History of Merrimack and Belknap counties, New Hampshire, Part 128

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Philadelphia [Pa.] J. W. Lewis & co.
Number of Pages: 1520

USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > History of Merrimack and Belknap counties, New Hampshire > Part 128
USA > New Hampshire > Belknap County > History of Merrimack and Belknap counties, New Hampshire > Part 128

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

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HISTORY OF MERRIMACK COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

The choice once made, it only remains to provide a shelter for those left behind. In this the father and boys engage with zeal, till after a few days a small clearing is made and a substantial structure of logs, the first house in Northfield, has arisen among the tall trees on the after-styled Wadleigh farm. A log house !- a dwelling not to be sneered at or ridiculed by the present fortunate possessors of Northfield's smiling farms and beautiful homes. A log house was a convenient, substantial, roomy structure, firmn, proof against Indian bullets, wolf's claws, the stormy wind or winter's cold. Its arrangement was the per- fection of simplicity; its architecture was neither composite or complicated; while, if the bark re- mained unremoved, as was undoubtedly the case with this pioneer hut, with moss inserted between the logs on sides and roof, a touch of the picturesque would be added, quite in harmony with the surrounding forest.

Benjamin Blanchard's log hut is finished, destined to be famous through the ages, as long as Northfield's sons and daughters retain a spark of love for their hills and homesteads. And now, to crown the work, the boys must have a holiday-a bath and a day's fishing in the Winnipisaukee,-then ho! for a return to the old Canterbury fort, to see mother and the little oues, and to bring them the glad tidings of a home found and founded in the wilderness and waiting for them.

Well, the holiday is over and the next day sees them returned in good season to their old home, laden literally with the fat of the land, and waters, too,- with fish and venison, of which, you may be sure, a grand feast was made that night, to which friends were invited, where their adventures were described, the shad was dissected, the whiskey tested, the laugh burst forth and good cheer prevailed till the old fort rang.

After a few days spent in settling his affairs and making what preparations his scanty means afforded, Blanchard took his permanent departure from the friendly fortress which had sheltered and protected him and his so long. Let us picture to ourselves the procession. The time is early sunrise, for they must finish the journey that day, since it will not do to risk his all to wild beasts and perhaps Indians by exposure in the open forest through the night. Their friends, up to see them off, cheer as they pass through the gate; a parting dram circulates around, good wishes are shouted, guns give their parting reverberations, and the little company of eleven-parents and nine children-march quickly over the narrow, open space around the fort into the path they had cut a few weeks before leading to Bay Hill. It was a narrow highway they had, admitting the passage of a single file only; for the little boys and girls of the present day must understand that they didn't take the cars at Canterbury depot and land at Tilton and thence to Bay Hill by team, or on foot, as people are wont to

do nowadays. No; they probably all walked-young and old-the whole distance, and that, too, barefooted, the most, -- if not all.

At the head, with pack on back, axe in hand and musket on shoulder, would naturally march the father and next him one of the older boys, also with gun and otherwise freighted, then the mother and smaller children ; after them the horse-if they had a horse -loaded down to his utmost capacity ; then the family cow with calf following; while at some distance in the background, led by a raw hide cord, trotted and darted and scampered and retreated the clown of the company, the most amusing and at the same time the most vexations of the whole,-the well-to-do pig, which seemed to have an invincible repugnance to leaving its comfortable Canterbury quarters, and kept up an incessant soliloquy, doubtless about the restless- ness of mortals, who couldn't be satisfied to let well enough alone. Whether there was a cat or dog in the cavalcade, I can't say, but should think a cat a super- . fluity, except for company; for neither rat nor mouse had as yet tasted the good cheer of the Wadleigh farm, and so grimalkin's occupation would be gone till the happy coming days, when rats and mice could be had for the catching. Finally, Edward brought up the rear.

At first they moved along in the highest spirits, though their way was in a sort of twilight, for this was the primeval forest through which they were journeying amid trees tall and gloomy, which only at rare intervals permitted a peep of the sun. Still, at the start they journeyed with laugh and joke and chiding of the animals, or perchance each other, and then bursting into singing and shouting till "the din woods rang." This, however, gradually died away, but revived slightly at their noon-day rest. Their af- ternoon march was performed mostly in silence. They toiled slowly along, the day and the way seeming to be endless, till, crossing the Abbott and the Glidden and Smith farms, halting a few minutes at the Smith Meadow Pond to relieve the thirst of all-animal and human-the long train defiled at last into Blanchard's little clearing just as the sun was sinking behind Kearsarge. The animals were speedily tied to trees and fed on such scanty forage as leaves could supply ; boughs were cut and spread over the ground in the hut, and these, again, partially overspread with bear, deer and wolf-skins; a fire was built in the open air by means of a flint, powder and tinder ; a supper pre- pared and thankfully partaken of; all retired to their skiu or leafy couches ; the stars looked brightly down, and all were soon wrapped in slumber and silence, even the pig forgetting its sorrows and ceasing its complaints.

Thus passed the first night of the first settlers in Northfield. The settlement was hegun.

For several years, so far as we can learn, Benjamin Blanchard and family were the only people in North- field. There was no settlement in New Hampshire

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north of him, for Tilton or Sanbornton was as yet without inhabitants. What were their feelings, ad- ventures, sufferings, pleasures, no record tells. Cut off by many miles of intervening forest from all neigh- borly society and sympathy, they must have felt lonely at times, especially in the gray, dripping days of the first autumn which followed, with its succeeding win- ter ; but if so, the effect would be brief, for the hut was full; there was always work enough to do; their mode of life gave to one and all perfect health in all probability ; they had appetites wonderful to see, so that there was an exquisite delight in the mere act of eating, far beyond what their descendants know, and, what was better, they had the means of gratifying their healthy cravings with luxuries of which those of this day are sadly deficient,-wild meat in all its varieties, bear, deer, rabbit, wild fowl, such as ducks, geese, partridges in the greatest profusion, shad, river- trout and eels from the river, and the Skenduggardy was swarming with the delicious brook-trout.

Besides, the farm began ere long to show the capa- bilities of newly-improved land and a virgin soil, under the energetic hands of Benjamin and his stal- wart boys, aided, within doors, by the co-operation of the tireless Tuba. It had chanced, through accident or shrewdness, that Blanchard had pitched upon one of the hest spots in town for the manufacture of a good farm, and every year saw his clearing grow wider, the forest recede, the fields grow greener, crops of pota- toes, such as only new soil can produce, corn and grass increased; his herd received fresh additions on each returning spring; his buildings improved, until, no doubt, he began to consider himself a well-to-do farmer.

Hardships were unavoidable, of course. All pio- neer settlers had to undergo them. Many luxuries of modern days they must forego-some, perhaps, to which they had been accustomed at the old fort. Woodchucks, porcupines, squirrels and pole-cats rav- aged his garden, foxes and hawks stole his chickens, and bears and wolves sometimes destroyed a pig or a calf; an unpleasant accident might now and then occur from a falling tree or an erring axe; a drought, or wind, or hail, or lightning might be troublesome; and then it was such a long, weary way to mill; and what was very hard, there was no housewife neighbor for mistress Tuba to gossip with in regard to all these trials and afflictions. No tea to drink, no cider bar- rel to tap; the cows would get lost in the woods, and the boys, perchance, take a holiday in the busiest time, and go a-fishing.

Such, and many more trials of a like nature, very probably hovered over, and, at times, settled down upon the farm and family of Benjamin Blanchard as the seasons went by ; but stout hearts did Benjamin and Tuba bear, and bravely did they face every trial as it arose, till in time they reaped their reward.

A musical vein has existed in the Blanchard family, evidently from the first pioneer to the present time, as will be readily credited by those who heard old

Northfield's woods echo the notes of the cornet and song poured forth on her Centennial Day by Miss Fannie C. Rice, one of the latest representatives of the original settler's descendants. And what com- panionship this talent of his must have afforded Benjamin at times in his isolated condition! and oft, when assailing the giants of the forest, would he be likely to burst forth into singing, the rythm of his voice keeping time with the whick-whack of his axe, and ever and anon, an answering note would ring out from the matron of the cabin, and be echoed by the boys and girls in other directions, till, with the sing- ing of the birds, the whole woods seemed bursting into melody. Ah! think not there were no jovial times there !

And so the years came and went, until, encouraged by his success, the solitude of Blanchard began to be broken by the arrival of neighbors. The first to fol- low him was William Williams, whose daughter, Widow George Hancock, died at the residence of her son, William Hancock, in Canterbury, January 14, 1860, aged one hundred years, eleven months and four days. Let her be remembered as the oldest person that Northfield has as yet produced. Afterwards came Nathaniel and Reuben Whitcher, Captain Sam- uel and Jonathan Gilman and Linsey Perkins, and settled on the farm where Warren H. Smith, Esq., now resides. On the Perkins place, opposite Mr. Wad- leigh's, was a log hut used for school purposes, the cellar of which is still to be seen.

A little further south, down by the Smith meadow, was a log hut in which lived a Mr. Colby. His wife was a weaver, and, for want of bars, was accustomed to warp her webs on the apple-trees. Compare the result of her mannfactory with those now on the river turning out their thousands of yards at short intervals.

Mr. William Gilman, a gentleman now of about eighty-five, the most of his life a resident of Bay Hill, and his brother Charles, now in Illinois, are sons of Jonathan Gilman, who himself, or his father, was, i suppose, one of the original settlers. His great-grand- father on the mother's side came from Lee, bought five hundred acres of wild land on and around Bay Hill, on which he settled his sons-Reuben, Nathan- iel, William and Jonathan Whitcher,- many of whose descendants are now in town. The grandfather of Mr. Wesley Knowles bought his farm of Nathaniel Whitcher, paying for it, so the story goes, with a two- year-old heifer.

Captain Samuel Gilman, Joseph Knowles and Dr. Keyser were also among the first settlers on Bay Hill.

Another of the pioneers of Northfield was Jonathan Wadleigh, who was a native of Kingston, N. II., served in the Revolutionary army, lived for a while at Bean Hill, settled on the south side of Bay Hill on what was afterward called the Ambrose Woodbury farm, and finally died in Gilmanton. Ile was the father of Judge Wadleigh, whose son, Ephraim S., still lives on the first opened farm in town, and of

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HISTORY OF MERRIMACK COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

Mrs. Captain S. Glines, who, after having lived half a century or more at the Centre, returned to her fath- er's homestead on Bay Hill, now in possession of her son, Smith W. Glines, and died at the age of eighty- two in the same room in which she was born.

Some twenty years after the settlement of Bay Hill, perhaps, Lieutenant Charles Glidden moved to Bean Hill from Nottingham, built a log hut, left his wife and two children and went into the Revolutionary army. In his absence she tilled the soil, felled the trees and hauled her wood with the help of oxen. After his return he bought Nehemiah McDonald's farm near the old meeting-house. Mr. Glidden, his wife and some of the children were buried on said farm. His wife was a Mills, and her mother, Alice Cilley. John Cilley, Robert Evaus, John Cofran (father of Colonel James Cofran), Gideon Sawyer and brother, Solomon French and brother, were early set- tlers of this region, and William Smith, the grand- father of Warren Smith, who was moved from Old Hampton by Mr. Glidden. Perhaps his son Jere- miah came with him, as he left Old Hampton, where he was born, when a boy, and went to live in Can- terbury.

In those early times there was no house between Glidden's and what is now called the Rand school- house-several miles. Ensign Sanborn, whose wife was a Harvey, lived not far from there. He probably served in the army for a while.

Mrs. William Gilman, to whom I am indebted for many of the above facts, relates that woods, wolves and bears were plenty in those times, and carriages very scarce; so that when Esquire Samuel Forrest's mother died, her corpse was carried on a bier, laid on poles between two horses, to the graveyard, by the brick meeting-house, some three or four miles dis- tant.

She further says that "old General Dearborn drove the first double sleigh into Northfield on a visit to her grandfather."

A short account of the Forrest family has been furnished me by Mr. John Sanborn, which I give in nearly his own words : "John Forrest came from Ireland when eighteen years of age, and settled finally in Canterbury. Of his four sons, Robert settled in the same town, and the others in North- field-John on the. Leighton place, William in the Centre District and James on the farm now owned by James N. Forrest, his grandson. Two of his daughters married Gibsons, and the other one Mr. Clough, and all settled in Northfield. William Forrest settled in the Centre District, or rather com- menced clearing the timber, in 1774, just before the War of the Revolution broke out. He enlisted in the war, and served his country with credit. He was the father of fourteen children, of whom thirteen lived to grow up, and all except one attended school near the old meeting-house." To this sketch Mr. James N. Forrest adds : " My grandfather, James, came here

on the farm where I now live in 1784, and subdued the forest, erected buildings, built roads and left a worthy son to inherit his property and do honor to his name. My father, who was an only son, named me for his father, and I have named one of my sons (Samuel) for him. How long the names will rotate, only the destiny of the family will reveal."

I understand that this family has furnished more teachers and held more official positions than any other in town. The late Samuel Forrest, Esq., was long a prominent citizen there, having been superin- tending school committee many years, as well as treasurer, representative (two years), town clerk (two years) and selectman (twelve years). He was a man of decided convictions, with the courage to maintain his convictions ; an unflinching anti-slavery man at a time when it required a stout heart to confess it; and a man who possessed the confidence of his fellow- citizeus in all the public and private relations of life. He married Agnes Randall, of North Conway, who was born August 22, 1800, and still survives, Esquire Forrest having died in 1867, lacking sixteen days of being eighty-one years of age. His son, James N., has also served his native town as select- man for several years.

John E. Forrest, the third of the three Northfield brothers, lived till the close of life on his well-culti- vated farm, raised a family of several chidren,-all or nearly all now deceased,-and died in extreme old age, the last of the three, leaving a respectable property and a worthy name.

Charles G. Forrest, the son of William, was a farmer in Northfield, living on the farm in the west part, now in the possession of Major Otis C. Wyatt, for many years, where all his children were born ; re- moved to New London for a time, and finally settled in Tilton, where he resided till his death, in 1882, aged seventy-five years. He was an industrious farmer and conscientious in the discharge of all the duties of a citizen. He married Mrs. Sally T. Mead. His children are Almeda M .; Honoria A., an artist ; Martha J., a painter and teacher; and George F. D.

Oak Hill proper, I am informed, was for the most part originally in the possession of Obed Clough, who was succeeded by the French and Batchelor families, the latter being still represented there.

I quote from Mr. Goodwin, who says: "Ensign Sanborn, Gideon Sawyer, the brothers Archelaus, Samuel and Abner Miles, John and Jeremiah Me- Daniel, Nathaniel and William Whitcher, Captain Thomas Clough, George and Joseph Hancock and the four brothers by the name of Cross were in town very early." These, I suppose, mostly settled in the western part. "The Crosses had a sort of village down at their place on the intervale, opposite the Webster farm. They had a coopering establishment, a store and a taveru there, and it was, in fact, a busi- ness emporium for all that region."

Steven Cross, the great-grandfather of O. L. Cross

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Esq., married Peggy Bowen, and settled near Indian Bridge, and raised a family of thirteen children, who were all living when the youngest was forty years old. The oldest, Abraham, married Ruth Sawyer, daughter of old Deacon Sawyer, of Canterbury, who was a soldier in both the French and Revolutionary Wars, and who had two sons killed at the surrender of Burgoyne, where the father was also a soldier. Dea- con Sawyer owned the ferry two miles below the Cross ferry, and always attended to it himself to the last year of his life, he being within two months and three days of one hundred years at his death. He was the father of twenty-two children, twenty of whom grew up. Abraham Cross settled near his father, Sawyer, and there Jeremiah was born in 1805; but the year before, the family had settled on the Winnipisaukee and built asaw-mill, ever after known as the Cross mill. Jeremiah married Sarah Lyford, of Pittsfield, settled near the Cross mill, and about thirty-five years ago built, on a beautiful elevation, overlooking the mill, a fine mansion, in which a few years since he died, leaving behind an enviable char- acter for honor, integrity and business enterprise. He was buried with Masonic honors.

Among the early settlers were also the names of William Kenniston and a Mr. Danforth. The latter was a soldier of the Revolution, and having been wounded, always persisted in the statement that he carried the ball still imbedded in his shoulder. The statement was not credited, however, till, years after his death, upon the removal of his remains, it was found that the old soldier was right, for there, firmly fixed, so that a hammer was required for its extrica- tion, was found the bullet embedded in the solid bone.

The three Miles brothers came into town in 1769 or 1770, and settled on one farm; lived on it six or seven years, then sold it to Reuben Kimball, of Con- cord, in 1776. This farm has been kept in the Kim- ball name to the present time, Reuben giving it to his son Benjamin, who sold it to his brother David, whose descendants are still there. Reuben Kimball was a soldier of the Revolution, and in the battle of Bunker Hill was hit by musket-balls three times- once in the crown of his hat, once on the powder-horn which hung at his side (which horn is now in the possession of the present occupant of the farm), and once in the leg, which wound never healed to the day of his death, June 12, 1815.

It has happened, a little queerly, perhaps, that the last possessor of that farm, that is, the present posses- sor, Mr. J. A. Kimball, has married a direct descend- ant of Abner Miles, the first possessor of said farm ; and it must be a pleasant thought to all concerned that the descendants of the seller and the descendants of the purchaser both now share equally in its bless- ings.

perhaps in the county, is the one owned and occupied by Mr. John S. Dearborn, which was deeded to his grandfather, Shuball Dearborn, in 1779, by his great- grandfather, who then lived on the Edmund Dear- born place, where he had settled in 1770, being then fifty-one years of age. The deed is still preserved in the old family chest. Shuball was married in home- spun, at twenty-six years of age, and commenced housekeeping without bed or crockery, and in a house containing only one pane of glass. He was obliged to haul his building material from Portsmouth with an ox-team. But frugality and industry overcame all obstacles in time, and Mr. Dearborn lived to see him- self in comfortable circumstances, with a good house to shelter him and well furnished for the times. He died at the age of fifty-eight. The farm has been in the family name ever since, passing from Shuball to, his son of the same name, and thence to his son, the pres- ent possessor, John S. Dearborn.

Another branch of the same family was represented by Edmund Dearborn, born in 1789, who remained on the ancestral homestead of his grandfather, the original Shuball, raised a large and promising family, and died at his birth place in 1845. His three sons, Samuel G., Henry G. and Thomas H. B., were all physicians eminent in their profession. The latter died in Milford in 1879. The two elder reside at Nashua, blessed with a competency, the respect of their fellow-citizens and a lucrative professional practice.

Among the various names which, at this stage of its settlement, were rapidly increasing the population of the new town, the Simonds family seems to stand forth as prominent and influential as any ; and luckily there exists a more complete and extended record of this family than of any other of the early settlers, not even excepting that of the first pioneer, perhaps, searched out and arranged by the late Hon. John W. Simonds, of Franklin, and, by the politeness of Mrs. Simonds, loaned to the writer; but instead of pub- lishing them complete he finds himself compelled, by the brief space allotted him, to make selections, omit and condense.

Joseph Simons was born in England in 1688, an only son and in comfortable circumstances. At the age of twenty-two, contrary to the wishes of his parents, he emigrated to America and located in Con- necticut. Here he married a Miss Knox, and in 1735 removed to Canterbury, settling on the " Intervale," about a mile and a half above Boscawen bridge. We have an account of only two children, William and John, though probably there were more. William moved to Thornton, and died there.

The other son, John, of whom mention is often made in the earlier town records, was born in Feb- ruary, 1739. He was chosen surveyor in 1768, 1770 and 1773. In 1774 he was taxed for town, colony, school and minister tax, one pound. Previous to the

Another excellent farm in western Northfield, which is as well cultivated as any upland farm in town, or ' incorporation, in 1780, he had located himself in

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HISTORY OF MERRIMACK COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

Northfield, about fifty rods south of where the old meeting-house afterwards stood. He was well-pro- portioned, stalwart, six feet in height and weighed two hundred pounds. He made hunting his business, attaching himself to the party under the leadership of the famous hunter, Captain Miles, for trapping beaver in Lower Cohos. These expeditions lasted three months in the spring and three in the fall. He purchased his one hundred acre lot with the proceeds of a three months' tour on the Kennebec River, Maine. He married Miss Dorothy Bachelder, of Canter- bury, who died in 1824, aged eighty. The first town- meeting after the incorporation was held at his honse November 21, 1780, when he was chosen moderator; and for several years after the town-meetings were held there, he being repeatedly chosen " sarvair," pound- keeper, auditor of accounts and assessor until 1800.

Once, on returning from a hunting expedition, he broke through the ice into the Winnipisaukee, and only escaped by being buoyed up by the pack of furs on his back.

His death occurred September 11, 1825, Elder Crockett, of Sanbornton, preaching his funeral dis- course. His and his wife's remains lie in the grave- yard by the brick church, slate-stones marking the graves.

John Simons was a quiet and peaceable man, of good habits, sound judgment, and left a fair property, for the times.

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History of Merrimack and Belknap counties, New Hampshire, Part 128

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed Publication date: 1885 Publisher: Philadelphia [Pa.] J. W. Lewis & co. Number of Pages: 1520

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Philadelphia [Pa.] J. W. Lewis & co.
Number of Pages: 1520