USA > New Hampshire > Strafford County > History of Strafford County, New Hampshire and representative citizens > Part 8
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If Mr. Thomson had been as gifted in the use of the pen as he evidently was in managing business, he might have left us as interesting a story as Governor Bradford wrote for Plymouth; unfortunately he left no record of what was done, or when important events took place. He was a young man of twenty-eight or thirty years of age then. If he left no records, how then do we know that he really came in 1622? We know by the written records of other men. Look at the evidence :
William Hubbard, the historian of New England, who wrote at a period about as distant from March, 1623, as we are now from the date of the firing of the first gun on Fort Sumter, which opened the Civil war, says that Thomson and his company landed at Little Harbor in 1623. There can be no doubt he knew whereof he wrote.
Capt. Christopher Leavitt, a famous sea captain, traveler, discoverer, colonizer and historian, left an interesting account, which has been published, of a voyage he made to the New England coast in the summer and fall of 1623; he visited the Isles of Shoals, which he describes very accurately, and
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in November of that year visited Mr. Thomson and his company at Little Harbor. He calls it "Pannaway," but he is the only writer who has ever so called it; why he used the name has never been explained; Captain Leavitt says :
"The next place I came to was Pannaway, where one Mr. Thomson hath made a plantation. There I staid about a month, in which time I sent for my men in the East (at Agamenticus and York), who came over in divers ships. At this place I met with the Governor (of New England, Robert Gorges), who came thither (from Plymouth) in a bark which he had (confiscated) from Mr. Weston about twenty days before I arrived at the land. (Weston had disregarded the orders of the Council of Plymouth.)"
"The Governor then told me that I was joined with him in commission as Counsellor, which being read I found it was so; and he then in the presence of three more of the Council, administered unto me an oath."
"In the time I staid with Mr. Thomson, I surveyed as much as possible I could, the weather being unseasonable and very much snow on the ground.
"In those parts I saw much good timber; but the ground seemed to me not to be good, being very rocky and full of trees and bush wood.
"There was a great store of fowl of divers sorts, whereof I fed very plentifully. About two miles further to the East (Fort Constitution), I found a great river and a good harbor, called Pascataway. But for the ground I can say nothing, but by the relation of the Sagamore or King of that place, who told me there was much good ground along the river, about seven or eight leagues above (Dover point)."
Governor Bradford in his "History of Plymouth," under date of 1623, says: "There were also this year some scattering beginnings made in other places, as at Pascataway, by David Thomson, at Monhegan, and some other places, by sundry others."
Thomas Weston, the London merchant who had planned to finance the expense of sending over the Mayflower and its emigrants, but who backed out of the agreement just as the Pilgrims were on the point of sailing for New England, and left them in great financial straits, was again heard from in the summer of 1622.
He sent over emigrants in two ships, the Charity and the Swan, who first landed at Plymouth. There were sixty of these colonists, most of them hard characters. After remaining at Plymouth a short time, they commenced a settlement at Weymouth, eighteen miles north of Plymouth, Weston himself coming over in the spring of 1623, with the Maine coast fishing fleet. He left the fleet in the neighborhood of Monhegan, taking two men and a small trading stock in a shallop, and sailed along the coast for Weymouth, Mass.
They sailed along all right until off Rye or Hampton beach, where a storm capsized the boat, and they barely escaped to the shore alive.
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When Weston and the two men gathered themselves up on dry land, with what of their boatload had washed ashore, they were attacked by Indians, who were short of guns and clothing; they took the guns and all the clothes the three men had on, and left them. Weston and the men, in their naked condition, tramped back along the shore to where they had called on David Thomson, a short time before, in sailing along the coast.
Fortunately for Weston, it was warm summer weather; so they did not suffer, except for sore feet. Governor Bradford says in his history: "He (Weston) got to Pascataquack and borrowed a suit of clothes, and got means somehow to come to Plymouth."
It is not recorded what became of the other two poor men; probably they stayed with Mr. Thomson, and worked for their board and clothes, help- ing him finish his new house on Odiorne's Point.
Perhaps the following may explain how Weston sailed from Pascata- quack to Plymouth; it may have been that Capt. Myles Standish took him along :
Winslow's book, "Good News of New England,' published in 1624, in describing events of the summer of 1623, says: "At the same time, Captain Standish, being formerly employed by the Governor to buy provisions for the refurnishing of the colony (at Plymouth), returned with the same, accom- panied with Mr. David Thomson, a Scotchman, who also that spring began a plantation twenty-five leagues northeast from us, near Smith's Isles, at a place called Pascataquack, where he liketh well."
Phineas Pratt, whose manuscript narrative was not published until 1858, says he visited David Thomson, at Pascataway, in the year 1623.
What greater proof would be asked, that David Thomson began his settlement at Little Harbor in the spring of 1623 than has been given by the witnesses above quoted?
The year and the season is beyond question. It was in the ' spring of 1622, O. S .; or, 1623, New Style, as we now reckon years.
HOW LONG DID THOMSON RESIDE AT LITTLE HARBOR?
The historian, Hubbard, says Mr. Thomson abandoned Little Harbor the next year, 1624, "Out of dislike to the place or his employers."
On the other hand, Bradford's "History of Plymouth" says he was resid- ing at "Pasketeway" in 1626; as in the spring or summer of that year, he joined with the Governor of Plymouth and Mr. Winslow in purchasing goods at Monhegan, where the owners broke up their establishment and sold out to the highest bidder.
When Thomson and the Plymouth party arrived there, and the Mon- hegan fellows saw there were competing bidders for their stock in trade,
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they put up the price; then Winslow and Thomson stopped bidding and withdrew for consultation; the result was they agreed to purchase the whole lot, jointly; which they did, and then divided the goods according as each had means to pay. Among the lot were some fine animals-goats and hogs ; some of these Mr. Thomson took, as a part of his share, and carried them to his island, in what is now Boston Harbor, where he established a flourish- ing business in raising swine and goats for trade with the settlers along the coast.
As regards Pascataqua and Little Harbor, I have not been able to find any reference that would show that Mr. Thomson resided there after the summer of 1626. The inference is that he had shut up his house and was con- fining his work to his flourishing establishment on Thomson's Island. There is no record, or hint of a record, that any one resided at Odiorne's Point after Thomson left there, in 1626, until Capt. Walter Neal took possession of the house, by order of Capt. John Mason, in June, 1630, on the arrival of the bark Warwick, with the company that Captain Mason sent over, and who began the settlement at Strawberry Bank, which in 1653 became Ports- mouth. Not a name of a single human being, except Thomson, has been found who was a permanent resident of Odiorne's Point, or Strawberry Bank, previous to 1630. Thomson left there in 1626; and his fishermen and other "hired men" engaged in more profitable employment somewhere else. It seems evident that Thomson, Confer, Sherwell and Pomeroy did not find it a paying investment at Little Harbor, so gave it up, and shut up the house.
WHAT ABOUT THOMSON'S ISLAND?
How do we know that the island mentioned in the Indenture is Thomson's Island in Boston Harbor ?
The Indenture simply says, 6,000 acres and an island. Well, that might mean Newcastle Island, just across Little Harbor from Odiorne's Point. Why didn't he select that, instead of the fertile land in Massachusetts Bay? The reason is obvious to any one who has seen both islands; the one must have seemed to Mr. Thomson's eyes to be nothing but ledges and rocks, with here and there thin patches of earth; the other was almost free from rocks, and presented an inviting appearance-just the place to raise hogs and goats.
How do we know that David Thomson lived on Thomson's Island? We have the evidence of men who were his contemporaries, and knew him well.
David and Amias (Cole) Thomson had a son, John Thomson, who was born, probably, in 1625 or 1626, at Odiorne's Point; hence was the first white child born in New Hampshire. David Thomson died in 1628, leaving a widow and an infant son. Later the widow married Samuel Maverick,
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who was the owner of and first resident on what is now East Boston. In 1630 the Massachusetts Bay Colony commenced its settlement at Boston. Time went on, and other settlements of towns around there were begun, receiving their grants of land from the colony officials.
In 1635, not knowing David Thomson ever had a grant of the island, the officials of the Bay Colony granted it to the town of Dorchester, which town held it a dozen years, unquestioned; then, in 1647 or 1648, John Thomson, son of David, who had just become of age, entered his claim for ownership of the island, as sole heir of his father, David Thomson, who had died in 1628, on that island; and he petitioned to have it taken from the town of Dorchester, and have it restored to him, the rightful owner.
Shurtleff's "History of Boston" gives full particulars of the lawsuit that followed, ending in restoring it to John Thomson. In court, in 1648, he said his father began to occupy the island "in or about the year 1626."
In course of the trial, there were among the witnesses, Capt. Myles Standish and William Trevore, a sailor who came over in the Mayflower, in 1620, and visited Boston Harbor in 1621 ; and while there took possession of this island, under the name of the Island of Trevore, for Mr. David Thomson, then of London; he also testified that Mr. Thomson obtained a grant of the island from the Council of Plymouth some years before the Massachusetts Bay Colony had its grant.
Captain Standish testified that he knew Mr. Thomson, as a resident of the island. Mr. William Blaxton, who was a resident on the peninsula of Boston some years before the Massachusetts Bay Company settled there in 1630, testified that he knew Mr. Thomson well, as a resident of Thomson's Island where he was prosperously engaged in raising hogs and goats for trade with the colonists.
There was much other testimony which convinced the authorities and the court that John Thomson's claim was just and legal; and accordingly the island was restored to him much to the grief and vexation of the town of Dorchester.
The court decision, therefore, settles beyond question that David Thom- son was a permanent resident of Thomson's Island from 1626 until his death in 1628. It appears from the testimony of Trevore, that he was the person who informed Mr. Thomson about that island, and that Thomson the very next year obtained a patent for it, October 16, 1622.
WHAT ABOUT MASON HALL?
In all the histories the story is repeated that David Thomson built a house on what is now called Odiorne's Point; that it was a spacious and elegant house, built in the style of the great mansions in England, in which
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the lords of great manors then resided, and in which their descendants reside to this day. How beautiful and grand it seems as you picture it in your mind's eye! The historians not only say it was a grand mansion, but also that he called it Mason Hall.
Well, what about it? There never was any "Mason Hall." In the first place, if Mr. Thomson had built such a fine house, there was not the slightest reason why he should name it for Capt. John Mason, who never invested a penny in sending over emigrants, and had no interest whatever in Thomson's grant of land. Moreover, Mr. Thomson had no time, material or work- men, such as would be absolutely needed for the construction of such an edifice. For example, it is stated as a fact that it took an expert carpenter a year to do the carving and finishing of the council chamber in the Governor Wentworth house, at Little Harbor, which was not built till more than a century after David Thomson built the first house at Odiorne's Point, just across the Little Harbor from the Governor's house.
Consider the situation of things when Mr. Thomson anchored his good ship, Jonathan of Plymouth, in the southwest cove of Little Harbor, in the spring of 1623. The beautiful plateau of Odiorne's Point was covered with a heavy growth of pines, and all the land around was a forest untouched with axe since the forest primeval first sprouted, as the glaciers of the ice age receded and exposed the earth to sunshine.
Evidently the first work the men did was to clear the land of the forest ; they had axes and strong muscles, but no sawmill to cut up lumber, of which there was more than enough.
Mr. Thomson had his men convert those huge trees into a large log house in the quickest time possible; it was capacious and substantial, but there could not have been very ornamental work. The chimney was built of stone, at the north end of the house, and the mortar was tough clay, from a clay bank near by. The foundation stones of that chimney can be seen today, and were seen by the Pascataqua Pioneers when they visited the spot, August 31, 1909. No doubt they had the house completed before Captain Leavitt and Gov. Robert Mason and the councillors paid Mr. Thom- son a visit, in November, 1623, when he entertained them a month, as Cap- tain Leavitt says.
It is fortunate that we have a description of one of these plantation houses, which was built near Cape Elizabeth, by John Winter, ten years later, who was the agent of Robert Trelawney, mayor of Plymouth and the proprietor of the plantation there. Mr. Winter gave Mr. Trelawney the following description of the house; my opinion is that Mr. Thomson's house was of the same style. Mr. Winter says :
"Now for our buildings and planting, I have built a house here at Richmond Island that is forty feet in length, and eighteen foot broad,
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within the sides, besides the chimney; and the chimney is large, with an oven in each end of him. And he is so that we can place a kettle within the mantel piece. We can brew and bake and boil our kettle within him, all at once within him, with the help of another house that I have built under the side of our house, where we set our sieves and mill and mortar in, to break our corn and malt, and to dress our meal in.
"I have two chambers in him, and all our men lies in one of them. Every man hath his close boarded cabin (bunks like a ship, one above another), and I have room enough to make a dozen close boarded cabins more, if I have need of them; and in the other chamber I have room to put the ship sails into, and allow dry goods which is in casks; and I have a store house in him that will hold 18 or 20 tuns of casks underneath. Also underneath I have a kitchen for our men to set and drink in, and a steward's room that will hold two tuns of casks, which we put our bread and beer into. And every one of these rooms is closed with locks and keys unto them."
Enough seems to have been said of Odiorne's Point, Mason Hall, and the career of that grand pioneer, David Thomson ,of whom Thomas Morton, the historian and personal friend, says he was "a Scotch gentleman, who was conversant with those people (the Indians) ; a scholar and a traveller that was diligent in taking notice of these things, and a man of good judg- ment." It should be borne in mind that Mr. Thomson was a young man about thirty-eight years old when he died.
HILTON'S OR DOVER POINT
Having shown when and how the settlement at Odiorne's Point was begun, and how long the settlers remained there, I will now consider the question of how and when the settlement was begun at Hilton's or Dover Point :
The settlement was begun in the spring of 1623, by Edward Hilton and his party, and the occupation has been continuous to the present day; some of the descendants of the very first party being now residents on Dover Neck, about a mile above the Point; so that is the locality where the first permanent settlement was begun in New Hampshire.
Who was Edward Hilton? He was a native of London, England; born of good parents, with a worthy ancestry; he was well educated; he was ad- mitted to membership in the Fishmongers Guild, in London, in 1621, when he was about twenty-five years old. That society was very exclusive in selecting its membership; none but owners of fishing vessels and wealthy bosses in the fishing business were admitted. Mr. Hilton's admission to the Guild is evidence that he was a young man of high standing in that city.
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What his relations were with David Thomson are not recorded, but he came to Pascataqua in the ship-Providence of Plymouth, which was sent over by the three merchants, partners of Thomson-Abraham Colmer, Nicholas Sherwell and Leonard Pomeroy-a few weeks after the Jonathan of Plyn- outh sailed with David Thomson's company. Mr. Pomeroy was owner of the Providence, and probably came over in the ship on that voyage.
When they arrived at the mouth of the Pascataqua, they must have had previous knowledge that Thomson had landed there, or intended to do so, otherwise they would not have known where to make harbor. Of course they called on him, and then came up the river to that beautiful point of land on which they staked out the settlement, and built their first house, which it is reasonable to suppose was of logs, of which they had a good supply all around here. Perhaps Mr. Thomson may have got his house built first : we don't know-but we do know they were both built in the year 1623; and there Edward Hilton had his abode for ten years, when he sold out to Capt. Thomas Wiggin's company, which came over and began the settlement on Dover Neck, in 1633.
Where is Hilton's Point? The distance from the Odiorne's Point land- ing place, in Little Harbor, coming up the west side of Newcastle, to Hilton's (Dover) Point, is six or seven miles. The "Point" lies between the Pas- cataqua and Back river on the south and west. Fore river ( otherwise Ne- wichawannock ) on the east. In coming up the Pascataqua, it looks as though it was straight down on the east side of Dover Neck; David Thomson and the first voyagers so regarded and so called it, hence Thomson's grant of "a point of land in the Pascataqua river" was on the supposition that the water Dover settlers have always called "Fore river," was a continuation of the Pascataqua.
The Point is about a half mile long and a quarter of a mile wide, and is nearly level, and in its highest place perhaps fifty feet above high water mark. The soil is excellent. The situation is one of the most beautiful in the state.
There is where Edward Hilton and his party settled. He was a shrewd business man, as well as a gentleman; he was not an ordinary fisherman. He saw and appreciated the advantages of that locality for the purposes for which he came over here: that is for fishing, planting and trading with the Indians.
At various seasons of the year the waters there, on all sides, were abounding in excellent fish; it was but a short distance to the Isles of Shoals. then a most excellent locality for deep sea fishing; the soil all about his houses was excellent for raising Indian corn, which the Indians soon taught him how to cultivate; also for beans and other garden products. Two or three miles above there, he could get all the oysters they could
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possibly use; and the clams in Back river were so abundant that they fed their hogs on them. Lobsters, wild ducks, and wild fowl of all kind were abundant in Little Bay and Great Bay, so that they never lacked for food. As Elder Brewster said of the Plymouth colonists that year, "They were permitted to suck the abundance of the seas and of the treasures hid in the sands."
By the way, the Indians never, at any time, troubled the settlers on Dover Point or Dover Neck; not even during the fiercest Indian wars. Hilton's Point was a most excellent place for meeting and trading with the Indians, for the beaver skins and other Indian products of the forests; and Hilton and his men must have found that branch of their business as profitable as fishing; perhaps more so. That very year, 1623, while Capt. Myles Standish and his soldiers were fighting the Indians, hand to hand at Wey- mouth, all was peace on the Pascataqua, and it continued so all through the troubles at Plymouth.
Mr. Hilton resided there ten years; then, having sold out his interests to Captain Wiggin's company, which came over in 1633, soon after removed to what is now Newfields, then in the town of Exeter, where he resided until his death in 1671. His remains and those of eight generations of his descendants are interred in the ancient burial ground, not far from the Boston and Maine railroad station at Rockingham Junction.
When Wheelwright and his party came to Exeter in 1638, they settled at the Falls, and they found Hilton three or four miles below, where he possessed a large tract of land; and as the years went by, he built a spacious residence after the old English style. He was not a Puritan; probably that was one reason why he left Hilton's Point when the Puritan settlers came there with Captain Wiggin. Mr. Hilton was attached in a quiet way to the English Church, as is manifest in a petition to the King which he signed July 18, 1665, praying that he might be permitted to "enjoy the Sacra- ments of the English Church," which he had long been deprived of.
When Exeter became settled, Mr. Hilton was one of the leading men until his death. He was elected one of the Selectmen in 1645, and in many years after that. In the early history of Exeter his name appears fre- quently, and he was repeatedly chosen by the inhabitants on important com- mittees to look after their interests.
May 3, 1642, he was appointed by the authorities in Boston a magis- trate, to hold courts at Dover, for that town and for Exeter; those towns having come under Massachusetts rule in October, 1641. Judge Hilton held the office for several years. Such was the man who established the first permanent settlement in New Hampshire. 5
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WILLIAM HILTON
William Hilton, brother of Edward, was one of the party that settled at Hilton's Point in 1623. What of him? He was five years older than Edward; he was admitted to membership in the Fishmongers' Guild, in Lon- don, in 1616, and was an active member until he came to Plymouth, New England, arriving November 11, 1621, in the ship Fortune. He returned in the autumn of 1622, and came over with his brother Edward to Pascata- qua, in 1623. His wife and two children came over to Plymouth in the ship Ann, in the summer of 1623, and in August of that year came from Plymouth to Hilton's Point, and resided there as long as his brother did, engaged in business with him. He was deputy to the Massachusetts General Court in 1644, and probably in other years.
After Exeter was settled he had grants of land there. He also had grants of land in Dover. He had a cornfield, in what is now Eliot, directly across the river from Dover Point. Probably it was an old Indian cornfield, which the Indians had used during an unknown period before the Hiltons settled on the Point. Later he built a house and resided there, until he was driven off by Capt. Walter Neal, governor of Capt. John Mason's settlement at Strawberry Bank, who claimed that the land belonged to Mason, under the Laconia grant.
Captain Neal very summarily destroyed Hilton's house, and granted the land to Capt. Thomas Cammock, June 2, 1633; he designates the grant as, "Where William Hilton lately planted corne."
Hilton brought a suit against Mrs. Mason to recover it; and it was not till twenty years later that the case was decided, after Maine came under Massachusetts rule. It was on October 25, 1653, that judgment was given, in his favor, against Mrs. Ann Mason, executrix of Capt. John Mason, and she had to pay him £160, instead of restoring the land which had been occupied by some one during the twenty years. It was his land and his house that Captain Neal dispossessed him of; the court so decided, and that, of course, by right of the David Thomson, 6,000 acres patent. No doubt he began planting corn there soon after the settlement was begun on Hilton's Point, as it was an old Indian cornfield, all ready to be worked.
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