USA > New Hampshire > History of New Hampshire, Volume II > Part 4
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ported that "they find no damages done his body or estate," and the petition was dismissed.7 He afterwards went to Eng- land and obtained the office of collector of customs.
At the same time that the Stamp Act was repealed an act was passed in parliament, declaring that "the Colonies and Plantations in America have been, are, and of Right ought to be subordinate unto and dependent upon the Imperial Crown and Parliament of Great Britain," who had right to make laws and statutes of sufficient force to bind the colonies and people of America, and that any votes, orders and proceedings to the contrary in the colonies are utterly null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever. The repeal was a matter of ex- pediency only. The opposing principles remained the same in the minds of English rulers and of American colonists.
The granting of charters and incorporation of new towns went on briskly after hostilities ceased. In 1760 Bath was in- corporated; in 1761, Campton, Canaan, Dorchester, Enfield, Goffstown, Grantham, Groton, Hanover, Holderness, Lebanon, Lempster, Lyman, Lyme, Marlow, Newport, Orford, Plain- field and Rumney; in 1763, New Boston, Haverhill, Croydon, Cornish, Thornton, Warren, Plymouth, Lancaster, Alstead, Peeling, Sandwich, Candia, Gilsum and Wentworth; in 1764, Claremont, Unity, Lincoln, Coventry, Franconia, Poplin, Lynde- borough, Weare, Piermont and Newington; in 1765, Raymond, Conway, Concord, Dunbarton and Hopkinton; in 1766, Deer- field, Burton, Eaton, Tamworth and Acworth. Some of these have been already mentioned, as well as other towns previously granted but incorporated at this time. The usual grant of five hundred acres to the Governor and of shares to his Portsmouth relatives and friends appears in these town charters. In some cases settlement did not immediately begin, and their charters lapsed, or were renewed later.
Claremont is the first town on the Connecticut river above Charlestown, or old Number 4. It was granted to Colonel Josiah Willard, Samuel Ashley and sixty-seven others October 26, 1764. The first meeting of the proprietors was held in Winchester, where some of them lived. It is written that Joseph Blanchard went up the Connecticut river by boat and
7 N. H. Prov. Papers, XVIII., 571-3.
ELEAZER WHEELOCK First Pastor of College Church at Hanover
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at distances of six miles spotted trees, to be boundary marks of new ownships. Claremont was named from the country seat of Lord Clive, in England. The first settlers were Moses Spof- ford and David Lynde, in 1762. Of all the grantees only three, named Ashley, ever settled in this town. Some came from old towns in Connecticut. A large water power on Sugar River has led to the development of manufactures of a varied char- acter.
The next town north is Cornish, incorporated June 21, 1763. It was granted to the Rev. Samuel McClintock of Green- land and sixty-nine others, among whom are recognized many Portsmouth names. Only a few of the grantees settled here. The first to come were Deacon Dudley Chase and emigrants from Sutton, Massachusetts.
Next north of Cornish, on the Connecticut river, is Plain- field, granted August 14, 1761, to Benjamin Hutchins and sixty- five others, many of them from Plainfield, Conn., for which this town was named. Portions of the town, with part of the adjoining town of Grantham, were made a parish, called Meri- den, June 23, 1780. Within this parish is situated Kimball Union Academy, incorporated June 16, 1813, endowed by Hon. Daniel Kimball with $40,000. This is one of the best literary institutions of the State.
Lebanon was the first town to be settled north of Charles- town. It was granted, July 4, 1761, to persons from Lebanon and other towns in Connecticut. Among the first settlers were William Dana, Silas Waterman, William Downer, Nathaniel Porter, Oliver Davidson, Elijah Dewey and Jairus Jones. It has been a very prosperous town by reason of its manufactures and agriculture. Lead, iron and copper have been found here.
Hanover was granted July 4, 1761, to Edmund Freeman and others who came from Mansfield and other towns in Con- necticut. Benjamin Davis and Benjamin Rice came in 1762. Dartmouth College was established here in 1770, when the Rev. Eleazar Wheelock brought his household, school and some neighbors from Lebanon, Connecticut, a company of seventy persons driving before them a drove of hogs. The college has made the town. Hanover Plains was formerly called Dresden.
Lyme, named from a town of the same name in Connecti-
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cut, was granted July 8, 1761, to John Thompson and others. A settlement was begun in 1764 by William and John Sloan and Walter Fairfield. In 1770 there were twenty-one families in town.
Orford was granted, September 25, 1761, to Jonathan Moul- ton and others. The first settlers came from Connecticut. Among them were Daniel Cross, General Israel Morey and John Mann, who came in 1765.
Piermont was granted, November 6, 1764, to members of the House of Representatives, with other prominent men of Portsmouth. The House saw that the councilors and other friends of the governor were getting numerous grants of land and so made a request that they also have a share in the dis- tribution.8 Among the grantees twelve had the title Honor- able, nine had military titles and twenty-eight were Esquires. The first settlement was made in 1768 by Daniel Tyler, Levi Root, and Ebenezer White.
Haverhill was settled by people from Haverhill, Massa- chusetts, and vicinity. It was granted by charter, May 18, 1763, to seventy-five persons. The leading men in the early development of the town were General Jacob Bailey, who came from Newbury, Massachusetts, and Capt. John Hazen. The first settlers were Michael Johnston and John Pattee from Haverhill, Mass. Here began the famous Coos meadows, cleared and cultivated by Indians long before Captain Peter Powers of Hollis led his exploring expedition hither, in 1754. The windings of the Connecticut river gave the intervales the name Ox Bow.
Benton is a mountainous and agricultural town, lying between Haverhill and Woodstock. It was granted, January 31, 1764, to Theophilus Fitch and sixty-four others chiefly of Stamford and Norwalk, Connecticut. None of them settled in the town, then called Coventry. The name was changed to Benton December 4, 1840, in honor of Hon. Thomas H. Benton. Before the end of the eighteenth century the shares of the original grantees had been purchased, and General Nathaniel Peabody had thirty-four of them. The first settlers were Ephraim, Rachel and Silas Lund, Josiah Burnham and Pelatiah
8 N. H. Prov. Papers, VII., 56.
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Watson, who came about 1777. Leading men in the develop- ment of the town were Major Jonathan Hale and Obadiah East- man. In 1790 the population of the town was only eighty. A prominent man was William Whitcher, son of Chas. Whitcher of Warren and of the fourth generation from Thomas Whittier of Newbury and Haverhill, Massachusetts. He was justice of the peace, holder of almost all the town offices and father of sixteen children, besides being a local preacher in the Methodist church and preaching in barns, school houses and wherever he could find opportunity. At this time there was no church edifice in the town. As late as 1835 it was still a backwoods town, without post office or store, with poor roads and schools and about four hundred people. The people were struggling with poverty and developing great character and strength.
The principal mountain is Moosehillock, called by the Indians Moosilauke. A carriage road from Warren leads to the Prospect House at the top. Here the view is said to be about the broadest and finest in New England. Parts of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York and Canada may be seen. On a clear day there are in view more than a thousand peaks of the White Mountains, Green Mountains and Adirondacks, several rivers and forty lakes, with a glimpse of the ocean. The mountain is five thousand feet high. A rail- road passes through the southern part of the town, which seems destined to become a famous summer resort. Minerals abound such as garnets an inch in diameter, tourmalines, quartz crystals, lead and copper ores and marble.
Of these towns along the eastern bank of the Connecticut river more must be said in the history of the Vermont Contro- versy. The intervales were specially fertile and easily cultivated, and settlers came in rapidly, on horseback along an old Indian trail, or in boats and canoes, carrying around the rapids and falls of the river. Further north, Bath, Lyman, Littleton, Dal- ton and Lancaster were settled a little later by enterprising people of the lower towns. At the same time the western bank of the river and neighboring intervales were being settled, chiefly by colonists from Connecticut. Both sides of the river formed one growing settlement, and it is not surprising that they wished to belong to the same State. Bordering upon the New Hamp-
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shire tier of towns was another, granted about the same time but settled a little later, after the river lands had been taken. This tier, beginning at the south, consisted of Alstead, Marlow, Acworth, Unity, Croydon, Grantham, Springfield, Enfield, Canaan, Dorchester, Wentworth, Warren, Benton, Landaff, and Lisbon, towns devoted to agriculture, sheep-raising, lumbering, some manufactures and especially the making of noble men and women.
Governor Benning Wentworth had been in office twenty-five years and was getting old and infirm. Some aspirants thought he ought to be removed to make a place for some other. More- over, complaints were made about certain features of his administration. The nature of these complaints can only be in- ferred from the response to them, made by his nephew, John Wentworth, his successor in the governorship, who was in 1765 acting as one of the agents of New Hampshire in London. The defense was addressed to the Marquis of Rockingham. The charge of neglect of correspondence is answered by allusion to the governor's physical infirmity, the gout, and the uncertainty of conveyance of despatches sent by ship-masters. The second charge was his numerous grants of townships, with too vague a reservation of pine trees. To this the answer was that the object of granting crown lands to companies of sixty or eighty men was the speedy settlement of the province; that the conditions of clearing the land, building roads, erecting a meeting house and settling a certain number of families within a stated time, never longer than twelve years and the time prolonged by reason of the Indian wars, must be fulfilled, or the lands granted reverted to the crown. Thus the governor was only doing his duty and merited praise rather than blame. The third objection was more serious and more difficult to answer. It was, that the governor had received large sums for such grants, a reservation to himself of five hundred acres in each township, and the same names were inserted in different grants. John Wentworth replied to only a part of this. He could see no impropriety in the governor's reserving to himself five hundred acres in each township. "As he has not granted any particular privileges or exemptions to his part, he must comply with the general con- ditions that other grantees do, and consequently be as useful as
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any other of them in promoting the cultivation of the wilder- ness; if this is effected, the end of government seems to be answered, & it cannot possibly be of any consequence in which of his majesty's subjects the property is vested, unless any one man has so much as to make him the object of future apprehen- sion; against which distant inconvenience his attention to the interest of that country, as well as this, has also provided; by not granting large tracts to any single person; for it is very evident, that having small estates in different parts of the country will never give great power or influence; I confess it is beyond my penetration, why a governor who has served his Majesty faithfully & honorably 27 years, with a most inconsid- erable precarious allowance from the impoverished colonists, should be the only one of his subjects excluded from the expected benefit of these lands, under such beneficial terms to the crown & community, or how this could be made or accepted seriously as a complaint." This looks like an evasion of the real issue and is not in harmony with the position subsequently taken by the writer, when as governor he claimed that the lands granted by Governor Benning Wentworth to himself were after his death the property of the king and could be regranted to others. Neither does he state the facts accurately in saying that the conditions of the governor's grants to himself were the same as his grants to others. His reservations of five hundred acres were always tacked on to the town charters and were not subject to any conditions. It is inconceivable that he ever intended to make any improvements or pay any taxes on such reservations in about one hundred and seventy-five towns. He intended, like the Masonian proprietors, to let others make the roads and clear and settle the lands, while he would gain the unearned increment in the future sale of his reservations. A few of them he sold, but his death and the political revolution pre- vented the fulfillment of his designs. He had more acres than most of the English nobility, and it was rather to his advantage that they were scattered in so many townships, where increase of population was sure to enhance their market price.
As for the complaint that the governor had received large sums for the grants he made it was replied that "of some he received no fees of office, and of others only such as their
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restricted circumstances admitted without inconvenience," "too trifling to merit his attention, much more to prevail on him to do wrong." This is too indefinite. The governor built and furnished an expensive mansion, and the registry of deeds shows that he bought more land. One tract was an island in Island Pond, Hampstead, consisting of three hundred and fifty acres, where tradition says he had a house, whose ruins are now pointed out, but it is quite improbable that he ever dwelt there even for a short time. The property was in his name for over thirty years. The inconsiderable precarious allowance made to him by impoverished colonists, together with his income as surveyor of the King's woods and his fees of office, made him one of the wealthiest men in the province, and when it was found that he had willed all his property to his young wife, all his children having died, there was disappointment among other near relatives, particularly in the breast of the succeeding governor, who hoped and sought to get all those five hundred acre lots for himself.
As for the same names appearing many times in different grants, his explanation was, that "the head of a family may have four, five, or six children and as many white servants. He therefore gets his own name inserted as a grantee in as many townships, and as these people grow to a proper age, they are settled by his assistance, on these respective lots, none of them exceeding 360 acres, but a small reward at last, for a life of hard labor and danger in a wilderness, remote from the pleas- ures and conveniences of society." This statement contradicts the facts. Theodore Atkinson, brother-in-law of the governor, and his son had grants in scores of towns, and even after the death of this, his only son, the name of the father appears among the grantees of towns. Scarcely one of the men of Portsmouth, whose names appear so often in the grants of townships, had any intention of settling a son or a servant on lands thus obtained. Indeed not five per cent. of all the grantees ever did settle on the lands granted. They were simply land-grabbers and speculators. They sold out as soon as they could to real settlers.
Some thought that all pine trees should have been reserved, in the town charters. Mr. Wentworth shows that in such case
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little land could have been cleared, and that some pine trees were of as little use for masts as apple and peach trees.
It comes out also in this defense of the governor that he had appointed three of his relatives to lucrative positions, that Theodore Atkinson and his son were two of the four deputies of the king's surveyor, and that the governor's brother, Mark Hunking Wentworth, father of the writer, was agent to the mast contract and the heaviest tax-payer in the province. The defense of the character and conduct of governor Benning Went- worth was a well meant expression of family respect, with no hope of securing for the governor further continuance in office. By what evidences the complaints against him were supported we have no means of knowing, but they were sufficient to per- suade the powers in London, that a change was advisable. Indeed John Wentworth, when he wrote this defense, must have known that he himself was the logical candidate as successor to his uncle in the governorship. Benning Wentworth was per- mitted to resign in favor of his nephew,-an air-cushion to soften the force of his fall. This was in 1766, though the new governor did not arrive at Portsmouth till the following year. Governor Benning Wentworth died in his home at Little Harbor, October 14, 1770, aged seventy-five.7
Upon the governor's announcement to the House that his successor had been appointed, that body generously sent to him the following response :
The House in the Name & Behalf of their constitutents would take the occasion to express their gratitude and give you their hearty thanks for all the signal services you have done this Province in the course of your admin- istration and during the long time you have with such Reputation & Honor fill'd the Chair; for the steady administration of Justice, the quiet enjoy- ment of Property, the Civil and Religious Liberties and Priviledges his Majesty's good subjects of this Province have experienced and Possess'd during this Period.
That mildness and moderation with which you have conducted the Publick affairs justly Demand our acknowledgements; and we esteem it a peculiar felicity that by this means under the Divine Providence the Govern- ment has long been in a Peaceable state, and a good harmony subsisted among the several Branches; and it will doubtless furnish your Excellency with very pleasing Reflections that you quit the care & Burdens of Govern-
7 N. H. State Papers, XVIII. pp. 560-7.
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ment and Resign the Direction of the Publick Affairs of the Province over which you have so long presided under such an agreeable situation.
We have only to add, That we sincerely wish your Excellency all the ease arising from Retirement from Business and the Pleasure Resulting from a Virtuous, Quiet Life.8
Speak nothing but good of the dead. The House could not have said so much in praise of Benning Wentworth earlier in his administration, when for two years there was a deadlock between them on a question of their respective rights and powers. He was an aristocrat, and his sympathies were with the wealthy class. The Stamp Act called forth from him no word of protest, neither did he openly oppose the people in their mob-like hostility to that act. He was too old and cautious to take sides with either party. He would not endanger his posi- tion in the favor of the king, nor would he willingly offend the masses of the people, among whom were many neighbors, relatives and friends. Therefore he never uttered a word against British encroachments on the liberties of the colonists. His tenacious maintenance of the prerogatives of the crown, vested in himself as governor, was overlooked and forgotten in the long French and Indian wars, which absorbed public attention. We read of no acts proposed by him, except such as the stress of the times demanded. If the king's councilors asked for more troops and supplies, he urged the House to raise them. He looked after the only fort, which was never molested, and the masts for the royal navy. There are numerous requests from him for a Provincial House, or governor's residence, and a State House for the Assembly. His greatest activity was in the granting of townships, in which his private interest was so prominent as to overshadow his zeal for the public good, and he was accused of favoring applicants from Massachusetts and Connecticut more than those from his own province. His reply was that the former were better agriculturalists. When almost all the inhabitants of the province were of the Congregational and Presbyterian order, he sought by unfair means to provide for the extension of the denomination to which he belonged, the Church of England. It can not be well denied, that in appoint- ments to office he specially favored the Wentworth and allied
8 N. H. Prov. Papers, VII. p. 116.
ARIT
GOVERNOR BENNING WENTWORTH
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families, preferring men of wealth to men of brains and inde- pendent spirit. His will contains no benefactions for the public good. He can not be called a special friend of education. He opposed the plan for a College, unless it were put under the control of the bishop of London. Later he gave to Dartmouth College the five hundred acres of land that he had reserved for himself in the charter of Hanover. In private life and in bus- iness dealings he was honorable and just. The number of justices of the peace appointed by him,-twenty-five in Ports- mouth alone in the first commissions he issued,-became a matter of jest and satirical verse. His dignity was learned by association in early life with Spaniards and was assumed, rather than inborn and masterful. His hospitality was generous and becoming to his station. His messages and correspondence, wherein he may have been assisted by his brother-in-law, Theodore Atkinson, Secretary of State, show good style and diction. Dr. Belknap concludes his estimate of the governor in these words. "The aim of most of those gentlemen who received their appointments from abroad was rather to please their masters and secure the emoluments of their offices, than to extend benefits to the people, or condescend to their prejudices. They did not feel their dependence on them as the source of power, nor their responsibility to them for its exercise."
Chapter III ADMINISTRATION OF JOHN WENTWORTH THE SECOND
Chapter III ADMINISTRATION OF JOHN WENTWORTH THE SECOND.
GATHERING OF THE STORM.
Reception of Governor John Wentworth-His Farm at Wolfeborough- Founding of Dartmouth College-Census of 1767 and of 1773-Division of the Province into Five Counties-Subsequent Counties-New Towns Chartered-Complaints of Peter Livius against the Governor-The Com- plaints Verified but the Governor Vindicated-Holland's Survey of New Hampshire-First Committee of Correspondence-Duty on Tea Resisted -Portsmouth Resolutions-Two Cargoes of Tea Reshipped to Halifax -The Assembly Dissolved by the Governor-They Continue to Act- Provincial Congress at Exeter-Contributions for the Poor in Boston- Message of Cheer Sent from Durham-Unpopular Action of the Gov- ernor-Message of Paul Revere-Capture of Powder and Guns at Fort William and Mary-Proclamation by the Governor-Second Provincial Congress-The Ships Scarborough and Canceau in the Harbor-Lord North's Conciliatory Proposition-The Assembly Rejects Three Deputies -Governor's Message to the House-Colonel John Fenton's Arrest- The Governor Seeks Safety at the Fort-His Journeyings till He Reaches England-Residence at Halifax as Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia-Character of Governor John Wentworth.
T HE new governor rivaled in popularity his grandfather of the same name and far excelled his uncle, who had been permitted to resign in his favor. The illustrious family of Wentworth has had no worthier representative than he was. The date of his birth is not known, but he was baptized August 14, 1736, in Portsmouth, son of Mark Hunking and Elizabeth (Rindge) Wentworth, grandson of John Rindge, Councilor, who had advanced his own money to obtain a settlement of the boundary dispute in 1741 and was never reimbursed, so far as any record goes. He graduated at Harvard College in 1755 and received the degree of Master of Arts three years later from the same institution. His training after that was for a mercantile life, but his tastes led him to agriculture. He was acting as one of the agents of the province while his uncle's dismission was under consideration in London and there had
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opportunity to form the acquaintance of influential men in the English government. His efforts contributed to the repeal of the Stamp Act and showed where his sympathies were at that time. On the eleventh of August, 1766, he was appointed governor of New Hampshire and at the same time surveyor of the king's woods in America. He sailed for Charleston, South Carolina, the following March and thence proceeded to Ports- mouth, registering his commission as surveyor in the colonies through which he passed. He arrived in Portsmouth at one o'clock, on the thirteenth of June, and his Majesty's Council were assembled in the council chamber of the "Town House," by which is meant the new State House, to receive him. Two troops of horse escorted him, and a regiment of militia was drawn up on the Parade, awaiting his arrival. Here, probably from the balcony at the east end of the State House, was read his commission to a vast concourse of people, and his com- mission as Vice Admiral was also proclaimed. His Excellency then issued a proclamation, empowering all officers civil and military to continue in office till further notice. Then the cannon began to roar at fort William and Mary and from a special battery erected in the town. Three volleys of small arms were fired by the militia and three huzzas were given by the multi- tude, after which there was a banquet for the "Council, the Magistrates, and a great number of gentlemen." The bill for this reception was paid the following year, amounting to one hundred and seventy-five pounds.1
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