USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Antrim > History of the town of Antrim, New Hampshire, from its earliest settlement to June 27, 1877, with a brief genealogical record of all the Antrim families > Part 4
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So rapidly did new settlers of the Scotch, who had scattered here and there, now join the new settlement, that in September following, when they petitioned for incorporation, there were seventy families against sixteen families in April. In October following, as ap- pears from the Wheelwright deed, there were one hundred and five men in the settlement. They early, therefore, sought to be set apart as a town by themselves. Having first applied to the general court of Massachusetts to get the old grant confirmed by a charter, and being refused, they petitioned the general court of New Hampshire for incorporation, September, 1719. The town was incorporated as Londonderry June 21, 1722. They at the start desired to get a title from the Indians as a matter of right, and sent their minister to John Wheelwright, whose ancestor had purchased the land from the native chieftains; and from said Wheelwright they got a deed of the whole tract, dated Oct. 20, 1719. On account of this fair spirit toward the Indians, and also on account of the personal acquaint- ance of Rev. Mr. MacGregor with the French Governor of Canada, it is supposed that the Londonderry colony were so singularly exempted from assault by the red men. The French and Indians were warned by the Catholic priests not to touch any of these Scotch- Irish ; so that, notwithstanding they were a frontier settlement, they were never molested, while fire and murder were everywhere else. Moreover, those who went out from them into other places to settle, were equally unmolested by the Indians when known to them, as is shown in case of the pioneers of Bedford, New Boston, Antrim, etc. No depreda- tions of savages were ever committed in this town ; nor is there any certainty of hostile intent on their part toward Riley when he ran away from his claim here in fright.
As an offset to this exemption from Indian warfare, the Scotch Presbyterians were quietly and indirectly persecuted by their English neighbors for half a century. We have already spoken of their troubles in Worcester. But everywhere else they were looked upon as foreigners. They were called Irish. They were denounced as Roman Catholics. The Londonderry settlers were threatened with armed violence if they did not leave their settlements to various claimants. The sufferers who passed the winter in Casco Bay under lead of Justice McKeen were designated, in the order of the general court at Boston, as "poor Irish people." The New Hampshire general court called them (Sept. 24, 1719) a "company of Irish at Nutfield."
I find in various books and reports the remonstrance of Rev. Mr. MacGregor to Gov. Shute, saying (1720) " We are surprised to hear ourselves termed Irish people, when we so frequently ventured our all for the British crown against the Irish Papists!" This charge of being Irish was a matter of painful and long-continued offense to our fathers, easy to be cast into their teeth, and sure to provoke their ire.
They were obstructed in getting titles to their land and incorporation for their town, from this secret opposition. As soon as they struck ground in the "Chestnut Country " and got together, certain influential men attempted to supplant them by secretly getting a grant to the same land in advance of them. From the position and arguments of these men, they easily got their grant (Aug. 26, 1720), and supposed they would soon have the Scotchmen out of the way. But their ignorance of the country was such that their grant of ten miles square, taking in Chester, Auburn, and a part of Manchester, fell to the north of "Nutfield " and left untouched all the settlements which they wished to break up. And the shrewd Scotchmen, as we have seen, were on the lookout, while this was going on, and secured a title to their lands, before anything further could be done against them.
After this various parties presented bogus claims to induce the settlers to leave; armed parties came to dispossess them; sometimes their property was carried off: but they
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INTRODUCTORY.
quietly and fearlessly and industriously held their way, and in the course of one year they became so numerous as not to be trifled with. But the prejudice was strong against them : and those Scotch Presbyterians who had really saved Protestantism by their defeat of the Catholic James; who had left part of their blood on the banks of the Boyne; who had made sacred the "billowy Shannon " by deatlı and parting on its banks; who had been disappointed in their expectations from William and Mary; and who left all for lib- erty in the forests of America, were misunderstood and opposed this side the water, until their virtues and their power compelled respect.
It should be said here, that the Presbyterians of Ireland formed a body which might be called a presbytery, as early as 1627, which was designated "The Antrim Monthly Meeting, " - showing that the name " Antrim" was familiar to all Scotchmen. Also that, as early as 1631, the Presbyterians of Ireland planned an emigration to New England, and sent an agent to London to procure a passage for them. But for some reason they did not succeed, - probably because advised not to proceed without first securing a tract on which to settle ; since very soon after " they sent over an agent, who pitched upon a tract of land near the mouth of the Merrimack river, whither they intended to transplant themselves." Consequently a vessel called the " Eagle Wing" sailed from Loch Fergus, a port near Belfast, Sept. 9, 1636, for the "Merrymac." This ship was about the size of the " Mayflower," and started with many more emigrants on board than the Pilgrim ship had. But the "Eagle Wing " had a most tempestuous voyage, encountered many gales, and was obliged to put back, reaching Loch Fergus Nov. 3, 1636, having sailed in all about twenty-five hundred miles. Four clergymen were on board, and among the families were Stuarts, Campbells, and Browns, - names familiar, and probably ancestors or kindred of our early families. Long subsequent the emigrants of 1718 had their minds on the " Mer- rymac ; " so that, though directed by Gov. Shute to Casco Bay, they afterwards sought that river and sailed up to Haverhill, locating on the nearest acceptable unoccupied land. It is owing to this early project, therefore, that the Scotch-Irish settlement was made in New Hampshire.
There were two periods of special emigration of the Scotch from Ireland to America. The first commenced in 1718, as already shown, in real earnest, though efforts had been made and some had arrived in this country before. From 1718 for thirty years they left Ireland in great numbers. Every vessel that sailed was crowded with emigrants. Some settled in the Carolinas. Large numbers located in various parts of New England. So many joined the new settlement in Londonderry, that for a long time it was the second town in population in New Hampshire; and for vigor and resources, without question the first. But the great body of these emigrants went to Pennsylvania. Proud, in his his- tory of that State, says that before 1729 as many as six thousand of these Scotch people had arrived there. In September, 1736, one thousand families sailed from Belfast for Pennsyl- vania. For many subsequent years, as many as ten or twelve thousand annually sailed for America. From 1750 to 1771, there was a lull in emigration, only a few relatives and friends and adventurers joining their countrymen here from time to time.
But in 1771 a new and remarkable impetus was given to this movement. The lands in Ireland having never been owned by the Scotch, but only rented, on long leases, chiefly for ninety-nine years, now on the expiration of the time fell back into the proprietors' hands. This especially in the county of Antrim. On application for new leases, the rent was greatly advanced, on the supposition that these Scotch, who had thrived so much better than the Irish around them, would be able and willing to pay the additional fee. But they, feeling that Ireland was not their home, and they must always be in a sort of sub- jection there, were stirred to resentment, and in great numbers determined on an imme- diate flight to New England. Large tracts of land were absolutely abandoned. In about two years twenty-five thousand, all Presbyterians, reached this country, a few finding homes in this vicinity, but most settling in western Pennsylvania with Pittsburg as a cen- ter, forming a community conspicuous in the annals of this country. Heavy colonies of these Scotchimen also settled in the Cumberland Valley, Virginia, and in North Carolina, forming stock foremost in all good in those States. And these colonists, and multitudes that soon followed, leaving the old country on account of oppression, were just in the spirit to join the Americans in opposition to British tyranny, and rendered vigorous, import- ant, and willing service in the war for independence which broke out soon after their arrival.
HISTORY OF ANTRIM.
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mrCochrane.
HISTORY OF ANTRIM.
CHAPTER I.
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF ANTRIM ; AND EVENTS PRIOR TO AND INCLUDING THE INCORPORATION OF THE TOWN.
THE settlement in Londonderry increased so rapidly by births and accessions from abroad that in a very short time it took a leading position in the State. The church formed May, 1719, the first Presbyterian church in New England, in two years had one hundred and sixty members, and at the spring communion of 1724 two hundred and thirty members were present. As early as the incorporation, June 21, 1722, almost every lot in this large town had a family on it, some more than one. In the course, therefore, of a few years, this enterprising people, being crowded at home, began to look elsewhere, and put an eye on favorable localities for settlement. Individuals now and then went out very early into the towns of Chester, Derryfield, Hudson, Merrimack, and others. But the first considerable colony from Londonderry settled in Bedford in 1737. This town had been granted in 1733 to certain surviving soldiers of the Narragansett war, and was called "Narragansett No. 5," and afterwards " Sow-Hegan East." But the first actual settlement was made by the Scotch from Londonderry ; and so rapidly did they fill up the place that it was incorporated as Bedford, May 19, 1750. It is a prosperous and noble town, having sent out many men of mark, and retaining to this day the noble charac- teristics of its founders.
The next colony from our old mother Londonderry was to Cherry Valley, N. Y., in 1741. This place is in Otsego county, about a dozen miles south of the Mohawk river and fifty miles west of Albany, - and thirteen hundred feet up on the hills above the river. This township had been granted to a Scotchman
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CHERRY VALLEY. - MASSACRE.
named John Lindesay, and in 1740 he built a house in the forest and called it " Lindesay's Bush." Soon after, he fell in with Rev. Samuel Dunlap, a Presbyterian clergyman, who happened to be in New York, and persuaded him to " visit the Scotch-Irish colony in New Hampshire to get recruits for the new colony at the Bush." On his representation, about thirty persons left Londonderry and laid the foundation of the new town. It was then on the extreme frontier ; only an Indian path for many miles led to it. The great valley and the fair prairies to the west were then as an undiscovered country. David Ramsay, William Gault, James Campbell, and William Dickson were the leading parties in this emigration. From the last descended Rev. Dr. Cyrus Dickson, the able Secretary of our Home Missions. Judge W. W. Campbell of New York is a descendant of James Campbell. A few others followed out subsequently from Londonderry and joined this colony. At the opening of the revolutionary war, it numbered about sixty families.
When Mr. Dunlap sat down in " Lindesay's Bush " to write his first letter, in 1740, he said to the owner, " What shall we name this new town ?" And then, looking out the window as he spoke, his eye rested on a stately wild-cherry tree; and then he answered his own question, by saying, " Let it be 'Cherry Valley.'" And so he wrote " Cherry Valley " at the head of his letter. And " Cherry Valley " it has been to this day.
But this frontier colony was destined to a fearful ruin at the hands of Tories and Indians. It should be said, however, that the Indians took few lives, and were rather desirous to take hostages and destroy property, while the Tories slaughtered without mercy. It was the morning of Nov. 11, 1778, that the enemy fell upon this unsuspecting people in great numbers. The ground was covered with snow. It was a dark, cold morn- ing. The early-rising settlers, many of them, were at morning prayer. The Tories, hating them for their loyalty to Washing- ton, crept into the town in true Indian fashion, and with their savage allies divided so as to attack all the houses at once. They made this general assault soon after break of day. On every hand the flames of burning homes soon arose, and every house in the settlement was consumed. Women and children were murdered, and no appeals for mercy were heard for a moment. Bodies were cut to pieces, and heads and arms thrown up into the branches of trees. About forty persons were mur-
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RESETTLEMENT. - NEW BOSTON.
dered ; a few escaped by hiding ; a few escaped by flight into the woods ; some were saved by providential absence ; and the rest were carried into captivity Some of the Steeles and Sawyers of Antrim descended from those who by great exposure and suffering escaped with life only from that awful hour. The mother of the Dicksons named above escaped with three or four children into the thick woods behind her house. During the day she slipped back to the house to get food for the children ; but they never saw her again. She was remarkable for her beautiful, long red hair, and the children first learned the fate of their mother by seeing her gory scalp and beautiful hair hanging to the belt of an Indian who passed near their hiding- place. Cherry Valley was a total ruin. Church, school-house, dwelling, people, - all swept away.
In 1784, six years after, a few survivors returned and built log houses. Rev. Mr. Dunlap, who, under charge of an Indian chief, was compelled to see the murder of his family and the burning of his home, being spared, as Brant said, because " he was a man. of God," had survived his afflictions but a little while. But the remnant assembled at the graveyard where their fathers and mothers were buried, and re-organized the old church, April 5, 1785, which church remains in vigor to the present day. The last survivor of this colony was Col. Samuel Campbell, who was three years of age when he left Londonderry with his father in 1741, and died in 1824. He was a man of note in the revolutionary army, and did honor to the name he bore. The first minister of Cherry Valley after its restoration was Rev. Dr. Nott, so long time president of Union College. This colony did a great deal to lay the foundations of religion and good government in the center of New York. There is no honorable pursuit or profession in which its descendants have not been distinguished.
The next colony from Londonderry was that at New Boston. This town was granted Jan. 14, 1736. It was called the Piscataquog township, but the name New Boston was given first in April, 1751. A claim has been advanced that a settlement was made there in 1733, but there is no reliable proof of it, and there was nothing permanent in the town until the Scotch from Londonderry began to locate there about 1742. In September, 1756, there were fifty-nine persons in the town; in 1767, two hundred and ninety-six persons. New Boston was incorporated
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PETERBOROUGH.
Feb. 18, 1763. Probably more exclusively than any other town, it was of the Londonderry stock. The Smiths, McNiels, McAl- listers, Cochrans, Christies, Clarks, and many others of that town, were ancestors of Antrim families, or intimately connected with them. Between this town and New Boston there was, for a long series of years, the greatest intimacy and friendship. Being of the same race and religion, and being pioneers with the same difficulties to overcome, and being united by frequent intermarriage, they were greatly drawn together, and made frequent visits to and fro. The people of New Boston built their meeting-house in 1767, and called Rev. Solomon Moor Aug. 25 of that year. He was settled Sept. 6, 1768, and died May 28, 1803, aged sixty-seven years. His successor, Rev. Ephraim P. Bradford, was settled Feb. 26, 1806, and died Dec. 14, 1845, aged nearly seventy years.
The next colony of Londonderry was that at Peterborough, beginning in the year 1749. During eight or ten succeeding years many went from Londonderry to Peterborough, and among them one of the " original sixteen " who began the former settle- ment in 1719,- John Morrison. He was the last survivor of the sixteen. He died in 1776, aged ninety-eight years. He moved to Peterborough about 1758. His son Jonathan was the first child born in Londonderry, that event taking place Sept. 8, 1719. The very earliest permanent settlers of Peterborough were from Lunenburg, Mass .; but they were all Scotch, having resided in that town but a short time, whither they had come from the north of Ireland. Peterborough was incorporated Jan. 17, 1760. Their first meeting-house was built in 1752. In the days of the revolution there was not a Tory in Peterborough. During the preceding war fourteen sons of Peterborough lost their lives. Their names were James Turner, Thomas Cunning- ham, Charles McCoy, David Wallace, William Wilson, John Stewart, Robert McNee, John Dinsmoor, and John Kelley. The seven named last were surrounded by Indians, by surprise, and fell dead at the first fire, March 13, 1758. The others of the fourteen were Jeremiah Swan, John Turner, John McCollum, John Hogg, and David Scott. One hundred and forty-five persons from Peterborough were engaged more or less in the revolutionary war. The population of the town in 1767 was 443 ; in 1775 it was 545; and in 1870, 2,228. Peterborough is a town marked all the way by the Scotch-Irish traits of hardihood,
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TRURO. - ACWORTH.
perseverance, courage, and religious devotion, and its record will compare favorably with that of any town in New England.
The next colony that went out from our Londonderry mother was that to Nova Scotia. The great victory of Wolfe over the French at Quebec, Sept. 13, 1759, had opened all the country to the English, and many of them had in the course of war made some acquaintance with its resources and location. In the following year, 1760, about thirty. persons left Londonderry and settled in Truro, Colchester county, Nova Scotia. In the few succeeding years, quite a number of families followed them. Among their descendants, the Fishers and Archibalds and others have been in the highest positions of honor in that country. They maintain the church of their fathers unchanged to the present day. This colony, like the others, has done a noble work. The Scotch are by far the most enterprising people in Nova Scotia. Truro is situated at the head of one of the arms of the Bay of Fundy, is on the railroad to the St. Lawrence, and is a shire-town, - all which suggests the shrewdness and enter- prise of the early settlers of the place.
About this time, many families of the Londonderry people, or their kinsmen who had located temporarily in several Massachu- setts towns, settled in Hillsborough, Francestown, Deering, and Hancock, making the important and leading element in these populations. Hillsborough was settled by a Scotchman, James McColley, in 1741; about ten families were driven off by Indians in 1744; resettled in 1762; incorporated Nov. 14, 1772. Francestown was first settled by a Scotchman, John Carson, in 1760, and was incorporated June 8, 1772. Deering was incor- porated Jan. 17, 1774. Hancock was incorporated Nov. 5, 1779. But the next considerable colony from old Londonderry was that at Acworth, in 1768, though a beginning had been made earlier in Antrim. Quite a little company commenced in that town in the summer of 1768, and from that part of Londonderry now Windham probably as many more followed in the next year. Acworth was incorporated Sept. 19, 1766, but it was not permanently settled till the colony from Londonderry arrived on the ground. The conditions of their charter not being fulfilled, it was forfeited in September, 1771; but another was at once peti- tioned for, and it was granted May 30, 1772. At that date there were thirteen houses and twenty-five settlers (men) in the town. Acworth grew slowly, on account of the war and the disturbed
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SETTLEMENT OF ANTRIM.
condition of the country ; but it became a noble town, and retains in children's children the noble characteristics of its founders. It may be noticed here, that Londonderry, the seed- place of so many towns, has been itself divided into several. Windham, the southern part, was incorporated as a separate town Feb. 12, 1742. The east part of Londonderry, including the spot where the first settlement was made, was incorporated, together with a slice of the old town of Cheshire (Chester), as Derry, July 2, 1827.
We come now to that other colony from our Londonderry mother, - dearer than all, - our own blessed Antrim. When we remember that hundreds from that old town of Londonderry went out into various places far and near, of whom we have taken no notice in these pages, and that since the commence- ment of the present century probably more than all before have emigrated therefrom, we see how prolific and vigorous was that ancient stock.
In this town the first beginning was made by Philip Riley in 1744. At that time and for years previous it was a matter of great peril, on account of Indians, to venture far from the close settlements of the lower towns. The valley of the Contoocook was known to explorers, and was looked upon as valuable ground, but no settler had ventured to remain. When the forest was first broken in Antrim and in some of the adjacent parts of Hillsborough at the same time, in the early summer of 1744, there was not a white person in any other of the adjoining towns. Deering, Francestown, Greenfield, Bennington, Hancock, Stod- dard, and Henniker were all a trackless, unbroken wilderness. A very small beginning had been made, as we have seen, in Peterborough and in New Boston. This, therefore, was not only . a frontier settlement, but, with no roads or even paths, it was fifteen miles from neighbors and from any help; while to the north and west it was all a forest, deep and unknown, where the savages roamed and hunted, and planned their attacks upon the scattered whites. And the nearest neighbors, at Peterborough and New Boston, were themselves so few and weak as to need assistance instead of being able to impart it. The only settle- ment of any force in New Hampshire, west of the Merrimack, was Dunstable. This town of Dunstable, covering what is now about six towns, had been incorporated by Massachusetts Oct. 15, 1673; had thirty families in 1680; and was incorporated by New
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ALARM FROM INDIANS.
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Hampshire April 1, 1746. (The name was changed to Nashua, by act of the legislature, Dec. 8, 1836.) But Dunstable had had a hard time with the Indians, having been for fifty years a frontier town, and having suffered many losses of property and life by the hands of the savages. They were in poor condition, therefore, to render any considerable immediate help to the obscure settlers on the Contoocook. And when we take into account, that, previous to the cession of Canada to the English, Feb. 16, 1763, there had been almost constant war for fifty years between the French and Indians on the one hand and the English on the other, and that the deadly, cruel savages were scouring the forests most of the time, with murderous intent, the under- taking of a half-dozen settlers in the vicinity of Hillsborough Bridge seems hazardous enough ! The sense of danger that all felt at this time is shown by the fact, that, soon after, we find all the frontier settlements and some stronger and less exposed ones asking for soldiers to help defend against the Indians. The town of Monson, having fifteen families and considerable strength, claimed to be a frontier town and asked for a garrison, though twenty miles below us, and joining Dunstable. Part of their petition represents " That they are one of the Frontier towns west of Merrimac River & the most northerly One, already incor- porated, Lying Between Hollis & the New Plantation called Souhegan West" (Amherst). This is a strong misrepresenta- tion of the facts, and shows the general alarm. (Monson was subsequently divided up between Hollis and Amherst.) June 12, 1744, at the very time Riley was striking his first blows here, thirty-six men in Souhegan East (Bedford) sent a delegate and petition thus : -
" We the Inhabitants of Souhegan East Apprehending ourselves Exposed to Immenent Danger both from the French & Indian Enemys & being in no capacity to make a proper Stand in case of an assault from them do constitute & appoint Mr. John Chamberlain our Delegate requesting him in yt capacity with all possible speed to repair to Portsmouth & to represent our Deplorable case to his Excellency our Governor."
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