USA > New Hampshire > History of New Hampshire, Volume I > Part 24
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31
This committee met the commissioners at Hampton on the first day of August and delivered to them a paper, reciting that the assembly had not been convened since the arrival of the king's order, but that they themselves, in order that there should be no failure for lack of officers, had appointed Richard Waldron, secretary, and Eleazer Russell, sheriff. Necessity knows no law, and no objection was made to this irregular proceeding.
The commissioners who met at Hampton were from Nova Scotia William Skene, who acted as president, Erasmus James
4 Belknap's Hist. of N. H., p. 239.
5 N. H. Prov. Papers, IV. 732.
288
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Phillips, and Otho Hamilton; those from Rhode Island were Samuel Vernon, John Gardner, John Potter, Ezekiel Warner and George Cornel. Expresses were sent to call the other commis- sioners from New Jersey and New York, and at a later meeting Philip Livingston from New York appeared, and being senior in nomination presided in the court.
The committee from the assembly of New Hampshire pre- sented their claim in writing that the boundary line should begin at the middle of the channel of the Merrimack river and run due west till it meet his Majesty's other governments and that the boundary between New Hampshire and Maine should be the Pascataqua and Newichawannock rivers, and from the head of the latter a line running north, less than a quarter of a point westward as far as the British dominion extended ; and that the western half of the Isles of Shoals should lie within the province of New Hampshire.
The committee from Massachusetts had no report ready. This led the committee from New Hampshire to charge them with intentional delay, that proceedings might be obstructed and no decision reached by the commissioners. However, they were given till the eighth of August only to bring in their claims. If they failed to be ready then, the commissioners would proceed on an ex parte representation. The assemblies of both New Hampshire and Massachusetts met on the fourth of August. The former was prorogued to meet at Hampton Falls on the tenth of August, and the latter was prorogued to meet the same date at Salisbury, places only five miles apart.
On the eighth of August the committee from Massachusetts presented their claim to the commissioners. They contended that the boundary line should begin at the Black Rocks, where the mouth of the Merrimack had been sixty years before, and following the windings of the Merrimack river three miles north and east of it, should extend to Endicott tree, which was three miles north of the crotch or parting of the river, and thence due west to the Pacific ocean, called then the south sea. As for the boundary line between Maine and New Hampshire, they contended that it should run from the head of the Newichawan- nock river due northwest, till one hundred and twenty miles from the mouth of Pascataqua harbor be finished. Such a line
289
A HISTORY
would cut off all the northern portion of the present State of New Hampshire, equal to nearly half of the State, and the end of the line would be somewhere in the northern part of Vermont. A northeast boundary of this sort would be utterly inconsistent with the western boundary of New Hampshire as claimed by Massachusetts.
William Parker was chosen clerk of the commissioners and later Benjamin Rolfe was added as his assistant. George Mitchel of Newbury was chosen as surveyor. He seems to have already drawn a plan by which the claims of each province could be understood by the commissioners, and his plan was accepted for immediate use.
On the tenth of August the assemblies of Massachusetts and New Hampshire met at the appointed places. The governor rode in state from Boston to Salisbury, attended by a troop of horse. Another troop met him at Newbury ferry, and three more troops at the supposed divisional line. These conducted him to the George tavern, at Hampton Falls, where he held a council and made a speech to the assembly of New Hampshire, recommend- ing them to appoint two officers, who, they told him, had already been appointed by them without his assistance or recommenda- tion. Of course he already knew this, but he was a stickler for forms and wished to maintain the dignity and power of his office. Either his call of an assembly to elect such officers was necessary, or it was not. If not, then his present recommenda- tion was needless; but if necessary, then why had he not called the assembly together in due time? Either horn of this dilemma gored him, and his opponents made the best use of it they could.
The points in debate were, "Whether Merrimack river, at that time emptied itself into the sea at the same point where it did sixty years before? Whether it bore the same name, from the sea up to the crotch? Whether it were possible to draw a parallel line, three miles northward, of every part of a river, the course of which was in some places from north to south?" Each party had arguments and witnesses, and neither party was convinced by the other. While they were arguing the case, the governor took a three days' trip to the falls of Amoskeag, now Manchester, and the falls were thought to be "mighty."
290
NEW HAMPSHIRE
The main point of controversy was whether the charter of William and Mary covered all the land granted by Charles the First. The commissioners evaded a direct answer and referred the decision to the king's council. They did not want to assume the responsibility and thus offend either Massachusetts or New Hampshire. Impartial judges today would say that any fair interpretation of the charter of Charles the First would not allow to Massachusetts any more territory than they finally ob- tained. The commissioners reported "that if the charter of King William and Queen Mary grants to the province of Massachu- setts Bay all the lands granted by the charter of King Charles the First, lying to the northward of Merrimack river, then the court adjudge and determine, that a line shall run, parallel with the said river, at the distance of three English miles, north from the mouth of said river, beginning at the southerly side of the Black Rocks, so called, at low water mark and thence to run to the crotch, where the rivers of Pemigewasset and Winnipiseogee meet, and from thence due north three miles, and from thence due west towards the south sea until it meets with his majesty's. other governments; which shall be the boundary or dividing line between the said provinces of Massachusetts and New Hamp- shire on that side, But, if otherwise, then the court adjudge and determine, that a line on the southerly side of New Hampshire, beginning at the distance of three miles north from the south- erly side of the Black Rocks aforesaid, at low water mark, and from thence running due west up into the mainland toward the south sea, until it meets with his majesty's other governments. shall be the boundary line between the said provinces, on the side aforesaid." As to the northern boundary the court adjudged that the line should run from the mouth of the Pascataqua up through the middle of the Newichawannock, or Salmon Falls river, and from the head thereof north, two degrees westerly, till one hundred and twenty miles be finished, or until it meets with his majesty's other government. The entire expenses of the commission were to be borne by the two provinces equally. Thus nothing was decided after many years of delay, trouble and expense. The commissioners were given power to decide the controversy, but they disliked to offend anybody. They chose the safe middle path between right and wrong.
291
A HISTORY
The commissioners adjourned till the twelfth of October, when they received appeals from both provinces. That of New Hampshire was the action of the House of Representatives alone, since the governor had dismissed the Council. It seems as though the governor and council were minded to block further procedure by legal informalities. When the House of Represent- atives proposed the raising of money to prosecute the appeal in London, the Council non-concurred, on the ground that the ap- peal was not an act of the Council, and that they had no voice in the appointment of the agent, Mr. Thomlinson. Their real animus was shown in the fact that they got up a petition to the king, asking that New Hampshire be joined to Massachusetts as one province. This was after the decision of the king in council. The assembly of Massachusetts voted two thousand pounds for the prosecution of their appeal and appointed Edmund Quincy and Richard Partridge agents to assist Francis Wilks.
About this time governor Belcher reminded the respective assemblies of the two provinces that on account of the deprecia- tion of currency considerable sums were due him on his salary. The government of Massachusetts acknowledged the justice of his claim and voted him three hundred and thirty-three pounds, as they did to the president of Harvard college at the same time. The House of Representatives of New Hampshire voted him nothing, although his bill for depreciation was over three thousand pounds. He was asking for back pay for ten years. He had received such currency as others had received, and had no juster claim than they. Some ministers about the same time were asking increase of salary for similar reason, and the unpop- ular minister had great trouble to get enough to live on. A rigid adherence to the letter of a law is a great convenience, when one wishes to avoid a just financial obligation, or silence the clamors of conscience.
The legal documents, arguments, rebuttals, evidences and appeals, in the trial before the commissioners, as set forth at length in the nineteenth volume of the New Hampshire State Papers, are a formidable array on both sides and show a great amount of acumen. They sometimes remind the reader of the Athenian sophists, who could make the worse appear the better reason. A few points of interest may be noted.
292
NEW HAMPSHIRE
The charter granted to Massachusetts by William and Mary left out some important words, "to the Northward of any and every part thereof," which are found in the older charter of Charles the First, in naming the northern boundary of Massa- chusetts. The advocates for New Hampshire pressed this point. This may have put the commissioners in doubt.
Both parties to the controversy claimed too much, thinking perhaps that one extravagant demand would counterbalance the other. Three miles north of a river manifestly means three miles north of the whole river and should be measured from the north- ern shore and not from the middle of a channel that was chang- ing its course from time to time by reason of shifting sands. The Black Rocks were the rational northern bank of the river Merrimack as they are today.
It was probably the intention of the original charter to Massachusetts that the northern boundary line should run due west from a point three miles north of the Black Rocks, sup- posing that the river ran from west to east. Massachusetts must have so thought in granting land to Haverhill. The idea of a boundary line parallel with the windings of the river was a later invention since only by such an interpretation could Massa- chusetts claim the upper Merrimack valley as far as a pretended Endicott tree, three miles north of the crotch, where the Pemi- gewasset and Winnepiseogee unite to form the Merrimack. New Hampshire scouted the idea that there ever was any such tree. That claim is quite different from the claim established when the Endicott Rock was inscribed.
New Hampshire asserted that the Merrimack river was so named only from the first falls above Haverhill, Massachusetts, to the ocean, while the testimony was abundant that its northerly course up to the crotch was never known by any other name by Indians or whitemen.
The Massachusetts lawyers made it as plain as mud that north and south of the Merrimack really meant east and west of it also.
On the other hand the advocates for New Hampshire made "northwest" mean two degrees west of north, and the commis- sioners so ruled, thus nearly doubling the territory of the province. Surely the commissioners were better statesmen than
293
A HISTORY
surveyors. They considered present and future political require- ments more than the original meaning of words in a grant. The king's council supported this view of the case.
New Hampshire contended that, since the grant to Sir Ferdinando Gorges was only of land from the Pascataqua river eastward, therefore all islands in the river belonged to New Hampshire, and upon one such island the province had erected and maintained a fort for many years. It is certain that several other islands near the mouth of the river had always been conceded as belonging to the province of Maine, and these had been taxed as a part of Kittery, among such islands being those whereon is the present navy yard. The decision of the king did not change the previous status of the islands. Perhaps it was thought that it might be well to claim all in order to retain a part; the overreaching of Massachusetts must be countered in a similar manner.
Massachusetts objected to the projection of the southern boundary line of New Hampshire, till it met with his majesty's other governments, because the original grant to Captain John Mason extended only sixty miles from the sea; also they said that the northern boundary line should extend only one hundred and twenty miles, the fixed limit of the province of Maine. There was reason in these objections, but the king and his coun- cil meant to create a separate province,-an enlarged province based upon an ancient grant, that would be a rival to Massachu- setts and perhaps a check to her political aspirations. The Bay Colony had made too much trouble and was not subservient enough to the wishes of magnates in London.
The argument urged in favor of the northern line as only two degrees west from north was, that thus would be included in New Hampshire a large tract of forest, having the best masts for the royal navy. This argument was privately communicated to Mr. Thomlinson in London, and expediency triumphed over mathematics, though the opinion of the learned Dr. Halley was sought and obtained in favor of a northwest line.
Edmund Quincy, one of the agents of Massachusetts, soon died, and Francis Wilks and Richard Partridge were a poor match against John Thomlinson and the astute and resourceful Ferdinando John Paris. His appeal was largely a complaint and
294
NEW HAMPSHIRE
was based somewhat upon his imagination, not having before him the needed documents in full, but it was effective. He con- trasted "the vast, opulent, overgrown province of Massachu- setts" with "the poor, little, loyal, distressed province of New Hampshire." The appeal to sympathy is a mighty persuasive to men who are already convinced.
The appeals, correspondence, petitions and legal formalities delayed the decision of the king's council more than two years. Meanwhile the opponents of Governor Belcher were seeking in every possible way to secure his removal from office, and he had enemies in Massachusettts as well as in New Hampshire. A forged letter from Exeter, subscribed ostensibly by five citizens of that town, was sent to Sir Charles Wager, first lord of the admiralty, accusing Governor Belcher of working against the surveyor of the king's woods in encouraging the destruction of mast-pines. Belcher proved this letter to be a malicious lie, and that no such persons lived in Exeter, but the letter had wrought the mischief that a slanderous falsehood never seeks to correct, when exposed. The complaint that he had neglected to keep fort William and Mary in proper repair and supplies was sufficiently answered by the governor, who showed that he had visited the province twice a year and always recommended proper care of the fort, but the house of representatives would not vote the necessary funds. Five petitions, signed by five hundred names, were sent to London, in favor of Governor Belcher, and a coun- ter petition, signed by seven hundred, was also sent, less than half the province having been canvassed for this purpose.
The lords in council censured Governor Belcher for his great partiality in proroguing the assembly of New Hampshire, as he had done at the time of the meeting of the commissioners at Hampton Falls, and thus it was already evident that his down- fall was decreed. Thomlinson kept sending assurances to friends in Portsmouth that the line would be fixed according to their wishes, and the decision of the king in council was probably well known by some in close touch with them before it was formally proclaimed. That decision was on the fifth of March, 1740, and it was as follows :
That the Northern boundary of the said Province of the Massachusetts Bay are and be a similar Curve line pursueing the course of Merrimack River at three miles distance on the North side therof beginning at the
295
A HISTORY
Atlantic Ocean, and ending at a Point due North of a place in a Plan re- turned by the said Commissioners call'd Pantucket Falls, and a strait Line drawn from thence due West cross the said River till it meets with his Majestys other Governments, and that the rest of the Commissioners said Report or determination be affirmed by his Majesty.6
The decision was a surprise to both provinces. New Hamp- shire was delighted and Massachusetts was chagrined. The former gained a tract on its southern border fourteen miles broad and fifty miles in length. "It cut off from Massachusetts twenty- eight new townships, between Merrimack and Connecticut rivers, besides large tracts of vacant land which lay intermixed, and districts from six of their old towns on the north side of the Merrimack; and if, as was then supposed, the due west line were to extend to twenty miles east of Hudson's river, the reputed boundary of New York, a vast tract of fertile country, on the western side of Connecticut river, was annexed to New Hamp- shire, by which an ample scope was given, first for landed specu- lation and afterward for cultivation and wealth."7
Massachusetts could not submit without a struggle. Peti- tions flew from many of the twenty-eight towns to London, to be re-annexed to Massachusetts. Six of the governor's friends in the New Hampshire council petitioned that the whole province should be annexed. Thomas Hutchinson, afterward governor of Massachusetts, was sent as agent to London to secure the ends of these petitions, but no heed was paid to his entreaties. "The petitions themselves," wrote Mr. Thomlinson to the New Hampshire committee. "are full of false facts, false geography, false reasoning-a most weak but wicked attempt of the unruly province of the Massachusetts Bay to sap that foundation, which his Majesty in great wisdom hath laid and fixt, and which must be the only means of establishing the last- ing tranquility and happiness of both provinces."
Governor Belcher was commanded by the king's council to issue orders to both his provinces to join in the appointment of surveyors to run the boundary lines, specifying that if either of the assemblies should decline to do so, the other should proceed ex parte, following strictly the decision of the king. Massachusetts neglected to cooperate and after some consulta-
6 N. H. State Papers, XIX. 478.
7 Belknap's Hist. of N. H., p. 227.
296
NEW HAMPSHIRE
tion with the New Hampshire House of Representatives the governor appointed three surveyors to run out and mark dif- ferent portions of the line. George Mitchell of Newbury sur- veyed the line from the ocean to a point about three miles above Pentucket Falls, (written also Pawtucket and Pantucket) ; Richard Hazzen of Haverhill ran the straight line due west from the Pine Tree bound above Pentucket Falls to the boundary line of New York; Walter Bryant surveyed the line from the head of Salmon Falls river thirty miles into the wilderness, till the difficulties of traveling further and the presence of suspected Indians induced him and his party to return without finishing the survey of the last fifty miles.
George Mitchell may have been helped in the first reaches of his survey by a map of the line from the ocean to Powow river made in 1696 by Nathaniel Weare, Joseph Smith, Henry Dow and Samuel Dow, all of Hampton, by order of Lieutenant Governor John Usher.8 Mitchell's line, as he states, is not always just three miles from the Merrimack river, nor could it be always three miles due north from corresponding points on the north shore of the river, but what little he took from one province in certain places he tried to restore in other places, so that the territory between the river and the line was about what was intended in the king's decision. All surveyors who have reexamined this line have testified to its remarkable accuracy, especially considering the inferior instruments of surveying then in use. He began at a large stone in the marsh about sixty-two rods from high water mark, three miles and two hundred and twenty rods north from where the Merrimack river entered the ocean at that time, and from twenty-eight points of departure he measured a broken line of nearly thirty-nine miles in length to the Boundary Pine. It cut off much land from, Salisbury, Amesbury, Haverhill, Methuen and Dracut, which tracts were soon incorporated into separate towns in New Hampshire. His bill of costs for himself and four assistants nineteen days, and forty days more of work in preparing a chart and his report, was one hundred and seventy-one pounds and twelve shillings.
Richard Hazzen had a harder task, to run a straight line to the New York boundary from the Boundary Pine, over rivers,
8 See N. H. State Popers, XIX. 354.
297
A HISTORY
lakes and mountains, through forests and snows. He succeeded, however, with great accuracy. The work was done in March, 1740. The distance measured by him in twenty-three days was one hundred and nine miles, three quarters and thirty-eight perches. The line cut all the boundary towns in two. The larger part of Dunstable, including the meeting house lot and the burial-ground were left in New Hampshire. Nearly all of Not- tingham West, now Hudson, was on the north side of the line, only a corner being left to Massachusetts, which is now the part of Tyngsborough east of the river. There are now seven towns in New Hampshire which wholly or in part once belonged to the old town of Dunstable as granted by Massachusetts. Groton lost a little territory, which now belongs to Nashua and Hollis. Townsend was deprived of one-quarter of her land, which now belongs to Brookline, Mason and New Ipswich, in New Hamp- shire. Ashburnham lost a thousand acres, and "Roxbury Can- ada," now Warwick and Royalston, Massachusetts, lost still more. Northfield was deprived of the northern strip of its ter- ritory four and a half miles wide, which now belongs to Hindsdale and Winchester, New Hampshire, and to Vernon, Vermont.9
Hazzen says in his Journal that he allowed ten degrees for "variation allowed per order of the Governor and Council," but in the governor's commission there is no mention of such varia- tion, while it is expressly mentioned in instructions given to Walter Bryant for running the northern boundary line. This caused controversy later, for the variation, as all acknowledge, was too great, if a line was to run due west. Thus a gore of land fifty-six miles long and nearly three miles wide at its western end was taken from New Hampshire, which rightfully belonged to her according to the King's order. Why Governor Belcher ordered such a variation has been a matter of dispute, and certainly he had no authority for so doing. Perhaps he wished to leave as much as possible to the Massachusetts towns. But New Hampshire gained on the northeast boundary line, as run by Walter Bryant, a longer strip of land, which Benning Went- worth told the king contained the greatest growth of mast trees in America, a body of timber not to be equalled in all the
9 Green's Northern Boundary of Mass., p. 19.
298
NEW HAMPSHIRE
world, and Mr. Thomlinson acknowledged, in 1740, that by the decision of the king New Hampshire would be eight times larger than it was accounted to be before.10 Thirty-five hundred square miles were taken from territory claimed by Massachusetts and added to New Hampshire, so that now the latter has about nine thousand square miles, while the former has seven thousand eight hundred.
Eighty-four years afterwards, 1825, commissioners from Massachusetts and New Hampshire went over the ground with surveyors, and although many of the boundary marks had dis- appeared, they were convinced that Mitchell and Hazzen had established a line that still could be traced and that their work was substantially accurate. New Hampshire then wanted to run a new line due west from the spot where had been the Boundary Pine, but to this Massachusetts did not agree. The claim of New Hampshire, if allowed, would have added fifty-five thous- and nine hundred and sixty-nine acres to that state. No settle- ment was agreed upon, but two years later, Massachusetts authorized Benjamin F. Varnum, her assistant surveyor, to set up monuments along the line from the ocean to the Bundary Pine, which he did at the angles, to the number of twenty-nine. The distance from the Atlantic to the Boundary Pine was thirty- four miles and twelve rods. He also marked with monuments the line from the Boundary Pine to the Connecticut river.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.