4mile
Bloss
amile
brook
The new Road
5 mile
Smile
hill
Smile
Bla
The dotted line in the old's Road
Prook Williams.A
The old Road
hopkinson brook
Come to the old road
222346 -Ja Bremis house I sige
Ja Bowers house E side
Connecticut River,
254 Tods to y road
7mile
- Pingree W. Side
J. Williams W. Side
ofLearnard W. Side
y0049 Moya-Sawmill E.end
0
10 mile
bridge
al Williams S.S.
Great brock or half way brook
S. 26 East-
Lancaster S.26 East
north
South
South
Large Hill
hill
193
The Organization of Littleton.
life of the State. The year of its birth and that of its organiza- tion were coincident with two events of great moment in the his- tory of our country. The first was rendered memorable by the promulgation of the treaty of peace which formally terminated the contest with the mother country and recognized our independ- ence, and in 1787 was framed the Constitution which established the Federal government upon an enduring foundation.
VOL. I .- 13
194
History of Littleton.
XIV.
THE CLOSING YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
T 'HE closing years of the eighteenth century were marked by a large increase in the population of the town and the ad- vancement of its material prosperity. The barriers imposed by the proprietors gave way to a more liberal policy. The organiza- tion of the town placed in control of its citizens all matters affect- ing taxation, roads and bridges, education and public worship. The people were in fact emancipated from the overshadowing speculative interests of the non-resident proprietors which had heretofore dominated all their public affairs.
Among those who became residents in 1788 were Ebenezer Pingree, who came from Methuen, Mass., and settled on the lot abandoned by David Hopkinson. Jonas and John Nurse 1 came from Nelson,2 or Keene. Jonas began on the lot at the junction of the roads near William Wheeler's. Two years later he moved to the Fitch place, and built his cabin on the hill in the field well up on the hill opposite the present house. John made a clearing on the farm now owned by John G. Elliott. In 1794 he ex- changed this with his brother for the Isaac C. Parker farm on the meadows, and built a cabin on the bluff above the brook on the west side of the road, where he continued until this property, with the next below, was sold to Jonathan Parker in 1802, when he made a third break in the wilderness on the place at present owned by George G. Corey, where he resided during the re- mainder of his life. Henry Bemis had married a sister of the Nurses, and came with them from Cheshire County and settled at the north end on what has since been known as the Bemis place. James Williams, a brother-in-law of Ebenezer Pingree, became a citizen of Littleton in 1789. He was from Andover, Mass. He bought the lot, long known by his name, at North Littleton. Here he established a tavern, over which he presided until his death in 1822. In the winter of 1788-89 Mr. Williams
1 This name in the town records previous to 1850 is without the final " e."
2 Then Packersfield.
195
The Closing Years of the Eighteenth Century.
set out from Andover on an ox sled, with his wife and one child, to establish a home in this town. The journey was made by the way of Penacook, thence to Charlestown, from which point it was continued upon the ice of the Connecticut River, then the prin- cipal winter highway from the older settlements to this region, to the cabin of Ebenezer Pingree. Mr. Williams was a man of great enterprise, and soon had several acres of his plantation under cul- tivation, and before the close of the year a large and commodious log house was built in which many a weary traveller in after years found rest and refreshment. When Dr. Dwight journeyed through this region in 1797, he, with his companion, passed a night at this mountain inn, and in one of his letters gives an account of their entertainment and surroundings. After describing the road trav- elled from Concord, now Lisbon, to the inn at North Littleton, he writes : "At length we arrived in safety, but found the inn- keeper absent and ourselves obliged to take the necessary care of our horses. For this there was no help, and we submitted to it with the best grace in our power. Mr. L. [the Dr.'s companion] went to bed supperless and sick with headache. I consoled my- self with a cup of coffee and a partridge ; an entertainment which I had hardly expected in a house just built in an almost impene- trable forest on a high mountain, in a spot where the first stroke of the axe was struck scarcely five years before ; " and he adds : " When I visited Littleton in 1803, I found him [Mr. Williams] in possession of a good house, a good farm well cleared and culti- vated, and in prosperous circumstances. What motives could in- duce a man, even as enterprising and determined as our host appeared to be, to plant himself in a spot so desolate and forlorn, with the expectation of living at all, it is not easy to imagine, I found, however, by conversing with him that those which appeared to be insuperable difficulties, he laughed at as mere trifles." The subject of these observations lived to see the wilderness blossom as the rose, and himself become one of the most active, useful, and respected citizens in an intelligent, industrious, and prosperous community. In 1794 Mr. Williams was chosen to represent the class consisting of the towns of Lancaster, Littleton, Dartmouth,1 and Dalton in the Legislature, the first citizen of the town to attain that distinction.
The second annual town-meeting warned to meet at the dwell- ing-house of Capt. Samuel Learned, assembled on the 17th of March, 1788. Capt. Thomas Miner served as Moderator. Capt. Nathan Caswell was chosen Town Clerk; Captain Caswell, Capt.
1 Now Jefferson.
196
History of Littleton.
Thomas Miner, and Caleb Hopkinson, Selectmen ; and Sargent Currier, Constable.
This meeting also elected three highway surveyors. The record does not show that highway districts were erected at the time, presumably they were not; but the appointees were placed in charge of the highway in that part of the town in which they respectively resided. Thus, Captain Miner was chosen for the " lower end of the town," "Mr. Nash " for " the upper end of the town," and Capt. Caswell " for the middle of the town." Capt. Peleg Williams was chosen Town Treasurer, Sargent Currier " Hog rev " [reeve ], and " Mr. Hitchcock Pound Keeper and Fence Viewer."
It seems that the demand of the State for the payment of back taxes had been renewed, and at this meeting Capt. Peleg Wil- liams was chosen an agent of the town to the General Court to nego- tiate a compromise in regard to the claim. The meeting voted to pay their agent the liberal sum of five dollars in cash and twelve bushels of wheat for his services ; and that he might not want sage advice in relation to the important business which he was about to undertake, the town appointed Captain Caswell, Mr. Nash, and Mr. Hitchcock " a committee to wait on Capt. Williams and consult with him as an agent to ye Gen! Coart." Captain Williams attended to the duties imposed by the vote of his fellow citizens, and appeared before a committee of the General Court on several different occasions ; but the town had to wait a number of years before the much desired compromise was effected, and other years lapsed before the money called for by the final agree- ment was raised and converted into the treasury of the State.
In 1788 the residents who held bonds from the proprietors containing the clause in relation to mills and roads, renewed their efforts to secure its fulfilment, and were so far successful that the proprietors were induced to enter into a contract with Jonathan Eastman to rebuild the dilapidated and useless Bailey grist-mill, and erect a saw-mill to be operated by the same power. The grist-mill was in use the following year, and the saw-mill, though not covered in, had an up and down board saw in operation in January, 1791. When Deacon James Rankin had his controversy with the church at Thornton, and resolved to abandon a com- munity with which he could not sustain amicable relations, he was invited by Deacon Moses Little to exchange his lands in the Pemigewasset valley for lands in this town. With a view to arranging such an exchange, Deacon Rankin visited Littleton about the time Mr. Eastman was sawing out his first boards.
197
The Closing Years of the Eighteenth Century.
He wanted the mill property, and as the trade seemed to turn upon this point, Deacon Little traded the lot next east of Thomas Miner,1 for Mr. Eastman's interest in the mills. The trade be- tween the deacons was then easily arranged. Deacon Rankin thus acquired the mills on the brook which has since borne his name, a tract of land containing one thousand and fifty acres, and four oxen. He retained the mills for his own use. The tract was divided among his children, each receiving one hundred and fifty acres of land. The eldest son, John, never lived in this town. When his father moved to Littleton, he was established in Barnet, Vt. Andrew located on that part of his father's purchase which has long been known as the T. L. Parker farm, on the road lead- ing from the Connecticut river road at the west end to Lyman ; Henry, on the George Carter farm ; James, Jr., on the place now owned by Charles Carpenter ; Samuel, on the farm now occupied by Mrs. Bradford Kinne ; Miriam, the wife of Nathaniel Webster, on the Moffett place, now owned by Frank C. Lewis. David, the youngest member of the family, remained with his father ; he was but a lad at the time of the removal from Thornton. William lived in Littleton some years ; then went to Brompton, Canada. The family were educated, enterprising, and industrious, and con- stituted an important addition to the population at that period.
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