USA > New Hampshire > History of New Hampshire, Volume I > Part 4
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We have recited above a curious instance of peaceable intervention. Perhaps because neither Strawberry Bank nor Northam alias Dover was an incorporated or chartered town and local combinations were only friendly neighbors in a region called as a whole Pascataquack, the aid of "Governor" Williams and his supporters was called in to quell a riot. It was a military necessity. The trial was very like that conducted by a drum- head court martial. There was no claim of jurisdiction on the part of Strawberry Bank. In a similar spirit Capt. Thomas Wiggin had before appealed to Massachusetts to try certain offenders whom he had no power to try or to punish, yet the authorities in Massachusetts wanted jurisdiction acknowledged before they complied with Captain Wiggin's request. Governor Williams had more sense and less ambition.
The succeeding ministers of Dover, Daniel Maud, 1643-55, John Reyner, 1655-69, John Reyner, Jr., 1669-76, and John Pike, 1678-1709, were all men of scholarship and piety, graduates of Cambridge University, England, or of Harvard College. They rendered noble service and built up a church that has been the mother of many others, although the meeting house at Dover Neck long since disappeared.
We have seen that the men of Dover collectively bought land of the Indians in 1635. Soon after that date they elected their governor, but what powers were conferred upon him can not now be told. They granted land before the year 1640 to
8 Historical Memoranda of Ancient Dover, p. 29.
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A HISTORY
several men at Oyster River, where Darby Field was in quiet possession of the "Point" earlier than 1639. Thus town business was transacted before there was any formal combination for government. In the Record Office at London has been pre- served the original of a Combination of "Inhabitants upon the river Pascataquack," and since it is known that all the signers were men of Dover, it has been called, somewhat inaptly, Dover's Magna Charta. The document reads as follows :-
Whereas sundry mischeifes and inconveniences have befaln us, and more and greater may in regard of want of civill Government, his Gratious Ma'tie having hitherto setled no order for us to our knowledge:
Wee whose names are underwritten being Inhabitants upon the river Pascataquack have voluntarily agreed to combine ourselves into a body politique that we may the more comfortably enjoy the benefit of his Ma'ties Lawes together with all such Orders as shal bee concluded by a major part of the Freemen of our Society in case they bee not repugnant to the Lawes of England and administered in the behalf of his Majesty.
And this we have mutually promised and concluded to do and so to continue till his Excellent Ma'tie shall give other Order concerning us. In witness whereof wee have hereto set our hands the two and twentieth day of October in the sixteenth yeare of our Soverign Lord Charles by the grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland Defender of the Faith &c. Annoq Dom. 1640.
JOHN FOLLET
THOM. LARKHAM
ROBERT NANNEY
RICHARD WALDERN
WILLIAM JONES
WILLIAM WALDERN
PHILLIP SWADDON
WILLIAM STORER
RICHARD PINKHAME
WILLIAM FURBER
BARTHOLOMEW HUNT WILLIAM BOWDEN
THOS. LAYTON THO. ROBERTS
JOHN WASTILL
BARTHOLOMEW SMITH
JOHN HEARD
SAMUEL HAINES
JOHN HALL
JOHN UNDERHILL
ABEL CAMOND
PETER GARLAND
HENRY BECK
JOHN DAM STEPHEN TEDDAR
ROBERT HUGGINS
FRAN : CHAMPERNOON
JOHN UGROUFE THOMAS CANNING
HANSED KNOWLES
JOHN PHILLIPS THO: DUNSTAR
EDWARD COLCORD HENRY LAHORN EDWARD STARR
JAMES NUTE
ANTHONY EMERY
RICHARD LAHAM
WILLIAM POMFRET GEORGE WEBB
JOHN CROSS JAMES ROLLINS
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Some clerical errors are manifest in this list of signers. Edward Starr is doubtless Elder. Edward Starbuck, Tho: Dunstar is probably Thomas Dustin, afterward of Kittery, whose son, Thomas Dustin, settled in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Thomas Canning should be Thomas Canney. Henry Lahorn is probably Henry Langstaff. Hansed Knowles is the Rev. Hansard Knollys. Robert Huggins is Robert Huckins of Oyster River. A few names in this list are otherwise unknown in history. It is noticeable that some, like Champernowne and Furber, signed this combination, although they lived on the south side of Great and Little Bays, then reckoned as a part of Hilton's purchase and so belonging to Dover. On the other hand Darby Field, Ambrose Gibbons, Thomas Stevenson, William Williams and probably others then living on the south side of Oyster River, in what is now Durham, did not sign the combination, since it was then unsettled whether they were living in Northam (Dover) or in Exeter.
Doubtless this Combination, from the year 1640 onward, was an unchartered town and did all the business of a town assessing taxes. This was first done on the seventeenth day of September, 1647, when it was "ordered concluded and agreed upon that the inhabitants of Dover should condescend unto a form of levying rates and assessments for raising of public charges according to an order of court made and held at Boston." William Pomfret was then the recorder, or town clerk. Before this date funds for the maintenance of the ministry and for other expenses may have been raised by voluntary contribu- tions. The rate-list shows fifty-three families in the town, twenty-three of whom lived in Oyster River Plantation. The other settlements were on Dover Neck, about the falls at Cochecho, and along Back River, with a few frontiersmen. The bounds of the town, as determined by commissioners in 1652, were on the southwest Goddard's Creek and thence to the first fall in Lamprey River, at the present village of Newmarket, and thence six miles on a west by northwest line. On the north the boundary line ran from the first fall in the Newichawannock four miles on a north by west line. On the south the line ran from a creek below Thomas Canney's house, on the Pascataqua, to Hogsty Cove near the mouth of Great Bay,
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A HISTORY
together with the marsh and meadow bordering on Great Bay with convenient by land to set their hay. 9
The rent of mill sites with privilege of cutting timber on lands adjacent helped to pay the minister's salary. The prin- cipal mill-owners were Richard Waldern at Cochecho, Valentine Hill at Oyster River Falls, and Thomas Wiggin and Simon Bradstreet at Quamphegan, where later the Broughtons were owners and managers. Gradually a score or more of small waterfalls were utilized for sawing of boards, shingles and ship timber. Most of those ancient sawmills long ago fell into decay, the streams having dried up in summer in consequence of cutting off the forests, and the power being too little for modern machinery. All the mills in 1653 should have yielded an in- come of one hundred and twenty-five pounds for the support of public worship. The ministerial tax could be paid in money, beaver, beef, pork, wheat, peas, malt, butter, or cheese, at estab- lished prices. A church and parsonage were erected at Oyster River in 1656, about half way between the Falls and the Point, and in 1665 the Rev. Joseph Hull was preaching there, succeeded after a lapse of time by the Rev. John Buss, who served many years both as minister and physician.
Conspicuous among the first settlers of ancient Dover were Captain Thomas Wiggin, leader and governor of the colony on Dover Neck, who later settled in what is now Stratham, became one of the early judges and founded an extensive and well known family; Thomas Roberts, who came with Edward Hilton in 1623, was chosen "President of the Court" in 1640, lived all his life on Dover Neck and died at a good and honored old age about 1674; Elder Hatevil Nutter, occasional preacher and holder of various town offices, whose cellar may be easily seen a few rods north of the site of the church on Dover Neck and on the opposite side of High Street; Edward Starbuck, Elder in the church, Representative in the General Court, charged with heresy and so a man evidently of independent thought, finally settling in Nantucket, where he was the leading magistrate and an esteemed citizen ; William Pomfret, recorder, selectman, commissioner and lieutenant; Richard Waldern, or Waldron, mill-owner at Cochecho, Major in the militia, Rep-
9 Mass. Archives, 112, 53.
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resentative to the General Court and Speaker for several years, and Associate Judge in old Norfolk County ; Captain Valentine Hill, who had been deacon in the church at Boston, builder of the first mill at Oyster River, Representative several times, whose house was built about 1649 and is still in use, probably the oldest house in New Hampshire; Darby Field, who first explored Mount Washington, in 1642, and brought back a description of the "Chrystal Hills"; Elder William Wentworth, prominent as an officer in the church and town and founder of one of the most distinguished families of New Hampshire ; Francis Champernowne, who signed the Dover Combination of 1640 then living on his farm called "Greenland," from which the present town of Greenland took its name. He was of an aristocratic family in Devonshire and nephew of the wife of Sir Ferdinando Gorges. He removed from Greenland to Kittery, Maine, where he was a leading citizen. A heap of stones marks his lonely grave. 10
The Wheelright Deed was a long time in controversy as to its genuineness. It is dated May 17, 1629, and conveys from four sagamores, Passaconaway of Penacook, Runawit of Pentucket, Wahangnonawit of Squamscot, and Rowls of Newichawannock, to the Rev. John Wheelwright, Augustin Story, Thomas Wite, William Wentworth, and Thomas Levitt, all of Massachusetts Bay, a great tract of land lying between the Newichawannock and Pascataqua rivers on the northeast and the Merrimack river on the south.
To begin at Newchewanack ffalls in Piscataqua River aforesd and soe down sd River to the sea and soe up alongst the sea shore to Merrimack River, and soe up along sd River to the falls at Pentucett aforesd and from said Pentucet ffalls upon a North west line twenty English miles into the woods, and from thence to Run upon a Streight Line North East and South West till meete with the main Rivers that Runs down to Pentucket falls and Newchewanack ffalls and ye sd Rivers to be the bounds of sd Lands from the thwart Line or head Line to ye aforesd ffalls.
The deed also included the Isles of Shoals. One condition was that the said John Wheelwright should begin a plantation at Squamscot falls within ten years with a company of English people. The deed is worded and spelled after the manner of
10 See Tuttle's Historical Papers, pp. 63-124, and Stackpole's Old Kittery and Her Families.
4I
A HISTORY
that time and is a very adroit forgery, so much so that it has. deceived many and been admitted in courts of law. It is the legal basis on which rests the grant of several townships. It was registered in York County, Maine, in 1713, and in 1719 Col. John Wheelwright of Wells, Maine, sold a township, reciting this deed. It was the original township of Londonderry.
The Hon. James Savage of Boston first elaborately exposed the forgery, and his opinion was endorsed by John Farmer, Esq., of Concord, New Hampshire. Other eminent men have defended the deed and none so fully and ably as the Hon. Charles H. Bell of Exeter, late Governor of New Hampshire. Yet he subsequently discovered that the Rev. John Wheelwright signed a transcript of the parish register of Bilsby, England, on the twenty-fifth of March, 1629, and therefore had not time to come to America and arrange for the purchase of this land about two months later. Moreover, the deed alleges that the grantees were all of Massachusetts Bay, which colony had no existence at that time. The deed is now an unquestioned forgery, and other documents in support of the deed must be pronounced forgeries also, as "The Four Towns Laid Out," dated August 13-20, 1633, (N. H. State Papers, Vol. XXIX, pp. 52-54) and the letter of George Vaughan to Ambrose Gibbons, dated August 20, 1634 (N. H. Prov. Papers, Vol. I, p. 95). The four towns named in the former document had no existence in the year 1629, viz., Northam, Portsmouth, Hampton and Exeter. 11
The Rev. John Wheelwright, graduate of the University of Cambridge, was made vicar of Bilsby, co. Lincoln, April 2, 1623, succeeding the Rev. Thomas Storre, whose daughter, Marie, he married in 1621. He himself was succeeded, January II, 1632, by the Rev. Philip de la Mott, upon presentation by the Crown, said presentation having escheated to the Crown "per pravitatem simoniae." The buying or selling of church prefer- ments was a crime in English law. The precise nature of Wheel- wright's offense is not known. He had the reputation in England and in several pastorates in New England of being an upright and godly man. 12 He was not "Silenced for noncon- formity," nor for the utterance of Puritanical views. In April,
11 Farmer's footnote to Belknap's Hist. of New Hampshire, p. 13.
12 Proceedings of Mass. Hist. Society, Vol. VIII, pp. 505-517.
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1636, he embarked for Boston, landing on the twenty-sixth of May. He had married a second wife, Mary, daughter of Edward Hutchinson of Alford and sister of William Hutchinson, whose wife Anne so much disturbed the ecclesiastical peace of Boston by her sharp distinctions between the covenant of faith and the covenant of works. Mr. Wheelwright sympathized with her views and in his pulpit at Mount Wollaston preached what his opponents called Antinomianism, a word which in theological controversies then lightly concealed as many sins as later did the word Unitarianism and more recently the phrase Higher Criticism. Such words in the mouths of some persons express all manner of dangerous irreligion. Especially in a sermon on a fast day did Mr. Wheelwright intensify opposition, though it would be hard for a charitable and intelligent reader now to find in it anything objectionable. But the Puritans of Massa- chusetts Bay were determined to tolerate no opposition to their doctrines and church discipline. They had the truth, and all opponents were in dangerous error and must be silenced. They were willing to suffer martyrdom for freedom to worship God according to the dictates of conscience, the only way He can be worshipped, and they were also willing to make martyrs of others for a like adherence to conscientious convictions. Both parties mistook their own faulty reasonings for the voice of God within them. The outcome of the controversy was that Mr. Wheelwright was banished and of necessity was constrained to find an abode in some wilderness. So he went to the falls of the Squamscot, beyond, as he then supposed, the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, and took with him some who had been his parishioners at Bilsby and at Mount Wollaston, together with some sympathizers from Boston. These had been previously disarmed by order of the court, fearing some fanatical outbreak. Wheelwright spent the winter on the banks of the Squamscot. On the third day of April, 1638, he and others took two deeds from the sagamore Wehanownowit. In the first deed the grantees are John Wheelwright, Samuel Hutchinson and Augus- tine Stor of Boston, Edward Colcord and Darby Field of Pas- cataqua, John Compton of Roxbury and Nicholas Needham of Mount Wollaston; in the second deed the grantees are only John Wheelwright of Pascataqua and Augustine Storr of Boston. In the first deed the witnesses are James Wall, James
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A HISTORY
his marke, William Cole and Lawrence Cowpland ; in the second deed the witnesses are James Aspamabough, his marke, Edward Colcord, Nicholas Needham and William Furber, and the deed is signed by Wehanownowit and his son Pummadockyon. The first deed conveys land reaching from the Merrimack to Oyster River, bounded on the southeast by the patents of Pascataqua ; the second deed conveys a tract of land thirty miles square, "situate within three miles on the Northerne side of ye river Meremake extending thirty miles along by the river from the sea side, & from the sayd river side to Pischataqua patents thirty miles up into the countrey North West, & soe from the ffalls of Pischataqua to Oyster River thirty miles square ev'y way." The boundaries are not well stated in either deed. The second one is indorsed by the sagamore Watohantowet, April 10, 1639, and extends the northern boundary to one English mile on the east side of Oyster River. Apparently the second deed is an afterthought and though dated the same day as the first was not drawn up and executed till later. Suspicion is awakened whether this second deed is genuine. Why is it made to only John Wheelwright and his brother-in-law, Augustine Storr, while five other names of grantees in the first deed are omitted ? Why is it made to include Winnacunnet, or Hampton, except for the purpose of laying a basis for a claim to that tract of land, which claim was made the following year by Wheelwright against the claim of Massachusetts? Why so careful to state in the second deed the limit of the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, three miles north of the Merrimack? These are afterthoughts that could hardly have occurred to John Wheelwright the same day that he received the first deed. The fact that the so called Wheelwright deed of 1629 is now an admitted forgery may throw some light on this second deed of April 3, 1638.13
A church was organized in Exeter the same year, December, 1638, of persons dismissed from the church in Boston, to which some female members were added the following year. It was located on what was afterward called "Meeting House Hill."
The name Exeter was given to the town and on the fourth day of the fifth month, 1639, it formed a combination for govern- ment, a democratic republic, without authority from outside, subject only to God and the King of England :
13 See Appendix B.
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Whereas it hath pleased the lord to moue the heart of our Dread Soveraigne Charles, by the grace of God King of England, Scotland, France & Ireland, to grant license & liberty to sundry of his subjects to plant them- selves in the westerne partes of America: Wee, his loyall subjects, brethren of the church of Exeter, situate & lying upon the river of Piscataquacke, wth other inhabitants there, considering wth our selves the holy will of god and our owne necessity that we should not liue wthout wholesome lawes & ciuil governmet amongst us, of wch we are altogether destitute, doe in the name of Christ & in the sight of God combine our selves together to erect & set up amongst us such Government as shal be, to our best discerning, agreeable to the will of god; professing ourselves subjects to our Soveraigne Lord King Charles, according to the libertys of our English Colony of the Massachusetts & binding our selves solemnely by the grace & helpe of christ & in his name & feare to submit our selves to such godly and christian laws as are established in the Realme of England to our best knowledge & to all other such lawes wch shall upon good grounds be made & inacted amongst us according to god, yt we may liue quietly & peaceably together in all godliness and harmony.
Mon., 5th d. 4th, 1639.
JOHN WHELEWRIGHT
WILLIAM WENBOURNE
AUGUSTINE STORRE
THOMAS X CRAWLEY
THOMAS WIGHT
CHR. HELME
WILLIAM WENTWORTH
DARBY X FFEILD
HENRY ELKINS
ROBERT X READ
GEORGE X WALTON
SAMUELL WALKER
FFRANCIS X MATHEWS
THOMAS PETTIT
WILLIAM X COOLE
RALLF HALL
JAMES X WALLES
ROBERT X SEWARD
THOMAS LEVITT EDMOND LITTLEFEELD
RICHARD BULGAR
CHRISTOPHER LAWSON
JOHN X CRAME
GEORGE X BARLOW
GODFREYE X DEARBORNE
RICHARD MORIS
PHILEMON PORMOTT
NICHOLAS NEEDHAM
THOMAS WARDELL
THOMAS WILSON
WILLIAM X WARDELL
GEORGE X RUOBONE
ROBERT X SMITH
HENRY ROBY
EDWARD RISHWORTH
Of those who signed this Combination it is known that John Cram, Godfrey Dearborn, George Rabone or Haburne, Thomas Wight and William Wentworth came from Mr. Wheelwright's old parish in England, Bilsby, as also did Balthazar Willix, an early inhabitant of Exeter. Wentworth, Lawson and Helme were cousins, and they were related by marriage to Wheel- wright. Those in the above list who are indicated thus X made
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A HISTORY
their mark. Darby Field and Francis Matthews were living at Oyster River Point, then claimed as a part of Exeter. 14
The little colony grew rapidly. Wholesome laws regulated treatment of the Indians, to whom it was prohibited to sell weapons, powder and fire-water. A local court was established, and justice and fraternity were the guiding principles. Two political parties quickly arose. Those especially who came later than 1639 were in favor of union with Masschusetts, and in the petition to that effect only three signed it who were of the original Combination. In consequence of the union of New Hampshire with Massachusetts Mr. Wheelwright and some of his trusty followers left Exeter and made a settlement in Wells, Maine. Among those who accompanied him in the spring of 1643 were Edward Rishworth and Edmond Littlefield. Not long afterward Mr. Wheelwright made peace with the government of Massachusetts and was permitted to return to that colony. He served as pastor of the churches at Hampton and Salisbury with unusual acceptability, meanwhile making an extended visit to his old home in England and publishing some vindication of himself. He was familiarly acquainted with Oliver Cromwell and Sir Henry Vane. He died of apoplexy, November 15, 1679, at the age of eighty-seven, and was buried in the graveyard in the east village of Salisbury, Massachusetts. History must rank him among the wise, courageous and forceful leaders in the earliest colonization of New England.
After the departure of the Rev. John Wheelwright from Exeter a call was extended to the Rev. Stephen Bachiler, who had been dismissed from Hampton, but the General Court of Massachusetts told the people of Exeter in substance that because of divisions among them they were not fit to establish a church and select a minister, counseling delay. The Rev. Thomas Rashleigh officiated as minister about one year and it is probable that for some time Elder Hatevil Nutter went over regularly from Dover Neck to conduct religious services at Exeter. In 1650 the Rev. Samuel Dudley, son of Gov. Thomas Dudley of Massachusetts, was installed as minister at Exeter, where he remained many years and by three marriages was the father of fifteen children.
14 N. E. Reg. for 1914, pp. 64-80, and Wentworth Genealogy, Vol. I, pp. 71-78.
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NEW HAMPSHIRE
It is worthy of notice that Exeter differed from the other towns of early New Hampshire in this, that it was as distinctly a religious community at the beginning as was the Mayflower colony at Plymouth. The first settlers went to the falls of the Squamscot because of religious convictions. They were actu- ally driven out of Boston and vicinity in the same spirit in which Baptists and Quakers were persecuted later. The oaths taken by the Elders and the people in 1639 at Exeter, in which they solemnly pledge themselves to live in accordance with the will and word of God, ministering justice to workers of iniquity and lending encouragement to well doers, with no restrictions as to what creeds men might adopt or what forms of worship they should maintain, indicate a liberality little known and prac- ticed in Massachusetts at that time. The hardships of persecu- tion were too fresh in their memories to allow them to become persecutors of others. The oath taken by the people was as follows :-
Wee doe here sweare by the Great and dreadful name of ye high God, maker & Governr of Heaven & earth and by the Lord Jesus Xt ye King & Savior of his people that in his name and fear we will submit ourselves to be ruld & governed according to the will and word of God and such holsome Laws & ordinances as shall be derived theire from by our honrd Rulers and ye Lawfull assistance with the consent of ye people and yt we will be ready to assist them by the help of God in the administracon of Justice and prservacon of peace with our bodys and goods and best en- deavors according to God, so God protect & saue us and ours in Christ Jesus.
Here is an infant Christian democracy, based upon the teachings of the Bible. The very first settlers of Exeter seem to have been of one heart and mind. Only a few years later dissensions arose, perhaps because other settlers had come in who were of a different spirit and some of the original leaders had gone elsewhere, perhaps because the lust for land and wealth can change the character of a community in a very short time, making them grasping, uncharitable, and sticklers for religious creeds and forms. The same thing happened among the Puritans of Massachusetts, and this sort of history has been repeating itself from the beginning. The church that has ยท become rich and powerful and feels that it alone has the whole truth and is in need of nothing usually lacks about everything that pertains to a true Christian church. Material gains are placed above the freedom of the human spirit.
1
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A HISTORY
Like all the original townships the territory of Exeter was too large for the convenience of its inhabitants, when the town came to be widely and thickly populated. First the Squamscot Patent, that had been rated with Hampton and then with Exeter, became a town in 1716, under the name of Stratham. New- market was severed in 1727, from which South Newmarket was later divided. Epping was taken from Exeter in 1741, and Brentwood in 1742, from which the western part was divided in 1764 under the name of Poplin, changed in 1854 to Fremont.
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