History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 88

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 88
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 88

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When released from service in the pulpit, Mr. Choate did not leave the people in a condition favor- able for settling another man. On the 16th of Feb- ruary, 1721, the town gave a call to Mr. William Tompson to become their minister, offering him a salary of eighty pounds a year,-forty pounds in money and forty pounds in provision pay,-also "a grant of land, provided he be our ordained minister, and continue with us in the work of the ministry ten

by death ;" also the use of the parsonage meadow " during his natural life." He accepted the call, and his letter in answer to it is recorded in the town book. But for some reasons, not recorded, he was not ordained, and did not remain long, though he re- turned and preached occasionally, and seven years afterward, Oct. 30, 1728, he married Miss Anna Hub- bard, of Kingston.

The treaty of peace with the Indians in 1713 did not continue long, for the Indians in the east became dissatisfied with the conditions of it, and renewed their attacks upon settlers on the frontiers, while England and France were nominally at peace. In May, 1724, they entered Kingston again and took as prisoners Peter Colcord and Ephraim Severance and two sons of Ebenezer Stevens, whom they carried to Canada. The children were ransomed, and Colcord, a smart, active young man, after about six months escaped and returned to his friends. In September, 1724, while Jabez Colman and his son were gathering cornstalks in a field on the borders of Little Pond, they were attacked and murdered by the Indians.

A mere statement of such facts as these gives us no adequate idea of the solicitude, the sufferings, and the distress with which these early settlers were oppressed. Many of them sacrificed all their pecuniary means, and mortgaged the houses and lands which they had just been preparing for their homes. If they escaped with their lives, they often saved nothing with which to sustain life. Sickness, occasioned by destitution and exposure, took away many who escaped the tom- abawks and the bullets of the savages.

On May 17, 1725, the "Selectmen of Kingstown," viz. : Joseph Fifield, Ebenezer Stevens, Tristram San- born, Joseph Greele, and Joseph Sleeper, presented the Governor and Council a petition for " Abatement of Province Tax," in which they say, " We request that your hon's would consider our sad surcomstances, -living in a frontier town,-so small, & exposed to ye Indian enemy, & our rates so heavy that we can- not tell how to pay it. Therefore we humbly pray your honors to consider us, & to medigate sumthing of our Province Rates." " We have Lately lost sun- dry men of considerable estates,-some by the enemy, & some by sixness. We are so exposed to danger of ye enemy, dayly,-whenever we goe to work, we are as it were upon duty."

Early in the year 1725, Mr. Ward Clark, son of Rev. John Clark, formerly pastor at Exeter, commenced preaching in Kingston, and in April he received a call to settle as minister in the place. He was about twenty-one years of age, and a graduate of Harvard College in 1723.

They voted to pay him a salary of eighty pounds on September 17th. A church was organized of twenty- three members,-nine by letter from Hampton, and seven brought letters from Hampton Falls. He was ordained Sept. 29, 1725, his stepfather, Rev. John

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Odlin, of Exeter, preaching the sermon, which was afterwards printed at Boston. The text was (1 Timo- thy vi. 11 and 12) the subject, "Christian Courage Necessary for a Gospel Minister."

Mr. Clark proved to be an able and efficient pastor, and the church increased rapidly under his ministry. His church records are very carefully kept, and will be of much value in preparing a complete history of Kingston. He made a list of the families in the town, eighty-one in all, including the three towns which were afterwards set off from the original town. Fifty snrnames are found in the list. The name Sleeper is represented by six heads of families, and Bean, Sanborn, and Webster by four each. One man is de- scribed as a Quaker. It would seem that all the others were Congregationalists. There was no other religious society organized for one hundred years from the set- tlement of the town, or in the year 1800, when the Methodists had a society.

From this time the town became more prosperous, and rapidly increased in population.1 For several years they annually voted twenty pounds additional to their pastor's salary, and made him liberal grants of land.

In March, 1732, at the annual meeting they voted to build a new meeting-house, and that it " shall be 55 foots Long and forty-five foots wide, and high enough for two ters of Gallery, &c." It stood for one hundred years on the west side of the common just north of the road which leads to Rock Rimmon and Danville. Some years later a tower was erected one hundred feet high. The first meeting-house re- mained for more than thirty years, and was in 1764 used for town-meetings.

The Epidemic which originated in Kingston .- In the midst of their prosperity the town was sud- denly visited by a terrible disease, called " the throat distemper." It commenced in June, 1735, and in about fourteen months one hundred and thirteen had been taken away by it, ninety-six of whom were under ten years of age. The wife and two children of their pastor, the Rev. Ward Clark, were among the victims of this scourge. His own health failed soon after, and

Of this disease the town record says, "This mor- tality was by a kanker quinsy, which mostly seized upon young people, and has proved exceeding mor- tal in several other towns. It is supposed there never was the like before in this country." Professor Wil-

liam Franklin Webster, of this town, when in Ger- many, found in a " medical work the statement that the first recorded instance of this disease in the whole world was in this town," Kingston, N. H. Of the first forty persons seized with it not one recovered.

It is now supposed that it was a malignant type of diphtheria, which soon visited many other towns in the vicinity, and was fearfully destructive in its ravages.

During the pastorate of Mr. Clark, four hundred and seventy-one persons were baptized, and one hun- dred and thirty were received into the church. At the funeral of Mr. Clark, in Exeter, 10th of May, 1737, the senior deacon, Moses Elkins, fell and sud- denly died.

Mr. Clark in his will gave to " his beloved people at Kingston, for a perpetual parsonage, to be improved for the use of the ministry there, [his] dwelling-house and home place," upon conditions which were ac- cepted, and for about eighty years his " successors in the ministry" were permitted to occupy the premises, which were afterwards sold, and the funds used some- times to oppose the (truths) doctrines which he preached. The records at his death say "He lived beloved, and died respected by his people."

Soon after the death of their pastor, the majority of the citizens gave a call to Mr. Peter Coffin to settle with them; but eighteen voters dissented, and he was not settled.

On the 17th of October, 1737, the church voted unanimously to give Rev. Joseph Seccombe a call, and the town on the week after cast a unanimous vote that he should be their minister. He was installed Nov. 23, 1737, and spent twenty-three years, the re- mainder of his life, as their pastor. Mr. Seccombe preached the installation sermon himself, from Mark vii. 37, "He hath done all things well," etc.

It is said, " Mr. Seccombe was a good man,-a poor man's son ; that he preached to the Indians three years before coming to Kingston." His labors were very successful, and the parish soon grew to such an extent that in February, 1739, the east part of the he returned to his native town, Exeter, where after | town had been set off, and a committee appointed to a long sickness he died, May 6, 1737. " A good man, much wanted, and much lamented," as was said of his father, who died at the same place, near the same age, thirty-fonr.

fix the boundaries between the two parishes. On the 6th of March, 1739, the old part of the town voted to remonstrate against this division, but they did not succeed in preventing it. On Nov. 4, 1739, ten members were dismissed from the Kingston Church to unite with a church in East Kingston, which was organized Dec. 19, 1739. In the year following thirty- three others were dismissed to the new church. On Sept. 26, 1740, forty-three persons included in the new parish "requested to still belong to the old parish." They were permitted to do so. These per- sons lived in the district on the Exeter road, and it seems the northern part of the line between the two parishes was removed to the east to accommodate them.

1 In seven years the town " had 164 ratable inhabitants and 115 dwell- ing-houses, of which 64 were two stories high." In this year their eec- und meeting-house, three stories high, was built.

In 1767, after East Kingston, Sandown, and Hawke had been detachsd from it and incorporated as separate parishes, Kingston contained 999 inhabitants.

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HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

From the settlement of Kingstou a part of the congregation at public worship came from that part of Exeter afterwards Brentwood. In 1750 thirty- three members were dismissed from the church in Kingston to unite with a church in Brentwood. On April 6, 1756, the west part of the town was incor- porated under the name Sandown, and in Novem- ber, 1759, ten members were dismissed from Kingston to organize a church in it. On Feb. 22, 1760, another section in the west of Kingston was incorporated and called Hawke (now Danville).

On Oct. 25, 1749, the Masonian proprietors granted the town of Salisbury (then Stevens Town), N. H., to fifty-seven grantees, of whom fifty-four belonged to Kingston. Soon after quite a colony from Kingston settled in that place. Among these was Ebenezer Webster, the father of Daniel and Ezekiel Webster, and soon after, Dr. Joseph Bartlett and his wife Han- nah (Colcord), the parents of Hon. Ichabod Bartlett, of Portsmouth.

The people of Kingston felt a deep interest in the prosperity of the colonies that went out from the town. They divided their parsonage property with the society at East Kingston, and the proprietors voted "to assist to build a meeting-house in Salisbury like that in East Kingston, and a pulpit like the one in Hawke, and that Ebenezer Webster, Joseph Bean, and Capt. John Calef must see that the work is done in a workmanlike manner."

Some years later, when called upon to choose a representative to the Assembly to meet in Exeter, December, 1775, they voted that "No person [i.e., from Kingston] be allowed a seat in that Congress who shall, by himself or any other person, before said choice treat with liquor." (Showing they had already at this early day discovered the cloven foot of the old devil, Intemperance.)

Mr. Seccombe's ministry continued till his death, Sept. 15, 1763, nearly twenty-three years, during which he baptized 1257 persons, old and young, and received to the church 338 members, most of them joining after a revival, which commenced some five years after his installation.

Mr. Seccombe took no active part in the contention which arose in the churches respecting the labors of Mr. Whitefield. While Messrs. Coffin, of East Kings- ton, and Fogg, of Kensington, signed a letter desiring their brethren not to admit Whitefield into their pul- pits, Mr. Seccombe probably sympathized with his views and profited by his labors.

In about eighteen months from the death of Mr. Seccombe the town gave a call to Mr. Amos Toppan, who accepted, and was their pastor for nearly nine years, till his death, June 23, 1771.1 From this time the church was vacant over five years, during which they were supplied by Mr. Stephen Peabody, Na-

thaniel Niles, Stephen Lancaster, Joshua Noyes, Moses Everett, Joseph Appleton, and probably others. Some of them declined the calls which they received, and others were not invited to settle with them. The political discussions had invaded the religious soci- eties. In 1757 the Baptists and the Quakers had re- fused to aid in the support of public worship. After- wards, if any one did not wish to pay his proportion of such expenses, he could join the Quakers or Bap- tists and be released from that part of the taxes paid by the rest of the town.

In 1763 the town treasurer records, " Paid Benj. Collins £7 10s. for being a Quaker, and Jonathan Collins £3 5 shillings."

In 1775 the town voted " not to raise any money for preeching." In the year following Mr. Elihu Thayer was called at a salary of sixty pounds lawful money, use of parsonage, and twenty cords of wood, and ordained Dec. 18, 1776. He soon took a high place, not only in his parish, but in the community about Kingston, as a man of piety and learning. For more than thirty-five years, till his death, April 3, 1812, he retained his well-earned reputation in the town and throughout the State. During this long period we have no account of any other organized religious society except the Methodists, a feeble band, organ- ized in 1801.

The year after his death a census of the one hun- dred and twenty-nine families in the town "showed that 82 of them" preferred the Congregational de- nomination, and "47 the Baptists, Universalists, or Methodists," who, it seems, united their forces.

It is said Dr. Thayer kept together a large congre- gation, but did not in those troublesome times re- ceive many into the church; only thirty-six in thirty-five years are named in the records as becom- ing members.

Dr. John H. Church, of Pelham, preached the ser- mon at the funeral of Dr. Thayer, upon the text (Ezekiel xxxiii. 33), "Then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them." From this time the town had no settled ininister till Rev. John Tur- ner was installed, Jan. 1, 1818. The town officers withheld a part of the income of the parsonage fund, and it was used to pay for preaching different doctrines. From this time any person in town who pays any tax can withdraw a portion of that money yearly, and direct that it be used for a different pur- pose.

Though the town had settled Mr. Turner, the party opposed to the rate shut the church against him, and Deacon Stevens, for forcibly entering it, was fined and imprisoned for thirty days. The opposition was so violent that Mr. Turner was dismissed May 1, 1823. Mr. Patten, in manuscript, says, " If Mr. Turner had possessed the wisdom of the serpent and the harm- lessness of the dove, he could not have escaped cen- sure." The town officers set a guard from Saturday till Monday at the doors of the meeting-house, and

1 Mr. Toppan records the names of sixty-five persone who were bap- tized, and twenty-eix who were received as members of the church.

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the Congregational people withdrew from the place many difficulties unknown in the present age. The people incurring such great expenses in clearing where their fathers worshiped, and in 1825 erected a new meeting-house, which was enlarged in 1841, and | their lands, erecting their houses, building roads, remodeled in 1879. From this time the town and the , bridges, mills, etc., besides supporting the military churches have been independent of each other, ex- companies necessary to protect their lives and their property, had but little money left to build the school- house or pay the schoolmaster. Even when by hard lahor they earned a little money, it was not safe to keep it long for use. Frequently in a few months their money would lose much of its value. Their paper money was of such a poor quality that it often deteriorated in the hands of the collector of taxes, or of the town treasurer, before he could pay it out for the proper objects, and the town would have to pay him for his losses. cept that the town holds the funds given for the sup- port of the gospel, including the legacy of the first pastor of the Congregational Church, and that church and society have usually received about one-fourth of the income from it. The preachers in the Congrega- tional Church since 1823 have been Rev. Ira Pearson, seven years ; A. Govan, two years ; George W. Thomp- son, three years ; Samnel Mason, three years ; John Smith, two years; John H. Mellish, twelve years; S. Bixby, three years ; and J. Chapman, seven years, closing July, 1879, and several others for shorter periods. Mr. G. B. Balch was ordained pastor Aug. 4, 1881.

Remarks upon the Ecclesiastical History .- 1. The ministers in early times were not settled in haste, but they waited for months, till each party could be- come acquainted with the other. The first pastor commenced labor with the people more than six months before he was settled. The second preached on trial three months, and then became pastor for twenty-three years. '

2. The orthography in some of the early records is not according to the present standard, for there were no spelling-books used in the schools. The scholars read in the Testament and Psalter.

3. It seems that at first they sang, in church, the literal translations of the Psalms, but by advice of Mr. Seccombe, in 1737, the church adopted the use of some metrical versions of the Psalms, and the church ! birch-tree. Still, some of these pupils became quite voted " to sing by rule." In 1741 thirty persons united in a request "that the church sing some Christian Hymns at the Lord's Supper." About the same time " The church desired to revive the Reading of the Scriptures as a part of public service on the Lord's Day."

There is a tradition that, out of regard to the name of the town, "King's-town," the king of England sent the settlers a valuable ball for their church. But it was supposed to have stopped in Boston, because the Bos- tonians concluded that a cheaper article would be good enough for a little society upon the frontiers.

CHAPTER LV.

KINGSTON .- ( Continued.)

Educational-Ecclesiastical-Grantees-Professional Men, etc .- Repre- sentativee from 1708 to 1883-Military Record.

THE early settlers of Kingston were not unmindful of the education of their children. In 1700 they set apart lands for the support of schools. But the pur- suit of knowledge then and there was attended by

Then the inhabitants were scattered so widely that it was extremely difficult to bring the children to- gether into the school when they were in danger, dur- ing the long, lonely walks through the forests, from the wild beasts and from the still more fearful savages waiting to kill the little ones or carry them into cap- tivity.

Notwithstanding all these discouragements they did not hesitate to tax themselves for the support of their teachers and their preachers. They wanted well- educated men for pastors and teachers.

Benjamin Choat, A.B., of Harvard, who was the first preacher, it is said, taught school in the garrison- house, where the children were safer from the attacks of the Indians. They had no spelling-books, gram- mars, and geographies, but used the Testament and the Psalter as reading-books. For writing and ciphering they probably used, as in other places, the bark of the familiar with the science of numbers, and with prac- tical geometry and surveying. When we consider the imperfections of their instruments, and the other dif- ficulties they had to encounter, we wonder that they were so accurate in their surveys.

In respect to orthography, punctuation, and the use of capitals they were not so particular. The modes of spelling differed widely, for Johnson, Walker, and Webster had not put the words of our language in proper shape.

The same writer would sometimes spell a word in two or three different ways on the same page, using such letters as would express the sound of the word as spoken. I will give a specimen, taken verbatim et literatim from a manuscript in the Provincial Court papers :

" Mar. 2 1695 at a meeting of Kingstown men in Kingstown to chuse cunstabules & selectmen, we have chose John Mason & Ebenezer Webster for cunsta- bules & James Prescut sener & Isaac Godfrey Gershom Elkins for selectmen of the town."

We find in the records frequent notices of the ex" penses incurred in supporting the schools. 1n 1733 "Pd. Mr. Choat for Keeping School £1 16s." In 1745, Matthew Campbell was a schoolmaster. Jere-

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HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

miah Webster was for some time a teacher, and Jacob Bailey, a graduate of Harvard, and afterwards rec- tor of an Episcopal Church in Annapolis, N. S. In 1750 a colony from Kingston settled in Stevenstown (now Salisbury). During twenty-five years the en- terprising people of Salisbury sent fifteen students through Dartmouth College, including the Websters, Ezekiel and Daniel, and a son of the first physician (Dr. Joseph Bartlett), who became IIon. Ichabod Bartlett, of Portsmouth.

In January, 1770, the town " Voted to give the money for which the school lands were sold to the commoners or proprietors to settle the dispute with Hampstead, etc." The commencement of the war in 1775 was a great injury to the prosperity of the schools and the churches. After many years the interest in education was revived.

" In 1826, Lieut. Thomas Elkins left by will $2000, $1000 for schools & $1000 for the support of the poor. He was the first (except Rev. Ward Clark) who left any legacy to the town. He was the son of a farmer, descended from one of the first settlers. He was a man of Industry, integrity & economy." (C. Patten's MS.) Mr. Elkins had no child, and left about ten thousand dollars.

Mr. Peter French afterwards left a certain sum of money the income of which is to be devoted to the benefit of the academy, if that institution is kept open, under faithful teachers.

Peter French was born in Kingston, N. H., in 1788. His ancestors were originally English. His father, Henry French, came to Kingston in early life; mar- ried (1) Judith Jewell, (2) Anna Shepard, who was mother of Peter. He was brought up on the farm of two hundred acres owned by his father, and which he afterwards inherited ; received his education princi- pally by the private teaching of the Rev. Mr. Thayer, from whom he acquired a love of education which continued through life.

Shortly after arriving of age he married Mary Ste- vens, of Danville. They had one child, Henry, of brilliant intellectual powers. Great care was bestowed upon his education. He was prepared for college under Dr. Abbott, at Phillips' Exeter Academy, going thither when but twelve years old, and was graduated from Hanover ; returned to Exeter, where he became a popular and able instructor until his premature death at twenty-six years of age. He was Mr. French's only child, and his death was keenly felt by him. Mrs. French died in 1839, and in April, 1840, Mr. French married Elizabeth, daughter of Benjamin and Abiah Kimball, of an old and reputa- ble family of Kingston. Mr. French was always a farmer ; his nature was kind, modest, and unobtrusive. He was always deeply interested in education and the prosperity of the young, and he and his amiable wife were always beloved by them, and their house ever their home. Many of the students of Kingston Acad- emy (of which Mr. French was one of the incorpo-

rators) were boarded by them, and the kind interest and fatherly and motherly care manifested by them will bear fruit long generations hence. About 1840, Mr. French removed from the estate which he inher- ited to the place now occupied by Stephen Nichols, and as age advanced and he became feebler he sold

Peter French

that and purchased the place where Mrs. French now resides, and erected the house in which he lived till his death, which occurred July 4, 1870, enjoying the pleasant domestic life and the society of his amiable wife. He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, his second wife was a Congregationalist, but no sectarianism ever marred their influence or the beauty of his noble life. He always shrank from offi- cial position, but was bound up in the cause of edu- cation. As evidence of that he left in his will a be- quest of a tract of woodland, which was to be sold and invested in safe corporations, the interest to be applied to the payment of teachers in Kingston Academy, who should be a Methodist or member of some other evangelical denomination, etc. This land was sold for four thousand six hundred dollars, and after deducting expenses gave a permanent fund of three thousand dollars. This amount, given from an estate which inventoried not more than ten thousand dollars, shows the wonderful liberality of the gift and the giver. Mrs. French still survives, although in feeble health.

Kingston Academy .- The building was erected in 1819 at an expense of $1500. It was commenced un- der the patronage of the Methodist denomination,

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being, I think, the second institution of the kind under their management in New Hampshire. There was a hall finished over the school rooms, and after the old church became unfit for use the Methodist Society worshiped in this hall; but in a few years the control of the institution passed into the hands of a board of trustees of different denominations.

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History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 88

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