USA > New Hampshire > History of New Hampshire, Volume I > Part 5
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Exeter had considerably more than one hundred families before 1680, and some of them have been prominent in the history of the town. Gilman, Dudley, Wadleigh, Folsom, Hall, Gordon, Ladd, Robinson, Thing, are names of families well known, all of which have furnished honored representatives.
The General Court of Massachusetts, under date of March 3, 1638, passed the following order, "That there shall be a plantacon setled at Wenicunnett & that Mr. Dummer & Mr. John Spencer shall have power to presse men to builde a house forthwith, in some convenient place, & what money they lay out aboute it shall be repaide them againe out of the tresury, or by those that come to inhabit there." Accordingly a house was built, probably within the limits of the present town of Sea- brook, "three large miles" north of the Merrimack river. This was afterward called the Bound House, and it was asserted that at that time Massachusetts claimed only to that limit, but the above cited record shows that the house was erected only as a mark of possession of Winnacunnet, for Massachusetts before that date had set up a claim for all the land covered by Mason's patents. The Bound House 15 was never intended as a boundary mark between New Hampshire and Massachusetts. They who wanted to establish such a divisional line gave the name to the house. It is said to have been built by Nicholas Easton, who later removed to Newport and built the first house there and became governor of Rhode Island. In September, 1638, the Court granted permission to begin a settlement at Winnacunnet to the following petitioners, viz., Rev. Stephen Bachiler, Chris-
15 "Asa W. Brown of Kensington, who has spent a great deal of time in looking up the early history of this section, located it on the high ground about fifty rods northwest from the old Perkins tide mill."-Hazlett's Hist. of Rockingham County, p. 473.
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topher Hussey, widow Mary Hussey, Thomas Cromwell, Samuel Skullard, John Osgood, John Crosse, Samuel Greenfield, John Moulton, Thomas Moulton, William Estow, William Palmer, William Sergant, Richard Swayne, William Sanders, Robert Tuck and diverse others. The settlers went by shallop and begun the settlement October 14, 1638. The following year the Rev. Timothy Dalton became associate pastor with the Rev. Stephen Bachiler, and Winnacunnet was granted town privi- leges, or incorporated. The next year the Indian name was given up and Hampton became the name of the town, suggested, it is thought, by Mr. Bachiler. The people of Exeter protested in vain against this encroachment upon lands they had bought of the sagamores. The Court at Boston ruled that Indians could sell only lands that they had improved, and that Massachusetts had begun a settlement at Winnacunnet before Wheelwright and his company went to Exeter. No practical difficulties arose, and the relations between the two towns were friendly. Small lots of ten acres and less were granted to the first settlers, .around the meeting house green and along the road therefrom to the landing on Hampton river. These were home lots, and farms of many acres were allotted here and there as need and merit demanded. The two ministers had three hundred acres apiece. John Cross and John Moulton, the two first representa- tives to the General Court, had two hundred and fifty acres apiece, and Christopher Hussey, son-in-law of Mr. Bachiler, had the same number. These, then, were the big men of the town. To him that hath shall be given. The town stretched along the coast from Colchester, the earliest name of Salisbury, to the southern part of Pascataqua, now known as Rye, and inland about thirty miles. Its original limits included the present towns of Hampton, North Hampton, Hampton Falls, a part of Seabrook, Kingston, East Kingston, Kensington, Danville, and a part of San- down. The towns of Newton and South Hampton afterward came within the limits of Hampton, when the line was fixed between New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
The Rev. Stephen Bachiler deserves notice as the founder of this town. He was born in England about 1561, went to Holland as a dissenter, came to Boston in 1632 and settled at Lynn as minister. He was the minister at Hampton from 1638 tto 1641, when he was excommunicated from the church, but he
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was restored two years later. We have noticed his call to Exeter at this time. He went to live at Portsmouth in 1647 and a few years later sailed for England, where he died at the age of one hundred. He was thrice married, his last wife, Mary, being widow of Robert Beadle of Kittery, Maine. He sued for divorce from her and failed to obtain it. She later got divorced from him and married Thomas Turner. Several children were born to him in England, and their descendants are many in America, but his daughter by his third marriage, Mary, who married William Richards of Portsmouth, has been overlooked in the genealogy of his descendants. He was evi- dently a man of learning, leadership and popular gifts as a minister. To found a town in a wilderness requires greater abilities than to sit idly on an inherited throne. 16
The settlers of the first four towns believed emphatically in home rule. Their Combinations were mutual consents to self- government. They were in effect little democratic republics, electing their own rulers and making their own laws. They were guided by the known laws and customs of England, adapted to new conditions. In their legislation they tried to express what seemed to the majority to be right. Nothing was done arbitrarily and in the spirit of tyranny. Yet their power was limited and some bold spirits defied their authority. They feared to try capital cases and appealed to Massachusetts to punish some offenders. At least this was the case in Dover, although Captain Thomas Wiggin was politically a Puritan and leaned toward the jurisdiction of the Bay Colony. He may have taken this course as a step toward union therewith. It is certain that the authorities in Boston felt that they had a trustworthy friend in Captain Wiggin and that he would do all in his power to get their claims recognized.
16 Dow's Hist. of Hampton, the Bachiler Genealogy, and N. H. Probate Records, Vol. I, p. 141.
Chapter III NEW HAMPSHIRE ABSORBED BY MASSACHUSETTS
Chapter III NEW HAMPSHIRE ABSORBED BY MASSACHUSETTS.
Boundary Line-Extravagant Claims of Massachusetts-Union under Puritan Rule-Early Magistrates-Appeal of the Discontented to Com- missioners-Some Desire Union with Maine-Humble Address of Massachusetts to the King-Report of Commissioners-Exclusiveness of the Puritans-Persecutions of Quakers-Their Doctrine of the Inner Light-Intolerance of Massachusetts-"Cursed Sect of Hereticks"- Major Waldern's Sentence of Quaker Women-Flogged at the Tail of a Cart-Rescued at Salisbury by Walter Barefoot-Quakeresses Dragged through Snow and Water-Alice Ambrose and Ann Coleman Invincible-Edward Wharton before Judge Wiggin-The Noble Army of Martyrs Found an Enduring Church-Norfolk County-Trials for Witchcraft-Scotchmen Sent by Oliver Cromwell from Dunbar and Worcester-Rev. Joshua Moody-Death of Capt. John Mason-Efforts of His Heirs to Sell the Province-Edward Randolph Hated by Massa- chusetts-Territorial Claims of the Puritans Disallowed-New Hamp- shire Free.
J OHN WINTHROP wrote in his Journal, October 11, 1638, "Capt. Wiggin of Pascataquack wrote to the Governor, that one of his people had stabbed another and desired he might be tried in the Bay if the party died. The Governor answered that if Pascataquack lay within their limits (as it was supposed), they would try him." Thus early had the men of Massachusetts Bay begun to claim more than belonged to them. Their charter gave them all those lands "which lie and be within the space of three English miles to the northward of the said river, called Monomack, alias Merrimack, or to the northward of any and every part thereof." When this charter was given, March 4, 1628-9, nobody doubted that the Merrimack river followed a west to east course. The grantees expected nothing more than the land that extended three miles to the north of the mouth of the river. When explorers learned that the Merrimack changed its course and ran far to the northward, avaricious land-grabbers and ambitious founders of a State saw an opportunity to enlarge their borders and gain extended territory. The claim grew till lands three miles north of the Merrimack came to mean all lands
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east of the Merrimack and also all lands west of the Merrimack, even to the Pacific ocean. No formal statement of their claim was made till the 31st of the 3rd month, 1652, when the General Court made this record,-"on Perusal of our charter it was this day voted by the whole Court, that the extent of the line is to be from the northermost part of ye River Merrimack & three miles more north, where it is to be found, be it an hundred miles, more or less, from the sea, & thence upon a streyght line east & west, to each sea, & this to be the true interpretation of the termes of the lymitt northward graunted in the patent." Accordingly Captain Simon Willard and Captain Edward John- son were appointed commissioners to determine the most north- erly part of the Merrimack. They employed John Sherman of Watertown and Jonathan Ince, a student in Harvard college, to make the survey. These went into the wilderness and found an outlet of Lake Winnepiseogee that flows into the Merrimack and selected a small island in the channel of the Weirs as the most northern part of the river, in latitude fifty-three degrees, forty minutes and twelve seconds. Here an inscribed rock has been found, called the Endicott Rock, having thereon the name of Governor John Endicott and the initials of the commissioners. A great blunder was made in not following up the other branch of the Merrimack and tracing the Pemigewasset up into the mountains of Franconia. Thus just as valid a claim could have been made to a greatly enlarged territory, but the wilderness was unexplored and the surveyors seemed satisfied with what could be easily reached. They determined the latitude August 1, 1652. Two years later Samuel Andrews and Jonathan Clarke of Cam- bridge, Massachusetts, were commissioned to determine the eastern end of the imaginary line on the northern boundary, and on the thirteenth day of October, 1654, they found it on the northernmost point of Upper Clapboard Island, about a quarter of a mile from the mainland, in Casco Bay, about four or five miles to the northward of Mr. Mackworth's house. 1
We have seen that the government of Massachusetts had already claimed and settled Hampton under this interpretation of their charter and had also claimed Exeter and thereby driven Mr. Wheelwright and some of his followers out of that town,
1 Records of Mass., Vol. III, pp. 274, 362.
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after they had bought it of sagamores and settled in it. The commissioners of 1652 and 1654 swept in all of New Hampshire then known and nearly all of the settled portions of Maine, which at that time they were persuading to voluntarily submit to their government, whereas their charter gave them no power to extend their jurisdiction even at the request of towns or combinations of settlers. It seems as though from the very beginning the leaders in Massachusetts were planning an exten sive and independent dominion, under the forms of a republic and the virtual control of a religious aristocracy. The hope and plan of the General Court are but lightly concealed in the follow- ing record, dated March 13, 1638-9, "Ordered that letters should be written to Capt. Wiggin, Capt. Champernowne, Mr. Williams, Mr. Edward Hilton, Mr. Treworthy & their neighbors, and Mr. Bartholomew to carry the same & have instructions." These were the leading men of Dover, Strawberry Bank and Exeter. 2
In 1639 a committee from Dover was sent to the General Court at Boston, proposing that Dover come under the juris- diction of Massachusetts. In fact the record says that there were three committees from Dover. It was the time when there were as many parties squabbling about affairs of town and church. The offer of these committees was eagerly accepted, and on the fifth of November the Deputy Governor, Emmanuel Downing and Captain Edmond Gibbons were appointed a com- mittee to treat with the men from Dover, with whom they did agree. After a year or more of agitation the patentees, who had bought out the men of Bristol and had held the so called Squam- scot Patent ten years, transferred their rights, or "passed a grant" of Dover and other tracts of land upon the river Pascataqua to the General Court, "to be forever annexed to this jurisdiction." This was done because the inhabitants residing within the limits of said grant had complained repeatedly "of the want of some good government amongst them and desired some help in this particular from the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Bay, whereby they may be ruled and ordered according unto God both in church and commonweal, and for the avoiding such insufferable disorders whereby God hath been much dishonored amongst us." This reads as though the sole intent of the parties
2 Records of Mass., Vol. I, p. 254.
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seeking this union were the greater glory of God and the bles- sings of firm and stable government. The longing for territorial enlargement is not mentioned, nor the Puritan's desire of rule. The gentlemen who made the transfer were George Willis, Robert Saltonstall, William Whiting, Edward Holliock, and Thomas Makepeace. These acted in behalf of the rest of the patentees. They transferred only the "power of jurisdiction or government," and they had no such power to transfer, for the courts of England afterward decided that the lands had been granted to Captain John Mason and that he and his heirs had no power of jurisdiction. The agreement was that the inhabitants on the Pascataqua should be ruled and ordered and have such liberties as other freemen of the Massachusetts government, and that they should have a court of justice with the same power as the courts at Salem and Ipswich had. The right to all the land on the south side of the Pascataqua and to one third of the land in the Dover part of the patent remained with the patentees. The record reads as though there were two distinct patents, while in fact the lands north and south of the river were origin- ally included in one patent.
Meanwhile the inhabitants of Strawberry Bank had ex- pressed their desire to come under the jurisdiction of Massachu- setts, as Hampton had been from the beginning of its settle- ment, and on the ninth day of the eighth month, 1641, the Gen- eral Court formally took under its government the whole region west of the Pascataqua, except Exeter. That town formally came under the agreement in 1643. The inhabitants were to have all the rights and privileges that belonged to the people of Massachusetts. They were also to have their own courts and to be exempt from all taxes except those levied for their own par- ticular benefit. They were to continue to fish, plant and fell timber as before. Commissioners from Massachusetts were sent to the court at Pascataqua to agree with the people about the appointment of magistrates, and those selected were Francis Williams, Thomas Wannerton and Ambrose Gibbons of Ports- mouth, Edward Hilton and Thomas Wiggin of Squamscot, and William Waldron of Cochecho. In 1642 an important article was added to the agreement, that "all the present inhabitants of Pascataquack, who formerly were free there, shall have liberty
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of freemen in their severall towns to manage al their town affairs & shall each town send a deputy to the General Court, though they be not at present Church members." The same privilege was accorded to the people of Maine in 1652. This concession to popular rights was not made in Massachusetts for a long time after, and there church and state were virtually one.
There were many who did not relish the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, especially those who were of the Church of Eng- land. The Puritan ministers that came down from Harvard college did not administer the sacraments without question to all applicants and in the manner desired. When commissioners were sent from England, in 1665, to inquire into the causes of dissentions and discontent in Maine and New Hampshire, peti- tioners from the four towns and especially from Portsmouth told the commissioners in writing, that "five or six of the richest men of this parish have ruled, swaied and ordered all officers, both civil and military, at their pleasure. None of your honor's petitioners, though loyal subjects and some of them well ac- quainted with the laws of England, durst make any opposition for fear of great fines or long imprisonment." They even state plainly who the five or six rich oppressors and autocrats were, namely, Mr. Joshua Moody, the minister of the parish, who was much interested and very influential in politics, Richard Cutt, John Cutt, Elias Styleman, Nathaniel Fryer and Bryan Pendleton. There can be no doubt that their charges were true. A little coterie of rich merchants of Portsmouth were the political bosses of the time, and it continued to be so for many years. Indeed this per- version of popular government has spread and increased down through the generations since. The education of the masses seems to be the only remedy. The petitioners go on to say that they have been kept under hard servitude, having been denied the Common Prayer Sacraments and decent burial of the dead, contrary to the laws of England and his Majesty's letter sent by Simon Bradstreet and John Norton in the year 1662. They further charge that the above mentioned offenders had kept possession of the offices and thus held in their power the distribution of land, whereby they had obtained large tracts of the best land and disowned grants made to others. Here was a
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political and economic contest between Puritans and Churchmen. Among the signers of this petition are found some of the most prominent and honored names of the colonists, such as Francis Champernowne, Abraham Corbet who was imprisoned for his opposition, John Pickering, John Sherburne, Mark Hunking, George Walton, Joseph Atkinson and Samuel Fernald. Thirty- two men of Portsmouth signed this petition. At about the same time another petition was addressed to the king, declaring that the authorities of Massachusetts had hindered the work of the commissioners and imploring that the towns of New Hampshire be joined to the province of Maine and brought under royal pro- tection. This petition was signed by sixty-one persons, includ- ing many of the names given above and also John Folsom of Exeter, Robert Burnham and twelve others of Oyster River, Thomas Roberts, Ralph Twombly, Thomas Hanson and others of Dover. There were no signers from Hampton, that town having been settled by Massachusetts people. 3
In 1667 Nicholas Shapleigh of Kittery, agent for the heirs of Captain John Mason, wrote to his patron that Captain Rich- ard Walderne and Peter Coffin of Dover and some others urged the inhabitants to stick to the government of Massachusetts be- cause they themselves had obtained great tracts of land and in the best places within Mason's patent. He, too, desired the union of Maine and New Hampshire and suggested the names of some who would be excellent councilors, modestly including his own name, such as Henry Jocelyn, Nicholas Shapleigh, Captain Francis Champernowne, Edward Hilton, Abraham Corbett and Thomas Footman. The last was an obscure man of Oyster River; the rest were well known opponents of the ambitious plans of the Massachusetts government.
In 1664 Massachusetts sent an obsequious address to the king, in which they speak of themselves as "poor subjects, who have removed themselves into a remote corner of the earth to enjoy peace with God and man." They say that "the high place you sustain on earth doth number you here among the gods," and therefore they implore him "to imitate the God of heaven, in be- ing ready to maintain the cause of the afflicted and the right of the poor and to receive their cries and addresses to that end."
3 N. H. State Papers, XVII, pp. 510-513.
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"The allknowing God knows our greatest ambition is to live a poor and quiet life, in a corner of the world, without offence to God and man. Wee came not into this wilderness to seeke great things to ourselves, and if any come after us to seeke them heere they will be disappointed. Wee keep ourselves within our line and meddle not with matters abroad; a just dependence upon and subjection to your Majestie according to our Charter, it is far from our hearts to disacknowledge." All this was in- tended as a sop to Cerberus, for they anticipated that the report of the commissioners above referred to would be to the disad- vantage of Massachusetts, being well aware of the critisisms and complaints of many in other colonies against them. The commissioners were Colonel Richard Nicolls, Sir Robert Carr, George Cartwright and Samuel Maverick. The last had former- ly lived at Noddle's Island, now East Boston, having come there some years before the arrival of Winthrop's fleet of emigrants. He knew the country well and the spirit of the people. What- ever had been the original purpose of the first emigrants to Mas- sachusetts, before 1665 there had arisen a spirit of independence, political ambition, exclusiveness in matters religious, and long- ing to increase their territory.
The report of the commissioners is highly interesting. Carr, Cartwright and Maverick visited Portsmouth and the province of Maine. They gathered facts and opinions; then they freed their minds to the governor and council of Massachusetts, under date of July 16, 1665. They assert that the Bound-House, three large miles north of the Merrimack river, determines the north- ern limit of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and answers all the false and fraudulent expositions of their charter. The people of that colony are cautioned not to be so much misled by the spirit of independency. "The King did not grant away his Soveraigntie over to you when he made you a Corporation. When his Majestie gave you power to make wholesome laws and to administer justice by them, he parted not with his right of judging whether those laws were wholesome, or whether justice was administered accordingly or no. When his Majes- tie gave you authority over such of his subjects as lived within the limits of your jurisdiction, he made them not your subjects nor you their supream authority. That prerogative certainly his Majestie reserved for himself, and this certainly you might
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have seen, if ambition and covetousness, or something as ill, had not darkened both your eyes." Then the governor and council are exhorted to clear themselves of "those many injustices, oppressions, violences and blood, for which you are complained against," and the conclusion is a home thrust at the pretended superior godliness of the people of the Bay. "Remember we pray you that you profess yourselves to be christians and pretend to be of the best sort. Pray make it appear that you are so, by your obedience to the King's authority, by your peaceableness towards your neighbors, and by your justice amongst yourselves, which are christian virtues, that men may see your good works and then &c."
It seems that even so early in the history of New England corporations assumed to themselves more powers and privileges than rightly belonged to them and needed to be reminded of their limitations. In every age those dressed in a little brief authority are too much inclined to act in an arbitrary and tyran- nical manner. Since the corporation has no soul, its members sometimes forget that they have souls and hence feel little sense of moral accountability. At that time their authority was all derived from the king, who might retract the powers conferred ; now the people, the common folks, confer authority upon dele- gated representatives. Officials and corporations are the ser- vants of the people who elected and made them, and public opinion often reminds such servants that they are not absolutely independent. They must serve the King.
That the commissioners were not alone nor unduly preju- diced in their judgment of the usurpations and offences of the rulers of Massachusetts is shown in a letter of Sir Richard Saltonstall to the Rev. Mr. Cotton. "It doth not a little grieve my spirit to heare what sad things are reported daily of your tyranny and persecutions in New England, as that you fyne, whip, and imprison men for their consciences." Their laws were based upon the Mosaic code, framed and interpreted by the ministers of the church, whose power was as great and as severely exercised as was that of John Calvin at Geneva. The largest ingredient of their zeal for God was love of authority. Loyalty to truth meant to them the forcing of their religious beliefs and practices upon others. The commissioners wrote home to England, "They will not admit any who is not a mem-
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