USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Exeter > History of the town of Exeter, New Hampshire > Part 36
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48
Joseph Pearson was a son of Jethro Pearson, an officer in the old French war, and was born in Exeter. He was well educated, and in 1786 received the appointment of Secretary of the State. He was a fine penman, and performed his duties so satisfactorily that he retained his office for twenty years. He then returned to Exeter to pass the remainder of his life. His house was on Water street, at the summit of meeting-house hill, which on that account was sometimes known as Secretary's hill.
Waddy V. Cobbs was a native of Virginia, enlisted in the United States army, and so distinguished himself in the wars with the Indians in the South, that he was promoted to a commission. In the latter part of 1814 he was in command of a company, and was ordered to New Orleans, and arrived there on the ninth day of January, 1815, just one day too late to take part in the famous battle. He continued in the service until he reached the rank of major, and then was retired from active service by reason of paralysis of his lower limbs. He then came to Exeter, where his wife's relatives were, and there lived until his death January 1, 1847, at the age of fifty-nine. His wife survived him more than thirty years, and was very efficient in charitable and benevolent undertakings. During the Rebellion she was at the head of the ladies' organization for the relief of the soldiers, and perhaps no
397
HISTORY OF EXETER.
one in the town did more than she to supply the volunteers in camp and hospital with necessaries and comforts.
John C. Long was a native of Portsmouth, and a grandson of Pierse Long, a gallant Revolutionary officer, and a member of the old Congress. His father was for many years a shipmaster. He entered the United States navy in 1812 as a midshipman. Only four months afterwards he was on the frigate "Constitution" when she captured the "Java." It was a trying introduction to his new profession for a youngster of sixteen, but he never repent- ed of the choice he had made. He remained in the service more than fifty-one years. In this time he was intrusted with every variety of duty, afloat and ashore, and in all situations acquitted himself with success and honor. One of the most unpleasant of his employments was the transportation of Louis Kossuth and his followers to this country on board the steam frigate "Mississippi." The Hungarian exile so entirely mistook the purpose of our gov- ernment in offering him a conveyance on a national vessel, that he insisted on making an inflammatory address from the ship to the red republicans in the harbor of Marseilles. The captain firmly forbade conduct so certain to embroil us with a friendly power. The result was that Kossuth withdrew from the vessel. Captain Long was fully sustained by the government.
In 1857 Captain Long was promoted to the command of the Pacific squadron, and became commodore. A severe accident which he met with on board his flagship the " Merrimac," almost incapacitated him for active duty. But he served out his term of two years, and then returned to his home in Exeter. In 1861 he was placed upon the retired list, and died September 2, 1865.
As an officer, Commodore Long was distinguished for profes- sional knowledge, fidelity to duty and a high sense of honor. He exacted from his subordinates no more than he was willing to perform himself.
In his social relations he was unassuming, kindly and generous. His manners were marked by the high bred ease and courtesy of the old school. He was emphatically a good man. The poor had in him a liberal and constant friend. And when he quitted the earth he left no enemy behind.
The colored population of Exeter has always been more con- siderable, proportionally, than that of other country towns in New Hampshire. In colonial times the wealthier inhabitants held slaves, whose descendants remained domesticated in the place,
.
398
HISTORY OF EXETER.
and intermarried with others, so that their numbers have been well kept up. Several of them fought for their liberties in the War of the Revolution. One of these was Oxford Tash, who died Octo- ber 14, 1810, at the age of abont sixty. He had probably been brought up a servant in the family of Colonel Thomas Tash of Newmarket, and perhaps was freed as a reward for his military service. He was wounded in action, but with a high sense of honor refused to apply for a pension so long as he was able to support himself.
1
He left descendants, and his son, Charles G. Tash, is well remembered. He was of excellent manners, and high spirited like his father. He became enamored of a white girl and wished to marry her, but her friends were unwilling that she should become his wife. He brooded over it until his reason became unsettled. One evening he called to see her, and as she bade him good night he discharged a pistol at her loaded with two bullets, which severely wounded her, and with another pistol inflicted a wound upon himself. There is little doubt that his design was to put an end to the lives of both. But both recovered. Tash was tried for the offence and found guilty of an assault with intent to kill. but was respited by the court on the ground of unsoundness of mind.
Tobias Cutler, a Revolutionary pensioner, died in Exeter in September, 1834, at the age of seventy-six. He was born in Rindge and was a slave of Colonel Enoch Hale. In 1781 he en- listed in the continental army with the consent of his master who engaged to free him at the age of twenty-one years. The town of Rindge thereupon agreed that he should be received and deemed a free inhabitant, upon his manumission by his master. After the war he came to live in Exeter. He left descendants who are still living in the town.
Another colored Revolutionary pensioner was Jude HIall who died in August, 1827, at the age of eighty. He was a man of powerful physique, and it is said that the parts of his ribs which are usually cartilaginous were of solid bone, so that his vital organs were inclosed in a sort of osseous case. He lived on the old road to Kensington, near the line of that town. He was the chief witness of the government in the trial of John Blaisdell for the homicide of John Wadleigh, and was charged by the counsel with a disposition to " stretch the truth," but not, however, with perjury.
399
HISTORY OF EXETER.
A very remarkable family of colored preachers originated in Exeter, of the name of Paul. The Rev. Nathaniel Paul who had been in the ministry twenty-one years died in Albany September 10, 1839, at the age of forty-six, having, it was said, been the means of much good. He had two older brothers who were also Baptist ministers, - Thomas, the eldest, who died in Boston, and Benjamin of New York city.
One of the centenarians of Exeter was a man of African descent, Corydon, who is said to have been once a slave of Dr. John Phillips. He died in 1818 at the age of one hundred years.
The older inhabitants recall many " characters " among the colored population, London Daly, Prince Light and others. The last named was a favorite leader among them. Harry Manjoy, sometimes called Emery, is well remembered. He was brought to Exeter by Noah Emery, a shipmaster, not from Africa, probably, but from some foreign port where he was offered for sale. He claimed to have been a prince in his native country. He lived with Captain Emery until the latter's death, and afterwards sup- ported himself by his labor. Ile was industrious and respectable, and lived to a good old age.
At the southern extremity of what is now Elliott street, formerly a mere lane, lived a colored man named Whitfield, whose wife was quite a superior woman, belonging to the Paul family already mentioned. Their son, Joseph M. Whitfield, went to Buffalo, New York, and there followed the business of a barber. He was a man of some education and of decided talent, and was the author of poems, generally on the subject of slavery, which attracted much notice. A number of his friends united in pub- lishing a volume of his metrical productions, in 1853. They cer- tainly will compare favorably with those of three out of four of the collections of verse issued in the country.
1
MISCELLANEOUS.
26
CHAPTER XXI.
HOMICIDES; BURIAL-PLACES; THE "WHITE CAPS."
SINCE the settlement of Exeter by white men, its annals have been stained by only four known cases of homicide. The earliest and latest were the most painful, the victim in each case being a woman.
Balthazar Willix was a man of more than ordinary education, and came to Exeter about the year 1644. He had married, the preceding year, Mary, the widow of Thomas Hawksworth, as we are informed, and she was probably the unfortunate person who was the subject of the tragedy about to be related.
In the month of May or June, 1648, she went by water from Exeter to Oyster river in Dover, to dispose of some cattle. She seems to have been a woman of business capacity, and it may be that her husband, who was apparently a foreigner, thought her more likely to be successful in her dealings than himself. Robert Hethersay or Hersey, rowed her to Dover in his canoe, and engaged also to return with her in the same conveyance, when her business was accomplished.
She sold the cattle, and received payment partly in corn, and the residue, three pounds, in money. Then she proceeded to the landing at Oyster river, to meet and return with Hersey, but he was not to be found. He must have gone off with his canoe without waiting for her, for what cause we know not.
What then befell the poor woman can only be conjectured. Whether she attempted to return home by land or employed some person to transport her in a boat is not known. The fact that she had with her what was then a considerable sum of money was undoubtedly known. It proved a temptation to some unscrupu- lous person so powerful that it cost the unhappy creature her life. Her dead body was afterwards found in the river, bearing marks of brutal violence.
403
404
HISTORY OF EXETER.
Her husband was shocked, and naturally indignant with Hersey whose negligence he regarded as the cause of the terrible calamity, and who, to exculpate himself had apparently made insinuations against the character of the murdered woman. In the heat of his anger and distress Willix brought two actions at law against him, one for failure to perform his contract of re-conveying the woman to her home, and the other for defamation, in "raising an evil report " about her. The unhappy man, perhaps, hoped by venti- lating the whole matter in a court of justice, to vindicate the char- acter of his dead wife. But he appears to have been better advised, before the session of the court, and never summoned Hersey to answer to the suits, and they were dropped.
Nothing further has been learned respecting the case, and the ruffian who perpetrated the shameful decd was apparently never brought to justice. Willix quitted Exeter the following year, and removed to Salisbury, Massachusetts, and died there in March, 1651.
MURDER OF JOHNSON.
Almost a century and a half passed by, before Exeter lost another inhabitant by criminal violence. The second homicide was committed in the autumn of 1794. The name of the victim was Johnson, and his slayer was his own son. They lived on the eastern side of the river, near the old jail. The father was some- what given to drink, but not quarrelsome. The son, Jack Johnson, followed the sea, was short and thick in figure, and resented any allusion to his "duck legs." He did not get on well with his father, and had been heard to threaten him that he would " come up with him " soon.
One evening the father and son were at the barn of Mr. Grant, a neighbor, at a husking party. Old Mr. Johnson was somewhat intoxicated, and very talkative, and staid till after the others were all gone ; then he took his departure. That was the last time he was seen alive. The next morning he was missed at his home, and his son Jack went about ostensibly in search of him. He first made inquiries at Hackett's ship-yard, across the river, where Joseph Swasey was building a vessel. He said to him and the workmen present, " I believe some of you have killed my father." " What's that you say, Jack," replied Mr. Swasey, "you know none of us would hurt your father-not near as soon as you would."
405
HISTORY OF EXETER.
Jack next went to Mr. Grant's, and said to the family, "I believe you have my father hid in your cellar." They bade him go down and see. IIe did so, and made a great show of peering behind the tubs and barrels.
His conduct excited the suspicions of the neighbors, but they did not know enough to take any decided steps against him. Meantime a new vessel was going down the river to Portsmouth, and Jack got on board to go in her. At night she lay about a mile below the town, and he went on shore. In the middle of the night he returned to the vessel and crawled into the bunk with Mr. Swasey, in a state of great fright and perturbation.
At Portsmouth he shipped with Captain (Nathaniel ?) Boardman for a voyage to sea. But there was no rest for him anywhere. The consciousness of crime so pursued him that he was impelled to confess all the circumstances of it to the captain, and then threw himself overboard into the sea and perished.
It appears that he lay in wait for his father's coming forth from Grant's, and struck him down with an axe. He dragged the body to Clark's barn which stood alone in a field, and buried it in the cellar. Afterwards, on the night when he was on his way to Ports- mouth, in the vessel, he disinterred the body and cast it into the river. It was on his return from this errand that he manifested such agitation and fear.
Under the circumstances, no legal investigation was thought necessary, and the wretched story of this parricide and suicide does not appear upon our criminal records, but has come down to us only by imperfect tradition.
HOMICIDE OF JOIIN WADLEIGHI.
On the evening of the eighteenth of February, 1822, John Wad- leigh of Exeter received injuries which resulted in his death the next morning. His home was on the old road to Kensington, and some forty rods or more from the line of that town. Wadleigh and John Blaisdell of Kensington left Exeter village at about half past five o'clock in the evening, to return to their homes. It was a dark and stormy night, and the walking was very slippery. Though they were sober when they started, Wadleigh had in his pocket a bottle of rum. He carried with him an axe, and Blais- dell had a rough, heavy axe handle.
Three hours afterwards the two appeared at the house of Jude Hall, a colored man, less than two miles from the place from which
406
HISTORY OF EXETER.
they took their departure, and Blaisdell applied to Hall to help him to lead Wadleigh in, saying that he was drunk, and "had been fighting with a sleigh." Ile said that Wadleigh would have died if he had not taken him up, and that he had led him from the Cove bridge. In fact he had taken him directly past his (Wad- leigh's) own house, to Hall's which was thirty or forty rods beyond. Blaisdell in explanation of this circumstance said he would not have carried Wadleigh into his own house for ten dollars, implying that it would have excited suspicion that he had inflicted the injury from which Wadleigh was suffering.
Blaisdell and Hall helped Wadleigh, who was covered with blood, and almost insensible from the effect of a fracture and depression of the skull at the temple, to his own house, where Blaisdell remained but ten minutes, excusing himself from staying longer by saying that he must go home to take care of his cattle. Hall staid through the night until Wadleigh breathed his last.
The next morning a party went to Blaisdell's house to arrest him on the charge of murder, and found that he had disappeared. They followed him, by his tracks in the snow, for many miles through the woods, and by cross roads, through Kensington and the adjoining towns, and at length apprehended him in Exeter near the border of Epping.
On the trial which took place in the succeeding September, these facts were shown, as well as the following: The two men were seen by two different parties not far from the Cove bridge, on the evening when Wadleigh received his hurt. The first party consisted of Robinson and Smith, and they were going in a sleigh towards Exeter. They inquired of the two men, who were standing beside the road, how far it was to Wedgewood's, and were answered by one of them -not by Wadleigh. The other party were Brown and Cheney, the former in a sleigh and the other walking beside it. They were going in the direction of Kensing- ton, away from Exeter. They passed the two men standing beside the road near the Cove bridge, one of whom said to Brown, " Take this man aboard, he is drunk and has been fighting with a sleigh," and stating that it was John Wadleigh. Brown, who knew Wadleigh, said, " Come John, get in, I am going by your house and will carry you home." Wadleigh gave no answer to that nor to a second invitation of the same purport, but was observed to breathe very heavily. Brown then said to his companion, " He don't seem to care about getting in, and I will go along, if yon
407
HISTORY OF EXETER.
will take care of him." The other replied that he would do so, and Brown and Cheney went on.
Near the Cove bridge and about four feet outside of the travelled path of the road was found the next day a great pool of blood, " as if a hog had been killed there." The axe and the axe handle which the two men carried were found near, in the snow, and the former on the other side of the fence. A physician testi- fied that the fracture of Wadleigh's skull could hardly have occurred from a fall on the ice, nor from contact with the runner of a sleigh, but appeared to have been caused by a blow from some blunt, square-cornered instrument. There was also slight evidence that Blaisdell harbored a grudge against Wadleigh.
The case was argued with great ability by Ichabod Bartlett for the prisoner, and by Attorney General George Sullivan for the prosecution, and the charge to the jury was given by Mr. Justice Levi Woodbury. The jury, after an hour's deliberation, returned into court with a verdict of "guilty of manslaughter," and the prisoner was sentenced to confinement in the State prison for the term of three years.
MURDER OF MRS. FERGUSON.
Bradbury Ferguson, a native of Sandwich, was living in Exeter in 1840, employed as a journeyman hatter. His home was in the western skirt of the village, on the north side of the road leading to Kingston. His wife's maiden name was Eliza Ann Frothing- ham, and she was a native of Portsmouth. They had six children, the eldest but twelve years of age.
On the first day of October of that year, Ferguson had been at the regimental muster at Epping, where he performed military duty. He returned home in the evening intoxicated to the point of being morose and quarrelsome. He soon drove his wife to the house of a neighbor for protection. He followed her, and insisted on her being given up to him, and nsed violence to the neighbor who attempted to interfere in her behalf. The police were sent for, and arrived between ten and eleven o'clock. Mrs. Ferguson returned to her home while they were there. She complained to them that she had been abused by her husband then and at other times. He denied the charge and called on her to "show the wounds." After a good deal of conversation, Ferguson was induced to promise that he would be quiet and not abuse his wife any more that night ; but he declared that in the morning "he
ยท
408
HISTORY OF EXETER.
would give her a divorce, for he would not live with her any more."
The poor wife at length consented to pass the night in the house with him, but with evident forebodings. In the night the children were awakened by the discharge of a gun. They ran into their mother's room, and found her lying on the floor, and their father standing beside her. They asked him what he had done, and he answered that he had shot her. The wounded woman desired her husband to lay her upon the bed, and he did so. He then inquired of her where his best clothes were. She told him. Ile collected them together. Then he looked at the wound upon his wife's body, and remarked that she would not live. One of his little boys inquired what he shot his mother for. He answered that she provoked him to it. He gave his gun, with which he did the deed, to his eldest son, and told him he might go and call in the neighbors ; and then gathering up his bundle of clothing he left the house and went away on foot.
The unfortunate woman lived but a short time after his depart- ure, and gave no account of the circumstances of the shooting. Ferguson was arrested four days afterwards, in Sandwich. He was indicted and tried for murder at the Court of Common Pleas in Portsmonth in the following February. He was ably defended, but his guilt was manifest, and the jury rendered a verdict of guilty of murder of the second degree ; on which he was sentenced to imprisonment for life. He died in the State prison several years ago.
BURIAL-PLACES.
In the two hundred and fifty years of Exeter's history, five successive places have been used for the general burial of the dead. The earliest was on the northwestern slope of meeting- house hill, near the site of the first unpretending house of worship. This was probably in use for the first two generations. No doubt some rude stones were originally set up to mark the spots where the bodies lay, and the ground was held sacred for a time. The Rev. Mr. Dudley was permitted by the town to enclose it, and to pasture his cattle upon its herbage, provided he should not attempt to cultivate it or break its surface. But for a long time past no traces of memorial stones have been visible there, and all feeling of sanctity about the spot has vanished.
409
HISTORY OF EXETER.
The next place of sepulture, in the order of time, was a beauti- ful knoll ou the west side of the salt river, near the present gas works. So far as can be gathered from the remaining tomb- stones, its use extended from the latter part of the seventeenth to the early part of the eighteenth century. It has been sometimes called the " Thing burying ground," perhaps because several of the inscriptions still legible upon the head-stones commemorate persons of that name. There are, however, an equal number bearing the names of early members of the family of Ladd, and those have been enclosed by a neat and durable fence, erected in 1850 by Alexander Ladd, a descendant. Only a part of the origi- nal contents of this burial-place is now marked by mounds or monuments. Within the memory of living men the graves ex- tended on both sides of the elevation, to the lower ground beyond, but no traces of them are now perceptible. All the mortuary inscriptions remaining in 1864 were copied by the Rev. Elias Nason, and published in the sixteenth volume of The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. One of the monuments, from which the inscription plate has been removed, is thought on probable evidence to be that of the Rev. Samnel Dudley. This place of burial became disused when in 1696 the new meeting- house was erected "on the hill between the great fort and Nat. Folsom's barn," the site of the present First church. The yard surrounding the meeting-house was then devoted, after the English fashion, to burials. For a long period, most of the dead, except in the remoter districts, were interred there. There rest the remains of two or three of the clergymen, and of a great number of those who were the pillars of the religious and civil society, in their day and generation. The church-yard was origi- nally much more capacious than it now is, and has been repeat- edly curtailed by the widening of the street and of the sidewalk in front of it. It remained in use for probably almost a hundred years, and must have been overcrowded at last.
Early in the present century, on the sole authority of a few of the leading men of the town, all the tomb and head stones were removed from the yard, or levelled to the ground and covered with earth, so that in a little time the enclosure was overgrown with turf, and all marks of the tenants beneath were substantially obliterated.
On what grounds this apparent act of vandalism was justified, we cannot imagine. Yet it is clear that it met the approval of the
410
HISTORY OF EXETER.
majority of the people, or it could not have been accomplished, at least without the most strenuous opposition. But it is not learned that the least objection was made. It must be supposed that weighty reasons were in existence for so extraordinary a step, which we cannot appreciate. The loss which it cansed to the antiquary and the investigator of family history, is well nigh irreparable.
About the year 1742 Colonel John Gilman devised to the town a tract of land for a burial-place, upon the condition which was seasonably complied with that it should be fenced within three years. It is situated upon the north side of Front street, west of the railroad, and extends across to Winter street. It thus became the fourth public burying-yard of the town, and continued in use about a century. The remains of the Rev. Daniel Rogers, of John Taylor Gilman, of Jeremiah Smith and of many other dis- tinguished citizens there repose. The opening of the new ceme- tery in 1844 nearly put an end to burials in this inclosure, and naturally it fell into neglect. It became overgrown with weeds and bushes, and was in sad need of an Old Mortality to prevent further dilapidations. One of the citizens, unwilling that it should share the fate of its predecessors, recently took steps that resulted in the appropriation by the town of a sum of money for the restoration and improvement of the burying-place, so that its lease of existence is prolonged for a season.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.