USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Canterbury > History of the town of Canterbury, New Hampshire, 1727-1912, v. 1 > Part 12
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Quite likely there was some jealousy and friction among the people of contiguous towns. That Boscawen was one of the "adjacent towns" making complaint of the disloyalty of Canter- bury is shown by some of the unpublished records and papers of the Committee of Safety recently compiled by Otis G. Hammond, assistant librarian of the state library at Concord. Antedating but a few days the town meeting at Canterbury when the accusations of its disloyalty were considered was the action of the Committee of Safety at Exeter on the complaint of the committee of Boscawen. This complaint was probably oral but sufficiently alarming to secure prompt and drastic action. Incomplete as are the records, they throw light upon the con- ditions existing at that time and help to explain one or more votes at a town meeting of Canterbury held later in the month of June, 1777. The only papers extant which bear upon this subject are as follows:
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STATE OF NEW HAMP. IN COMMITTEE OF SAFETY MAY 20, 1777.
We are informed of a set of most abandoned wretches who meet at Canterbury and are conspiring against the states and meditating how to assist our enemies. We desire you to inform yourselves of the bearer when they are to meet and to go with a sufficient force and seize them all and bring them to Exeter. You must keep this matter private until the time of executing it. The Committee of Boscawen will assist you as they understand the affair. If no meeting should be next week it must not be deferred longer but apprehend such persons as the aforesaid committee shall name.
By order of the Committee, MESHECK WEARE, Chairman.
(To Col. Thomas Stickney.)
COL. STICKNEY'S RETURN.
STATE OF NEW HAMP. EXETER 9th June 1777. ROCKINGHAM SS
By virtue of this precept to me directed I have taken the bodies of Peter Green Esq. and John Stevens, Jeremiah Clough Esq. and Richard Ellison as the same were shown to me by the Chairman of the Committee of Boscawen and have brought them before the Council and Assembly at Exeter aforesaid convened.
THOMAS STICKNEY.
STATE OF NEW HAMP.
To the Sheriffs of the Counties of Rock- ingham and Hillsborough and to their respective under sheriffs and to the con- stables of the several towns in said counties, Greeting.
You are hereby required to summon Thomas Wilson, Benjamin Eastman, Jacob Green, Samuel Bradley, Archelaus Miles, William Miles, Obadiah Clough, Samuel Atkinson, Moses Burbank Jr., Joseph Soper,1 to make their appearance before the General Assembly of said state now setting at Exeter in said state to give evidence of what they respectively know concerning any person or persons apprehended as enemical, or upon suspicion of their being enemical to the liberties of this state, and to be examined forthwith before the said General Assembly. Wherefore they may not fail, as they will answer
1 Wilson, Eastman, Green and Bradley were of Concord; Archelaus and William Miles, Soper and Obadiah Clough of Canterbury, and Atkinson and Burbank of Boscawen.
4
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their contempt at their peril, and make return hereof to the clerk of said Assembly as soon as may be.
Dated at Exeter June 9, 1777.
NOAH EMERY, Clerk Assembly.
June 10, 1777, Winthrop Carter, constable of Boscawen, returns that he had summoned Samuel Atkinson, Moses Burbank, Jr., Archelaus Miles, William Miles and Joseph Soper.
June 11, 1777, Reuben Abbott, constable of Concord, returns that he had summoned Thomas Wilson, Benjamin Eastman, Jacob Green and Samuel Bradley.
Of the men arrested under the foregoing order, Peter Green and John Stevens were citizens of Concord, while Jeremiah Clough and Richard Ellison, or Allison, were residents of Canter- bury. Dr. Philip Carrigan of Concord and John Meloney of Canterbury were in jail at Exeter at this time, but there is no record of their arrest. The Concord town records show that Peter Green, John Stevens and Dr. Philip Carrigan were under suspicion as early as March 4, 1777, for at the annual meeting that year it was:
"Voted that this parish will break off all dealings with Peter Green Esq., Mr. John Stevens, Mr. Nathaniel Green, and Dr. Philip Caragain until they give satisfaction to the parish for their past conduct and that they be advertised in the public prints as enemies to the United States of America unless said persons give satisfaction within thirty days from this date and that the above persons be disarmed by the Committee of Safety until they give satisfaction to the public." 1
It was also voted that if any persons have dealings with them they shall be looked upon as public enemies.
At a town meeting held in Canterbury June 24, 1777, twenty days after the town was considering the accusations of disloy- alty made against it, the following vote was passed:
"Voted thanks and approbation to Colonel Thomas Stickney for his conduct and good service in coming up to this town and carrying off Capt. Clough and Richard Ellison to court."
The Provincial Congress at Exeter was in session the day Colonel Stickney made his return of the arrest of Green, Stevens, Clough and Ellison. Committees of the council and house were immediately appointed to "consider and report what
Concord Town Records, page 154.
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measures are best to be at present taken with the said prisoners for the safety of the state."1 The committee made report the same day that they be committed to jail for safe keeping. Appar- ently up to this time no formal charges had been made and no hearing had taken place.
Three days later, June 12, the house and council joined in committee to hear witnesses. The only evidence preserved is the following affidavit dated June 12, 1777:
"Archelaus Miles deposes that he heard Richard Allison say that he hoped the King would get the day and that he did not intend to deny his King. The above conversation was the first of last week."
On the reverse side of the returns of the constables who summoned witnesses to testify against the accused is the fol- lowing:
"Archelaus Miles, good; Joseph Soper, not much; Benjamin Eastman, good; David Chase, nothing; Oba Clough, Samuel Atkinson, very good; Moses Burbank, Jr., ditto; Jacob Green, Thomas Wilson, John Chase, William Miles, nothing to the purpose."
Evidently this memorandum refers to the testimony of wit- nesses at the hearing before the legislature. By whom the memorandum was made does not appear. Archelaus Miles, whose affidavit is given, is pronounced "good." Samuel Atkin- son and Moses Burbank, Jr., who were from Boscawen, and pre- sumably the complainants, are certified as "very good." The hearing was undoubtedly ex parte, the accused not being present.
The legislature voted that "Green and Stevens be liberated from close prison, giving bonds with sureties to the Speaker in £500, that they remain true prisoners within the prison yard at Exeter until further order of the house or Committee of Safety and that Jeremiah Clough, Jr. and Richard Allison be kept close prisoners."
Peter Green, upon taking the oath of allegiance, was early released and soon after again enjoyed the confidence of his fellow citizens whom he served in important official positions.2 Stevens refused to take the required oath, but swore that he
1 Prov. Papers, Vol. VIII, page 580.
2 Concord Town Records, pages 197, 219.
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HISTORY OF CANTERBURY.
was "as good a friend of his country as any one who had caused his arrest." He was later released by order of the legislature and received a commission as justice of the peace in token of restored confidence.1 Captain Clough was kept in close confine- ment until September 13, 1777, when, upon giving bonds, he had accorded to him the privileges of the jail yard. October 3 following, he and John Meloney were discharged. The only evidence of a hearing where the prisoners were confronted by their accusers is the following memorandum. "Capt. (Samuel) Atkinson 2 being in town, Capt. Clough and Capt. Meloney was bro't before the Committee and examined and sent back to prison." This memorandum bears date of September 3, 1777. As noted above, they were given the liberties of the jail yard ten days later, and a month after this examination were released.
Sundry petitions of these suspected prisoners from Canterbury and Concord have been preserved as well as two letters of Captain Clough. Except that of Dr. Philip Carrigan there is nothing in any of them to throw any light upon the character of the accusations made against the accused. He states that "the matters alleged against him, so far as they have come to his knowledge, were such as long before were fully settled by the town to which he belongs, and he was so happy as to give them full satisfaction and obtained their recommendation, which recommendation he doubts not would have been as fully satis- factory to your honors had it come to your knowledge at the time the accusations did, which were founded on these same matters thus settled and as your petitioner thought buried in oblivion."
Col. Chandler E. Potter in his Military History of N. H. contained in the Adjutant General's Report for 1866, says in a footnote : 3
"Captain Jeremiah Clough was a man of substance residing in Canterbury. His garrison was made a depot and rendezvous by the government through the Indian wars. He raised and commanded a company in Colonel Poor's regiment in 1775, was subsequently suspected of Toryism,-as he harbored in his hay mow and furnished with food Dr. Philip McCarrigan, his son-in-law, who had escaped from the sons of liberty at
1 Bouton's History of Concord, pages 273, 564.
2 One of the witnesses summoned from Boscawen.
: Adjutant General's Report, 1866, Vol. II, page 77.
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Concord,-and lodged in jail at Exeter from which he was soon released, and remained as he had been a steadfast patriot."
Colonel Potter cites no authority for the foregoing. Further- more, he confounds Capt. Jeremiah Clough, the colonial leader and Indian fighter, with his son of the same name who was the Revolutionary soldier. The father, a member of the Committee of Safety of Canterbury in 1777, was a man of upwards of seventy years of age at this time. Besides the records show that his son wrote to him while the former was in jail at Exeter. Nor was Doctor Carrigan even a son-in-law of Capt. Jeremiah Clough, Sr. The Doctor married a cousin of Jeremiah Clough, Jr.
In a letter dated September 2, 1777, appealing to Ebenezer Thompson for assistance, Captain Clough says: "What have I done, sir, that I should thus be made unhappy by confinement? Sure I am that I have never injured this or the United States, but have faithfully served them according to the best of my knowledge and capacity. If I have injured them in any shape, it has been without designe. Only viue (view) the tenor of my conduct in general since the commencement of this very unnatural war. Then viue (view) how malicious persons are capable of construing common conversation to the disadvantage of any person. Then examine what the general sentiments of the people are concerning me, and then if the safety of the state require that I should still be confined I can say no more. Otherwise I hope the Honble Committee will grant me my liberty."
Four days later Captain Clough writes his father the following manly and affectionate letter:
"EXETER, September 6, 1777.
"Honored Sir:
This comes with my duty to you and my mother, hoping to find you well as I am, considering the long confinement I have had, which I see no relief unless god in his providence should release me-for people in general seem to have no humanity for their fellow creature, and in hoping for better times I am afraid to see worse. I am conscious of myself that I never did anything against my country deserving of such treatment. I can't find as there is any evidence against me unless some unguarded words that I should have spoke some time last spring, and upon them words I am held here calose confined without trial or bail, which I can't live so no longer. The Committee says as I am told that some of the prisoners belonging to this gaol may be transported if they will appoint a place and I would be glad to have the same opportunity if I can't get no other
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releaf but should wait for your advise which I should be glad (to) have soon. I shall incline to carry some personal estate with me if I can git leave if not I will go without, with your leave: I should think it best to let my farm out to the half. Capt. Molony gives his compliments to you and my mother- I have no more to write at present but I remain your dutiful son till death should part us.
JERE CLOUGH JUN.
In the foregoing the only cause of his confinement which Captain Clough can suggest to the father, to whom he appeals for advice whether he shall expatriate himself if he can get no other relief, is that he has given expression to some "unguarded words" the spring before. What he writes to Ebenezer Thomp- son, "how malicious persons are capable of construing common conversation to the disadvantage of any person," is in the same tenor with the petition of Philip Carrigan, John Maloney and others to the Committee of Safety wherein they set forth "that they have been in jail upwards 4 months and their characters have greatly suffered from the inhuman tongues of malicious persons who think they ingratiate themselves into the favor of the government by falsely and wickedly exclaiming against others, maliciously augmenting every failure of human nature into crimes."
If there were any basis for the story which Colonel Potter gives as the cause of Captain Clough's arrest and confinement his act was one which many another patriot would have done for a friend and relative. There is little doubt that Doctor Carrigan was falsely accused of disloyalty, as were the other prisoners from Concord who were in Exeter jail with him. If he escaped from persecution at Concord to Canterbury, what was more natural than that Captain Clough, who was a cousin of the Doctor's wife, should have given him food and provided him with a temporary place of safety?
The carelessness with which Colonel Potter mixes up father and son in his recital and his error in the relationship of Doctor Carrigan to the Clough family show that he made no investi- gation of the story before writing it. The records of the town and what has been preserved of the records of the Committee of Safety of the state throw doubt upon his explanation. Bouton, in his "History of Concord," makes no mention of any such inci-
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dent, and if there had been any tradition of this kind he would most likely have given it.
The complaint of the Committee of Safety at Exeter came from Boscawen. The affidavit of Archelaus Miles is that Richard Allison gave expression in conversation to disloyalty, and the accused in their petitions and letters seem to think that the charges relate to some chance remarks made by them which were distorted by the accusers for purposes of revenge or to ingratiate themselves with the government. The inference drawn from reading Bouton's account of the disciplining of Peter Green, John Stevens, Nathaniel Green and Dr. Philip Carrigan of Concord is that the accusations made against them had nothing more than mere suspicion of disloyalty as a basis.
In his petition to the Committee of Safety at Exeter dated August 28, 1777, Captain Clough names his accusers. After setting forth that he has been absent from his family and business for almost two years, "the greater part of which time he has spent in the public service," he says, "that in sending for Mr. (Samuel) Atkinson and Mr. (Moses) Burbank, the persons to give evidence against him, he finds that they have gone to the western army and will not return for several months." In regard to the return of one of these witnesses Captain Clough is mistaken, for Captain Atkinson six days later appears at Exeter, possibly having been summoned by the Committee of Safety, and "Capt. Clough and Capt. (John) Maloney were bro't before the committee and examined." Whatever Captain Atkinson's affidavit or statement may have been at the time of the arrest, which apparently was marked "very good" on the return of the constable who summoned him as a witness, he seemingly failed to substantiate it on examination when brought face to face with the accused, for ten days later Captain Clough was given the liberty of the jail yard, and a month after the examination he and Captain Maloney were discharged.
Captain Clough returned home to be completely vindicated by his fellow-townsmen, and by the state government. In 1780, less than three years after his discharge, he was chosen a committeeman in place of his father to settle the boundary dispute with Chichester. It was probably the son who was a member of the constitutional convention of 1781 from Canterbury. In 1782 and 1783 "Capt." Jeremiah Clough was a member
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HISTORY OF CANTERBURY.
of the board of selectmen, and the latter year he was elected to represent the town in the legislature.1 Again in 1788 he was chosen to the convention called to ratify the federal constitution, for he is designated as "Col." Jeremiah Clough, a title never given to his father.2 In 1785 he was appointed a justice of the peace and lieutenant-colonel of the Eleventh Regiment of Militia, appointments that would not have been bestowed by the state government so soon after the war upon one suspected of Toryism.3 Of his loyalty there can be no doubt, as his almost two years' voluntary service in the army demonstrates. He suffered temporary ignominy because of unfounded accusations, only to receive the full confidence of those who hastily condemned him. His whole record shows him to have been an ardent patriot in both military and civil life.
At the same town meeting where Col. Thomas Stickney was thanked for "carrying off Captain Clough and Richard Allison to court" the town reprimanded James Shepherd for "not publishing and fulfilling the orders he has heretofore received of Col. (Thomas) Stickney in mustering his company and seeing how they were equipt with arms and ammunition." Both votes were undoubtedly prompted by the accusations of Bos- cawen and other "adjacent towns" that Canterbury was not loyal to the patriot cause.
The next subjects to be considered by the town were the plans of government for the United Colonies and for the Province of New Hampshire. At the meeting January 27, 1778, Canter- bury voted unanimously to adopt "the confederation made by the Continental Congress for each and every state on this conti- nent." This vote was on the Articles of Confederation which the Continental Congress had accepted November 15, 1777, and sent to the states for their ratification.
At this same meeting, the representative to the next session
1 Immediately after the close of the Revolutionary War, the people of Canterbury appear from their records to have differentiated between father and son of the same name and military title by calling the elder Jeremiah Clough, "Esq." and the son, "Capt." About 1785 or earlier the father had moved to Loudon, for that year he signs a petition as an inhabitant of that town (N. H. State Papers, Vol. XII, page 488) and as "Jeremiah Clough Esq." he heads a recommendation for the appointment of a justice of the peace for Loudon under date of April 30, 1789 (N. H. State Papers, Vol. XII, pages 489, 490).
N. H. State Papers, Vol. X, page 3.
' Idem, Vol. XX, pages 282, 283.
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of the legislature was unanimously instructed to call for a full and free representation of the people of the state in convention for the purpose of framing a permanent plan of government for New Hampshire.
Four weeks later, the voters were again called together to see what could be done to complete the town's quota of Conti- nental soldiers. At this meeting, February 24, 1778, it was voted that Robert Hastings, James Hastings and George Shep- herd "be made good with the rest of the Continental soldiers that went from Canterbury."
The votes at the annual meeting, March 19, 1778, largely relate to the conduct of the war. The selectmen were directed to provide for the families of those men from Canterbury who were in the Continental service. Capt. James Shepherd was authorized to hire for Canterbury one Continental soldier for three years. With the apparent purpose of equalizing bounties, it was voted to give "$100 to each and every soldier enlisted for three years and answering for Canterbury in said service, includ- ing what they had already received."
That the efforts of the town were not confined to filling its quota in the Continental service but that it furnished recruits for General Stark at Bennington and militiamen for short term service is shown by the following vote at this meeting, "Voted that all the soldiers that went out as militiamen into the service last fall be allowed equal to those of the militia that were with General Stark the time he had the Bennington fight."
This same year, at a meeting June 22, the town voted to raise three soldiers to send to Providence, R. I., and that Capt. Edward Blanchard be a committee "to hire the above mentioned three soldiers for said town as cheap as he can hire them." The straightened circumstances of the inhabitants undoubtedly justified this prudent proviso.
Archelaus Moore was elected in April this year a delegate from Canterbury to the convention at Concord June 10, 1778, for the purpose of framing a plan of government for the state.
Not always did the town have funds to arm and equip its soldiers and pay their bounties. Patriotic individuals came forward and advanced the money or the town hired it of people of means, as appears from the votes at the town meetings during the year 1779 and later. Sometimes the gratuity offered men
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HISTORY OF CANTERBURY.
to enlist was Indian corn or its equivalent in money. Thus, at a meeting July 1, 1779, the offer was made by the town of thirty-eight bushels of corn or eighty shillings in money each to three able-bodied men who would enlist for three months to serve in Rhode Island and seventy-six bushels of corn or 160 shillings in money to any six able-bodied men to enlist in the Continental army for one year.
Later in July of that year, the selectmen were directed to make an assessment on all the ratable polls and estates of the town to settle with the individuals who had advanced money to pay the three months' and six months' men that had lately been sent into the service, and at a town meeting February 13, 1781, it was "voted that Capt. Jeremiah Clough and Ensign Ephraim Carter be a committee to advance money of theirs or hire or borrow said money to pay Ebenezer Varnum what said town oweth him for his serving said town as a three years' man, also to treat with Capt. Joseph Eastman of Concord and Nehemiah Clough of Canterbury concerning the money which this town owes them, which was hired by a former committee of ours to pay off three years' men."
Besides furnishing its three years' quota of men to the army, the town was called upon to supply beef to feed the troops. The committee chosen for this and other purposes requiring the expenditure of money were frequently cautioned in the votes of authority to act prudently for the interest of the town. Capt. Jeremiah Clough, who was authorized in 1780 to buy the town's quota of beef for the Continental army, was directed to purchase it "discretionably as he can do it best for the advantage of the town and provide it seasonably as we shall be sent to for it by our Court or its trustees."
As late as the annual meeting March 15, 1781, enlistments were kept up in Canterbury. It was there "voted to accept William Rines as a Continental soldier and pay him as we pay our other soldiers that are to go with him."
At the same meeting, Thomas Clough was authorized to buy two cows, one for Edmund Colby and the other for William Rines, "they being two of our Continental men, and the pur- chase of them to come out of their wages.".
In September, 1781, the town was fixing the price of corn to be purchased for the families of soldiers in the service, and
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at the annual meeting of 1782, it was "voted that Nathaniel Glines, being a Continental soldier, shall be put on the same footing by this town with our other Continental soldiers which we sent last year."
There are but five later entries in the town records pertaining to the soldiers of the Revolution. At the annual town meeting in March, 1786, Abner Fowler and William Walker were "voted £9 in full for the bounty deducted from the state by the town," and at the March meeting in 1787, it was "voted that Capt. Ebenezer Frye have £15 lawful money for three years' service of his black fellow in the war" and that "Walter Haines have £15 lawful money for his service in the war under Captain Frye if said Haines make it to appear that he served three years for this town." March 3, 1788, the selectmen were appointed to settle with John Rowing for his bounty which the town had drawn. At the annual meeting in 1797 it was "voted to give Miriam Blanchard the sum of ten dollars in full for the bounty of Thomas Hoyt (her first husband) as a soldier from this town." The next year twenty dollars more was given to her "in full for bounty money which the town received of the Secretary."
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