USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Hollis > History of the town of Hollis, New Hampshire, from its first settlement to the year 1879 > Part 4
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All which is humbly submitted in behalf of the committee.
THOMAS BERRY."
ACTION OF THE GENERAL COURT UPON THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE.
"In Council Dec., 27, 1739.
Read and ordered that this report be so far accepted that the lands mentioned and described therein with the inhabitants there be erected into a separate and distinct Precinct and the said inhabitants are hereby vested with all such powers and privileges as any other Precinct in this Province have or by law ought to have or enjoy. And they are also empowered to assess and lay a tax of two pence per acre per annum for the space of five years on all the unimproved lands belonging to the non-resident proprietors to be applied to the support of the ministry according to the said Report.
Sent down for concurrence.
SIMON FROST, Dop'ty Sec'ty.
In the House of Representatives, Dec. 2S, 1739
Read and concurred.
Consented to.
J QUINCY, Speaker. J. BELCHER.
Such at that day was the mode of proceeding, and such the condi- tions under which townships and precincts or parishes were char- tered by the General Court of Massachusetts. A parish was an ecclesiastical division of a township. vested with the power. (by the taxation of its inhabitants) and charged with the duty of building a meeting-house. and maintaining a " learned and orthodox minister." By the foregoing act of the General Court, that part of the old town of Dunstable, described in the report of the committee, became a parish, known for some years afterwards as West Dunstable. For all municipal purposes, other than ecclesiastical, it still remained a part of the old town. The new parish was bounded on the north by the Souhegan river, on the South by Groton. and west by the west line of the old town. On the east it was bounded in part by the Nashua river, and in part by a north and south line extending from that river to the Souhegan somewhat farther to the east than the present east line of Hollis, and in the records of the proceedings
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SETTLERS IN WEST DUNSTABLE IN 1739.
1739.]
had some years afterwards, before the Governor and Council of New Hampshire for a change of the eastern boundary of Hollis. the parish of West Dunstable is said to have contained an area of 70,000 acres.
At the date of the charter the rude, primitive dwellings of the settlers who had petitioned for it, with their stump-covered embryo farms, were widely and sparsely scattered over a large part of the new parish. Robert and William Colburn, David, Thomas and William Nevins, Stephen Harris and Philip Woolerich had located on the south side of the extinct town of Monson, now the north part of Hollis; Samuel Farley. James, Joseph and Randall McDaniels. Melvin and Whitcomb, in the easterly part of Brookline, formerly the west part of Hollis. The house of Abraham Taylor was about 60 rods north of the present meeting-house in Hollis, on land now owned by Henry Blood ; that of Samuel Cumings about 30 rods west of the meeting-house on the place now owned by Levi Abbot ; that of Benjamin Farley, the inn-keeper, on the road leading to the south of the meeting-house, being a part of the same house now owned by Taylor G. Worcester ; Jerahmael Cumings lived on the . same road, with Farley, about 1-2 mile farther south ; Josiah Blood, also on the same road, about 3-4 of a. mile from Cumings, now known as the Fox place ; Joshua Wright about 1-2 mile east of Blood on the farm now owned by the heirs of his grandson. Miles J. Wright ; William Blanchard in the east part of the town, near Flint's hill ; William Shattuck still farther east. near the old east school-house.
The farm of Peter Wheeler was in the north-west part of the town. about westerly from Long pond ; Moses Proctor settled in the west part. on Proctor hill. Henry Barton in the westerly part. on land now owned by John C. Jewett. The house of William Adams is said to have been upon the site of the present south-west school- house. about 2 1-2 miles from the meeting-house. Samuel Parker lived in the same neighborhod on the farm now owned by Daniel M. Smith ; James Whiting on the road to Brookline, near Whitting's hill ; Nathaniel Blood in the same part of the town on the present farm of Franklin Colburn. and Enoeh Hunt in the extreme south part. next to Pepperell. on the farm now owned by Luke Blood. Thus it may be seen that the settlers in the extreme north part of the settlement were from six to seven miles distant from those in the south part ; and those living at the extreme east and west part were even more remote trom each other.
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40
PARISH OF WEST DUNSTABLE.
[1739 to 1746.
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CHAPTER III.
1739 TO 1746 .- THE PARISH OF WEST DUNSTABLE AND DISTRICT OF DUNSTABLE .- FIRST PARISH MEETING, AND FIRST MEETING . HOUSE. - THE NON-RESIDENT TAX .- SETTLEMENT OF THE FIRST MINISTER.
The report of the committee appointed to view the lands in the north part of Groton and west part of Dunstable was carefully preserved by the grantees of the charter of the parish of West Dunstable, and is now to be found recorded at full length on the first pages of the first volume of the Hollis town records.
These original records, in what I have to say of the early history of Hollis. will be my principal guide. Where I can consistently do so, I shall press them into my service and let them speak for me in their own simple and homely dialect. We may occasionally observe in the manuscript, wide, and sometimes grotesque departures from the more modern orthography of Walker. Webster and Worcester. and also from the grammar and syntax of Lowth and Murray. Yet in these respects, they are less subject to unfavorable criticism than many of our town records of a much more modern date. The style of them is terse, plain, simple and direct, and the words well chosen to express the ideas and matters to be recorded, and they contain the municipal autobiography of our ancestors, commencing four genera- tions ago. written down from year to year. and sometimes from month to month, by persons appointed for the purpose, while what they had done. or what they at the time proposed to do. was still fresh in the minds of all.
BOUNDARIES AND AREA OF THE PARISH AND THE NON-RESIDENT
T.W.X.
The west parish of the old town of Dunstable. as we have seen. extended north and south. from the Souhegan river to the south line of the old town. a distance from 9 to , 12 miles, and was not far from 10 miles in width, and was said to have contained an area of about
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17.7%
41
1739 to 1746.]
PARISH OF WEST DUNSTABLE.
70,000 acres, being more than three times as large as Hollis now is. It included nearly all of the present town of Hollis, that part of Amherst south of the Souhegan, the most of Milford and Brookline, parts of the towns of Nashua and Merrimack. in the state of New Hampshire, and a small part of Pepperell in Massachusetts. The inhabitants of the parish, as we have seen by their charter, had authority to assess 2d. per acre on all the unimproved land of non- residents for the term of five years for the support of the ministry. At that time there were about 25 resident families. If each of these families owned, on an average. Soo acres (an estimate quite large enough), the resident settlers would have had 20,000 acres, leaving upon these estimates 50,000 to the non-residents. A tax of 2d. the acre on this last quantity would have yielded an annual fund of £416 13s., or about $13So in the currency of the present time, calling the pound $3.33. We shall soon see what importance the first set- tlers of Hollis attached to this right to compel non-residents to pay for the preaching and meeting-houses of the resident settlers.
THE FIRST PARISH MEETING AND ITS DOINGS, AND THE FIRST MEETING-HOUSE.
The first parish-meeting, under the parish-charter, was held at the inn of Lieut. Benjamin Farley. Jan. 22. 1739-40, O. S. Mr. Farley's inn was the place where the parish-meetings were com- monly held till the first meeting-house was built, and is said to have been upon the farm now owned by Taylor G. Worcester. a short distance south of the present meeting-house. The warrant for this meeting. like all similar warrants, was entitled. in its margin. " Middlesex SS .. " meaning by these words, county of Middlesex. Massachusetts. It was under the hand and seal of Joseph Blanchard, Esq .. of Dunstable, at that time one of .. his majesty's" justices of the peace of that county, and was addressed to Abraham Taylor, as constable, to warn the meeting. who had been active in obtaining the charter. and who was annually elected parish-clerk till his death. about four years after.
At this first meeting Mr. Taylor was elected moderator and clerk : Mr. Taylor. Peter Powers and Benjamin Farley, assessors : Stephen Harris, treasurer : Thomas Dinsmore. collector of the non-resident money ; and Peter Powers and Benjamin Farley a committee to procure preaching till the first of April following. Also it was " voted that Abraham Taylor. Peter Powers and Thomas Dinsmore be a committee to joyn with such Persons as the old Parish shall appoint for to raise Bounds between each Parish." At this meeting
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PARISH OF WEST DUNSTABLE. [1739 to 1746.
also the following vote was passed in respect to a meeting-house ; .. Voted to build a House for the Public Worship of God: That said House be Erected at or near Thomas Dinsmore's House Lot of Land. That the House be 22 feet one way and 20 the other -- 9 foot stud - well-boarded and shingled- One- Floor -One Door -- 3 windows and as many Seats as may be thought convenient - the House to be Erected by the last of April next."
The house lot of Thomas Dinsmore, as was said, was upon the farm now owned by John Coburn, Esq, But no meeting-house was built upon or near that site, the vote to that effect having been reconsid- ered at a meeting in the following March. After four or five other sites had been proposed at various meetings and rejected. it was at last, at a meeting held Nov. 5, 1740: ". Voted that the Meeting- House should be Erected on Abraham Taylor's Land, about Sixty Rods Southerly from said Taylor's Dwelling-House, on the highest Knoll of Land thereabouts, and that the Burying Place for the Par- ish be ajoining the Place now appointed for ye Meeting-House."
This is the same pleasant and hallowed spot on which, a few years later, the second meeting-house was built, the same where the third, still standing, was erected more than sixty years after. the site for it and the burial-ground having been given by Mr. Taylor, who died in the spring of 1743, and was the first adult person buried in it. It appears that the new edifice was not wholly completed for a year or more after its location was fixed. as we find that it was voted at a parish-meeting, Oct. 23. 1741, "To have one Glace Winder in the Meeting-House and to have it under-Pind as soon as possable."
THE FIRST PARISH TAX. WITH THE NAMES OF THE TAX-PAYERS. .
In the month of November, 1740. by vote of a parish meeting. the first tax was assessed upon the inhabitants . for defraving the necessary charges of the Parish." amounting to £16, 25. 2d. This tax list contains the names of 29 persons. viz. :
ZACHARIAH LAWRENCE, Jr. JOSIAH BLOOD NATHANIEL BLOOD
ENOCH HUNT PETER POWERS
PHILIP WOOLERICH .
ELEAZER FLAGG
BENJAMIN FARLEY MOSES PROCTOR
SAMUEL CUMINGS
JERAHMAEL CUMINGS JOHN BUTTERFIELD
WILLIAM BLANCHARD
SAMCHE FARLEY ELNATHAN BLOOD
ABRAHAM TAYLOR DAVID NEVINS
HENRY BARTON
STEPHEN HARRIS WILLIAM NEVINS
THOMAS DINSMORE
WILLIAM COLBURN
Widow NEVINS
A.MOS PHILIPS
ROBERT COLBURN WILLIAM SHATTUCK
GIDEON BEHONEY,
PETER WHEELER DANIEL KENDALL
nearly all of them family names, familiar to the people of Hollis from that time to this.
43
1739 to 1746.] PARISH OF WEST DUNSTABLE.
By a province law. then in force, all male persons of the age of eighteen years and over, with the exception of the governor, settled ministers. and a few others. were subject to a poll-tax. The above tax-list may be presumed to contain the names of all male persons above that age at that time inhabitants of the parish. Six of the list are charged with a poll-tax only; the remaining twenty-three, in- cluding the widow Nevins, with both a poll and property-tax. Of the above tax of about £16. very near £13. or more than three- fourths of it, were assessed on twenty-eight persons as a poll-tax. and less than £3 upon real and personal estate. The sum assessed upon each poll was 9s. 2d., while the highest property-tax was only 6s. 7d. I may have occasion, in another connection, to advert again to this matter of taxation.
THE NON-RESIDENT'S MONEY, OR NON-RESIDENT TAX OF 2D. THE ACRE AND THE DISPOSAL OF IT.
As this tax was a matter of much interest and some trouble to the residents of the parish, it is entitled to further notice as illustrating the laws and usages of the good people of that time, and especially the ways and means which were supposed to be lawful and right for the raising of money for the support of " learned, able and orthodox ministers."
The warrant for the third parish-meeting, held in March. 1740. with other articles to be voted on, contained the following :
Ist. .. To see what Encouragement the People will give to any Person or Persons for Killing Rattlesnakes in this parish.
2d. " To see if the Parish will agree to dispose of the Non-Resi- dent money that shall be due and coming to this Parish for the space of five years from the first of January last to any Person or Persons who shall agree to Support the Gospel in this Parish.
At the above meeting it was voted :
Ist. .. That if any person shall make it appear to the Committee of the Parish that he has killed one or more Rattlesnakes in this Precinct, in this present year. he shall have paid to him one shilling for every such snake so killed. out of the Parish Treasury."
Also unanimously voted. " That Peter Powers & Abraham Taylor shall have the Total of all such sum or sums of money as is or shall be assessed on Land belonging to non-Resident Proprietors of this Parish for the space of five years from the ist of January last. on condition that the said Powers and Taylor shall & do oblige them-
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PARISH OF WEST DUNSTABLE.
[1739 to 1746.
selves & Heirs with sufficient security to maintain and constantly support Preaching in this Precinct for ye full term of ye said five years - and Erect a Meeting House for the Public Worship of God agreeable to the tenor of the vote of said parish -- and likewise fully acquit and discharge said Parish from the cost & charges that have been expended in being set off from Dunstable & being erected into a separate Precinct- and also from the cost and & charges that has been expended in getting Timber for a Bridge across Nashaway River, and also to pay Mr. Underwood for his Preaching with us in this Parish."
The question was once asked. "Of whom do the Kings of the Earth take custom or tribute, of their own children or of strangers?" The answer was. "Of strangers. " It would seem from the doings of the above meeting that the early settlers of the west parish of Dun- stable had taken lessons in finance from the "Kings of the Earth."
Within about a year from the time of this meeting, after a long and angry controversy. the new province line between New-Hamp- shire and Massachusetts was surveyed and established where the State line now is. Much to the chagrin and disappointment of the inhabitants, that part of the old town of Dunstable now known as Hollis, was found to be in New-Hampshire. In consequence of this decision. the charter of the west parish in Dunstable. granted by the general court of Massachusetts, was virtually annulled, that general court having had at the time no power to grant it. With the charter the legal right to assess this tax of two pence the acre on the land of non-residents was also lost. and with the tax the very thrifty bargain with Messrs. Powers and Taylor in respect to the disposal of it.
In this dilemma. the inhabitants promptly met ( Feb. 19. 1741-2.) and "voted to petition the Grate and General Court of N. Hampshire that the Parish be made a Township, and also that the Parish may have power to collect of delinquent persons. the several sums they may have been assessed at agreeable to the Laws of the Massachusetts Province."
But instead of granting this petition for a township-charter and to legalize the non-resident tax. the general court. in March. 1742. or- ganized all that part of old Dunstable north of the new province line and west of Merrimack river, into a "District" for the collection of province taxes, with authority for that purpose only, to elect district- assessors or selectmen, and a district-clerk and collectors of taxes.
The first meeting for the election of District-officers, was held under the direction of a committee of the general court. probably in the east
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PARISH OF WEST DUNSTABLE.
1739 to 1746.]
parish, April 23. 1742. At this meeting, Abraham Taylor was chosen clerk ; Abraham Taylor, Thomas Harwood. Samuel Cum- ings and Jonathan Lovewell selectmen. The record for the year 1743 is lost. In 1744, John Boynton was district clerk ; and John Boynton, Jonathan Lovewell and Jerahmael Cumings, selectmen or assessors. In 1745, John Boynton was district clerk ; John Boyn- ton, Jonathan Lovewell, and Jerahmael Cumings assessors or selectmen.
SETTLEMENT OF THE NEW PROVINCE LINE.
For a long time prior to the year 1739 the boundary line between the provinces of New Hampshire and Massachusetts had been the subject of protracted and acrimonious controversy. About seventy years before, Governor Endicott of Massachusetts had caused a mon- ument to be fixed three miles northward of the junction of the two rivers forming the Merrimack in the present county of Belknap. and Massachusetts claimed all the territory in the present state of New Hampshire south of an east and west line passing through that point, and also all within three miles both east and north of the Merrimack.
On the other hand, New Hampshire claimed all the territory lying north of a line running due east and west through a point within three miles of the Merrimack, on its north side near its mouth. At last a royal commission was appointed to settle this controversy. which met for the purpose at Hampton Falls in this state in the year 1737, the General Court of each province attending the sittings of this commission. The Governor of Massachusetts in his coach, and the members of the General Court of that Province mounted on horseback, formed themselves into a procession at Boston, and marched in state to Hampton Falls to be present at the sessions of this tri- bunal. A description of this cavalcade has come down to us, as told by a wit of the time to a son of the Emerald Isle, in the following pasquinade. which I present as illustrating the customs of the colo- nial governments under the royal charters.
" Dear Paddy you ne'er did behold such a sight, As yesterday morning was seen before night; You in all your born days saw nor I didn't neither, So many fine horses and men ride together;
At the head, the lower house trotted two in a row, Then all the higher house pranced after the low,
Then the Governor's coach galloped on like the wind,
And the last that came foremost were the troopers behind;
But I fear it means no good to your neck or mine,
For they say 'tis to fix the right place for the Line."
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46
PARISH OF WEST DUNSTABLE. [1739 to 1746.
The Commission at Hampton Falls did not agree. and the ques- tion was reserved for the King in council. A decision was finally made in the year 1740. fixing the Province line where the State line now is. This decision took from the Massachuretts claim, and gave to New Hampshire, not only all the disputed tract, but also a tract of territory south of that in controversy, fourteen miles in width and extending from the Merrimack river to the Connecticut. which New Hampshire had not before claimed, embracing all that part of old Dunstable north of the present State line.
This was for Dunstable " the most unkindest cut of all." being for the old town almost as troublesome. not to say as fatal. a . place for the line" as his neck could have been for the Paddy. cutting the body politic asunder from side to side through its most tender and vital parts, hard by the ancient meeting-house and burial ground. This new line was run in 1741. leaving in Massachusetts that part of the old town now in Tyngsborough and Dunstable in that State, and a narrow gore from the old parish of West Dunstable. now in Pep- perell, and severing from Groton a small triangular tract now in the south part of Nashua along the State line.
EFFECTS OF THE DECISION.
This decision came upon the settlers in Dunstable. north of the new line, with mingled surprise and consternation. Dunstable was eminently and wholly a Massachusetts settlement. The settlers were nearly all from the neighboring towns in that Province. with whose people they were connected in sympathy. in business and by the ties of marriage and blood. Their town and parish charters and the titles to their lands and improvements were all Massachusetts grants. and their whole civil and ecclesiastical, organizations under Massa -. chusetts laws. . This decision of the King in Council left them wholly out of the jurisdiction of that Province, and in legal effect made all their charters, the titles to their lands and improvements. and all statute laws regulating their civil and church polity wholly void. The decision of the King was final, and there was no ap- peal. Though disappointed, embarrassed and indignant, there was no alternative but submission.
Fortunately for them. in the course of a few years afterwards. a compromise was effected with the adverse claimants of their lands and improvements, and their titles and possessions quieted. and they gradually became more reconciled to the change of their allegiance.
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PARISHI OF WEST DUNSTABLE.
1739 to 1746.]
But this compromise and the quieting of their titles to their lands and improvements afforded these people no relief in respect to the support of the ministry and building meeting-houses.
Still, however, the inhabitants of West Dunstable continued to hold public meetings, elect officers and assess taxes much as before, and in the records of their doings their community was styled a " parish " or " precinct." Notwithstanding their disappointment in the loss of their charter, and at finding themselves citizens of New Hampshire against their wishes, they were not yet able to forget the .. Non-resident Money," or to abandon the hope of obtaining it. With this hope in view, at a public meeting held in January. 1744, it was " Voted that Peter Powers should have all the non-residents' money that is not Collected for the four years past and the year to come, * * and for the said Powers to pay all the Parish Debt for Preaching and to any other Person for Sarvis Don the Parish before the ordination * * and to pay the Parish £40, O. T. at the end of the year." It is to be inferred from the doings of a parish meeting in the following December, that these non-resident land-owners had questioned the right of Mr. Powers to collect this tax, and that it was not paid so cheerfully as the purchaser had hoped. As a last remedy for this trouble, it was voted at this meeting, "that Capt Powers represent the Parish at the General Court of New Hamp- shire to get ye Massachusetts Act for taxing ye land in said Parish confirmed if he will go at his own charges -- otherwise not to go."
The record does not show whether Capt. Powers accepted the honor of the office, with its condition or not.
The charter of Hollis as a town bore date April 3, 1746, and embraced a territory much less than one-half of that contained in the charter of West Dunstable. This town charter was wholly silent in respect to the right to tax non-residents for any purpose. To supply this omission, at a town-meeting held on the 22d of December of the same year it was "Voted to Raise two Pence per Acre Lawful Money on all the Land of Hollis for five years for ye support of je Gospel and ye arising charges of said Town, and to Petition the Grat and Generall Court for Strength to Gather and Get the Money of Non-Residents." Samuel Cumings, Esq., was chosen a delegate to present this petition, which he did in the following April. In answer to this petition the general court of New Hampshire passed an act taxing all the land in Hollis for four years at two pence the acre for the support of the ministry and finishing the second meet- ing-house, the frame of which had then been raised. All the lands
PARISH OF WEST DUNSTABLE. [1739 to 1746.
in Hollis were taxed under this law for the next four years (as stated in the town records). " for the Building and Repairing a Meeting- House and the Supporting the Gospel Ministry." This tax was assessed in the old-tenor currency. £4 of which at that date appear to have been of the value of £1, lawful or silver money. In 1747 this tax amounted, in the old-tenor currency, to £394 17s. Sd. Of that sum, £256 6s. Sd,, or more than two-thirds of it, were assessed upon 33 non-resident land-owners, and the residue, £138 HIS .. on 4S residents. In 1748, £506 3s. were assessed for the like purpose, of which $350 gs. Sd., again more than two-thirds of it, were assessed on 31 non-residents, and the balance on 52 residents. Whatever we may think of the justice of this law, it seems to have had the good effect of lessening the number of non-residents, and also the quantity of land in Hollis owned by them, and of adding to the number of residents, and to their proportion of the land. In 1750. the last year of the law, the resident land-owners had increased from +8, in 1747, to 70. And the non-residents had fallen off from 33 in 1747, to 24 in 1750. and the amount of the land-tax paid by the two classes had become much more equal.
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