USA > New Hampshire > History of New Hampshire, from its first discovery to the year 1830; with dissertations upon the rise of opinions and institutions, the growth of agriculture and manufactures, and the influence of leading families and distinguished men, to the year 1874; > Part 3
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NEW HAMPSHIRE.
1620, granting all the lands between the fortieth and forty-eighth degree of North latitude, and from sea to sea. This territory was called "New England in America." The Council held this immense area " as absolute property, with unlimited jurisdiction and the sole power of legislation."
CHAPTER VIII.
COLONIES ANCIENT AND MODERN.
It was a beautiful custom of the Greeks to send from home their young adventurers, with a public consecration, under the guardianship of their tutelary divinities. The colonists departed as the children, not as the subjects, of the state. Their political relations at home were exchanged for those of filial affection and religious reverence abroad. They owed to their native land nothing but patriotism and allegiance. In their new homes they built temples and dedicated them to the gods their fathers wor- shiped, and honored them with ancestral rights. Priests from the metropolis ministered at the new altars. The sacred fire, that was kept constantly burning on the sacred hearth of the colony, was taken from the altar of Vesta in the Council Hall of their old home. The colonies often surpassed the parent state in wealth and commerce; and thus the mother received both honor and profit from the child. The colonial system of the Greek republics was, in every instance, a sort of family com- pact, limited in its scope and national in its purpose. Their motives were too low, their views too contracted, for the promo- tion of universal civilization. They did not emigrate, like our ancestors, to secure civil liberty or to enjoy religious freedom. There was nothing in the religion or culture of that age to in- spire high purposes or to create the energy necessary for their execution.
The colonies of Rome were purely military. Their sole ob- jects were power and dominion. Emigrants from Rome, se- lected by the government and forced from home, settled in the conquered provinces and governed them by force, exacting men for Roman armies and tribute for the Roman treasury. Extor- tion and rapacity followed in the train of conquering armies, and the provinces were often depleted and exhausted by Republican and Imperial indictions. Taxation and slavery ruined the coun-
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HISTORY OF
try ; and the heart of the metropolis beat more faintly as the extremities grew weaker. The colonies lived with the mother, flourished and fell with her. They were mere instruments of power, not agents of progress.
The dark ages had no colonies. It was the business of the lord to fight, of the serf to toil. There was no surplus popula- tion. War devoured the people and their substance, and there was no cogent reason for emigration. All known countries were alike; and, until free cities arose, liberty had no home in Eu- rope. After those causes which have already been enumerated had operated to awaken the public mind and stimulate enter- prise, modern colonies began to be formed. The Spaniards took the lead in the planting of colonies upon the newly discovered continent and islands. The West India settlements were made by them, for the investment of capital in large estates, to be cul- tivated by slaves. The owners seldom occupied the soil they cultivated ; and they did not feel at home on their own planta- tions. Like the Irish absentee land-owners, they lived in luxury at the capital or in foreign lands, and extorted the means of their enjoyment from their poor dependants by means of mid- dle-men or overseers. This fact accounts even for the present depressed condition of the West Indies. In Mexico and South America, they sought chiefly for the precious metals, and when mining became unprofitable their colonies declined.
The French colonies on this continent have never been very flourishing. They have increased in numbers and remained sta- tionary in culture. This is due partly to the influence of race, but still more to that of religion. The French population con- stitutes to-day the majority in Lower Canada. They are an ig- norant, bigoted and priest-ridden people, opposed to progress, material, moral and intellectual. They are averse to change in laws, customs and the processes of labor, even when it would be manifestly for their good. Their chief interest is in the church ; and education and legislation must yield to its dictation. This principle is the corner-stone of the papacy. Pius IX., the so- called Vicar of Christ upon earth, in his recent Encyclical letter, writes :
"Neither must we neglect to teach that royal power is given to some men not only for the government of the world, but, above all, for the protection of the church; and that nothing can be more advantageous or more glorious for kings and governors than to conform themselves to the words which our most wise and courageous predecessor, Saint Felix, wrote to the Emperor Zeno, 'to leave the church to govern herself with her own laws, and to allow no one to put any obstacle in the way of her liberty!' In fact, it is certain that it is for their interest, whenever they are concerned with matters relat- ing to God, scrupulously to follow the order which he has prescribed, and not to prefer but to subordinate the royal will to that of the priests of
1 Christ."
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NEW HAMPSHIRE.
The New England colonies differed, in origin, purpose and re- sults, from those of all other nations ancient and modern. The Pilgrims came to this country to make a permanent home. The motives that prompted their emigration were religious rather than secular. Not gain but godliness drove them into the wil- derness. In the words of the noblest orator among their de- scendants, "A new existence awaited them here ; and when they saw these shores, rough, cold, barbarous and barren, as they then were, they beheld their country. That mixed and strong feeling which we call love of country, and which is in general never ex- tinguished in the heart of man, grasped and embraced its proper object here. Whatever constitutes country, except the earth and the sun, all the moral causes of affection and attachment which operate upon the heart, they brought with them to their new abode."
The New England colonies were chiefly devoted to the culti- vation of the soil. This is the true secret of their unparalleled success ; for agriculture is the oldest of all arts, the parent of all civilization and the support of all permanent prosperity. The Creator ordained it in the beginning as the chief occupa- tion of man. Commerce and manufactures are its legitimate offspring. These elements of national greatness are the natural fruits of colonial industry. They have made the American peo- ple invincible ; for " a threefold cord is not easily broken."
CHAPTER IX.
EARLY EXPLORERS OF THE NEW ENGLAND COAST.
After the voyages of the Cabots, above described, the Por- tuguese Gaspar Cortereal, A. D. 1500, and the Florentine Ver- razzano, A. D. 1524, in the employment of the French visited the same coasts. . Thus was laid the foundation of a future quarrel respecting the title to these territories. In 1602, Bartholomew Gosnold, a bold adventurer from England, who had previously been a companion of Sir Walter Raleigh in his attempts to col- onize Virginia, sailed across the Atlantic in a small bark, and in seven weeks reached the continent near Nahant. He dis- covered Cape Cod and, with four men, landed upon it. This Cape was the first land in New England ever trod by the feet of men from old England. Gosnold planned a colony, but it failed.
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The French now became dangerous rivals of the English in ex- ploring these territories ; consequently a new love of adventure sprung up in our fatherland. Merchants of Bristol raised one thousand pounds and sent out two small vessels under the com- mand of Martin Pring, or Prynne, in April, 1603. Pring visited the coast of Maine and examined the mouths of the Saco, Ken- nebunk and York rivers. He also visited the Piscataqua, being the first navigator who approached the territory of New Hamp- shire. He saw "goodly groves and woods and sundry sorts of beasts, but no people." In his first voyage he commanded the Speedwell, a ship of fifty tons and thirty men, and the Discoverer, a bark of twenty-six tons and thirteen men. This visit was in June, and the wilderness was robed in its best attire. They explored the Piscataqua for twelve miles but concluded "to pierce not far into the land." Pring made a second voyage, and explor- ed more accurately the coast of Maine.
In 1605, some English noblemen sent out George Weymouth on an expedition of discovery. He visited the coast of Maine also, and decoyed on board five of the natives, whom he carried to England. Three of these Indians he gave to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, then governor of Plymouth. Gorges took them to his house and educated them, "for three full years, " that he might learn from them the history of their native land. Sir John Pop- ham, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, united with Gorges in fitting out a new expedition. In May, 1607, two ships sailed from Plymouth, with two of these Indians on board as guides and interpreters. They planted a colony whose brief history is more fully set forth in the next chapter. They named their first fort St. George. The celebrated French explorer, Champlain, is said to have visited the harbor of Piscataqua in July, 1605, and to have discovered the Isles of Shoals. He landed upon the shores of the river, probably at Odiorne's Point, which he called "Cape of Islands," and made presents to some savages whom he found there. If this report be authentic, he probably was the first white man who set foot upon the soil of New Hampshire ; for we have no evidence that Pring, in 1603, left his ship for the land.
The next adventurer that appears in the field of historical vis- ion, on the shores of New England, is the famous John Smith, whose whole biography surpasses the creations of the imagina- tion. He was from 1606 to 1615 the most illustrious of Ameri- can explorers. He claims, justly perhaps, "to have brought New England to the subjection of Great Britain." In 1614 he examined the coast from Penobscot to Cape Cod and made a map of the adjacent country, which he presented to Prince Charles, who adopted the name which Smith had given to it, and it was called "New England.". On this voyage he visited
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NEW HAMPSHIRE.
the mouth of the Piscataqua and described it as "a safe harbor and a rocky shore." Pring, as above related, entered the same river in 1603; but the greater fame of Smith gave more im- portance to his description and excited new interest in the lands he visited. Several years, however, elapsed before other explor- ers turned their prows to the same shores and entered the deep waters of the Piscataqua. Smith also discovered the Isles of Shoals and named them "Smith's Isles." This name ought to have been retained. The substitution of another robs the dis- coverer of his true glory and, as in the case of Columbus, gives to a subaltern the honor of the leader.
Capt. John Smith, himself the noblest of adventurers, says in his description of New England :
"Who would live at home idly, or think in himself any worth only to eat, drink and sleep, and so die ? or by consuming that carelessly his friends got worthily ? or by using that miserably that maintained virtue honestly? or, for being descended nobly, pine with the vain vaunt of great kindred, in penury ? or (to maintain a silly show of bravery) toil out thy heart, soul and time basely, by shifts, tricks, cards and dice ? or by relating news of others' actions shark here and there for a dinner or a supper, deceive thy friends by fair promises and dissimulation in borrowing where thou never intendest to pay, offend the laws, surfeit with excess, burden thy country, abuse thyself, despair in want and then cozen thy kindred, yea, even thine own brother, and wish thy parents' death ( I will not say damnation) to have their estates ? though thou seest what honors and rewards the world yet hath for those who will seek them and worthily deserve them."
CHAPTER X.
-
PROPRIETORS OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.
In every nation, community and tribe are found men of action and men of reflection, adventurers and quiet stayers-at-home. Those who emigrate explore new countries and subdue them, found new states and govern them. Such men are usually pro- gressive. Among them have been found the heroes, law-givers, inventors and discoverers of the world. The passive members of the household or state, who prefer to " abide by the stuff, " repair and adorn the old homesteads, till their "natal soil " and live on its fruits, promote the arts of peace and accumulate wealth. Both classes are necessary to the highest civilization. The discovery of a new continent stirred the ocean of life, through all christen- dom, to its very depths. All classes were seized with the " ac- cursed hunger of gold." Kings and nobles were moved by
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HISTORY OF
ambition as well as avarice. In England, merchants, traders, factors and adventurers sought to found families and acquire landed estates. Even the pauper and criminal classes were swept into the great western tide. Like David of old, each leader had his retainers. "Every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discon- tented, gathered themselves unto him, and he became captain over them."
Sir Humphrey Gilbert first attempted the colonization of Amer- ica, but failed to make a permanent settlement. Sir Walter Ra- leigh and Sir Richard Grenville were likewise unsuccessful. Sir Ferdinando Gorges is by many regarded as "the Father of English Colonization in America." The voyages of Gosnold in 1602, of Pring in 1603, and of Weymouth in 1605, were under the guidance and patronage of Gorges. As early as 1606, through his influence a charter was obtained of King James, under whose authority he planted a colony at the mouth of the Sagadahoc, now Kennebec, of which George Popham, brother of the Chief Justice of England, was president. It was named Popham in honor of the chief justice, who with Gorges was greatly instrumental in procuring the charter, though their own names did not appear in it. Two ships and one hundred and twenty men sailed from Old Plymouth, England, May 31, 1607, O. S., to plant a colony on the coast of Maine. The charter under which these planters acted gave to them "the continent of North America, from the thirty-fourth to the forty-fifth degree of north latitude, extending one hundred miles into the main land, and including all islands of the sea within one hundred miles of the shore."
Gorges and the Earl of South Hampton petitioned for the charter. . It was granted to "the Council of Virginia." No copy remains. This charter took precedence of all others. This col- ony failed, the governor died within a year of his landing, and the colonists returned to England in 1608, in a ship of their own building, the first ship built on this continent. This colony, so brief in duration, was of great importance to England, because it gave to the government the plea of title by occupancy prior to the French. Gorges says: "The planting of colonies in America was undertaken for the advancement of religion, the enlargement of the bounds of our nation and the employment of many thousands of all sorts of people." It is doubted to this day, whether profit or piety, gain or godliness, was the stronger motive in Gorges. Mr. Poor, his eulogist, gives him the credit of planting Plymouth. He obtained a charter for the Pilgrims November 3, 1620. They sailed under the Virginia charter, and Gorges sent the new one to them. Ferdinando
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NEW HAMPSHIRE.
Gorges and John Mason were active members of the Council of Plymouth. Gorges was a man of superior intellect and daunt- less courage. During the reign of Elizabeth he was associated with Raleigh, the scholar, statesman, warrior and "flower of courtesy," in his attempts at colonizing Virginia. He was also the friend of Essex, who was first the object of the queen's love, then the victim of her rage. Gorges was involved in some of the illegal plots of Essex and, like Bacon, whom Pope calls "The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind,"
became the accuser of his benefactor and thus lost favor with the people. In 1604 he was made Governor of Plymouth, in Eng- land. Here his restless spirit chafed in confinement. He had his eye constantly fixed on the New World. Through his agency John Smith was employed, by the Council of Plymouth, to ex- plore New England. Gorges also fitted out an expedition of his own, "under color of fishing and trade, " commanded by Richard Vines, in 1616, to gain more accurate knowledge of the country and its inhabitants. "This course, " says Gorges, "I held some years together, but nothing to my private profit ; for what I got in one way I spent in another, so that I began to grow weary of that business, as not for my turn till better times." Into these few lines is crowded the history of many noble enterprises, planned by wise heads and executed by brave hearts, which yielded no profit to the originators but greatly en- riched posterity.
While Gorges was becoming despondent, under repeated losses, he became acquainted with Captain John Mason, who had been Governor of Newfoundland, who was also "a man of action " and a kindred spirit. The union of these leaders kindled new enthusiasm. They immediately sought and obtained a grant of land in New England, to be the basis of their pro- spective nobility. Copies of several charters still exist, differ- ing in dates and origin, both from the king and Council of Ply- mouth, covering territory which included a large portion of New Hampshire as it is now bounded. Dr. Belknap quotes one which granted "all the land from the river Naumkeag, now Salem, round Cape Ann, to the river Merrimack ; and up each of those rivers to the farthest head thereof ; then to cross over from the head of the one to the head of the other, with all the islands lying within three miles of the coast." This grant shows the profound ignorance of the geography of the country, both of grantors and grantees. They doubtless thought that the Naun- keag had its origin far in the interior of the country, and that the Merrimack through its whole course flowed eastward. The territory thus granted was called MARIANA, probably meaning the sea-board. The usual mode of describing territory in those
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HISTORY OF
charters was to make the coast between the mouths of two riv- ers the southern boundery, then follow up those rivers sixty miles for the eastern and western boundaries, then unite these two points in the rivers by a straight line to complete the de- scription. So "the Province of Maine " was granted by King James to Gorges and Mason, on the tenth of August, 1622, bounded by the rivers Sagadahoc, now Kennebec, and the Merrimack. A patent from the Council of Plymouth, of the same date, covering the same territory, is said to be in existence. Mr. Palfrey says : "In the same year [1622] the Council granted to Gorges and Mason the country bounded by the Merrimack, the Kennebec, the ocean and the river of Canada, and this territory was called LACONIA." It was so named from the lakes lying within these boundaries. By other historians it is said to extend "back to the great lakes and the river of Canada." What lakes are meant by this vague description it is imposible to say ; nor can the limits of that grant be determined. The Council gave what they never owned, set bounds which had never been seen, fixed lines that had never been surveyed and laid the foundation for countless quarrels in future years. Under such auspices the colonization of New Hampshire commenced.
CHAPTER XI.
FIRST SETTLERS OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.
Soon after the grant of Laconia was made to Mason and Gorges, they united with themselves merchants from six of the principal cities of England and formed the "Company of La- conia." They resolved to plant a colony on the Piscataqua river to mine, trade and fish there. In the Spring of 1623 they sent over several persons, with provisions and tools of every descrip- tion necessary to make a permanent home. The exact date of their arrival can not be ascertained. "No glories blaze round the bark of the earliest dwellers at Piscataquack." Even the name of the captain of that "nameless bark" is lost. The State of New Hampshire lives to prove his existence. Among the first immigrants were David Thompson, a Scotchman, and Edward and William Hilton, who had been fishmongers of Lon- don. This company of settlers formed two divisions. Thomp- son and his men made their home near the mouth of the westerly
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branch of the Piscataqua, where "Little Harbor" opens into " the great and wide sea."
On Odiorne's Point, near "Little Harbor, " the first framed house erected in the state was built. The first settlers were sent by the Laconia Company, "to found a plantation on Pis- cataqua river, to cultivate the vine, discover mines, carry on the fisheries, and trade with the natives." The house first built, un- der the direction of David Thompson, was called "The Manor House ;" afterward, "Mason Hall." The cellar and well still exist, to tell their own story. At the second Portsmouth cen- tennial, in 1823, Mr. Haven said :
"Two hundred years ago, the place on which we stand was an uncultivated forest. The rough and vigorous soil was still covered with stately trees, which had been for ages intermingling their branches and deepening their shade. The river, which now bears on its bright and pure waters the treas- ures of distant climates, and whose rapid current is stemmed and vexed by the arts and enterprise of man, then only rippled against the rocks and re- flected back the wild and grotesque thickets which overhung its banks. The mountain, which now swells on our left and raises its verdant sides 'shade above shade,' was then almost concealed by the lofty growth which covered the intervening plains. Behind us, a deep morass, extending across the northern creek, almost enclosed the little 'Bank' which is now the seat of so much life and industry."
From a beautiful poetic apostrophe to this ancient stream, I will quote a single stanza :
"Through how many rolling ages Have thy waters, broad and free, In their grandeur and their beauty, Swept their current to the sea! Thou hast seen the tangled wildwood, Where the lonely wigwam rose ; Thou hast echoed the wild war-whoop When red inen met their foes! "
These noble words, with the voice of the "sounding sea," which now rolls "such as creation saw her, " (for
"Time writes no wrinkles on her azure brow, ")
carry us back, not merely to the infancy of our republic, but to the first "upheaval " of our continent. It is enough, however, to stand where our ancestors first landed, and commenced the im- proving labors of ages yet to come and generations yet unborn.
In 1631, "the Great House " was built by Humphrey Chad- bourne, about three miles up the Piscataqua from "Mason Hall." The ground was then covered with strawberries, which circumstance, for thirty years, caused that territory on which the compact part of the city is now built to be called "Strawberry Bank." This house was also the property of John Mason. In 1646 it passed into the hands of Richard Cutt ; and at his de- cease, in 1676, it became the property of his brother, President John Cutt, who, in 1680, bequeathed it to his son Samuel. In 1685 it was in ruins. So fell "the Great House."
3
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HISTORY OF
On the north side of Little Harbor still stands the house of Benning Wentworth, who was for twenty-five years Governor of the Royal Province of New Hampshire. It is a very irregular old pile, apparently built in several parts, rising one above an- other, or attached as L's to the original structure. There are in the house several very valuable pictures, handed down as heir- looms to the descendants of the first owner. There is a good portrait of the Earl of Strafford, who was beheaded in the time of Charles I. It is copied from an original painting by Van- dyck. The face is a very striking one, showing the energy, de- cision and severity characteristic of the man. He was one of the "great men" of that century, though, unfortunately, the sup- porter of an imbecile and treacherous king. There is also a full-length likeness of Richard Waldron, jr., the son of that brave old man who at Dover was hacked to pieces by the In- dians. Mrs. Hancock, likewise, graces those old and crumbling walls, with a face and figure as beautiful and graceful as Hebe.
Mr. Brewster, in his " Rambles about Portsmouth," has given us the best description extant of the early settlement of that city. He writes as follows :
"A few rods southwest of the fort, at Odiorne's Point, they erected their fish flakes, which gave the name of Flake Hill to the knoll. During the first few years of the existence of the colony, the people suffered every hardship; and, not being acclimated, many of them were carried off by disease. The graves of such are still to be seen, a few rods north of the site of the fort; and it is worthy of remark that the moss-covered cobble-stones at the head and foot of the graves still remain as placed by mourners two hundred and fifty years ago, while a walnut and a pear tree, each of immense size, and possibly of equal age with our state, stand like sturdy sentinels, extending their ancient arms over the sleepers below."
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