USA > New Hampshire > History of New Hampshire, Volume I > Part 20
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We notice the disposition and tendency to concentrate power into one city and into the hands of a few wealthy men, a tendency which Nathaniel Weare of Hampton had discerned some years before. The farmers of New Hampshire preferred to govern themselves rather than to be governed from abroad or even by a favored few of their own province. They wanted representation in both branches of the government, and they wanted the merchants and men of wealth in Portsmouth to pay their fair share of the taxes. Of course a few men who had influence in London practically dictated who the new councilors should be, and when a majority of the council was made up of the wealthy merchants of Portsmouth, no duty on imposts could be expected. Laws have been called regulations which rich men have made for their own convenience, and this holds true in re- spect to property laws in all ages. Large interests have usually exerted undue influence over legislatures and even courts. This is especially true under a moanrchy.
The members of the council at this time were Mark Hunk- ing, John Wentworth, Richard Gerrish, Theodore Atkinson, George Jaffrey, Shadrach Walton, Richard Wibird, Thomas Westbrook, and Samuel Penhallow, men closely related by fam- ily ties.
2 N. H. Prov. Papers, Vol. III, p. 675.
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Governor Shute wisely refrained from a direct reply to the petition of the House of Representatives and sent it to the coun- cil. Their reply he embodied in his own. The council affected to feel highly affronted by the representations of the house, as calculated to stir up strife and animosities. They said that His Majesty had the right to appoint whom he would as councilors, no matter where in the province they might live. All the coun- cilors happened to be chosen from Portsmouth, because "they were gentlemen of the best quality and greatest ability to serve the government in that station." Moreover one had been chosen from Hampton, but he refused to serve. The traders of Ports- mouth were willing to pay taxes on importations, if the farmers would pay taxes on exports, which shows a certain sort of worldly wisdom or shrewdness, for the taxes on importations are ultimately paid by the users and consumers, not by the merchants and traders, while a tax on exports usually falls on the producers. They thought it fitting that the courts and judges should be of Portsmouth, since that was the metropolis of the province, and its wealth and population were increasing. The whole reply of the council is a plea for themselves as the superiors of those dwelling in other towns. They now had the reins of authority and proposed to keep them. None of the councilors were taxed, and this may be one reason why as many of the wealthy merchants of Portsmouth as possible wanted to be members of the council.3
About this time the council and house of representatives agreed to issue ten thousand pounds of paper money, on loan, for twenty-three years, at five per cent, on land security. The council afterward sought to raise the amount to fifteen thous- and pounds, to which the lower house objected. The latter heeded not the call of the governor to a joint meeting for con- sultation and therefore he dissolved the assembly. The new assembly consented to the issuing of fifteen thousand pounds but the term was made eleven years and the rate of interest was ten per cent. Why the rate of interest was doubled does not appear. Perhaps it was found that on the offered security loans could not be obtained at less expense.
George Vaughan claimed that more power belonged to the
3 N. H. Prov. Papers, Vol. III pp. 677-679.
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office of lieutenant governor than others were willing to allow. Governor Shute was in New Hampshire only a few weeks in the year. During the rest of the time Vaughan asserted that he himself had all the powers of governor of the province and re- fused even to obey the orders of Governor Shute, sent to him from Boston. The council could not support the pretensions of their townsman. Especially Samuel Penhallow by his opposi- tion incurred the ire of the lieutenant governor. This led to the suspension of Penhallow and the dissolution of the assembly. In vigorous and petulant language Vaughan thus addressed him- self to the council :
As I am honored of the King, I will do my utmost to support it, and not lett his Commission be vilifyed at the rate some will have it; To have a due defference paid to it is what the King requires and expects, especially from his Ministers; and to have them studious of lessening the authority therein granted is an aggravated fault, and I cannot but wonder at the arrogancy and pride of those who do not consider I am a superiour match, as being armed with power from my prince, who doth execution at the utter- ance of a word ; and I hope none will be so sturdy as to dispute it. If I soar too high, the fall won't crush them: if they run too fast, their repentance may be timely. What I have to say to you, Mr. Penhallow, is in gross, & is, That your busynes for a long time has been to sow discord in the Common- wealth, and your endeavors to propagate confusion and diference in each town within the Government, which your avowed principles oblidge you to sodder as much as in you lies, the affections of majestrates & people thereby to divert all things which naturally produce dissention, tumults and feuds : the p'ticulars I have and shall transmitt to my principal Lord, the King, in whose name & by virtue of whose power I suspend you, Samuel Penhallow, from sitting, voteing, or assisting at the Council board, till his Majesty's pleasure shall be known.4
A few days later Governor Shute appeared on the scene and undid the work of Vaughan. He restored the assembly and suspended Vaughan as lieutenant governor. In a speech to the assembly he showed the unreasonableness of Vaughan's preten- sions and the discords that would ensue therefrom. The council sustained the governor in restoring Penhallow to his seat as a member thereof. All the members of the house sided with Governor Shute, except those from Hampton, who refused to sit as representatives until newly and duly elected. The differ- ence was one of interpretation of the king's commission to the
4 N. H. Prov. Papers, Vol. III, p. 703.
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lieutenant governor, since one clause therein seemed to conflict with another clause. He was instructed "to observe such orders as he should from time to time receive from the king or the gov- ernor in chief," and on the other hand "when the governor is out of the province, the lieutenant-governor is empowered to execute the king's commission." Vaughan had refused to execute orders received from Governor Shute by letter from Boston, on the ground that the governor was then out of the province and con- sequently had then no authority. The fallacy of such reasoning was exposed. When the affair was brought to the attention of Sir William Ashurst, he readily brought it about, that Vaughan was deposed from office and John Wentworth was appointed in his place, whose commission as lieutenant-governor was pub- lished December 7, 1717.
John Wentworth, who for the next thirteen years was the leading man in the counsels and activities of the province, was son of Samuel and Mary (Benning) Wentworth, grandson of Elder William Wentworth, one of the first settlers of Exeter and Dover. He was born at Portsmouth, January 16, 1670, and first gave prominence to the Wentworth name in New Hampshire, which was further increased by worthy descendants. In early life he was a sea captain and engaged in mercantile pursuits. He was appointed one of the councilors in 17II and served as justice of the court of common pleas from 1713 to 1718. After the departure of Governor Shute to London in 1723 he had till 1728 full authority as acting governor and commander in chief of New Hampshire, and he served the province well and satis- factorily. Especially he interested himself in the defense of the province against the Indians, establishing and visiting fre- quently sentinel posts on the frontier. His services to London- derry were acknoweldged by that town in the repeated voting of presents, for then governors had no stated salary and gratu- ities from council or towns was the proper way of acknowledging services rendered. A contemporary friend, quoted by Belknap, thus wrote concerning Wentworth's character: "He was a gen- tleman of good natural abilities, much improved by conversation ; remarkably civil and kind to strangers; respectful to the min- isters of the gospel; a lover of good men of all denominations; compassionate and bountiful to the poor; courteous and affable to all; having a constant regard to duties of divine worship, in
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private and public, and paying due deference to the sacred in- stitutions of Christ."
The chief article of export and the natural source of the wealth of the province was lumber. Especially its white pines, as well as those of the neighboring province of Maine, were valued as masts for the royal navy, and at an early date such pines, twenty-four inches in diameter, were marked with the sign of a broad arrow by a forester appointed by the king for that purpose. The penalty was heavy for felling such a tree without consent of the forester, a custom to which this entire country needs to return, if lands as well as forests are to be conserved. Some pines were then five feet in diameter, indicat- ing a growth of two hundred and fifty years. Under every ad- ministration complaints were made of the waste of trees and counter complaints of unnecessary interference of the forester. It was found that natives of the province, who were familiar with the forests, took better care of them than officers sent over from England. It was better to cut into lumber trees that were more than two feet in diameter than to let them rot on the stump. So the settlers argued and the surveyors were often tricked and disobeyed. The noble pines have well nigh disap- peared, and lumbermen now can scarcely wait forty years, not to say two hundred and fifty, for the growth of coveted lumber.
Pitch-pine trees, unfit for masts, were utilized for the pro- duction of tar and turpentine. To prevent a monopoly of this trade on the part of a company of merchants many thousand trees were destroyed by unknown persons. The government fixed a price of twenty shillings for a barrel of tar, and this was received in place of taxes. This led the owners to tax and over- tax the trees by too many incisions. Thus the profitable trees were gradually destroyed, and the industry came to an end.
Effort was made to foster the growth of hemp, and the price fixed by government was one shilling per pound. The industry did not take wide and firm root. The people of Lon- donderry, after the settlement of that town, cultivated the growth of flax, and their manufactured linens were famed for their excellence. Indeed the flax-wheel and the larger spinning wheel were to be found in almost every household till within recent years. The farmers raised about all they had to eat and wear. They sold some live-stock and ship-timber and thus were
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enabled to buy a few household utensils, as well as some West India rum and molasses. Feather-beds, comforters and sheets were all home-made, and some rough chairs and tables made up the furniture of the homes of the farmers. In the houses of the wealthy merchants of Portsmouth might occasionally be found a Chippendale or a Heppelwhite from London, now so highly prized as antiques.
Belknap says that "great quantities of iron ore were found in many places." Things are great or small by comparison. Such immense mines of iron ore have been found elsewhere, that the old sources of supply in New England are now a neglig- ible quantity. Then bog iron was searched for and carefully stored. There was a penalty of ten pounds per ton for transport- ing it out of the province. It was proposed to erect a foundry on Lamprey river, and to encourage this industry the "Two-Mile Streak" was granted above the headline of Dover. This grant was based upon a promise made by the general court of Massa- chusetts to Portsmouth in the year 1672, to grant land for a vil- lage wherever it might be desired. This strip of land two miles wide and six long afterward formed a part of the town of Barr- ington. The projected iron works do not seem to have been long continued.
Another industry encouraged was the raising of sheep, and for this purpose an act was passed exempting them from taxa- tion for seven years. To protect them there was a large bounty paid for the head of a wolf, amounting to four or five pounds. In the year 1737 two hundred pounds appear in the treasurer's accounts for such bounties.
In 1718 a committee of the legislature decided that a gal- lows should be erected in the training field of Portsmouth, and that punishments other than by execution should be at the usual place near the gaol. Here must have been the whipping-post and the stocks, where criminals were exposed to public derision. Executions by hanging were until a recent date in places where the multitude of sightseers might glut their heartless curiosity. It has taken many generations of christian culture to make the spectacle of suffering repulsive rather than enjoyable. We are now civilized enough to do away with flogging a human being as a legal penalty, and we no longer take delight in seeing one hanged or electrocuted.
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A HISTORY
During the administration of Lieut-Governor Wentworth an attempt was made to establish the line between New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Some residents near the southern bound- ary were taxed in both provinces, and it was a matter of dispute where they ought to be rated. The agent of New Hampshire at London was Henry Newman, who repeatedly made efforts to gain the attention of authorities there and have this question of long standing finally settled. Commissioners were appointed by New Hampshire and also by Massachusetts to adjust their respective claims. They met at Newbury but effected nothing. New Hampshire contended that the line should begin at a point three miles north of the mouth of the Merrimack river at high water mark and run due west as far as the province of Massa- chusetts extended. To this interpretation Massachusetts ob- jected, and the running of the line was postponed for a score of years. The boundary between New Hampshire and Maine also remained uncertain, the dispute being whether the line from the head waters of the Newichawannock river should run two or more points westward of north.
In 1718 events occurred which led to the settlement of about one thousand emigrants from the northern part of Ireland in New Hampshire. About the year 1612 a large colony of Scotch- men from Argyleshire crossed the channel that is only eighteen miles broad in its narrowest place and mingled with another colony of mechanics that came from London. These latter gave to Derry the name Londonderry, place made famous by its re- sistance to the siege of 1689, when its inhabitants came so near to starvation that a rat was sold for a shilling. Some who took part in that siege settled in Londonderry, New Hampshire, and were forever exempted from taxation because of heroic conduct and sacrifice for others. A state of guerilla warfare had existed in Ireland for a long time between Protestants and Roman Cath- olics. Later the English government required that these Pres- byterians from Scotland should conform to the rites and usages of the Anglican Church, which they could not conscientiously do. Therefore many resolved on emigration, led by the reports of one Holmes, son of a minister who had visited New England. This minister, with three others, James McGregor, William Cornwell and William Boyd, gathered the bolder persons of their flocks in Londonderry, Coleraine, Antrim, Kilrea and the valley
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of the Bann, and on the fourth day of August, 1718, five ship- loads of Scotch-English, miscalled Irish, arrived in Boston. They strongly resented being called Irish, since they had noth- ing to do with the Irish in religion or blood relationship. The infusion of English blood came from London and from inter- marriages earlier in the lowlands of Scotland. The same motives sent them across the Atlantic that drove the Pilgrims first to Holland and then to Plymouth. Both bands of emigrants want- ed freedom to worship God in their own way, or, as is often said, according to the dictates of conscience, but conscience never dictates what is right or wrong, free or false. That has to be learned by means of an enlightened reason. But Scotch Pres- byterians had learned through several generations to believe certain doctrines and to worship in certain ways, and there was no good reason why they should not be allowed to continue therein. So they felt and this made them willing to leave the beautiful and fruitful vales of northern Ireland for the poorer soil and wooded wilderness of New Hampshire.
One ship load at least went to Casco Bay and spent a winter in the harbor of Falmouth, now Portland, not finding a satis- factory place wherein to settle and being too poor to live in houses. So poor were they that a petition was sent to the gen- eral court of Massachusetts for their relief, and a hundred bushels of Indian corn were granted to them. A few of their families settled in Brunswick, the northern part of Bath, Cape Elizabeth, now South Portland, and other towns of Maine. Some went to Worcester, Massachusetts, where they did not meet with a favorable reception and soon dispersed to neighbor- ing towns. Some stayed in Boston, where they founded the first Presbyterian church, of which the Rev. John Muirhead was minister. Sixteen families, in the spring of 1719, having heard that a region bordering on Haverhill, Massachusetts, was good land and from the abundance of its chestnuts and walnuts was called Nutfield, determined to settle there. They arrived April II, 1719. The Rev. James McGregor, who had spent the winter in teaching school in Dracut, Massachusetts, was chosen as their minister. The first sermon was preached to them under a spreading oak tree the evening after their arrival at West-Run- ning Brook. Others of their countrymen soon joined them, and at the first partaking of the Lord's Supper two ministers and sixty-five communicants were present.
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The names of the first sixteen families that settled in Nut- field, soon changed to Londonderry, are worthy of preservation. They were those of Randal Alexander, Samuel Allison, Allen Anderson, James Anderson, John Barnet, Archibald Clendenin, James Clark, James Gregg, John Mitchell, John Morrison, James McKeen, James Nesmith, Thomas Steele, James Sterrett, John Stuart and Robert Weir. The address to Governor Shute, asking for a grant of land, had been signed by three hundred and twenty persons. Nine of them were ministers and three were graduates of the University at Edinburgh. These Scotch settlers are said to have first introduced to America the culture of the Irish po- tato, first planted in the garden of Nathaniel Walker at Andover, Massachusetts. They also brought with them their spinning wheels, turned by the foot. No company of settlers in New England can be found whose descendants have numbered more men of prominence in civil, military and educational affairs. It is enough here to mention Generals Stark and Reid of the Rev- olutionary Army, Governors Bell, Dinsmoor and Morrison, and James McKeen, first president of Bowdoin college.
The colony at Londonderry had difficulty in securing a safe title to their lands. The boundary line proposed by New Hamp- shire would leave the southern part of the township in Massa- chusetts. So both states refused to grant a charter though the lieutenant governor of New Hampshire gave them some recog- nition in appointing one of their number a justice of the peace and another deputy sheriff. A deed of a tract ten miles square was obtained from Colonel John Wheelwright of Wells, Maine, sup- posing then that the so called Wheelwright deed of 1629 was genuine. They were disturbed from time to time by people who claimed lands by virtue of a deed given twenty years before by an Indian sagamore, named John, and raiders from Haverhill tried to break up the settlement, but they persevered in good behavior and clearing of the lands till a charter was granted by New Hampshire, June 21, 1722.5
Londonderry remained the name of only the western part of the town, Windham, the southern part, having been set off and incorporated 12th February, 1741/2, and Derry, the north- eastern part, in 1827. These and adjacent towns have felt the
5 N. H. Prov. Papers, Vol. IV, p. 2.
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strong and uplifting influences of the Scotch character and the Presbyterian religion, the denomination still having several churches in the valley of the Merrimack, while the scattered Presbyterians in Maine soon melted into the Congregational churches.
The Society for the Settling of the Chestnut Country held a meeting in that country October 5, 1719. That society was composed of people from Hampton mainly and it had a few members from Portsmouth, who became proprietors in the town of Chester, which was incorporated May 8, 1722. Some settlers came from Bradford, Massachusetts, in 1726. Previously the region had been called Cheshire. Its southern boundary was Londonderry. Five hundred acres were set apart for the gov- ernor and as many more for the lieutenant governor of the province. These were the perquisites of office in several towns. In 1751 the southwestern part of Chester with a portion of Lon- donderry was incorporated as Derryfield, and the name was changed to Manchester in 1810. The northwestern part of Ches- ter, called Freetown, became Raymond in 1765. Hooksett was formed in 1822 from a part of old Chester and portions of Bow and Dunbarton. Auburn, on the eastern border of Manchester was incorporated in 1845. Candia, that part of Chester which had been called Charmingfare, became a separate parish in 1762 and an incorporated town in 1763.
Nottingham, a town ten miles square, northwestward from Exeter, was incorporated May 10, 1722, from which Deerfield was set off in 1766 and Northwood in 1773. It was settled by colonists from the older settlements of New Hampshire and some from Massachusetts.
Barrington on the northwest boundary of Dover was incorp- orated May 10, 1722. It included the "two mile streak" and was thirteen miles long by six and a half miles wide. The westerly part was set off as Strafford 17 June 1820.
Rochester was incorporated as a town the same day as Not- tingham and Barrington. It is north of old Dover and along the Salmon Falls river. The earliest settlers were principally descendants of the first settlers of Dover, Newington and Ports- mouth. The first settler was Captain Timothy Roberts in 1728. The town had one hundred families in 1737 and Rev. Amos Main was their minister. Farmington was set off and incorpor- ated in 1797 and Milton in 1802.
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The council granted, May 11, 1722, to the children of Samuel Allen deceased and to their heirs a tract of land four miles square adjoining to Chester side line and to Nottingham head line, on condition that they settle fifteen families there within five years, if not delayed by Indian wars. There was a petition concerning this land in. 1737. A part of it was incorporated with Pembroke in 1759, and Allenstown was not made an incorporated town till July 2, 1831, although settlers were there before 1748, among them being John Walcutt, Andrew Smith, Daniel Evans, and Robert Buntin.
Some minor events during the administration of John Went- worth have historic interest. The council and house of repre- sentatives were dignified bodies, though composed of but few members. There is an order on record requiring each member to wear his sword while sitting in discharge of his public duties. The governor had power to summon the speaker and members of the house whenever he saw fit without informing them in advance of the object he had in view. Once this was demanded, but the governor refused to gratify their curiosity. When Na- thaniel Weare of Hampton was elected speaker, Lieutenant Governor Wentworth refused to confirm the election. The rep- resentatives questioned his authority to do so, and he sent down his commission, containing, as he thought, the warrant for his action. The representatives were minded to give it another in- terpretation, calling attention of the governor to the historic fact, that the famous bishop Burnet had pointed out that "it was a settled point in the House of Commons in the days of King Charles the Second that the house had an undoubted right of choosing their speaker, and that the presenting him to the king was only matter of course and not for approbation, which set- tlement we can not learn has ever been questioned by any king or queen of Great Britain since." To avoid friction Mr. Weare requested the house to release him from the burden of filling the speaker's chair, and Andrew Wiggin of Stratham was chosen in his stead.6 In 1727 it was voted in the house of repre- sentatives that the lieutenant governor should be allowed twelve shillings per day, each councilor eight shillings, and each mem- ber of the house six shillings per day while in session. The
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