USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Rye > History of the town of Rye, New Hampshire, from its discovery and settlement to December 31, 1903 > Part 18
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The last town meeting of Gosport was held on the 14th of March, 1876. The principal business of the meeting was, as had for some years been the case, the election of a representa- tive to the legislature. There was no money to be raised for roads, because there were no roads on the island ; nor for schools, or fire, or police department, or street lights, for a similar reason. With little to do, and very few voters to do it, a brief and orderly session might reasonably have been ex- pected ; but instead of this the meeting was disorderly and riotous to an extreme degree, the offenders being, it was alleged, a number of employees of the hotel who came down from Boston that morning by steamer to vote, and concerning whose right to vote at the island there was the gravest doubt. So serious was the disturbance that the moderator, after vainly endeavoring to restore order, peremptorily declared the polls
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closed, thus ending what was not only the last but probably the most turbulent town meeting ever held at Gosport. The certificate of election was given to Levi W. Downs, a son of John B. Downs, who took his seat when the legislature assem- bled ; but a legislative investigation into the affairs of the town was instituted, the report being that so few legal voters as the town possessed should not be allowed a representative in the legislature, and the abolition of Gosport as a town was decided upon. But the rocky islets which comprised the town's entire territory could not be abolished, and as they had to have a place in some town the bill which abolished Gosport annexed them to Rye, and declared vacant the seat in the legislature that had been occupied by the ancient settlements' representative. Not a single voter accrued to Rye in consequence of this annexation, no person ever claiming the right to vote in this town on the ground that he lived or ever had lived on Star island.
The annexation to Rye of New Hampshire's half of the Isles. of Shoals put White Island lighthouse in this town. This light- house, which is a brick cylinder forty-six feet high from its base to the centre of the lantern, was built in 1859 to take the place of one built in 1821, and which, cut down to less than one third its original height, still stands close beside the new tower and is used as an oil storehouse. In the present tower is the first Fresnel lens ever brought to this country, and the machinery which revolves the lens, causing the light to send forth red and white flashes alternately every fifteen seconds, is the same that came from France with the lens. The focal plane of the light is eighty-two feet above mean high water, and the gallery at the base of the lantern seventy-eight feet, notwith- standing which kelp has been thrown upon the gallery by the seas in very heavy storms.
CHURCHES AND MINISTERS.
The first settlers of the Piscataqua region-indeed, all those sent over by Mason and Gorges to their provinces of New Hampshire and Maine-were " churchmen," or adherents of the Episcopal church, the Established church of England ; and
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THE ISLES OF SHOALS.
up to the time that the Puritans of the Massachusetts bay secured control of the government of the entire region, hardly more than one or two Congregational churches, of the New Eng- land model, had been organized north of the Merrimac river. The settlers at the Isles of Shoals were also adherents of the Episcopal church, and the early clergymen at the islands were of that faith ; and it was not until some time after the settlers on the main land had submitted to Massachusetts bay that the islanders fully acknowledged that colony's authority.
Prior to 1640 Rev. Joseph Hull, who was settled at Acco- minticus (now York, Me.), visited the islands occasionally and administered the sacraments of the Episcopal communion in the chapel on Hog (called by some at that time Farm) island, now Appledore. During the year 1640 Rev. Robert Jordan of Richman's Island, Me., officiated in a similar manner, about this time the first church at the Shoals being built on Hog island; and in 1641 and '42 Rev. Richard Gibson, the first minister of Strawberry Bank (now Portsmouth) was settled . there. A church had been built at Strawberry Bank, and Mr. Gibson settled as its first minister, prior to 1638; the first church built in what is now Portsmouth, as well as the first one at the Shoals, having been an Episcopal church, and the first settled minister at each place an Episcopalian. Mr. Gibson was probably driven from his parish on the main land to the Shoals in 1641, as it was in that year that the Puritans of the Massachusetts bay colony succeeded in getting the Piscataqua settlements in their power, after which it is not likely that he was allowed to officiate on shore; but as to this there is noth- ing on record, as " the old Town Book" of Portsmouth was destroyed by the selectmen in 1652.
At the islands the Episcopal clergyman was safe from perse- cution, for though the New Hampshire towns had submitted to the rule of Massachusetts bay the Shoals people refused to do so, openly revolted against the Roundheads, and declared their independence. As Episcopalians they naturally were royalists ; and Rev. Richard Gibson wrought zealously to confirm them in their ingrained theology and politics. But in the summer of
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1642, being in Boston on his way to England, he was seized by the authorities therc, and indicted for " exercising the min- isterial functions at the Shoals according to the discipline of the Church of England, opposing the Massachusetts title to those parts, and provoking the people to revolt;" all which he admitted, but as he was then "upon the wing of removal " from the country, it was thought best to suspend further pro- ceedings against him, and let him go.
The Shoals never had another settled minister of the Episco- pal denomination, though after Mr. Gibson's retirement Rev. Joseph Hull renewed his occasional ministrations there, and, as appears from the inventory of his estate in the York County records, maintained such relations with the islands until his death, many years later. In doing this Mr. Hull ran little risk of being disciplined by Massachusetts bay, for he lived in the province of Maine, the people of which province sturdily com- batted the pretensions of the bay rulers, and the islanders as stoutly supported their Episcopalian and royalist friends on shore; but after the death of King Charles on the scaffold in 1649, and the complete triumph of the Roundhead cause in England, the province of Maine could no longer hold out and was compelled to yield to the bay government, which also at the same time brought the entire Shoals group into a condition of nominal obedience.
One of the first results of this victory over the stiff-necked and rebellious islanders was the sending to them of a sound Puritan divine, Rev. John Brock, the first of a long line of Con- gregational ministers who rendered noble and self-sacrificing service at the islands until the settlement went down in hope- less decay. Of him Cotton Mather said : " He dwelt as near Heaven as any man upon earth;" and the following anecdote is related of him :
Rev. Mr. Brock persuaded the people to observe one secular day in each month as an extra season of religious exercises. On one occasion the roughness of the weather had for several days prevented fishing, but on the regular day of the special meeting the weather was favorable, and the men wished the
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meeting put by. Mr. Brock, seeing they were determined not to attend, said to them : " If you will go away, I say unto you, ' catch fish if you can ;' but as for you that will tarry and wor- ship the Lord Jesus Christ this day, I will pray unto him for you that you may take fish till you are weary." Thirty men went away and five remained ; the thirty caught but four fishes ; the five who tarried went out afterward and took about five hundred.
Mr. Brock was settled at the Shoals from about 1650 to 1662, and was succeeded by Rev. Mr. Hall, and the latter by Rev. Samuel Belcher. It was during the pastorate of the latter that the population migrated from the northerly half of the group to Star island, and the old church on Hog island was allowed to go to decay. In 1685, the York County court records show the northerly half of the group was "presented at Court" for " their neglect in not maintaining a sufficient meeting house for the worship of God." No heed seems to have been paid to this presentment. Most of the inhabitants had long before . abandoned that half of the islands; and the few who remained were as we have already seen, too poverty-stricken to pay the islands' share of the Kittery town taxes, or even wholly sup- port themselves, not to mention the keeping in repair of a meeting house which they probably never attended. And the islanders as a rule seem never to have paid any more attention than they were obliged to, either as individuals or as a com- munity, to official notification served upon them from the shore, whether the notification came from the colony of the Massa- chusetts bay, the county of York, the town of Kittery, or the state of New Hampshire.
About 1700 a new church was built on a lofty point of Star island. It seems reasonable to suppose that there had pre- viously been a church of some kind on this island, for the popula- tion of the group had been centered there for years, and it is certain that the old church on Hog island had long been aban- doned; but as to this there is nothing on record. The new church was a substantial structure of wood, twenty-eight fect wide and forty-eight feet long, with a steeple or bell tower and
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bell; the tower, from the elevated position of the church, serv- ing as a landmark for the fishermen by day, and the bell guid- ing them to safety in times of darkness or fog-services which continued to be rendered by the tower and bell of the present stone church on the same site up to the time that the fishing settlement at the island ceased to exist.
Rev. Samuel Moody was one of the first to minister in the new church. Rev. Daniel Greenleafe was there in 1705, the Massachusetts general assembly that year granting him four- teen pounds, and the New Hampshire general assembly six pounds toward his support. As the Star island community was then in thriving circumstances, the fact that so large a contribu- tion as £20 was at that period required to sustain the Congre- gational ministry there, is not indicative of strong religious fervor among the islanders. Mr. Greenleafe was succeeded in 1706 or 1707 by Rev. Samuel Moody, whose ministry con- tinued to 1730 or '31 ; and he was succeeded by Rev. John Tucke, who was the first minister regularly ordained to the congregation upon the islands. He was graduated from Har- vard in 1723, and ordained July 26, 1732, the ordination ser- mon being preached by Rev. Jabez Fitch of Portsmouth, who took as his text Matt. 4 : 19: " I will make you fishers of men." He died August 12, 1773, at the age of seventy-two years, and was buried on Star island. His grave was accidentally discov- ered in 1800 by Dudley A. Tyng, collector of the port of Newburyport, on a visit to the islands, and a stone suitably inscribed erected over it. During his long pastorate he was physician as well as religious teacher to the islanders, and his influence over them seems to have been very great, and wholly for good. Rev. John Tucke, Jr., son of the Shoals pastor, and like his father a graduate of Harvard, married Mary Parsons, daughter of Rev. Samuel Parsons of Rye. He was ordained to the ministry at Epsom in 1761, and remained there until the Revolution, when he left to join the army as chaplain, but on the way was stricken with smallpox at Salem, N. Y., and died there in the thirty-seventh year of his age.
Rev. John Tucke, Sr., was succeeded at the Shoals by Rev.
THE ISLES OF SHOALS. 241
Jeremiah Shaw, who remained until 1775, when the inhabi- tants were obliged to leave the islands on account of the break- ing out of the Revolutionary war. From that time to the close of the eighteenth century the ministrations of religion at the islands were suspended. The few people who remained at the islands, or who returned after the close of the war, were too poor to support a minister, if they had been disposed to do so; they neglected the annual choice of town officers; they had no regu- lar schools, and paid little if any attention to the Sabbath; the parsonage, constructed for Rev. Mr. Tucke, was taken down in 1780 by his son-in-law, and carried to York ; and as appears from the Gosport town records, the meeting house itself, which had stood during nearly the whole century, was wantonly set on fire about 1790 by a party of drunken fishermen, who held a wild revel by its light while it was burning. Rev. Jedediah Morse, D. D., the distinguished geographer, historian and divine, who visited Star island in the summer of 1800, made an entry as. follows of this incident in the Gosport records under date of August 10th of that year.
" About the year 1790 some of the people of the baser sort, not having the fear of God before their eyes, pulled down and burnt the meeting house, which was a neat and convenient building, and had been greatly useful, not only as a place for religious worship, but as a landmark for seamen approaching this part of the coast. By means of the exertions and benevolence of the society for propagating the Gospel, establishd in Boston, and some liberal minded gentlemen in Newburyport, Portsmouth, and other places, there is a prospect and hope that another place of worship will be erected on the site of the old one, and the means of religious and moral instruc- tion be again afforded to the unfortunate and almost forsaken people of these islands."
The new meeting house, which cost about $1,400, was erected under the supervision of Mr. Dudley A. Tyng. It was some- what smaller than the former one, being but thirty-six feet long and twenty-four feet wide on the outside, the walls being of stone, two feet thick, and eleven feet high in the clear. The
17
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choice of stone as a material was advocated by Dr. Morse, as having, as he said, "two great advantages over wood; the inhabitants cannot burn it for fuel, and it will be imperishable."
The new meeting house was dedicated by Rev. Jedediah Morse on the 24th of November, 1800. The woodwork was partially destroyed by fire on January 2, 1826, but repairs were made through the generosity of people on the mainland, and the church was rededicated in 1830.
For about seventy years after the new church was built the
GOSPORT CHURCH.
ancient "Society for Propagating the Gospell among the In- dians and others in North America," with headquarters at Boston, sent to the islands a succession of missionary ministers, some thirty in all, who followed each other at frequent intervals until the final extinction of the settlement. These pious and devoted men, besides their pastoral duties, often served as school teach- ers and in other capacities; and they were supported partly by the society, partly by the contributions of other religious organizations or individuals on the mainland, and partly by the
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THE ISLES OF SHOALS.
islanders. The first of these missionaries sent out was Rev. Jacob Emerson of Reading, Mass., who in 1799 acted as pastor and schoolmaster for about three months, and it was his report which caused the society to send out, the following year, Rev. Dr. Morse ; and it was the latter's report of the religious, moral, and intellectual condition and needs of the islanders that resulted in the rebuilding of the church and the continued maintenance of missionary pastors at the island, a few of whom we will men- tion.
Rev. Josiah Stevens, one of the first missionaries, married, in 1 802, Susanna Haley, daughter of Samuel Haley, Jr., of Smutty- nose island, and engaged to serve as permanent minister. A parsonage was built and furnished for him, on the spot where Mr. Tucke's house had stood, and he was commissioned a jus- tice of the peace. His ministry promised to be productive of much good, but he died in 1804 at the age of sixty-four years. Reuben Moody, a theological student, served as missionary for. a few months in 1822; and Rev. Samuel Sewall served from early in 1824 until his death, which occurred in Rye on the 16th of March, 1826. Rev. Origin Smith went to the island in 1835, was joined there by his wife and family in 1837, and was settled as the minister, remaining until 1841 or later. Rev. Avery Plummer and others succeeded Mr. Smith, and in 1855 the missionary was Rev. J. Mason, who in his report to the society for that year said that among other duties personally performed by him had been the repairing and caring for the public build- ings, making the fires on Sunday and for the day schools, sweeping the floors, ringing the bell, hoisting the bethel flag, and making coffins, filing saws, repairing clocks, etc., for the islanders, while his wife did much work on dresses and gar- ments for them. Mr. Mason was succeeded by several other missionaries, one of the last of whom was Rev. George Beebe, whose wife for a time discharged the duties of schoolmistress. Mr. Beebe was succeeded in 1867 by Rev. Mr. Barber, and the latter was followed in 1869 by Rev. Mr. Hughes, who was the last of the long line of missionaries.
The close of Mr. Hughes' pastoral service ended for all time
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HISTORY OF RYE.
the regular ministrations of the gospel at the Isles of Shoals, begun on Hog island by Episcopal clergymen more than two centuries before. Since his retirement divine service has oc- casionally been held in the old church on Sundays in sum- mer by clergymen of various denominations passing a season at one or the other of the island hotels ; and it has always been an ob- ject of interest to summer visitors. The tower, which had become much dilapidated, was a few years ago thoroughly repaired by voluntary contributions, and the little stone building, which has now withstood the storms of more than a hundred years, will not soon be allowed to go to ruin. Long may it continue to serve as a landmark for the passing mariner, and an interesting reminder to all beholders of other times and other conditions.
XIV.
Indian Depredations.
THE BRACKETT'S LANE MASSACRE.
Sandy Beach, in common with many others of the early set- tlements, suffered terribly from Indian raids. Men, women, and children were slaughtered or carried into captivity, houses and barns destroyed by fire, and cattle killed. The settler and his family, when they laid down for the night, had no assurance that they would not be aroused before morning by the war- whoop of the savages, to find their dwellings in flames and all chance of escape cut off. How many of the Sandy Beach pioneers perished through these sudden and deadly attacks is . not known, but the number was large. The records of Indian depredations on the settlement are very meagre and incomplete, but the most disastrous raid of which there is authentic record took place in September, 1691, when a party of savages, vari- ously estimated at from twenty to forty, came from the eastward in canoes and landed at Sandy Beach. They did not attack the garrison house there, but killed some of the defenceless families living on or in near vicinity to Brackett's lane (now known as Brackett road), took a number of persons captive, and burned several small houses. Anthony Brackett, who lived near Saltwater brook, was killed, and was buried on the eastern side of the highway; his will was proved in 1692. Goodman Rand's family also suffered in this raid, concerning which Dow, in his "History of Hampton," says :
Two messengers brought the sad intelligence to Hampton. On their return in the evening, on reaching Ragged Neck, about half a mile south of the Sandy Beach garrison house, they saw as they thought about forty Indians coming towards Hampton with five or six canoes on their heads. Having discovered them the messengers quickly retraced their steps and
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HISTORY OF RYE.
gave the alarm at Hampton. Henry Dow, one of the town committee, im- mediately wrote and sent a letter to Salisbury, conveying the intelligence to Major Robert Pike, who commanded the militia of the county of Norfolk. Major Pike, having added a hasty note, forwarded the letter to Mr. Salton- stall, one of the magistrates, who was then at Ipswich on " court service," and by him it was sent to the governor. The next morning, Sept. 30, a company of men from Hampton hastened to the scene of carnage, where- they met Capt. John Pickering with a company from Portsmouth. The enemy had gone. They were probably preparing to embark at the time they were discovered at Ragged Neck, the evening before. Their tracks. were traced in the sand, as were also the tracks of two women and one child, whom, with others, it is supposed they carried into captivity. The com- panies found the dead bodies of ten persons, and thought from what they found in the ashes that three had been burned with the one house. Seven others were missing. The whole loss was twenty persons.
It is said there were two of the Brackett children carried off by the Indians. One of them, a girl, finally reached Canada, and after she grew up and was married there she came back to Rye and claimed a portion of her father's estate. She took a part of the cattle, and a piece of the land was sold to pay her off. It contained about seven acres ; Jonathan Locke lived on it, and perhaps bought it; then Richard Lang, and later Sam- uel A. Trefethen. One of the Bracketts made up quite a number of verses about the woman coming back after her patri- mony, which Thomas J. Parsons in his youthful days heard re- peated. The brains of one or more children, too young to be easily carried into captivity, were dashed out against a large rock which stood on what is now Wallis road, near Brackett road. This rock, which tradition says bore the stains of blood for many years, was long ago removed in improving the high- way. Thomas Walford was mortally wounded on the hill on Brackett road. After he was shot he crawled on his hands and knees to the house of a family named Foss, whose members had either fled to the woods or been massacred by the savages, and drank from a pail of swill he found on the kitchen floor. The hill was called Walford's hill for many years.
Belknap devotes four lines of his " History of New Hamp- shire" to this Indian raid, as follows: "On the twenty-ninth of September a party of them came from the eastward in canoes
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to Sandy Beach (Rye), where they killed and captivated twenty- one persons."
INDIANS AT BREAKFAST HILL.
The most serious attack ever made by the savages upon the settlers at Portsmouth, so far as the number of persons slain and the amount of property destroyed was concerned, took place five years after the murderous raid upon the Brackett's lane district of Sandy Beach. Of this calamitous event Brew- ster, in his "Rambles About Portsmouth," in part says :
It was on the 26th of June, 1696, that the Indians made their way to this very spot (Portsmouth Plains), after their fearful predatory incursions on Dover. Cotton Mather and Belknap refer to the event in short paragraphs. Adams, in his " Annals," also records the incident in a single page. The following account has been furnished us, collected from history, old manu- scripts, and traditions, and is the fullest that has ever been published :
In the afternoon previous to the Indians commencing their attack on the people and property of that vicinity, the clouds and chilled air portended rain. That night a thunder storm occurred; the cattle came frightened from the woods, and at an unusually early hour sought refuge around their owners' homes. Dover having suffered from the murdering hands of the treacherous Indians, the thinly settled neighborhood of the Plains had con- stant forebodings that they might soon be subject to like incursions. Their suspicions were awake, and whatever appeared to be ominous of the approach of the Indians was dreadful in the imagination.
Their cattle had been previously very frequently abused and lacerated by parts of wandering tribes, which had been skulking through the woods for theft and cruelty. When the cattle and sheep on the day before the attack hurried to the yards, their frightened appearance caused much talk and alarm among the villagers ; and although they suspected and even believed that their herds had fled from Indians they had seen, yet, not conceiving danger to be so nearly awaiting them, they sought repose in their habita- tions for one night longer.
The people awoke at early dawn from their slumber and were greeted with the light of their burning barns. The Indians then sounded their war- whoop, turned their havoc to the houses, rushed upon the inmates, and seized such valuable property as could be made portable with them. Such of the women and children as could flee made their way toward the garrison house ; while the sick and infirm could at farthest only absent themselves from their homes to some retired spot. The men fought the Indians with such implements as came nearest at hand, till contest became useless. The
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