History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 14

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 14
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 14

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Richard Gibson .- Richard Gibson was educated at Magdalen College, Cambridge, from which he took the degree of A.B. in 1636, and in that year appears as the minister of a colony at the Saco River, to which he had been bronght by Mr. Trelawney. In seeking for some further information concerning this clergy- man, the writer of this sketch was brought into cor- respondence with an aged gentleman residing at Ham, Plymouth ( England), Mr. Collins Trelawney, a descendant of the one who had a grant of land near Portland, and who cherishes a hope that it is not too late to recover the estates which belong to his family in that region, including the whole city of Portland, a far more gigantic scheme and forlorn hope than the attempt of the Mason heirs.

The ministry of Gibson appears not to have been one of perfect peace, for in the Maine " Records" we find him complaining against a man for calling him a " base priest," and he says that he is much dispar-

aged thereby in his ministry ; so that it is evident the Episcopal settlements here and along the coast of Maine were not without some elements of Puritanisms, as, on the other hand, in the Massachusetts there constantly came to the surface some elements of Episcopacy. Mr. Gibson, between the years 1688 and 1642, preached at the Saco settlement, at the Shoals, and at Strawberry Bank. In the latter year he was summoned by the General Court of Massachusetts for the crime of marrying and baptizing at the Isle of Shoals according to the ritual of the Church of Eng- land. Winthrop's account of the matter runs thus : " At this General Court appeared one Richard Gib- son, a scholar, sent some three or four years since to Richmann's Island to be a minister to a fishing plan- tation there belonging to one Mr. Trelawney, of Pli- mouth, in England. He removed from thence to Pascataquack, and this year was entertained by the fishermen of the Isle of Shoals to preach to them. He, being wholly addicted to the hierarchy and dis- cipline of England, did exercise a ministerial function in the same way, and did marry and baptize at the Isle of Shoals, which was soon found to be within our jurisdiction."

Gibson wrote to the minister at Dover, asking for help in opposition to the jurisdiction of the Puri- tans ; but they were stronger in the contest, and he answered the demand of the marshal, and in 1642 appeared before the General Court. Either because the court recognized the fact that it had no authority in the ease, or because he submitted himself to the favor of the court with the determination to leave the country, he was dismissed without fine or imprison- ment, and soon after. This was one of the first fruits of the efforts of the Puritans to settle a country where freedom to worship God as he pleased should be every one's privilege.

Gibson is everywhere spoken of as accomplished and scholarly, but no gifts nor graces could count for anything while he was an open defender of the Eng- lish Established Church.

Pulpit Supplies .- Soon after the union with the Massachusetts we find in those records this item : " It was ordered that the elders should be desired to take the eare of the inhabitants of Strawberry Bank into their consideration and then help for providing a minister for them." One was soon found, who, being a Puritan, it was easy for Winthrop to consider "a godly man and a scholar,"-a Mr. Parker, of P'ly- mouth,-but he was not an ordained elergyman. After his departure we find one after another supply- ing for a short time, the Episcopal element heartily and voluntarily contributing to their support rather than have no services, and this continned until the year 1658, when the long and eventful ministry of Joshua Moody begins.

The Name Portsmouth .- In May, 1653, we find this petition to the General Court at Boston : " Whereas the name of this plantation att present beinge Stra-

HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

berry banke, accidentally soe called by reason of a banke where straberries was found in this place, now Your petitioners' Humble desire is to have it called PORTSMOUTH, being a name most suitable for this place, it being the river's mouth and a good harbor as any in this land."

The Cutt Brothers .- Some time before 1646 there came from Wales three brothers, Robert, Richard, and John Cutt, who were to have a large influence in all the affairs of this colony. Maj. Cutt, a descend- ant, when at the siege of Louisburg, met an Eng- glish officer by the name of Cutts, and upon becoming acquainted, they found they had sprung from the same family ; so thereafter the major added an s to his name, as did all the descendants of the family in Portsmouth. Robert settled at Great Island, and was a strong Episcopalian and royalist. Richard settled first at the Shoals, and became owner of most of Star Island in its day of greatest prosperity, and after making his wealth removed to Portsmouth and was interested in all its affairs. John settled at Straw- berry Bank, where he came into possession of the Great House, and was a merchant of prominence, honor, and esteem. At the time of his prosperous business course the principal part of the town was built about the Point of Graves.

build a new meeting-house, not now a chapel, but still the term warden is employed. The settlement was so widely scattered and embraced such a great reach of territory that it is not surprising there was even at this date some difference of opinion as to where the new church should be located. After a long discussion and the appointment of referees to hear the reasons of all parties, the following conclu- sion was reached: "Wee whose names are under written, being deputed to consulte and determine the difference betweene the inhabitants of Portsmouth concerning the placinge of there meeting-house, upon the argument» aledged on either side doe judge and alsoe conclude all reasons weighed that it is upon all respects considered the meatest and most commodious place to erect a meeting-house is the little hill ajoyn- inge to Goodman Webster's poynt." The tradition has it that Goodman Webster kept a place of enter- tainment, and in that day the location of the meet- ing-house near by might be judged not altogether without its conveniences. Doubtless the importance of New Castle and the travel by that road had some- thing to do with determining the situation; at all events the new meeting-house, the second place of worship in Portsmouth, was built on that " little hill" just beyond the South Mill Bridge, on "the crotch of the roads" (as an old record has it) leading to the pound and Frame Point, or what is now just by the parting of the roads leading to New Castle and the South Cemetery, while the old chapel was converted

into a house for the minister. Of this building there is a description minute enough to reconstruct it, and to this came the inhabitants from the wide domain of the town without any too tender regard for distances or for storms, from Rye, Greenland, New Castle, and Warrington, to hear the word and tell the news.

Cage and Pillory .- This new meeting-house did not stand alone, but there were soon added those other appointments which were then regarded as a necessary addition to the church. On the 25th of September, 1662, it was ordered, “ That a cage be made or some other means invented by the selectmen to punish such as sleepe or take tobacco on the Lord's day out of the meeting in time of the public services." The cage, stocks, and pillory were built near the meeting-house. The pillory was a frame erected on posts, with holes and movable boards, through which the head and hands of the offender were put; the stocks was a ma- chine constructed of wood, with holes through which the feet of the offenders were passed and their bodies thus confined. In 1669 permission was granted to one Fryer, of New Castle, "the towne's right of twenty foote square of land neare the meeting-house to sett up a house & keep wood in for to accommodate him- self & family in winter time when he comes to meet- ing." It was customary in the early days of New England for small houses, called Sabba-day houses I or noon houses, to be built near the church, a few ers went before, between, and after services to warn themselves or to replenish their foot-stoves with coals.

A New Meeting-House .- On the 27th of August, 1757, John and Richard Cutt, with Pendleton, Seavey, and Sherburne, were commissioned by the town to feet square, with a large fireplace, where the worship-

Pews and Seating .- In the increasing prosperity of the settlement the new meeting-house was soon filled to overflowing, and we find a record in 1660 that the selectmen, in order to regulate the confusion occa- sioned by the crowd, "placed the women in their seats as commodiously as the room will afford." From time to time leading parishioners were granted permission to build, at their own cost, seats or pews for themselves in various parts of the house, seats and pews of vary - ing length and breadth, so that the aisles, or alleys as they were called, ran among the seats, and it was not until 1693 that the pews were made according to one regular order. We find the choice of a sexton to ring the bell and make clean the meeting-house for four pounds a year ; and a man engaged by the town at twenty shillings per annum " for to look after the de- meanor of the boys at meeting ;" and a vote that five or six persons should have liberty "to build a pair of stairs up to the westward beamue within the meeting- honse, and a pew upon the beam," for their own use and at their own charge; that "strangers are not to be discommodious to the meeting-house ;" and that no boys should be suffered to sit on the stairs or above stairs, and that no young men or young women offer to crowd into any seat where either men or women are seated.

Early Laws and Rulers .- After the erection of New Hampshire with a royal province, under Presi-

PORTSMOUTHI.

dent Cutt, we trace the operations of an established and authoritative government through the acts of a General Assembly. We find it framing a code of laws, comprising sixteen "capital," twenty-seven "erim- inal," and forty-five "general laws." Here is what constituted drunkenness in that day : "By drunken- ness is to be understood one yt lisps or falters in his speech by reason of overmuch drinke, or yt staggers in his going, or yt vomits by reason of excessive drinking, or yt cannot, by reason thereof, follow his calling." Here is the law against scandal or malicious gossip, or the dealers in false news: "That wt p'rson soever, being 16 years of age, or upwards, shall wit- tingly or willingly make or publish any lie woh may be tending to ye damage or hurt of any p'ticular p'son, or wth intent to deceive & abuse yo people with false news or reports, shall be fined for every such default 10s., and if ye p'tie cannot or will not pay ye fine, then he shall sit in ye stocks as long as ye Court shall thinke meete; & if the offenders shall come to any one of Councill & own his offense, it shall be in y® power of any one of ye Councill aforesª to execute yo law upon him where he liveth, & spare his appear- ance at ye Court; but in case when ye lie is greatly p'nicious to ye Comon Weall, it shall be more severely punished, according to ye nature of it." 1

President Cutt died in 1682, and was succeeded temporarily by his deputy, Richard Waldron, a prominent and active man in the colony, and a zeal- ous friend of Massachusetts, until the appointment and arrival of Cranfield as Lieutenant-Governor and commander-in-chief, and with powers greatly exceed- ing any of his predecessors. His commission begins thus, "Whereas our colony of the Massachusetts (alias Massathusetts 'Bay), within our dominion of . New England, in America, hath taken upon them- selves to exercise a government and jurisdiction over the inhabitants and planters in the towns of Ports- mouth, Hampton, Dover, Exeter, and all others ye towns and lands in our Province of New Hampshire, lying and extending itself from three miles northward of Merrimack River into the province of Maine, not having any legal right or authority so to do, the said jurisdiction and all farther exercise thereof we have thought fit by the advice of our Privy Council to inhibit and restrain for the future. . . . Now know ye, that we, reposing especial trust and confidence in ye prudence, courage, and loyalty of you, the said Edward Cran- field, Esq., out of our especial grace, certain knowl- edge, mere motion, have thought fit to constitute and appoint you our Lieutenant-Governor and commander- in-chief of all that part of our province of New Hamp- shire," etc. His commission has also these words, " and above all things we do by these presents will, require, and command you to take all possible care for the discountenance of vice and encouragement of virtue and good living, that by such example the in-

fidels may be incited and desire to partake of the Chris- tian religion ; and for the greater care and satisfaction of our said loving subjects in matters of religion, we do here by will, require and command that liberty of conscience shall be allowed unto all Protestants, and that such especially as shall be conformable to the rites of the Church of England shall particularly be counte- nanced and encouraged." This is the exception which is always understood with liberty of consience, es- pecially to favor our own, and such an exception gives unbounded liberty of persecution to a narrow and bigoted official. In "liberty of conscience" and a desire to establish it there is not anything to choose between Puritan and Episcopalian in this period of excited controversy ; neither knew what it really meant, each claimed it only so far as it suited his own interests or prejudices ; so history everywhere gives a partial and false impression by the emphasis which the writer lays upon the injustice done to those with whom he happens to sympathize. In the "Notes on the Laws of New Ifampshire," above quoted from, we find (page 10) this passage: " The Rev. Mr. Moodey, the only minister in Portsmouth during the adminis- trations of Cutt and Cranfield, refused to baptize the children of some of his parishioners according to the ceremony of the English Church, though often and earnestly requested." Liberty of conscience seems to have been interpreted by him to mean intolerance of any conscience but his own. Yet no one who has read the history of this period with any freedom from bigotry would venture to say there was any less in- tolerance on the part of Cranfield, while, if enlight- enment of conscience by a pure and noble life could be counted upon, Moodey was by far the more ac- ceptable life.

Governor Cranfield left the province in May, 1685, and was succeeded for a short time by Walter Bare- foote, his deputy, until the commission of Dudley in May, 1686, and he in turn was followed by Andros from December, 1686, to April, 1689. Then for a period of eleven months the province was without any government until it was reannexed to the prov- ince of Massachusetts on the 19th of March, 1690. During this period, as is shown by the careful paper of Mr. Charles W. Tuttle on "New Hampshire with- out Provincial Government," the attacks of Indians, especially the tragedy at Dover, in which the vener- able Richard Waldron, one of the most prominent men in these settlements, and a number of the inhab- itants were slain, and the dangers from the French revealed the weakness and insecurity of these sepa- rate colonies, and forced them for self-protection to join with the Massachusetts, under whose rule the Piscataqua remained until Samuel Allen was com- missioned as Governor of the province, Aug. 13, 1692. His son-in-law, Usher, was appointed with him as Lieutenant-Governor, a man, as we shall sce, particu- larly objectionable to the people on account of his arbitrary interest and action in the Mason claims.

1 See lloyt's " Notes on the Laws of New Hampshire."

HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

Partridge, the Earl of Belmont, Dudley, and William Vaughan successively administered the government of this province, either as Governors or Lieutenant- Governors, until the commission of John Wentworth as Lieutenant-Governor, signed by the distinguished Joseph Addison as Secretary of State, was published to the province on the 7th of December, 1717, and the more settled history, government, and prosperity of the province begins, as well as the longer reigns of its rulers.1

CHAPTER IX.

PORTSMOUTH .- ( Continued.)

The Mason Claims-Theological Movements-Early Clergymen-('ran- field and Moodey-Imprisonment of Moodey-Mr. Moodey's Interest in Harvard College-llis Death.

Mason Claims .- During all this period, to the gov- ernment of which we have briefly referred, and even to a much later date, the petitions and efforts of the Mason heirs were fruitful of the most constant and serions disturbance to the province, and of course with a legal if not an equity claim. In 1681 we find a pe- tition, signed by most of the prominent settlers, setting forth that "the great matter of difficulty now amongst us is referring to Mr. Mason's pretensions to the pro- priety of the lands we possesse, some countenance to his clayme whereunto he hath gotten in yor Majtys Commission under the broad Seal, which we cannot but thinke has been hy inderect meanes and untrue informations (in wch he abonnds) obtained. Wee are informed yt he has no authority, Authentique, Origi- nall, or Duplycate, of any grant for the soyle, nor hath he in any measure attended the scope of such grant (if any such had been made to him), viz. : the peopling of the place and enlarging yor Majtys Do- minions, both which have been vigorously attended by the present Inhabitants. The vast expense of es- tate is mostly if not merely a pretence. An house was built in this province, but the disbursements laid out were chiefly in the Neighbouring Province of Meyn, on the other side of the River, and for carry- ing on an Indian Trade in Laconia, in all wch his grandfather was but a partner, however he would ap- pear amongst us as sole proprietor." The petition states at length how Mason has tried to substantiate his claims by the signatures of persons of no influence or account in the province, and adds, "These sub- scribers are the generality of the whole province, yt

1 John Wentworth was the son of Samuel Wentworth, the first of the name in Portsmouth. He lived on the south side of what is called Puddle Dock. At that time the vicinity of the Point of Graves was the business part of the town, and in 1670 is the record that Samuel Went- worth was licensed with "libertie to entertain strangers and sell and brew beare," In 1727 the town granted permission to build a bridge over the cove or dock, now called Liberty Bridge, but at that time the cove extended farther into the town, so that at high tide boats passed over Pleasant Street to the South Creek or mill-pond by the Universalist Church.

are householders and men of auy principles, port, or estate."

This is met by a counter petition from Mason, re- questing all the acts of the Governor and company of the Massachusetts Bay to be declared void and illegal, and that " the petitioner may not be any longer kept out of his inheritance by the continuance and prac- tices of evill minded men."

After Cranfield assumed the government here and had looked into this disturbing element, we find him writing that " Mr. Mason hath much misrepresented ye. whole matter, both as to ye place and people. . . . Instead of being ready to own Mr. Mason as their Proprietor, they are very slow to admit of any person except their Sovereign Lord, the King, to be their Lord Proprietor." In the same paper he adds, "Touching Ecclesiastical Matters, the attempting to settle ye way of ye Church of England, I perceive wilbe very grievous to the people, However, Mr. Mason asserted yt their Inclinations were ich yt way. I have observed them to be very diligent and devout in attending on yt mode of worship wch they have been brought up in, and hath been so long settled among them, and seem to be very tenacious of it, and am very thankfull for His Majtles gracious Indulgence in those matters."

In 1691, Robert Tufton Mason, to whom the estate of his brother, John Tufton Mason, had descended, sold his whole claim in the province of New Hamp- shire to a merchant in London, Samuel Allen, for the sum of seven hundred and fifty pounds, a paltry sum after the statements of expenditures and the pros- perity of the colony, or a proof that the confidence in his legal claim or the hope of recovering anything had nearly vanished. One of the chief reasons for Usher's unpopularity was his attempt immediately upon arriving to secure into his own possession all the papers relating to the Mason claims. For some tinie, through the determined opposition of Pickering, a man very prominent in the early history of the settle- ment in both church and State, he was prevented, and at last after succeeding, and after many discus- sions and legal attempts, a peaceful solution of the long standing contention was about reached when Allen died and his son carried on the strife. Again, in 1746, John Tufton Mason, still claiming a title to the realm of New Hampshire, sold it in fifteen shares to twelve persons prominent in the province, who at once released to all the towns the lands which came under the old grants, and Mason's claim forever fell asleep. Two or three conclusions are evident from a careful review of the whole matter,-that Mason was not the original founder of this colony, but the one who carried ou the original settlement by Thomson to a successful issue ; that he was one who by a long and generous interest showed his unwearied faith in its final success; that he doubtless spent large sums upon this colony without any encouraging returns; that after the settlement was by his heirs for a long

PORTSMOUTH.

time abandoned there is every reason to suppose the wages of his colonists and their labors to build up the province fairly entitled them to most of the posses- sions here, and that most of the claims made by suc- ceeding generations of heirs were manifestly exorbi- tant and unjust. But, on the contrary, when in "Notes on an Indenture of David Thomson and others," recently recovered among the papers of the Winthrop family, it is said, "New Hampshire has but little cause to cherish his (Mason's) memory ; and he would probably have been forgotten but for the accidental revival of his name by the claims of his heirs, who used them as an instrument to annoy and perplex the settlers on the soil, who had acquired a right to their homesteads and farms by long undis- turbed possession," we think we find here the old spirit of the Massachusetts to belittle the character of the settlers at the Piscataqua, for there is no reason to suppose that Mason was not an honorable, loyal, generous, and good man.

Theological Movements .- The change in the Pis- cataqua from Episcopacy to Puritanism, which was made during one of the most excited ecclesiastical periods in history, finds its only explanation in an understanding of the ecclesiastical parties of England and New England. That vast theological movement which spread over Europe in the sixteenth century under the name of the Reformation reached England in the reign of Henry VIII. Convocation after con- vocation for arranging articles of faith broke up with only a wider separation. During the next reign of . Edward VI. a committee of bishops and divines trans- lated and arranged from the Latin of the ancient liturgies enough to form the Book of Common Prayer, which substantially in its present form was adopted in 1548, and ordered to be read throughout the king- dom. The Established Church of England was a compromise between Papacy and Calvinism, the faith of Rome and Geneva, the two great rival centres of theology for that day. It was, and was intended to be, neither one thing nor another, but so admirably proportioned to the tastes of the discordant factions that in it the Romanist might find enough of his old ritual to make him think he was still coming to mass and the Puritan enough of change to make him think the church had been purified, and, as a matter of his- tory, "even those who were addicted to the Romish communions made no scruple of attending the Es- tablished Church. Her doctrinal confessions," says Macaulay, " set forth principles of theology in which Calvin or Knox would have found scarcely a word to disprove. Her prayers and thanksgiving, derived from the ancient liturgies, are very generally such that Car- dinal Pole might have heartily joined in them. Ut- terly rejecting the doctrine of transubstantiation, and condemning as idolatrous all adoration paid to the sacramental bread and wine, she yet, to the disgust of the Puritan, required her children to receive the me- morials of divine love, meekly kneeling upon their

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History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 14

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