USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Haverhill > History of the town of Haverhill, New Hampshire > Part 7
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JOSHUA HAYWARD (Haywood) came from Plaistow. He made his first purchase of land of Enoch Hale, Jr., and subsequently bought of James Abbott, John Hazen, John Taplin and John Hall. He settled at Horse Meadow in 1765, served in the various town offices, rendered honorable service in the Revolutionary struggle, and was later major of the 12th Regiment of Militia. His brother Jonathan came later, and during the war was one of the Committee of Inspection. Joshua was chairman of the Board of Selectmen in 1779 but after the close of the Revolution the names of neither Joshua or Jonathan appear in the town records. Joshua Hayward conveyed his real estate to Moses Porter and Asa Porter. His deed to the latter was dated December 13, 1788, to the former conveying the farm on which Col. John Hurd had lately lived at Horse Meadow, under date of June 10, 1779.
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JOSEPH HUTCHINS came from Haverhill, Mass., in 1765. He pur- chased, July 3, a part of the right of Benjamin Merrill, a grantee, and settled near the Oliverian brook and at once became prominent in the affairs of the settlement. His name appears in the records, in connection with that of Ezekiel Ladd and James Woodward as a committee to build a pound for the benefit of the town. He was selectman in 1769, 1789 and 1791, and represented the town in the legislature 1788, 1789 and 1791. In 1788 he was delegate from Haverhill to the convention that adopted the Federal Constitution, voting against its adoption, and in 1791 he was delegate to the Constitutional Convention of that year. After this year his name does not appear in the records in connection with town affairs, though he owned real estate in town for several years later, when he appears to have suffered business reverses, much of his property being taken on execution. He removed with his family to Middlesex, Vt., residing there until his death. He took an active part in the struggle for independence, and was in command of a company of rangers in 1780. He was also colonel of a regiment in the state militia. The official positions held by him indicate his importance and influence as a citizen in the early history of the town.
WILLIAM EASTMAN settled on Ladd Street. He was born in Haver- hill, Mass., October 3, 1715, removed to Hampstead. Married, first, Ruth Chase; second, Rebecca Jewett. He came to Haverhill in 1765, but two years later removed to Bath where he lived till his death. Many of his descendants, however, became prominent in the affairs of the town. Four of his sons were soldiers in the War of the Revolution. His son, James, first brought the news of the surrender of Cornwallis to Haverhill. [See Eastman, Genealogy.]
TIMOTHY BARRON came with his wife, Olive, and two eldest children in 1766 or early in 1767 and settled at Horse Meadow. He was active in town affairs, served as selectman, took a prominent part in the War of the Revolution, was captain of a company in Colonel Bedel's regiment in 1775, was one of the committee named to "see that the results of the Continental Congress were observed in Haverhill." He died in 1797 in his fifty-eighth year, and his tombstone in the Horse Meadow Cemetery records in detail the gift of the land which constituted the original ceme- tery to the town. [See Barron Genealogy.]
Among those settling in town in 1768 were four men who became prom- inently conspicuous in its early life, and in the conduct of its affairs : John Hurd, Asa Porter, Andrew S. Crocker and Charles Johnston.
JOHN HURD was descended from John Hurd who came from England and settled in Boston during the first decade of the settlement of that town. His father, Jacob Hurd, was a goldsmith by trade and appears to
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have been a man of property and influence. John was the second of the ten children of Jacob and Mary (Mason) Hurd and was born in Boston December 9, 1727; graduated at Harvard College in the class of 1757. He remained for some years in Boston and was named as of that town in 1758 as administrator of his father's estate, the settlement of which must have occupied some time subsequent to that year. He went to Ports- mouth, N. H., sometime near the beginning of the administration of John Wentworth, who called about him a coterie of young men of liberal edu- cation and ability, and from the numerous grants of land which he made to John Hurd in towns in the northern part of the state it is evident that he was regarded with high favor. Just when he settled in Haverhill is uncertain, but he was here in the latter part of 1768, and acquired real estate. In a conveyance dated April 1, 1768, he is named as of Ports- mouth, but in another dated March 25, 1769, he is named as of Haverhill, these two dates indicating within a few months the date of his becoming a resident of the latter town. He was, however, much of his time for three or four years subsequently, in Portsmouth and in close touch with the Wentworth government. In May, 1770, he purchased the second division of excise, and in 1772 he held the office of receiver-general of quit rents, the duties of which must have kept him much of his time at the seat of government.
Grafton County was incorporated in 1771, but for two years no courts were established or county officers appointed, the county being treated as a part of Rockingham for judicial and kindred purposes. There was rivalry on the part of the proprietors and inhabitants of various towns in securing the establishment of courts of record and county seat. The towns of Lyme and Orford presented a petition to the General Assembly asking that one of them be designated for holding half the courts of record, but when in June, 1775, Israel Morey and Alexander Phelps presented their petition they were confronted by John Hurd who appeared in behalf of the towns of Haverhill, Bath, Lyman and Gunthwaite (now Lisbon) asking that Haverhill be made the shire town of the new county. "Legis- lative agents" it would seem served for a compensation then as now. The fourth and fifth articles in the warrant for the Haverhill proprietors' meeting, to be held May 12, 1772, were "to see if the proprietary will choose one or more agents to petition the General Assembly that part or all the courts for the county of Grafton should be held in Haverhill"; and also "to see what encouragement or premium they will offer said agent or agents in case he or they should succeed in procuring the establishment of said courts as aforesaid." At the meeting it was voted that John Hurd, Esq., be the agent, and as for the matter of "encouragement," it was agreed, with but one dissenting vote, "to give John Hurd, Esq., one
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thousand acres of land in the undivided land in the township of Haverhill, and that he shall have liberty to pitch it in a square form in any part of the undivided land in said township, upon condition that he shall succeed and obtain one-half the inferior courts for the county of Grafton and one Superior Court for said county, to be held at Haverhill. Colonel Hurd was doubtless at this time in Portsmouth, since at this same meeting it was voted "that Asa Porter, Esq., shall take the earliest method to send a copy of this vote to Portsmouth." It is probable that Porter person- ally carried a copy of this vote to Portsmouth, as being the "earliest method," and certainly the surest. The proprietors felt so certain of the success of their agent, that at a meeting held March 25, 1773, they pro- ceeded to fix the site of the court house and jail and make ready for the erection of suitable buildings. The mission of Colonel Hurd was success- ful, the courts were established and Haverhill was made a shire town in 1773. Gratitude, however, is sometimes "a lively sense of favors to come," and like many of his successors in the business of influencing legis- lation, Legislative Agent Hurd made the discovery that the agent would do well to receive at least a portion of the "encouragement" offered before the entire service bargained for was performed. An article in the warrant for the proprietors' meeting of February 25, 1774, was significant: "To see if the proprietors will bear their proportion with Asa Porter, Esq., Capt. John Hazen, Dea. James Abbott and Andrew Savage Crocker, Esq., of the thousand acres of land which they voted to John Hurd, Esq., or any part of it." The proprietors refused. It is, however, to the credit of the four above named that they were willing to meet the claim of Colonel Hurd. He evidently did not suffer the matter to drop. The vote granting him the land is recorded on the first page of the first book of the Grafton registry of deeds, but in 1779 the proprietary took final action in the matter and "voted that the thousand acres of land claimed by Col. John Hurd be laid out into lots by the committee chosen to lay out the third division of lots, and that these be drawn as other land by the proprietors."
It may be that the proprietors sought excuse for their action in the fact that Colonel Hurd had received sufficient "encouragement" for his services in the official recognition he received. He was appointed in February, 1773, recorder of deeds and conveyances for the county of Grafton, and subsequently was given the office of county treasurer. On the 18th of May, 1773, he was appointed chief justice of His Majesty's inferior court for Grafton County, and a little later was commissioned colonel of a regiment of militia in the northern towns. Dartmouth Col- lege honored him with the honorary degree of A. M. For the next six years he was in Haverhill the greater part of the time his only absences
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being on public business. His home was at Horse Meadow, near that of Colonel Porter, and his was a part of that afterwards known as the Moses Southard farm. These six years were eventful years in the history of the town and in the career of Colonel Hurd.
As affairs in the colonies approached a crisis Governor Wentworth chose the side of the King rather than that of the people. He had been the generous patron of Colonel Hurd, who because of this and also because of his talents, natural and acquired, and of his experience in public affairs had doubtless more influence with His Majesty's government than any other man in Grafton County. But when it came to a choice between the cause of the colony and that of the King he did not hesitate, and refused to follow his patron. His position was pronounced, and was immediately recognized in the Revolutionary Provincial Congress of the Colony. He was named as colonel of the regiment of militia to be raised in Coös for purposes of defence. In June, 1775, he was made custodian of the Grafton court records, the Congress having determined that John Fenton, clerk of the court, was no longer fit to be trusted with them. He became a member of the Fourth Provincial Congress which met at Exeter, May 5, 1775-though when and by whom elected does not appear-and was designated to receive certain sums of money from Attorney-General Samuel Linermon, money which had been received from foreign vessels entering the port of Piscataqua, and which had been appropriated for the purchase of powder for the colony. He was elected from the towns of Haverhill, Bath, Lyman, Gunthwaite, Landaff and Morristown to the Fifth Provincial Congress which met at Exeter December 21, 1775, and in the proceedings of which he at once took prominent part. He was one of the committee of thirteen appointed December 26 "to draw up a plan of government during the contest with Great Britain," and to this com- mittee belongs the lasting honor of having framed the first form of civil compact, or constitution for the government of New Hampshire. Two days later he was appointed first of a committee of six to draft a form of oath or obligation to be taken by members of the new government, and he also served on other important committees. The first article of the temporary constitution adopted by the Congress-and which went into effect January 5, 1776-provided that after the Congress had resolved itself into a house of representatives, that said house proceed to choose twelve persons, "to be a distinct and separate branch of the legislature, by the name of a council, for the colony, to continue as such until the third Wednesday in December next any seven of whom to be a quorum to do business."
Colonel Hurd was chosen, for Grafton County, one of the twelve coun- cillors, also recorder of deeds and conveyances, county treasurer and first
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justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Grafton County. He was appointed June 11, 1776, on the part of the council first on the committee to draft the declaration of the General Assembly for the independence of the united colonies. He was given almost the entire control of the mili- tary operations in Coös. He was to "fix off" all the companies from Coös, except two from the vicinity of Charlestown, with ten days' provi- sion, "a quart of rum for each man" and six dozen axes, being sent from Exeter for this purpose. He was to receive of the quartermaster 300 pounds of powder, 750 pounds of bullets and 1,200 flints for the use of troops. There was paid him for the troops destined for Canada the sum of £350, and he was made one of a committee to receive $10,000 from the Continental Congress. Haverhill was made the place of rendezvous for the troops intended for a Canadian expedition, and Colonel Hurd with Colonel Morey was to enlist the companies, muster and pay the soldiers, deliver commissions to persons chosen officers by the soldiers, and give orders to the several companies of rangers, raised to protect the western frontiers, as to the scouting routes to be taken by them.
It need not be said that the responsibilities placed on Colonel Hurd by the new government were heavy and burdensome, all the more so because of the existence of a serious disaffection on the part of a large majority of the people of Coos with the Exeter government, and of efforts which were being made to establish a separate and distinct state consisting of the towns in the Connecticut Valley on both sides the river. Haverhill while loyal to the patriot cause was in sympathy with this movement, and it is not difficult to see that Colonel Hurd, who was an intense partisan of the Exeter government, fell into disfavor in the town for the interests of which he had labored so ardently. The causes of this will be treated more fully in another chapter. He returned to his old home in Boston in the latter part of 1778 or early in 1779, but he left his impress on the town in which he had held so prominent position, and doubtless more than any other held Haverhill in the critical years of 1775, '76 and '77 in at least nominal allegiance to the Exeter government. His place in the history of Haverhill and of Grafton County is an honorable as well as important one. He filled important positions of trust with signal ability and discharged with fidelity the obligations imposed on him by his King, his state and his townsmen. His removal from state, county and town was more their loss than his own; and in so far as his removal was enforced, he was the victim of his loyal devotion to the state of New Hampshire, and to the conscientious performance of duty as he saw it. Subsequent events fully justified his course and proved his foresight, for within five years after his removal from Haverhill, both the leaders of public opinion and the people themselves were brought either willingly or unwillingly- but in any event were brought-to an acceptance of a situation which he,
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from the outset, regarded as right and politic, foresaw to be inevitable, and for advocating which he was, by force of superior numbers and the persecution of those who should have gratefully recognized his eminently patriotic services, driven from town and county.
His wife died in Boston in 1779, as appears from an inscription on a stone in the old Granary burying ground: "In memory of Mrs. Elizabeth Hurd, the amiable and virtuous consort of John Hurd, Esq., who departed life the 14th day of November, 1779, ae. 48." Another inscription on a stone adjacent, is as follows: "To the memory of John Hurd, Jr., an officer in the late Massachusetts line of the Continental Army. Obit. 20 August, 1784, And Aek. 24."
Colonel Hurd died in 1809 at the age of eighty-two and was probably buried in the Granary ground though no stone can be found to mark his grave. After his removal to Boston he seems to have engaged in no public service, but to have pursued the business of broker and insurance agent.
COL. ASA PORTER was a different type than many of the early settlers. He descended from Samuel Porter who emigrated with his wife from the west of England to Plymouth in 1622. He was born in Boxford, Mass., May 26, 1742; graduated from Harvard in 1762. He established himself as a merchant in Newburyport, where he married Mehitable, daughter of John Crocker, Esq. He was remarkable for his fine form and manly beauty as well as for great moral purity of life and character. A man of culture, and of abundant means, he had the pioneer spirit, and the fertile meadows and rich intervals of Coös attracted him. He made his first purchase of land of John Hazen just north of the Hazen farm in April, 1768, and in the autumn of the same year he purchased additional tracts of Joshua Haywood and of Jonathan Hale of Hollis. The spot where he built his home a little later, probably the most commodious and sub- stantial in the settlement and a part of which is still standing and occu- pied by Arthur C. Clough, is one of great attractiveness, situated as it is on one of the fairest and most graceful sweeps of the river. He entered at once into the life of the settlement, and became a marked figure in the Coos region. He had a well trained and intellectual family, and his home was favorite resort of the cultivated and refined. Francis Brinley, the biographer of his grandson, William T. Porter, says:
Colonel Porter was a model of affability and dignity; never laying aside the garb or deportment of a gentleman of the old school, but always preserving his courtly air and address without sacrificing a particle of his self-reliant energy and fearlessness. In politeness and civility he was excelled by none.
Such a man must have had a marked influence in the new community. Like his neighbor, John Hurd, he was an Episcopalian in religion, and in politics he was unlike him, in that when the War of the Revolution came
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on his sympathies were royalist. Because of this he was for a time under a cloud suffering in person and property, though he later gained the esteem and respect of his patriot neighbors. His father, Moses Porter, was a zealous supporter of the cause of the colonies. When the son, Asa, was arrested on a charge of Toryism, he was later parolled on giving bond that he would repair forthwith to his father's farm in Boxford, and not depart for the term of one year, except to attend divine worship on the Lord's Day.
There is a family tradition that during the war business obliged him to visit Boston. He set out in his own sleigh, which had the arms of England emblazoned upon the back. As he drove into town, he found his sleigh an obnoxious mark of attraction. At first he was inclined to pay no other heed to it than starting up his horses a little, but the multi- plied volleys of missiles and words admonished him to take counsel of his discretion, and he stopped at a painters shop and had the obnoxious blazonry effaced. On his return home his wife was at the door to welcome him. She soon perceived the discoloration on the back of the sleigh, and with ready intuition divined the cause. She was of remark- able spirit and entered into the political faith of her husband with all the animation of her character. She ordered her woman to bring soap and brushes and without a thought of the cold air, or too tender regard for her own fair hands, she picked her way on her little high heels to the sleigh and never stopped scrubbing until the old Lion and the Uni- corn reappeared fighting for the crown as fresh as on the day they parted from her loyal eyes.1
Colonel Porter was appointed one of the first judges of the Court of Sessions, when the Grafton County courts were organized, was entrusted with the erection of the first court house. He had a passion for land and at one time he owned at least one hundred thousand acres. He received from the King the grant of the township of Broome in Canada. He had also a fondness for fine horses. He spared no pains in purchasing blood of the purest strain, and obtained some of his best stock of his friend Governor Wentworth. A gentleman himself his associations were with such. His sons married gentlewomen, his daughters, brilliant and accomplished, educated in Newburyport and Boston, married gentlemen. [See Porter Genealogy.] He maintained an establishment in which the town might well take pride. His house was well furnished and his family, in style of living, was accustomed to luxury. Of the four negro slaves in Haverhill in 1790, three were owned by Colonel Porter.
MOSES and WILLIAM PORTER, brothers of Asa, came to Haverhill sub- sequently. After the grant of the township of Broome to Colonel Porter, Moses removed with his large family to that town. William lived at first near his brother at Horse Meadow, but later removed to a farm on the turnpike east of Haverhill Corner, on what was known as Porter Hill, where he was succeeded in its ownership and occupancy by his son Wil- liam, well known as Billy Porter. No representative of the Porter family is now living in Haverhill. [See Porter Genealogy.]
1 Life of W. T. Porter, pp. 6, 7.
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ANDREW SAVAGE CROCKER came from Newburyport, Mass., at the same time with Colonel Porter, and purchased his real estate as did Colonel Porter of John Haywood and of Captain Hazen and John Hale of Hollis. As the date of the conveyances to both parties is the same, they were doubtless drawn to Haverhill by the same attractions. He was the brother of Mrs. Porter, and was married in 1770 to Shua Thurston of Newbury. He was born about 1743, and died in 1821. Aristocratic in his tastes and style of living, like his brother-in-law, he took a more active part in town affairs, was town clerk and served for twelve years as one of the selectmen. Few men took a more prominent part in the early devel- opment of the town, and in its early history few were more influential. He was evidently not in full sympathy with the patriot cause during the Revolution, and appointed a coroner for Grafton County in 1776, he declined the appointment on the ground that he "was not in sympathy with the form of government then in vogue." During these years his name seldom appears on the records as holding office. He was selectman in 1771 and 1773, but did not hold that office again till 1783, and was elected for nine times in subsequent years. His name, however, does not appear in the town records after 1801 when he was elected selectman. His only son, Edward Bass Crocker, lived on the Isle of Orleans just below Quebec in the early part of the last century returning to Horse Meadow at the outbreak of the War of 1812, and it is not improbable that his father lived with him during his residence there. He died at his old home in Haverhill, July 17, 1821, at the ripe old age of seventy-eight.
COL. CHARLES JOHNSTON, who came to Haverhill in 1769, was like Colonels Hurd and Porter, a man of marked ability, untiring energy, wise foresight and indomitable perseverance. He settled at Haverhill Corner, and may fitly be called the founder of that village, for many years the political, social, and business center of Coos. He was born in Hampstead. May 29, 1737, of the famous Scotch-Irish stock. His father, Michael Johnston, was a native of Londonderry, Ireland; born in 1687; came to America, at first to Londonderry, and later in 1737 settled in Hampstead. His son, Charles, married Ruth Marsh of Londonderry in 1762, went to New Chester (now Hill) in 1767 to look after landed interests in that town and two years later, through the representatives of Captain Hazen and others of his former Hampstead friends and neighbors who had settled in Coös, came to Haverhill, where he at once became prominent in ecclesias- tical, social, and political affairs. Like Captain Hazen and Colonel Bedel he had rendered honorable service in the French and Indian Wars. He served as private in the 4th company of Capt. Peter Gilman's regiment of which Jacob Bayley was a lieutenant from September 22, 1755, to the end of the campaign of that year. He also served as quartermaster of Colonel Goff's regiment, in which John Hazen was captain from March 5,
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1760 to the end of the war. It is not certain that he established a home in New Chester, of which town he was a grantee, and there are indications that he brought his family direct from Hampstead to Haverhill. In con- veyances of land, in which he is named as one of the grantees of New Chester, dated October, 1765, December, 1768, and March, 1769, he is named as of Hampstead. The date of his settlement in Haverhill is approximately fixed by the fact that at the annual town meeting in March, 1770, he was elected one of the selectmen. Thenceforward till his death in 1813, no name than his appears more prominently and frequently in the town records. No citizen of the town held more varied public posi- tions of honor and responsibility. He presided at no less than twenty- four town meetings; was twice elected town clerk; twenty-one times selectman, serving usually as chairman on all important town committees; was town and county treasurer for many years; was a member of the governor's council in 1780-82 and filled the important office of judge of probate for Grafton County from 1781 till 1807, when he became disquali- fied by reason of age. His military record was a notable one. Aside from his service in the old French war he took an active part in the Revo- lution. He was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of the 12th regiment, Colonel Hobart's, Starks brigade, and was distinguished for special gallant conduct at the battle of Bennington.
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