History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 13

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 13
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 13

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Gorges himself, in defending his company against various charges before the House of Commons, says, "I have spent £20,000 of my estate and thirty years, the whole flower of my life, in new discoveries and settlements upon a remote' continent, in the enlarge- ment of my country's commerce and dominions, and in carrying civilization and Christianity into regions of savages."1 All these are testimonies that the aim of the proprietors and settlers was quite as truly re- ligious as usually characterizes such enterprises. But their religious views were Episcopalian, and just at this period bitter strife reigned between Puritans and Episcopalians, and the strife in the old country was transferred to these shores. All the proprietors in- terested in the settlement were of the Established Church, and it was only natural that all the settlers who came out under them should be zealous in that faith. Gorges and Mason, Godfrie and Neal, Gibbons and Chadbourne and Williams, and all the names which appear on the colonial records were doubtless of this faith, and the colonies at the Piscataqua and the bay were carried on with the same spirit that two rival and highly-excited parishes would be at the present time, only intensified by the more bitter theo- logieal hatred of that day. The leader of the Massa- chusetts colony even rejoiced at the death of Mason, as a proof of the Almighty's retribution upon the Episcopal settlement at the Piscataqua and his favor towards them. Governor Winthrop writes, "The last winter C'apt. Mason died. He was the chief mover in all attempts against us, and was to have sent the General Governor, and for this end was providing ships ; but the Lord in mercy taking him away, all the business fell on sleep." Among the earliest inven- tories of the colony's goods we find mention of ser- | persons or documents which came into the neighbor- vice books, of a flagon, and of cloths for the com- munion-table, which show that provisions for worship

1 In Mason's will we find instructions to convey one thousand acres of his estate here for and towards the maintenance of an honest, godly, and religious preacher of God's word, in some church or chapel or other public place appointed for divine worship and service within the county of New Hampshire, and also provisions for and towards the maintenance of a free grammar school for the education of youth.

were not neglected, and of what form the worship was.

Early Factors, or Governors. Anecdote of Ma- ther .- After the departure of Thomson, and until the arrival of those sent out by the Laconia Company in 1630, our information about this settlement is slight and indefinite. Then came Neal as Governor, after his departure Godfrie, with Warnerton at Strawberry Bank, then Williams as Governor in 1634. The colony began to extend over Great Island and along the bank of the river. A rude fort was built on the northeast point of Great Island, "about a bow-shot from the water-side to a high rock, the site of the present Fort Constitution. Under Williams, who is spoken of as a gentleman, a discreet, sensible man, accomplished in his manners and acceptable to the people, the first attempt at any combination for order and defense was made. It is related that Neal went on a journey of discovery to the White Mountains and the lakes, and gives a somewhat glowing account of them : "The summit was far above the clouds, and from hence they beheld a vapor like a vast pillar, drawn up by the sunbeams out of a great lake into the air, where it was formed into a cloud," but their hopes of mines and precious stones were dimmed. At another time Neal forbade a man who was about to begin a settlement at a point a short distance up the river. The dispute which arose was about to be settled by the sword, when a wiser thought suggested to each it would be braver not to fight, and so the place, known to the present generation as Nancy Drew's, was called Bloody Point, not on account of what actually hap- pened, but what might have occurred in the event of a duel. Just before Neal left some trouble arose be- tween him and the Governor of the Massachusetts Colony. It was charged against Neal that he did not call to see the Governor in Boston on his way to England, but Neal urged that he had not been well entertained the first time that he was there; that letters he had written had been opened in the Bay, and except he were invited he would not call. Win- throp says the letters were opened " because they were directed to one who was our prisoner, and had declared himself an ill willer to our government." But politi- cal honor was rather low at that day, and if, even at a later period, England's prime minister confessed that he had no seruple in opening the letters of a political rival, the conduet of Massachusetts' Governor can be excused. Yet the incident shows that no papal inquisition ever exceeded the scrutiny of all hood of the Puritans. Warnerton seems to have been a wild and dissolute character. Winthrop says he lived very wickedly and kept the Piscataqua men under awe of him, while Warnerton, trying to collect a debt from one of the Bay Colony, called him rogue and knave, but added they were all so at the Bay, and he hoped to see all their throats cut. Whether he ever did anything worse than opening letters does not

HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

appear, but the incident reveals the general feeling that the two settlements cherished towards each other. All the early Puritan representation of this colony were in the same strain, and in return the bitterness of the eastern settlement against the Massachusetts was quite as great.

A Piscataqua man being in England in 1632 said of the Massachusetts planters, "They would be a peculiar people to God, but all goe to the Devil ; they are a people not worthy to live on God's earth ; fel- lows that keep hoggs all the week preach there on the Sabbath ; they connt all men out of their church as in a state of damnation."

John Josselyn, of Black Point, writes of the founders of Boston : "The chief objects of discipline, religion and morality, they want. Some are of a Linsie-woolsie disposition, of several professions in religion, all, like the Æthiopeans, white in the teeth only, full of ludification and injurious dealing and ernelty, the extremist of all vices. Great Syndics or censors, or controllers of other men's manners, and savagely factions among themselves."

In 1631, Thomas Dudley, afterwards Governor of Massachusetts, writing to the Countess of Lincoln in England, says of some of the settlers there, " Heare- ing of men of their own disposition, which were planted at Pascataway, went from us to them, whereby tho' our members were lessened, yet we accounted ourselves nothing weakened by their removeall." These first reports and prejudices in regard to this colony were repeated and spread without investiga- tion and without confirmation. We find Cotton Mather, in the " Magnalia," recording an anecdote which conveys the same impression, and the locality of which, tradition has ascribed to the South Parish of this town : "There were more than a few attempts of the English to people and improve the Parts of New England which were to the Northward of New Plymouth, but the Designs of theire attempts being aim'd no higher than the advancement of some worldly Interests, a constant Series of Disasters has confounded them until there was a Plantation erected upon the nobler Designs of Christianity; and that Plantation, tho' it has had more Adversaries than perhaps any upon Earth, yet having obtained help from God it continues to this day. There have been very fine settlements in the Northeast Regions, but what is become of them ? I have read that one of our Ministers once Preaching to a congregation there 1 urged them to approve themselves a Religious People from this consideration, That otherwise they would contradict the main end of Planting this Wilderness, whereupon a well-known Person then in the assembly [note assembly, which is a perfect translation of the Greek word 'church' in the New Testament] cried ont, 'Sir, you are mistaken ; you think you are Preaching to the People at the Bay ; our Main End was to catch Fish.' Truly 'twere to have been wished that something more excellent had been the

main end of the settlement in that brave country, which we have, even long since the arrival of that more Pious Colony at the Bay, now seen dreadfully unsettled no less than twice at least by the Sword of the Heathen after they had been replenished with many Hundreds of People, who had thriven to many Thousands of Pounds, and had all the force of the Bay, too, to assist them in the maintaining of their settlement." To any one who has investigated the history of these colonies this story is seen to be a capital piece of irony upon the cant of Puritanism, and the person in the pew evidently thought the preacher was ignorant of the design of this settle- ment, and wanted to call his attention to the fact that those to whom he was preaching were not banished nor self-exiled for religious opinions, but were on the loyal and Established Church side.

Settled Conclusions .- It seems that at this day it will never be possible to establish to the satisfaction of the careful historian several dates, and to explain several events in the early settlement of the Piscat- aqua, on account of the confusion arising from the first patents, which seriously complicated the dif- ferent ownerships, from the absence of sufficient trust- worthy evidence, and from statements of the first writers, made without investigation, and repeated until they have been believed to have the authority of truth ; but enough appears determined from the recovery of the indenture of David Thomson and careful research into the conflicting patents to regard it henceforth as settled that the credit of founding the Piscataqua colony belongs entirely to Thomson, and that he had nothing to do with the Laconia Company ; that this colony was permanent, and that the one at Dover was several years later ; that after the settlement by Thomson passed into the hands of the Laconia Company, the efforts and inter- ests of Mason really begin; that the references to "Mason Hall," or " Mason's Manor Hall," which in so many records give such a pretentious sound to this settlement, do not apply to any building at Little Harbor, and if to any to a house called the "Great House," built by Chadbourne in 1631 at Strawberry Bank, but belong rather to the ambitious claims of his descendants at a much later date, and that the animosities and invectives which disfigure all early intercourse between the Massachusetts and the Piscat- aqua may be traced first to religious differences, and next to the overlapping and conflicting demands of successive grants given to different companies or in- dividuals without any accurate knowledge of the boundaries of this new realm.

The Laconia Company .- Thomson removed from the Piscataqua to the Massachusetts in the latter part of 1626, and died there soon after. The government and progress of the Piscataqua for the next few years are involved in some obscurity. No claims appear from the heirs of Thomson to the property at Little ? Harbor, nor is it fully shown why he entirely aban-

PORTSMOUTH.

doned his interests there, or who had charge of them until the Laconia Company sent out its agents in 1630. Mason obtained a patent on the 7th of No- vember, 1629, of which no use was made, but ten days later the Laconia grant appears, and some active steps were at once taken to increase and make of some valne the colony at Little Harbor. The bark " Warwick" arrived in the harbor of the Piscataqua on the 9th of September, 1631, bringing over some settlers, and came again the following winter with supplies and probably more settlers. Owing to some uncertainty about the patent under which they had begun operations, the association obtained a new grant on the 3d of November, 1631, covering both sides of the Piscataqua. The Laconia Company had in the beginning of its association obtained a charter for a large tract of land about Lake Champlain in the present State of New York, and was called Laconia from the great lakes included in the grant, and the secret of their operations at the Piscataqua was that from this point by an easy journey they could reach the lakes. With this idea they obtained possession of the buildings and interests of Thomson at Little Harbor, and for a while carried on their adventure with great hopes.1 But the distance proved much farther than they in their ignorance of the country had supposed, and the difficulties insurmountable, and after many and great efforts, without any appreciable success or any return for their large and constant ex- penditures, all the Laconia association's interests at Little Harbor were abandoned.

Death of Mason .- Mason, however, evidently pre- served his faith in the ultimate profits from all in- vestments at this place, and on the 22d of April, 1635, obtained a grant by the Plymouth Council of a very large tract which covered both his former char- ters and was to extend sixty miles from the "first entrance of Paseataway Harbor," to take in "the South halfe of the Isle of Shoulds," all which was to be called by the name of New Hampshire, together with ten thousand acres on "the South East of the River of Sagadehock," to which was to be given the name of Masonia. In the midst of all the expecta- tions from the settlement of such vast possessions Mason died, as we have seen, in the latter part of this same year, leaving for his heir an infant grandson.

Abandonment of the Settlement by His Widow. -For a time Mason's widow attempted to carry out her husband's plan in regard to the colony, and evi- dently with as great a faith in its ultimate success. One Francis Norton was sent out in 1638 to look after her interests, but she soon wearied of the large and constant expenditures and the deferred income ; the settlers so far away, and soon conscious that the authority and oversight of the former proprietor were gone, began to take advantage of their situation to look out chiefly for their own interests, to divide the

property among themselves for their wages, and Mrs. Mason, if she did not abandon her legal right, ovi- dently in despair gave up all hope of carrying on the plantation, and ceased to provide for its needs.

Under the Jurisdiction of the Massachusetts. --- The only government which appears in this colony from its settlement until the year 1640 was that of the stewards, or as they received sometimes the more dignified title of Governor; such were Neale, Joce- lyn, and Norton. There was no idea for a long time of any self-governing state, or any rule apart trom that of the home sovereignty ; they went on as loyal- ists and members of the Established Church, with perhaps as much quiet and order as other settlements, but as their numbers increased, and the resolution to make a permanent colony became more fixed, efforts appear towards the establishment of a more formal and authoritative government. In this year a com- bination was entered into with Francis Williams, Governor, and Ambrose Gibbons and Thomas War- nerton, assistants. But for some time previous to this the way had been preparing for the Piscataqua to come under the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts. The latter colony soon found that the charter of Mas- sachusetts Bay was not as extensive as they had sup- posed, and had hardly become established before they began to reach out towards and covet the lands cov- ered by the patent to Mason ; the doubttul expressions in which these grants were conveyed made it easier to force an interpretation in agreement with their desires, and the more flourishing and powerful condi- tion of the Massachusetts would have accomplished the purpose even earlier were it not for the different political and religious sentiments which prevailed at the Piscataqua. For several years, amidst all kinds of plottings and quarrelings, ambitious schemes and desire for greater protection, efforts at union were made and repelled, until it was finally accomplished in 1641, and the Piscataqua passed under the juris- diction of the Massachusetts. Hugh Peters, an agent of the latter, after spending some time here, in the spring of that year reported to Governor Winthrop that the Piscataqua people were "ripe for our gov- ernment; they grone for government and Gospel all over that side of the country. Alas! poore bleeding soules." From 1641 for a period of almost forty years, or until the commission of Cutt, the first Pro- vincial President of New Hampshire, under whom the new government began on the 21st of January, 1638, the sway of the Massachusetts over this settle- ment was complete. But it was not harmonious. It was entered into out of the most selfish considerations on each side, and preserved amidst constant conten- tions, oppositions, and open revolts. In 1651 the residents at Strawberry Bank openly rebelled and at- tempted to escape from this jurisdiction, and again in 1664. There was a constant detestation of the union, which for prudential reasons they felt it neces- sary to abide by, and all the time they saw the in-

Seo Jennes' " Hist. Planting of New Hampshire," p. 32.

HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

fluence of a party whose faith they bitterly opposed gaining ground among them. Their indignation ap- pears in their petitions to their sovereign. In July, 1665, we find one headed by the distinguished Cham- pernowne, and signed by the leading settlers, which sets forth among other grievances that "five or six of the ritehest men of this parish [ meaning of course those who had become prominent under the power of the Massachusetts] have swaied & ordered all offices both eivill and military at their pleasures; none of yo" Hono's peticonrs, though Loyall subjects, & some of them well acquainted with the Laws of England, durst make any opposition for feare of great fines or long imprisonment, & for want of estates could not peticon home to his Matie for relief, which the con- trary party well knoweth, have kept us under hard servitude and denyed us in our publique meeting the Common prayer, Sucramts, and decent buriall of the dead, contrary to the Laws of England." They also plead that they have been denied the benefit of freemen, that their lands have been taken away from them, and their grants disowned. Another petition about the same time asserts "to theire great greife" that the sway of the Massachusetts has kept them from the good they expected, and so prays that they may be joined to the province of Maine, so "that they may be goved by the knowne lawes of England, and enjoy the use of both the sacramts web they have been too deprived of," and they particularly mention Joshua Moody, Richard and John Cutt, and a few others, who were evidently leaders of the Puritan party and stanch upholders of the Massachusetts. By the year 1677, however, the Puritan influence had so far overcome the Church of England power that a petition with many names and much weight appears against any change, saying that they voluntarily sub- jected themselves to the Massachusetts government, and have not repented of it, that it has been a long- enjoyed and desired benefit which they fear to lose. " Wee are men yt desire to fear ye Lord & ye King, & not to medle with them yt are given to change, as well knowing what confusions, distractions, & Damage | estates here. Then, again, as the hope strengthened changes of governmts are not unusually attended with."

The most effectual petition, however, was probably ! one from Mason and Gorges, praying for a Governor for the province of Maine and New Hampshire, on account of the injustice of the Massachusetts, "their violent intrusion and continued usurpation." This petition was received the 9th of January, 1677, and, as we have seen, the commission of President Cutt was sent out in December, 1679.

Claim of the Mason Heirs .- While all the in- trigues and animosities in regard to the rule of the province were going on, another element of disturb- ance and angry feeling was thrown into this colony, the elaim of the Mason heirs. It was, perhaps, the shadow of this impending difficulty which persuaded some to seek alliance with the Massachusetts, think-

ing thereby to gain their favor in the courts. Mrs. Mason, soon after her husband's death, was discour- aged at the constant outlay required by the settlers, and gave up the whole enterprise. It was but natural, as she heard of the colony's growth and of a more stable government, to assert her elaim to this region, and to seek some return for the great outlays Mr. Mason had made. But a few years of negleet would inevitably make vast changes in a new settlement even with the most honorable stewards and laborers, and in the midst of such conflicting grants there was easy opportunity for fraud of every kind, while the very accumulation of unpaid wages would in a brief period make the settlers feel they had earned all the possessions. As a matter of history, it was fifteen years before we find any protest from the attorney of Mrs. Mason against cutting timber on her lands along the Pascataway, and eighteen years before the first petition of Joseph Mason to the magistrates and deputies of the General Court in Boston, relating the expenses Mason had been at under the Laconia patent, and praying for some redress against the encroachments upon his property by the inhabitants of Strawberry Bank. Of course, each year, as the prosperity of the settlement increased, the more de- termined grew the heirs of Mason to recover their estate here, and in the lapse of time the statements of his expenditures were greatly exaggerated, and the necessity of maintaining their case led to the most bitter aceusations and the most intense feeling on all sides, and what was at first a simple claim was aggravated by an appeal to all the political and re- ligious interests which had been aroused just at that period both in England and in this settlement. In March, 1674-75, Robert Mason, the grandson and beir of John Mason, asserts his title to New Hamp- shire. Ile rehearses in a long petition the history of the settlement, the expenses of Mason, the unfaith- fuhiess of the agents, the inability to recover any- thing through the General Court of Massachusetts, and his own vain attempts and costs to recover his

that his Majesty would appoint a President for New Hampshire, the claims of Robert Mason are reasserted at great length, with the added argument of a royal and church interest and fidelity from the beginning, and rehearsing the unjust laws which had been passed to confirm to the colonists the lands upon which they have been settled for years without any attempt at alienation, and what he himself had expended. Of course these claims were met by counter claims and charges, and all the fault was surely not on one side. As early as 1676 we find the depositions of several old settlers, whose testimony cannot all be worthless, and who on oath "doe affirm that Capt. John Mason did never settle any government nor any people upon any land called ye province of New Hampshire, on the south side of Piseatqa River, either by himselfe or any of his agents to this day. And whereas Mr.

PORTSMOUTHI.

Robert Mason, his grandchild, by his petition to his may charges ye Governors of ye Massachusetts or yo Bostoners, as he calls them : ffor taking away their goverm' in a way of hostility; burning of their houses and banishing their people out of their dwellings, they doe affirme the same to be positively false." This fruitful source of discord embittered the whole colony long after the appointment of the first Presi- dent.

The First Church .- The carly religious interests of the Piscataqua were all centred in the Established Church of England. All those of any prominence were of that faith, and of course the settlers they sent over were of the same, and in the inventories of goods belonging to them we find provisions for that wor- ship which doubtless was observed at Little Harbor and at the " Great House," which stood on what is now the corner of Court and Water Streets; but it was not until after the death of Mason that we find them taking any steps for the erection of a church. On the 25th of May, 1640, we find the grant of the glebe land in Portsmouth as follows: " Divers and sundry of the inhabitants of the Lower end of Pascataquack, whose names are hereunder written, of their free and volun- tary mind, good will and assents, without constraint or compulsion of any manner of person or persons, have granted, given, and contributed divers and sev- eral sums of money towards the building, erecting, and founding of a parsonage house with a chapel thereto united, as also fifty acres of glebe land which is annexed and given to the said parsonage." We find in this same grant the names of the first church wardens (and as significant of the early Episcopal ele- ment the officers of the various old churches in Ports- mouth are to this day called wardens), and that Mr. Richard Gibson has been chosen to be the first pastor. This first church was erected near where the Univer- salist Church now stands, and probably in the year 1638, for there is a tradition that Gibson preached and baptized in it in the month of August of that year.

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History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 13

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

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