History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 12

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis
Number of Pages: 1714


USA > New Hampshire > Strafford County > History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 12
USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 12


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The Eastern Railroad enters the county at Ports- mouth, and passes through Portsmouth, Greenland, North Hampton, Hampton, and Seabrook.


The road was chartered June 18, 1836, and was opened Nov. 9, 1840, and leased to the Eastern Rail- road Company of Massachusetts for a term of ninety- nine years, at a rental which was to equal the divi- dends paid on the stock of the lessee. The latter failing to pay dividends in 1873, the rental was finally changed, Oct. 1, 1878, to $22,500, which is a trifle over 4.5 per cent. on the cost of the road as repre- sented by the capital stock (8492,500) of the company. Cost of road, $49,090.18 per mile. This road, which was chartered as the "Eastern Railroad in New Hampshire," forms a portion of the Eastern Railroad, which extends from Boston, Mass., to Portland, Me. Moody Currier, of Manchester, president ; and E. A. Abbott, of Boston, treasurer.


The Portsmouth and Dover Railroad extends from Portsmouth, N. H., to Dover, N. H., and was chartered July 7, 1866. It was opened Feb. 1, 1872,


Beets (cattle).


21,600


Straw


Onions


9,360


Peas (in pod).


.41


PORTSMOUTH.


and leased on its completion to the Eastern Railroad of Massachusetts for a period of fifty years, at an annual rental of six per cent. on $769,000, the cost of the road, represented by a corresponding amount of stock. Length of road, 10.88 miles ; sidings, etc., 1.09 miles. Frank Jones, of Portsmouth, president; and G. L. Treadwell, of Portsmouth, treasurer.


Portsmouth, Great Falls and Conway Railroad is a consolidation of the Great Falls and Conway ; chartered June 19, 1844; opened from Great Falls to Union village in 1850, and the Great Falls and South Berwick chartered June 8, 1848; opened in July, 1854. The line to Conway was built by the consolidated company, and completed June 3, 1872. It was leased in 1871 to the Eastern Railroad for sixty years. Oct. 1, 1878, a new lease for sixty years was made. The road extends from Conway Junction to North Conway.1 | Length of road, including sidings and other tracks, 6.69 miles. E. B. Phillips, presi- dent; and N. G. Chapin, treasurer ; both of Boston.


The Concord and Portsmouth Railroad, extend- ing from Portsmouth to Concord, was chartered July 1, 1845, and was opened in 1852. In 1859 it was leased for ninety-nine years to the Concord Railroad Company at an annual rental of 7 per cent. on $350,000 of stock, with $500 for support of organiza- tion. Annual rental $25,000. Stephen Kendrick, president, and Moody Currier, treasurer.


The Portland, Saco and Portsmouth Railroad extends from Portsmouth, N. H., to Portland, Me., a distance of 50.76 miles, and forms a portion of the Eastern Railroad. It was chartered in 1837, and opened Nov. 21, 1842. It was leased in perpetuity to the Eastern Railroad. E. B. Phillips, president, and N. G. Chapin, treasurer.


The Nashua and Rochester Railroad extends from Nashua, N. II., to Rochester, N. II., a distance of 48.39 miles. This road was chartered July 5, 1867, and opened Nov. 24, 1874. In 1872 it was leased to the Worcester and Nashua Railroad Company for fifty years. F. H. Kinnicutt, of Worcester, Mass., president, and T. W. Hammond, of the same city, treasurer.


The Portland and Rochester Railroad extends from Portland, Me., to Rochester, N. H., a distance of 52.5 miles. It was chartered as the York and Cumberland Railroad Company July 20, 1846, and opened to Saco River, eighteen miles, in February, 1853, and to Rochester in July, 1871. George P. Westcott, of Portland, Me., president; and W. H. Conant, of Portland, treasurer and secretary.


- 1


The Boston and Maine Railroad extends from Boston to Portland, Me., a distance of 115,50 miles. It is a consolidation of the Boston and Portland, chartered March 15, 1833; the Boston and Maine, chartered June 27, 1835; and the Maine, New Hamp- shire and Massachusetts, chartered March 12, 1839. The road was opened' from Wilmington, Mass., to South Berwick, Me., Feb. 23, 1843. Between Wil-


mington and Boston the Boston and Lowell Railroad was used until July 4, 1845, when an independent line was opened. The northern branch was com- pleted in 1849, and since its opening has formed the connecting link between the Manchester and Law- rence, to which it was leased, and the Boston and Maine Railroads. The extension to Portland, Me., was opened Feb. 15, 1873. The road has a branch from Rollinsford to Great Falls, and also one from Newton Junction to Merrimack. Nathaniel G. White, president, Boston ; Amos Blanchard, treasurer, Bos- ton ; and James Furbur, superintendent, Boston.


The Dover and Winnipiseogee Railroad extends from Dover, N. H., to Alton Bay, N. H., a distance of twenty-nine miles. It was chartered as the Co- checo Railroad in 1847, and opened in 1857. It was reorganized under its present name July 1, 1862. It has been leased for fifty years to the Boston and Maine. William Dale, president, and George W. Berns, treasurer. A branch of the Boston and Maine extends from Rollinsford to Great Falls, and also a branch from Newton Junction to Merrimack.


The Manchester and Lawrence Railroad passes through the southwestern part of the county. It was chartered June 3, 1847, and opened Nov. 13, 1849. B. F. Martin, president, and George B. Chandler, treasurer.


CHAPTER VII.


PORTSMOUTII.]


Motives of the Colonists-Early Voyagers-John Smith-The Piscataqua -Thomson's Settlement at Little Harbor-Mason and the Laconia Patent.


SEVERAL reasons may be assigned for persons leav- ing the comfort, order, luxury, and associations of an old land and an old home. There is in every com- munity a class of adventurers of the type of John Smith, men fond of the excitement of travel, of novelty, ready to undertake any strange enterprise for the sake of the hazard, for exploration, for science, for notoriety, for profit, or for curiosity. The wild- ness of the new is more inviting than the regularity of the old. In all old and wealthy States there is a large class of persons, representatives of families of past prominence or departed splendor or dilapidated fortunes, who in a new place can maintain a position on cheaper terms, or follow with an easy grace em- ployments they would not undertake where they are known, or more sons than can be placed in the ances- tral neighborhood, or sons of wealth for whom many reasons conspire to make it better to seek situations elsewhere, as on the continent one constantly meets with English who in humble places or at low rates keep up an appearance of respectability they could not have at home, and as many from New England begin life at the West. The social barriers which


I By James De Normandie, Minister of the South Parish.


42.


HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.


other lands have made impassable are by the Amer- ican idea entirely effaced by putting a few miles be- tween our birth and our activity. "My son, you know," said a poor woman, "would never be anything in Portsmouth, but in Salem he is just as good as any- body." An old writer says, "If without offense it may be spoken, the multitude of patents granted to several gentlemen of broken fortunes hath provided an honorable exile or confinement, whither many de- serving persons of better education than fortune were sent to shift for themselves in a foreign land without being further troublesome to those nearer home, on whom they had their hopes and dependence; yet it our coast, and a Bristol ship first sailed up onr noble river. In the spring of 1603 the city government and some merchants of Bristol, led thereto chiefly by a clergyman of that city, Richard Hakluyt, fitted out an expedition for trading and the further discovery of that part of this continent which, in ignorance of its extent and the uncertain limits of charters, was called North Virginia. The fleet consisted of a ship of fifty tons with thirty men and boys, and a bark of twenty-six tons with thirteen men and a boy, under the command of Martin Pring, and with a pilot who had been on the voyage the year before. They set sail from King Road, the anchoring ground, eight must not be denied but that some of the undertakers . miles from Bristol, in March, 1603, and in June drew were at vast expenses, casting their bread upon these near to our coast, entered our harbor, and wrote of the " goodly groves and woods" along the banks of our river. waters, where none of their friends and relatives have as yet had opportunity to find it." And this class of far-seeing, shrewd business men is always ready to send others or embark itself, and to bear any danger, delay, or loss in any enterprise which promises satis- factory returns, and especially questions of govern- ment and religion, of persecution and freedom, make it grateful for many to endure any hardships or aban- don any associations for a free rule and a broader liberty of worship. It is difficult to analyze all the motives which enter into colonization ; perhaps all we have named do in some degree with every settlement, nevertheless each has its prominent characteristics easy to be traced; in the Plymouth Colony the pre- vailing idea at first was religious liberty for themselves, not for anybody else ; in the Piscataqua Colony it was the spirit of mercantile enterprise.


Early Voyagers .- This spirit of enterprise, which in the seventeenth century was so active in the French, English, Spanish, and Portuguese, making them vie with each other in the establishment of col- onies, the exploration of these western lands, and the discovery of new sources of wealth, must have sent per- sons to this part of the coast as early as 1602. At that time there was no European family along the line of the sea from Florida to Greenland. Foremost among the men thus filled with schemes for visiting and set- tling and owning the New World, and gaining there- from fame or wealth, was Sir Walter Raleigh, the scholar, author, courtier, and adventurer. Among the men who had been interested with him in the discovery of Virginia was one Bartholomew Gosnold, who, in March, 1602, sailed for America, sighted the Maine coast and gave the name to Cape Cod. The voy- agers were enraptured with the landscape, and one of them wrote after their return : " We stood awhile rav- ished at the beantie and delicacy of the sweetnesse, besides divers clear lakes whereof we saw no end, and meadows very large and full of greene grasse." Each voyage, whether successful or a failure, only aroused others, such is the fascination of a new and unexplored realm. The city of Bristol, England, was at that time foremost in all maritime adventures. Sebastian Cabot was a Bristol boy ; a Bristol ship first touched


John Smith .- By 1614 the knowledge of our coast had grown more definite, and colonization began to assume larger and more permanent directions. The zeal for sudden wealth from the riches of mines led to a hasty occupation of the South, of Peru and Mexico by the Spaniards and Portuguese, but the English and French came with a tardier pace to the fur and fishing trade of the North, and yet found, as we have found in California, that the vineyards and pasture lands and husbandry are a surer and greater source of wealth than mines of gold or fields of diamonds. In March of this year the remarkable adventurer, John Smith, sailed for North Virginia, seeking a mine of gold and copper, or, failing in that, to fish and trade. He named the shoals which had previously been sighted and described Smith's Islands, spoke of our river, and on his return drew a quaint map of the coast and wrote a history of his voyages, and left it for Prince Charles to christen the new realin, so that in 1614 first appears the name of New England.


The Piscataqua .- It cannot but be interesting to notice the praises which the Piscataqua has called forth from the early voyagers and historians. One says " that westernmost and best river ;" another, " the safe harbor and rocky shore of the Piscataqua ;" another, " that famous, brave, and navigable river of note, which has been frequented ever since the coun- try was first planted, whose channel is very swift and spacious, fit for vessels of great burden." And in an old deed, dated 1671, there is a will of one of the early merchants which runs thus: "I, Richard Cutt, for yo love I bear unto Wm Vaughan, I do give unto him my stone warehouse, situate at Strawberry Bank and fronting upon the Greate River Piscataqua." And the truest poet of Portsmouth writes:


Like an azure vein from the heart of the main, Pulsing with joy forever, By verduous isles, with dimpled smiles, Floweth my native river.


Singing a song as it flows along, Hushed by the ice-king never ; For lie strives iu vain to clasp a chain O'er thy fetterless heart, brave river !


T


GAUCHEYO


RESIDENCE AND SURROUNDINGS OF HON. FRANK JONES, PORTSMOUTH, N. H.


43


PORTSMOUTHI.


Singing to one ns full and free As it sang to the dusky daughters, When the light canve like a sea-bird flow Over its peaceful waters.


Thomson's Settlement at Little Harbor .- In 1623 this spirit of enterprise took for us a more defi- nite form, and with results reaching to the present day. Among a council of forty noblemen, knights, and gentlemen, to whom King James granted a charter for the " planting, ruling, ordering, and governing of New England in America," we find two persons con- spicuous in energy and adventure, Sir Ferdinand Gorges and Capt. John Mason. Gorges was an officer of the English navy, intimate with Raleigh, and sharing his daring spirit. He had learned from some Indians many particulars of this part of the country, its rivers, harbors, islands, fisheries, and products ; his enthusiasm to found a colony was not abated by many successive misfortunes, and his faith in its final success never died out. "I doubt not," he writes, "it will prove a very flourishing place, and be replen- ished with many fine homes and cities, it being a province both fruitful and pleasant." Mason was a London merchant, some time Governor of Newfound- land, where he learned in a general and indefinite way of these parts, and became as enthusiastic as Gorges to plant a colony, an enthusiasm which ap- pears never to have left him amidst all the discour- agements and difficulties which beset his attempts. He was also Governor of Portsmouth, in Hampshire, England.


Mason and the Laconia Patent .- The tradition that the first settlement at the Piscataqua was owing to the efforts of Gorges and Mason, or to the Laconia Company, of which they were members, has no found- ation. From " An Indenture of David Thomson," re- cently discovered among the papers of Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, with careful "Notes" in explanation by Mr. Charles Deane, of the Massachusetts Historical Society, many of the doubts and uncertain dates and confused traditions are dispelled, and it appears that David Thomson and three merchants of Ply- mouth entered into an agreement, in pursuance of · which Thomson came over in the ship "Jonathan" in the spring of 1623, and settled at " Little Harbor," a name which first appears in 1655, on the west side of the Piscataqua.


These three merchants were Abraham Colmer, Nicholas Sherwill, and Leonard Pomerie, and with Thomson they were to contribute to the expenses and to share the profits. It is provided in the partner- ship that the colony "shall and will use their best endeavors (by the direction of said David Thomson), with as much convenience as maye be, to find out . . . some fitt place to settle & Builde some houses or buildings for habitacons, on which they are to begin with as muche expedicon as they maye ; to the lymits & precincts of which habitacons or buildings soe in- tended to be there erected, there shall be allotted of


the lands next thereunto adjoininge, at or before the end of five years next ensuing the date hereof, the full quantitie of six hundred acres of land or neare thereabouts." Jenness, speaking of the landing at Little Harbor, says, "The site selected for the settle- ment was chosen with excellent judgment. From the Little Harbor fronting the north side of the prom- ontory a salt water creek runs back so far towards the ocean as almost to convert the inclosed point into an island of about six hundred acres area, which was the precise amount of land required by the indenture to be allotted to the new plantation. The soil is good, and among the rocks on the harbor shore is a living spring of fresh water. The harbor is safe and acces- sible at all times to vessels of light draught, and most commodiousły situated for the prosecution of the fisheries as well as for the peltry traffic with the In- dians of Sagamore Creek and l'iscataqua River. Above all other advantages in those perilous times, the Point, rising on every side towards its centre and almost surrounded by water, was easily defensible against the assaults of savages. These considerations probably determined Thomson in the selection of this site for the new plantation, which he named, perhaps, from the Indian appellation 'Pannaway,' a name which seems, however, not to have survived the period of Thomson's own occupation and ownership of the plantation."!


In Winslow's "Good News," published in 1624, de- scribing events apparently of the preceding summer, we find reference to "one Mr. David Tomson, a Scotchman, who also that spring began a plantation twenty-five leagues northeast from us, near Smith's Iles, at a place called Pascatoquack, where he liketh well." Thomson most likely remained at the Piscat- aqua until 1626, and deserves to receive the undi- vided praise as the founder of this settlement, while Mason had nothing to do with its beginning. In a deposition of several aged persons, including Edward Coleord, taken at Piscataqua Aug. 25, 1676, they make oath and affirm that "Capt. John Mason did never settle any government nor any people upon any land called the province of New Hampshire, on the south side of Piscataqua River, either by himself or any of his agents to this day."


After the Laconia grant, on the 17th of November, 1629, active measures were taken to found a colony, but without immediate success. Mason, who was one of the company, bought the shares of two of his associates and sent over some men and set up two saw-mills ; but these and most of his operations were upon the east side of the river, in the territory which, 1 in 1647, was incorporated as Kittery. The first ship which came out in the interests of the Laconia Com- pany was the " Warwick," which sailed from London the last of March, 1630, with Walter Neal, Governor, and Ambrose Gibbons, factor; but, instead of be-


1 First Plauting of New Hampshire, p. 6.


44


HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.


ginning, they found a permanent settlement had been made at the mouth of the Piscataqua for several years.


On the 22d of April, 1635, Mason obtained for himself, after discouragements and failures on the part of the previous company, a grant of the lands " between Naumkeag and Piscataqua," which, " with the consent of the Council, shall henceforth be called New Hampshire." It seems that after this grant Mason had great hopes and plans; he calls his whole grant on the Piscataqua "my country of New Hamp- shire, or Mannor of Mason Ifall ;" he doubtless had large expectations of some manor hall, with its sur- rounding estates, and of an inflowing fortune, but death put an end to all his dreams, leaving to another generation only an inheritance of lawsuits, which, amidst the perplexing grants to successive companies and individuals, given with little geographical knowl- edge, disturbed, convulsed, and embittered the settle- ment for many years. It was this high hope and this grand residence in the future which formed the only reality of a Mason's or manor hall at Little Harbor. There never was any such building. The settlers who came over in the " Warwick" doubtless occupied the houses at Little Harbor which were built by Thomson, and by common report one was of suffi- cient importance to give it the designation of the "large house," but the "Great House," which ap- pears so frequently in early records, and the one more likely to which this pretentious title would be given, was a house built by one Chadbourne in 1631, which stood on what is now the corner of Court and Water Streets, and by reason of the rising ground from this spot to where St. John's Church stands being cov- ered with wild strawberries, the settlement was com- monly called Strawberry Bank until the year 1653, and familiarly so ever since, while by the inhabitants and the neighboring towns it was long known simply as "The Bank." The most serious thing we have to regret at the present day is that instead of "New Hampshire," a name it seems Mason designed to give to this region, and which was confirmed by a com- mission in 1679, we did not preserve either for the State or the town the far more interesting Indian , of Durham had in the kingdom of England. In the name of Piscataqua.1


CHAPTER VIII. PORTSMOUTH .- ( Continued.)


The Church of England-Early Rectors and Governors-Anecdotes of Mather-Settled Conclusions-The Laconia Company-Death of Ma- son-Abandonment of the Settlement by his Widow-Under the Juris- diction of the Massachusetts-Claim of the Mason Heirs-Richard Gibson-Pulpit Supplies-The name Portsmouth-Pews and Seating -Early Laws and Rulers.


The Church of England .- It has been charged against the early settlers here that they were fishermen,


1 See "Notes on an Indenture of David Thomson and others," by Charles Deane.


or that they came merely for business purposes. Many of them doubtless found the fisheries the most profitable enterprise, and Smith sets forth the importance of that occupation and says, " Honorable and worthy country- men let not the meanness of the word fish distaste you, for it will afford as good gold as the mines of Potassie or of Guiana, with less hazard and charge, and more cer- tainity and facility." They were fishermen, but there were some very humble fishermen on the shore of the sea of Galilee who have played quite an important and respectable part in the history of the world, and it is true that the reason for the settlement was chiefly commercial; the colony, as most of the colonies in North America, except Plymouth, were sent over by merchants or came themselves to trade, and many of the troubles, the misfortunes, and want of prosperity in this settlement was owing to the fact that the pro- prietors had so little personal supervision over the settlers. They did not come to establish religious liberty for themselves, nor did they make a constant talk about their piety, but there is every reason to suppose that their general character was as good as that of their neighbors in the Bay Colony. They were, however, supporters of the Church of England, and therefore bitterly denounced by the Massachusetts Colony. In spite of the assertions which have been handed down generation after generation and repeated withont examination and without reflection that this was merely a business settlement, a worldly and un- godly colony, while the saints were all at " the Bay," it is easy to show that the purpose of the founders was to make this a branch of the Established Church of England, and that this runs through all the charters. In the one to Gorges, in 1639, we find granted to him " full power, license, and authority to build and erect or cause to be built and erected soe many churches and chappelles there on to the said Sir Ferdinando Gorges, his heirs and assigns shall seeme meete and convenient, and to dedicate and consecrate the same according to all the ecclesiastical laws of this our realme of England," defining furthermore all his rights and privileges to be the same that the bishop earliest efforts made by the city of Bristol, the first * inducement held out is " to plant the Christian relig- ion," and that "the one of traffic, be it never so pro- fitable, ought not to be preferred before the planting of Christian faith." One of the first expeditions under Gosnold which reached our coast carried with it a chaplain. Royal orders and instructions were issued requiring religious worship to be conducted as in the Church of England. Gorges' son Robert, who ar- rived in Massachusetts in 1624 to take superintendence of the churches to the great dismay of the settlers there, brought with him a clergyman of the English Church. One of the Puritan writers, referring to a settlement on the coast of Maine, rejoices "that one Episcopal colony is terminated, and its anticipated influence to advance the interests of the national


45


PORTSMOUTH.


church on our soil is hastily prevented ;" and speak- ing of the settlement at Exeter, "thus the Granite State commenced its existence under the auspices of energetic and honorable proprietors, who proposed to give it the durable impression of Episcopacy as the efficient handmaid of royalty." In another place, referring to the efforts of Gorges at colonization, we find " his great preferences to have it done by sons of Episcopacy rather than by those withdrawn from its protection and rewards." Another royal charter says, "Our will and pleasure is that the religion now pro- fessed in the Church of England, and ecclesiastieal government now used in the same, shall be ever here- after preferred, and with as much convenient speed as may be settled and established in and throughout the said province and premises and every of them."




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