USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Hollis > History of the town of Hollis, New Hampshire, from its first settlement to the year 1879 > Part 2
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In the exercise of this supposed right, King James I. in the year 1620, by his letters patent granted to the Council of Plymouth, a company instituted "for the planting, ordering and governing New England," " all that part of North America lying between the 40th and 48th degrees of north latitude, and of the same breadth through- out the main land from sea to sea."
In the following year, (1621,) the Plymouth company granted to Capt. John Mason, a merchant of London, and a member of this company, " all the land from the river Naumkeag round Cape Ann to the river Merrimack ; and up each of those rivers to the farthest head of them ; then to cross over from the head of the one to the head of the other."*
*Holmes' Annals, Vol. I, pp. 164, 165.
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18
PROVINCIAL CHARTERS.
[1620 to 1629
In 1629 Capt. Mason procured a new patent from the Plymouth company. By this second patent that company conveyed to Mason " all the land from the middle of Merrimack river, near its mouth ; thence northward along the coast to the Piscataqua, thence up that river to its farthest head ; thence northwestward sixty miles from the first entrance of that river ; also up the Merrimack to its farthest head and so forward up into the land westward sixty miles; thence to cross over to the end of the sixty miles from the mouth of the Pis- cataqua river, with all islands within five leagues of the coast."*
On the 19th of March, 1628, the Plymouth company, by their letters patent, granted and sold to Sir Henry Roswell and his asso- ciates " all that part of New England lying between three miles to the northward of Merrimack river and three miles to the southward . of Charles river, and in length within the described breadth from the Atlantic Ocean to the South Sea." This grant to Sir Henry Roswell and his associates was afterwards in the year 1629 confirmed by King Charles I. by letters patent, incorporating these grantees of the Plymouth Company by the name of the Governor and Com- pany of Massachusetts Bay in New England," with perpetual suc- cession, with the right to elect forever out of the freemen of the com- pany, a Governor, deputy Governor and eighteen assistants, and to make laws not repugnant to the laws of England .;
It may be readily seen that these several grants to Mason and the Massachusetts company conflicted, a large tract of the same territory being embraced within the limits of each of them. As will appear in the sequel, this conflict of boundaries many years afterwards be- came the occasion of much trouble and tedious litigation between the heirs of Mason and New Hampshire on one side and Massachu- setts on the other. Holding under this grant of the Plymouth Com- pany, confirmed by the Royal Charter, the Massachusetts Company, afterwards acting through the General Court of the Province, from time to time made grants of land to individuals, corporations and companies, for Plantations and Townships. Such grants were made upon petition for them to the General Court, and were usually coupled with such conditions as it was believed would promote the common interest of the province and the welfare of the settlers. In this man- ner townships were originally granted, and became organized in Massachusetts without any more formal act of incorporation, and the
*Holmes' Annals, Vol. I, p. 199.
tId, pp .. 193, 195.
19
CHARTER OF DUNSTABLE.
1673]
grantees named in the charter thus invested with the title to all the land within the boundaries of the township, subject to such condi- tions as might be imposed by the act making the grant.
For many years prior to 1679, the Provinces of New Hampshire and Massachusetts had been under the same government, but in that year, upon petition to the King, they were separated, and New Hampshire became a " royal province," the King being represented in its government by a Governor and Council of his own appoint- ment. After this separation the like grants of townships and town charters were made in New Hampshire, as in Massachusetts, those in New Hampshire being granted by the Governor and Council of the province in the name of the King. subject to such conditions and limitations as were expressed in the charters, and supposed to be approved by the King.
CHARTER OF DUNSTABLE.
The old township of Dunstable, of which the present town of Hollis was a part, was chartered by the General Court of Massachu- setts Oct. 16, 1673, O. S., corresponding to Oct. 27, 1673, N. S. More than one half of Dunstable, as chartered, was in the territory in dispute between the two provinces, but at the date of its charter. and for more than sixty years' afterwards, it was supposed to be wholly in Massachusetts, and formed a part of the county of Middlesex. It included within its chartered boundaries the present town of Tyngsborough, the east part of Dunstable, a narrow triangular gore on the north side of Pepperell, and a considerable tract in the north- east corner of Townsend - all still in Massachusetts. In the state of New Hampshire it embraced the towns of Litchfield and Hudson, the south-west part of Londonderry and the west part of Pelham, on the east side of Merrimack river ; and on the west side of that river nearly all the present towns of Nashua and Hollis, all of Amherst and Merrimack south of the Souhegan river, and about two-thirds of each of the towns of Milford and Brookline.
The part of Dunstable west of the Merrimack was bounded north by the Souhegan river, south by Chelmsford and Groton, as previ- ously chartered, and in part by " country land" (land not then in any chartered town), and west by a line running due north from its southwest corner to Dram Cup Hill, on the Souhegan, now in the town of Milford. The extreme length of the township from north to south, from the north line of Litchfield to Chelmsford, following
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20
, CHARTER OF DUNSTABLE. [1673
the course of the Merrimack was about seventeen miles; its least length from the north line of Groton to the nearest point of Souhe- gan river not far from ten miles. Its greatest breadth east and west could not have been less than sixteen miles, the whole comprising an area of near two hundred square miles or 128,000 acres.
It was still, at that time, a favorite home of the savage, covered for the most part with the dense native forests, abounding in game, and its rivers with fish, the Merrimack flowing from north to south near its centre, the Souhegan on its northern border, and the Nashua and Nissitissit in the south and southwest. Besides all these beau- tiful rivers it was watered by hundreds of crystal brooks and springs, and gemmed among its hills and valleys with scores of clear and picturesque ponds.
: From out this fair domain, between the years 1655 and 1673, many grants had been made by the General Court of Massachusetts of " Farms," so called, to individuals and corporations, mostly along the Merrimack and Souhegan, varying in quantity from three hun- dred to fifteen hundred acres, and amounting in all to fourteen thou- :: sand acres or more. The last of these grants, bearing date October . II, 1673, O. S., but a few days before the charter, was made to the Boston Artillery Company, since known by the well-earned name and title of the "Ancient and Honorable." This last grant was of one thousand acres, and was laid out on the north side of the Nashua river, at its intersection with the Merrimack, extending north along the Merrimack about one and a half miles, and on the Nashua to Spectacle meadow and brook, about two miles, and including all the compact part of the city of Nashua north of the river. It appears from the history of the Artillery Company that about seventy years afterwards the company sold this tract to Col. Joseph Blanchard, a gentleman of much note in the early history of Dunstable. The re- membrance of this grant has been affectionately perpetuated to our times in the name of a small basin of water on the North Common in Nashua, near the central part of the tract given to the Artillery Company, and still known as " Artillery Pond."
PETITION FOR THE CHARTER.
The petition for this charter was dated Sept. 15, 1673, O. S., and was signed by Thomas Brattle, Jonathan Tyng, and twenty-four others, including a part of the owners of the "Farms" previously granted. The petitioners stated as reasons for granting the charter that " the Land described in the Petition Was of little Capacity as it
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1673]
CHARTER OF DUNSTABLE.
then was to do the country service" - " that a considerable number of persons of sober and orderly conversation, who stood in great need of accommodations were ready to make improvement of this vacant Land with whom the owners of the ' farms' previously granted were ready to join and Encourage." The petition then concludes as follows : " Yo' Petitioners therefore Humbly request the favour of this Honored Court that they will please to grant the said Tract of Land to yo' Petitioners and to such as will joyne with them in the settlement of the Land aforementioned so that those who have already improved their Farmes there and others also Who speedily intend to doe the like may be in a way for the Enjoyment of the Publique or- dinances of God ; flor without which the greatest part of the yeare they will be deprived of; the farmes lying far remoat from any towns ; and farther that this Honoured Court will please to grant the like Immunities to this Plantation as they in their favors have for- merly granted to other new Plantations. So shall your Petitioners be ever engaged to pray &c.
THOS. EDWARDS,
THOMAS BRATTLE.
THO. WHEELER, Senior.
JONATHAN TYNG.
PETER BULKELEY.
JOSEPH WHEELER.
JOHN PARKER.
JAMES PARKER, Senior.
JOHN MORSS, Senior.
ROB'T GIBBS.
SAMUEL COMBS.
JOHN TURNER.
JAMES PARKER, Junior.
- SAMPSON SHEAFE.
JOSIAH PARKER.
SAMUEL SCARLET.
WILLIAM LAKIN.
NATH. BLOOD.
ABRAHAM PARKER.
ROB'T PARRIS.
JAMES KNAPP.
JOHN JOLLIFFE.
ROBERT PROCTOR.
ZAFENEA LONG.
SIMON WILLARD."
The petition was granted, and the charter or act of incorporation, as copied from the original manuscript record, is in the words fol- lowing :
"The Magistrates Judge it Meet to grant the Petitioners Request herein; Provided that a farme of Five Hundred Acres of Upland & Meadow be layed out for the Publick use, and that they so proceed in settling ye Plantation as to finish it out within three years & procure & main- Luyne an able &' Orthodox minister amongst them ; the Magistrs have passed this, their brethren the Deputies hereto consenting.
16 October 1673. The Deputyes consent hereto.
EDWARD RAWSON, SECRET.
WILLIAM TORREY, CLERICUS."
Such, in those times, and for many years after, were the usual con ditions upon which the General Court of Massachusetts granted charters for towns. The procuring and maintenance of an " able and orthodox" minister was an indispensable condition, and in case a Town should be destitute of such lawful minister for six consecu- tive months, it was made the duty of the Court of Sessions, at the
JOSEPH PARKER.
22
DUNSTABLE.
11673 to 1739
charge of the town, to procure and settle one that would answer the Law. By " finishing," or "finishing out the Plantation within three years," was undoubtedly meant, the procuring within that time of such number of settlers as would be competent to the support of such minister and the building of a meeting-house. That such was the meaning of the words "finish out the Plantation within three years" is more than implied in the action of the petitioners, and in the conditions upon which at the time. they made grants of " House Lotts," so called, to actual settlers ; each settler being required by his contract to " clear, fence, break up, build a house, and Live upon his Lot within three years" from the date of the charter under the penalty of forfeiture. By the granting of this charter, the Twenty- Six Petitioners became the owners of all the ungranted Lands within the Boundaries of Old Dunstable, which, if equally shared, would have given to each of them not less than four thousand acres. About twelve years later, for the consideration of £20, as is said, the title of the Proprietors was confirmed by the Naticook & Wamesit In- dians - the Naticooks then living about Thornton's Ferry, the Wam- esits near Pawtucket Falls.
GRANTEES AND PROPRIETORS.
Many of the grantees of the "Farms" as well as of the petitioners for the charter were at the time men of note in the Province. Among the former were John Endicott, Governor of Massachusetts, and William Brenton, afterwards Governor of Rhode Island. Among the latter were William Brattle, whose name is perpetuated in Brattle Street, Brattle Street Church, and Brattle's End, Dun- stable ; Peter Bulkeley, a fellow of Harvard College and Speaker of the Provincial Assembly ; Sampson Sheafe, a member of the Provin- cial Council of New Hampshire, and others of no less note.
PERAMBULATION AND SURVEY.
The Spring next after its incorporation, Dunstable was perambu- lated and the boundaries of the town established and marked by Jonathan Danforth of Billerica, who had laid off the grant to the Boston Artillery Company the fall previous, the towns of Chelms- ford and Groton some years before, and who is spoken of in Mr. Farmer's biographical notice of him as one of the most eminent sur- veyors of his time. In an elegy written in memory of Mr. Danforth, it is said of him :
" He rode the circuit; chained great towns and farms
To good behavior; and by well marked stations He fixed their bounds for many generations."
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1673 to 1739] DUNSTABLE.
NAME, ETC.
The name Dunstable is said to have been given to the new town in compliment to Madam Mary Tyng, wife of Hon. Edward Tyng, and mother of Jonathan Tyng, one of the grantees in the charter, Madam Tyng having come from a city of the same name in Bed- fordshure, in the southerly part of England. This charter of Dunstable is older by near sixty years than that of any town in New Hamp- shire west of the Merrimack, that of Rumford, now Concord, in- corporated in 1733, being among the next oldest.
COMPACT OF THE GRANTEES.
Before taking possession or making any division of their ample domains, the grantees, following the prudent example of the Pilgrims of the Mayflower, entered into a social written compact regulating their future polity in respect to the disposition and settlement of the town. In this compact, among other matters, it was agreed that each accepted settler, as a personal right should have a " house lott" of ten acres, one acre to be added to the ten for each £20 of estate, but no " house lott" to exceed thirty acres ; and all after-divisions of the common land to be apportioned according to house lots.
These lots were to be laid out in the same neighborhood and ad- joining each other, for convenience of defence in case of hostile at- tack. "If any settler should fail to pay his dues or taxes, his lot to be seized by the town and held till payment." " To the end that they might live in peace and love with each other, every settler was to fence his garden, orchard and cornfield with a sufficient fence, four rails in height ; and all land not fenced was to be free and com- mon to all the cattle of the proprietors."
HOUSE LOTS LAID OFF AND SETTLEMENT BEGUN.
These house lots, said to have been about eighty in all, were laid out not long afterwards, contiguous to each other, beginning at the " Neck." so called, near the mouth of Salmon Brook, and extending southerly along that brook, the Merrimack river and the main road in the direction towards the ancient burial ground near the present state line. Near by, and not far from the site of the old school- house in the present Harbor School District, the first fort or garri- son house was built, to which the settlers could retire in case of danger.
It is very evident that settlements had been begun on these house
24
DUNSTABLE.
[1673 to 1739
lots as early as the spring of 1674, as we find on the town records, that on the 11th of May of that year, at a meeting of the " Farmers," "Proprietors" under the charter, and "township men" or new settlers, it was "voted that the first meeting-house should be built between Salmon Brook and the house of Lieutenant Wheeler as convenient as may be for the accommodation of both."
Thus was begun, in the wilderness, two hundred years ago, the infant settlement at Salmon Brook. For sixty years afterwards, it stood there, solitary and alone, no town north of it this side of Canada ; none east of it, in New Hampshire to the west of Exeter --- fifty miles ; none to the south-east, south or south-west, nearer than Chelmsford, Groton and Lancaster, at the respective distances of fourteen, fifteen and twenty-five miles.
KING PHILIP'S WAR.
The next year, in the summer of 1675, the bloody war begun by the crafty and cruel King Philip for the extermination of the English, broke upon the New England Colonies. The new towns of Lancaster, Groton and Chelmsford were attacked and burnt, their inhabitants murdered, carried into captivity or driven from their homes. With the exception of the brave Jonathan Tyng, every settler at Dunstable fled. Tyng alone refused to leave, and fortify- ing his house he resolved to defend it to the last. He petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts for a little " guard of three or four men," saying in his petition " that he was living in the uppermost house on the Merrimack, lying open to the enemy, but so seated as to be, as it were, a watch-house for the neighboring towns." The petition was granted, and with this little Spartan band, Tyng stoutly defended his rude castle and held the town till the end of the war.
Jonathan Tyng thus nobly and gallantly earned the honor of being the first permanent settler of Dunstable, and of all of that part of New Hampshire west of the Merrimack, and of having his name perpetuated by a grateful posterity in that of the town of Tyngsborough.
In 1678, peace came again ; the fugitive settlers at Salmon Brook, or such of them as had survived the war, were at liberty to return, and the same year it is said, the first meeting-house was built. At one of their town meetings, about this time, it was "voted that the number of settlers might be increased but not so as to exceed eighty families in all." In 1679 the plantation was at last " finished out" by the " procuring and maintaining" the Rev. Thomas Weld as
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1673 to 1739] DUNSTABLE.
their first "learned and orthodox minister amongst them." Under the ministration of Mr. Weld, the settlement so increased and pros- pered that in 16S5 it became necessary to build a larger meeting- house, " about the size of the one at Groton," as the town records have it.
BIRTHS, MARRIAGES AND DEATHS.
In the ancient records of births, marriages and deaths, we find that the first recorded birth was that of William, son of Jonathan and Mary Tyng, April 22, 1679. The first marriage that of John Sollendine, the Michael Angelo of the first meeting-house, and the architect of the first bridge across Salmon Brook, Aug. 2, 16So. The first recorded death that of the Hon. Edward Tyng, Dec. 22, 16SI, aged 81.
KING WILLIAM'S WAR.
After an unquiet peace for about ten years, the beginning of the war, known in history as " King William's," was signalized in New England by the treacherous and horrible murder of Major Waldron and twenty-two other inhabitants of Dover by the Penacook and Eastern Indians, and the carrying off a still larger number as cap- tives to Canada. The same party of savages had planned an attack at the same time upon Dunstable, but its execution was prevented by a timely discovery of the plot. Two companies of mounted scouts of twenty men each, afterwards reinforced by fifty, were promptly de- tailed to patrol the woods from Lancaster to Dunstable. But these precautions did not save the settlement at Salmon Brook from attack and massacre. The town records tell in graphic words, said to be in the handwriting of Mr. Weld, their first minister, the sad tale of two of these attacks.
Anno Domini 1691. Benjamin Hassell Senior Anna Hassell his wife Benjamin Hassell, their son, Mary Marks, Daughter of Patrick Marks
Were slain by our Indian Enemies Sept. 2 in the Eve- ning.
Christopher Perry -
Obadiah Perry and Died by the hand of our In- dian Enemies Sept. 2S, 1691, in the morning.
There were at this time in the settlement at Salmon Brook, four garrison houses, two of them having four soldiers each, one six and another seven. Such garrison houses. as described by Dr. Belknap, were surrounded with walls of timber built up to the eaves, with the gates as well as the house doors secured by iron bolts and bars. So
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DUNSTABLE.
[1673 to 1739
much had the settlement been reduced by this war that in 1696 two- thirds of the inhabitants had fled, and in 1699 there were but twenty heads of families to contribute to the minister's wood rate. This war lasted ten years. Cotton Mather, who wrote its history, calls them " Decennium Luctuosum" -the decade of sorrows.
QUEEN ANNE'S WAR.
In the year 1703, after a short truce, the war known as Qneen Anne's, broke upon the colonies, and also lasted ten years. The scholarly Penhallow, who, as a member of the New Hampshire Council, was an actor in it, and who wrote the history of the Indian wars, from 1703 to 1726, inscribes the title-page of his book with the sad, classic words : --
" Nescio tu quibus es, Lector, lecturus ocellis Hoc scio, quod siccis, scribere non potui." (With what eyes, O reader, you will read this tale, I know not, This I do know, mine were not dry when writing it.)
The Eastern and Canadian Indians again took part with the French, and in the course of a few weeks more than two hundred settlers along our northern frontier were killed or captured and taken to Canada. " Terror ubique tremor,"says Penhallow - " fear and trembling everywhere."
In this war, the General Court, in retaliation of the example of the government of Canada, offered a bounty of £40 each for Indian scalps. Capt. John Tyng, of Dunstable, was the first to avail him- self of this grim bounty, and went, in the depth of winter, says the historian, to the Indian headquarters and got five, for which he was paid £200. Early in the war the garrison house of Robert Parris, in the south part of the settlement, was attacked, and himself, wife and one daughter killed.
In 1706, the Weld Garrison, so called, then occupied by twenty troopers, was surprised by the savages, and one-half of the soldiers killed. The same party murdered six of the inhabitants of the town. The story of this last massacre is thus told in the town records : -
Nathan Blanchard Lydia Blanchard his wife Susannah Blanchard his daughter Mrs. Hannah Blanchard Goody Cumings wife of John Cummings. Rachel Galusha, Dyed July 3, 1706.
Dyed July 3. 1700, at night.
At this time, including a block-house built by the government, there were seven garrison houses in the settlement, each having one or more soldiers, the town being still a " Watch-house" for the interior settlements.
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.... . ... .
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27
DUNSTABLE.
1673 to 1739]
LOVEWELL'S WAR.
In 1713 the Peace of Utrecht put an end to Queen Anne's War. A treacherous peace followed, till 1722, when the war was renewed. Dunstable, still on the extreme frontier, was attacked, two of her cit- izens captured and carried to Canada by a party of the enemy. The savages were pursued by soldiers from the town, who were am- bushed, cight of them slaughtered, and all buried in the same grave.
The following epitaph in the ancient burial ground, " spelt by the unlettered Muse," tells the bloody tale.
" MEMENTO MORI. " Here lies the body of Thomas Lund who departed " this life Sept. 24, 1724, in the 42d year of his age. " This man, with seven more that lies in this grave, " Was all slew in a day by the Indians."
In the month of November after this slaughter, the " worthy Cap- tain Lovewell " and his company of fearless and hardy men volun- teered to "range the woods full wide " and fight the Indians for a year. I need not in this place repeat the story of the first, the sec- ond, or the last expedition of this band of daring backwoodsmen,
"What time the noble Lovewell came With fifty men from Dunstable The cruel Pequot tribe to tame With arms and bloodshed terrible,
all familiar from our childhood as household words. From that day to our own, in our sober histories, in works of fiction, in oral tra- dition, in our most popular New England ballads, the names of " worthy Captain Lovewell" and Dunstable have been joined to- gether, as it were, in holy wedlock, never to be put asunder. Of the seventy savages in the desperate conflict at Pequawkett, according to Penhallow forty were killed on the field and eighteen mortally wounded. Of the thirty-four men of Lovewell's company, in the battle fifteen were killed, including all the officers, besides many wounded. Well and worthily has a New Hampshire bard, upon visiting the battlefield one hundred years afterwards, sung of them,
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