USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Holderness > Holderness : an account of the beginnings of a New Hampshire town > Part 4
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
56
HOLDERNESS
men (belonging to the s'd Town) who are ready with their Lives and Fortunes to assert and maintain the American Cause: and we your humble petitioners as soon as may be will pay to your Honours, or the Committee of Safety for the time being, an Equivalent for the same." The General Court gave Curry twenty-five dollars and twenty-five pounds of powder.
Thus the echoes of that great storm rolled along these distant hills. The town meetings proceeded in their quiet way, and their minute book is almost as remote as an abbey chronicle from the events of the world without. In 1775, the call for the town meeting was headed as usual, "Province of New Hampshire;" in 1776, it was dated simply, "New Hampshire;" in 1777, it was "State of New Hampshire." Thus the great change was noted in the book.
The settlers were busy with their farms. The plan set forth in the charter to have a central town, in which the settlers should live in one community, and out of which they should go to work on the ploughed land and in the woods, was never carried
57
THE SETTLEMENT
into effect. If it could have been accom- plished in our settlements it would have made a great difference in the social life of our New England farmers. It would have saved the country people from the ills of isolation. As it was, they lived apart. Even the small intervale lots by the river seem not to have been much built upon. The settlement began, as we have seen, in the very midst of the township, and the settlers established themselves on the hundred- acre holdings.
The town was so poor that the only ac- tion which was taken at the first town meeting, after the election of officers, was to vote to raise no money for that year. And such a resolution appears on the min- utes several times. The first motion to build a school was defeated; so was the first motion to open a new road. They did vote £30 to build a church, but they did not build it; and the next year they recon- sidered their action, and for money sub- stituted labor, boards, and shingles. Even then, the church was not begun. In 1773, the wages of a laborer were two shillings and three pence a day; in 1782, they had
58
HOLDERNESS
advanced to three shillings; in 1791, to five. In 1788, it was voted to employ a teacher at a salary of $170 a year, and a minister at a salary of $200; each to be paid in produce. This was a fair remuner- ation according to the standards of the time. In 1792, Ebenezer Allen, town min- ister of Wolfeborough, was promised a salary of forty-five pounds; one third in cash, one third in grass-fed beef at twenty shillings a hundred, and one third in corn at three shillings, or in rye at four shillings a bushel; with twenty-five cords of wood. The minister in Holderness, as elsewhere, had his lot of land. In 1781, the town of Holderness was supporting a poor woman named Margaret Lyons at five shillings a week. This included all the necessaries and none of the luxuries, and probably repre- sents the minimum cost of living at that time.
In 1784, the electors were summoned to vote for a president; that is, for a president of New Hampshire, for by that title the governor was at first distinguished from his predecessors, the appointees of the crown. In 1785, there were sixteen men at the
59
THE SETTLEMENT
town meeting, and they all voted for the Hon. Samuel Livermore for president. In 1788, it was agreed that the Rev. Robert Fowle be made the minister of the town, provided that he receive Episcopal ordina- tion; they voted to clear the minister's lot, and to build him a parsonage and a barn.
Thus appear the two men about whom the life of the little town centred thence- forth, Samuel Livermore, the squire, and Robert Fowle, the parson.
NOTE. - The following names of grantees are taken from the list on the back of the charter.
Majr John Wentworth | Sam1 Wentworth, Esq. Thomas Harvey Robert Harvey Joseph Sheppard Joseph Baker Nicholas Gookin John Muckleroy William Simpson, senr David Simpson William Simpson, junr Joseph Simpson Saml Wentworth, Esq. Murry Hambleton Theodore Atkinson, Esq.
Richd Wibird, Esq. John Downing, Esq. Mrs. Sarah Mitchell ( John Kavenah & ) .John Innis Henry Lane
of Boston Samuel Sheppard, 3d Edward Hall Bergin William Curry William Kennedy Thomas Willie John Sheppard, senr Thomas Sheppard Samuel Sheppard, senr Charles Bamford Joseph Ellison Richard Ellison William Ellison Robert Bamford William Smith William Campbell William Garrow Henry Wallis Revd Arthur Brown Henry Hill John Sheppard, junr
| William Kelley Thomas Vokes James Kielley Wm. Cox Charles Cox John Cox Edward Cox Joseph Cox, William Cox, junr John Birgin Hercules Mooney William Williams Samuel Lamb Charles Cox, junr Derry Pitman Samuel Livermore Charles Bamford,junr Mk Hg Wentworth, Esq. Richard Salter, and Joseph Bartlett of Newtown.
VI
SAMUEL LIVERMORE, THE SQUIRE
S AMUEL LIVERMORE,1 who pre- sently became the largest owner and the man of most importance in the commu- nity, was one of the nine children of Dea- con Samuel Livermore of Waltham, Mass. In 1751, being then of the age of nine- teen years, he entered Nassau Hall, now Princeton University, having previously taught school for a year in Chelsea. One of his letters of recommendation said that he intended to study for the ministry.
His diary at that time gives several in- teresting glimpses of the manners of the middle of the eighteenth century. He left Boston on the sloop Lydia, having provided for his voyage five quarts of West India rum, a quarter of a pound of tea, a dozen fowls, two pounds of loaf sugar, twenty
1 For Squire Livermore see Bench and Bar of N. H .; Bradley in N. H. Hist. Soc. Coll. iii, 221; the diary is quoted in Put- nam's Magazine, June, 1857.
SQUIRE LIVERMORE
MRS. LIVERMORE
61
SAMUEL LIVERMORE, THE SQUIRE
lemons, and three pounds of butter. In his chest, with two "close coats," a greatcoat, and other proper clothing, he carried a Bible, the New Testament in Latin and Greek, a Latin dictionary, Ward's "Intro- duction to Mathematics," Gordon's Geo- graphy, and copies of Virgil and Tully. Stopping at Newport, he purchased a pen- knife, a corkscrew, and a buckle-brush. In New York he bought two Duke of Cumber- land handkerchiefs. On October 3, he added to his store a gallon of rum; and on the following day bought a "fountain pen," and afterwards a sand-box, - for sprink- ling sand over a written page to dry the ink, - an almanac, and some ink-powder. His board cost him eighty cents a week; and hickory wood was $1.62 a cord. He received his degree in 1752, having been examined in Hebrew, Testament, Homer, Tully, Horace, Logic, Geography, Astro- nomy, Natural Philosophy, Ontology, Rhetoric, and Ethics.
Thus equipped, Livermore made his way to Portsmouth, was admitted to the bar in 1756, and in 1759 married Jane Browne, the daughter of the rector. In 1764, he moved
62
HOLDERNESS
to Londonderry, which place he repre- sented in the General Assembly until 1772. In 1763, he was the King's Attorney-Gen- eral; for which office his salary was £25, with an addition of £45 in fees. It was probably by reason of the complications of the time that he removed in 1774 from Londonderry and came to live upon his land in Holderness. For he took no part in either the debates or the battles which ac- companied the change of government.
He had by this time added considerably to the single share allotted to him by the original grant. It was perhaps by reason of his friendship with the Wentworths that he came into possession of the Governor's Farm. That single acquisition made him possessor not only of the most extensive but of the most fertile estate in the town- ship. As early as 1770, he is found petition- ing Governor John Wentworth for the shares of William Campbell and William Garrow who have forfeited their claims by failure to clear and cultivate. Also, in an undated petition, he makes a like request for the lands of Murray Hamilton and Samuel Wentworth. James Kelley's share
63
SAMUEL LIVERMORE, THE SQUIRE
he bought for $88.88. The lots of William Smith, of the Rev. Arthur Browne, and of Samuel Lamb, Livermore or his son pur- chased for the taxes. Derry Pitman's pro- perty came into their possession. Also, on the other side of the river, Judge Livermore bought fifteen hundred acres of Colonel John Fenton. This was the Fenton who owned thirty acres on Bunker's Hill, and whose hay Colonel Stark used for breast- works in the battle.
In the midst of the Governor's Farm, overlooking the fair valley of the Pemige- wasset, Squire Livermore built his great house, which remained until a fire de- stroyed it in 1882. It was then used by the Holderness School, whose present build- ings occupy the place. In 1780, the squire was busy in his gristmill by the Mill Brook, white with flour from head to foot, when the commissioners came to summon him to be one of the representatives of New Hampshire in the Continental Congress. In 1782, he was made chief justice of the state. In 1788, in the state convention assembled to consider the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, it was
64
HOLDERNESS
Livermore who moved that the Constitu- tion be adopted. Eight states had already assented: one more was needed to secure its adoption, and thus to make the inde- pendent states into a nation. With the affirmative action on Samuel Livermore's motion, this great step was taken. From 1789 to 1793 he was a representative, and from 1793 to 1801 a senator, in the national congress. Back and forth he drove, be- tween Holderness and Philadelphia, in his own carriage, with Major Thomas Shepard on the box, a journey of eighteen days. Over the College Road, by Squam Bridge and Centre Harbor to Wolfeborough, or over the Province Road, by the mills at Ashland to Canterbury and Concord, the great man proceeded on these formidable journeys.
Squire Livermore was almost the only one of our Holderness people whose name ever got beyond the borders of the state. He was our chief citizen, and his memory is our best possession. At his mansion on the bluff he dispensed a generous hospi- tality, practicing the fine but difficult vir- tue set forth in the text which is inscribed
THE LIVERMORE HOUSE
65
SAMUEL LIVERMORE, THE SQUIRE
on the tombstone of his son, beside the old church. "Give alms of thy goods, and never turn thy face from any poor man." On his kitchen table, there was always a great iron basket and a huge pottery pitcher, the basket filled with corn-and- rye bread, and the pitcher with cider, free to all passers-by.
The old squire's grandson gave me an account of an incident which illustrates his neighborly leadership. It was told to him one Sunday after church by Captain James Cox, then an aged man. At the end of a good harvest, the captain's barn had been struck by lightning and totally de- stroyed. The next day, as he stood among the ashes, up rode the squire on horseback, clapped him on the shoulder with a word of cheer, promptly called out all the neigh- bors,-the Pipers, the Coxes, the Thomp- sons, the Shepards,-sent them into the woods for timber, drove to the mill and brought down boards, got the barn raised and closed in, and then stocked it with hay and grain from his own lofts.
He was a commanding person, not only among his simple neighbors but in all com-
66
HOLDERNESS
panies. He is remembered, as a judge, to have had a fine disdain of precedent even when it was of his own making, construct- ing the law to suit his sense of justice, as he went along. His sons maintained his position after him. Arthur became chief justice of New Hampshire. Edward St. Loe was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court; but the "Courier of New Hamp- shire," on April 8, 1802, notes that "The Hon. Ed. St. Loe Livermore is removed from the office of the Customs at Ports- mouth by President Jefferson to make room for Nathaniel Folsom, Esq., a good democrat." Samuel Livermore died in 1803, and was buried in the graveyard of the little church, near his own house.
VII ROBERT FOWLE, THE PARSON
THE Holderness charter of 1761 pro- vided, as we have seen, for the sup- port of a minister of the Church of England, but a good many years passed before the scattered farmers availed themselves of this privilege. The town meeting, it is true, entered at once upon a discussion of the matter. They considered it in 1772. They definitely resolved, in 1773, to build a church: "36 feet in Length and 30 in Breadth, with a 10 foot Post." They voted to raise thirty pounds in lawful money for the expense of erection. And they fixed upon a site, a piece of two acres, east of the Province Road, and in the southern part of Joseph Hicks's hundred-acre lot. There, at a previous meeting, they had agreed to establish a graveyard. The next year, however, the town meeting recon- sidered this appropriation, and voted in- stead that "Each inhabitant shall pay his
68
HOLDERNESS
equal share in labour, boards, shingles, and clapboards, rum and other things that shall be needed." The amount of rum required for the work of raising a meeting- house was stated as ten gallons.
Nothing came, even then, of these good intentions, for in 1781 the Rev. Edward Bass of Newburyport-the same for whom we found the clergy voting without the laity to be the first bishop of these parts - wrote thus in a letter to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts :1 "I am just returned from a journey of about an hundred miles into the Pro- vince of New Hampshire. ... Our Church increases much in credit and reputation among the generality of the People where I have been, tho' consisting of a variety of Sects, some of them very wild and en- thusiastic. ... I baptized about sixty children and Adult Persons, near half the number at Holderness, a town consisting of Church of England People, where in the course of a very few years, there will be a sufficient Living for a Minister. The Peo- ple long for the time when they may be
1 Addison's Life of Bishop Bass, p. 161.
69
ROBERT FOWLE, THE PARSON
supplied with one, and are disposed to do everything in their power for his support." As late as 1790, no church had been erected, for in that year the town meeting again appointed a committee to determine the site of a church building and supervise the construction. They voted to raise seventy- five pounds in boards at twenty-four shil- lings a thousand.
Indeed, it was not until 1797 that the church was built which still stands near the Holderness School. In 1803, a second church, afterwards burned, was erected near Squam Bridge, in a corner of the pre- sent graveyard.
The Rev. Mr. Bass, on his visit to Hol- derness in 1781, was no doubt the guest of Squire Livermore. Presently, when the squire desired a tutor for his son, to whom should he more naturally apply than to Mr. Bass? Thus it was, I suppose, that Robert Fowle, a young man in Mr. Bass's parish at Newburyport, came to be a mem- ber of the Livermore household, some time before 1789. That was the year in which the town voted to put him in charge of the spiritualities of the place, provided that he
70
HOLDERNESS
obtain his ordination from a bishop. This he accordingly did, being ordained deacon by Bishop Seabury in St. James's Church, New London, December 13, 1789, and made priest by the same bishop in Boston, June 29, 1791. Thereafter, he was called Priest Fowle, that being the title which was given in parts of New Hampshire and Vermont even to ministers of the Con- gregational churches.
By-and-by, Priest Fowle married the schoolmistress, Andrew Smythe's daughter Martha; being put up to this good deed, according to tradition, by the ferry-woman, Mrs. Cockran. Mrs. Cockran was one day setting the young parson and his horse over the river, where there is now a bridge to Plymouth. "Mr. Fowle," she said, in mid-stream, "you ought to take to your- self a wife." "Humph!" said he. "Yes, Lady Livermore has too much on her hands to take care of yourself and the two other gentlemen, and you ought to be off, living on your glebe, with a family of your own." For at that time the parson and his horse were still living at the squire's, and the parson's clothes were made from
1
THE REV. ROBERT FOWLE
71
ROBERT FOWLE, THE PARSON
the fleece of the squire's sheep. "Humph!" said the young minister, but he followed the ferry-woman's' counsel. He was then about twenty-five years old. He lived to be eighty-one, and his wife when she died was ninety.
The minister's lot bordered Little Squam on the north, next to the bridge. To the west, on the lake, was the glebe land; and next to that was the ground as- signed to the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts. The next lot, into which Little Squam thrusts itself in a deep bay, belonged to William Curry. A spring of clear, cold water, between the road and the lake, is still called Curry's Spring. It was on the minister's lot that Mr. Fowle built his parsonage, on the site of the present Central House. It was prob- ably on account of the distance between the parsonage and the church that the sec- ond church was built near by.
The first church was the property of the Livermores. The services had been held for some time in a large unfinished room of the big house. When the building was erected, the various worshipers made their
1
72
HOLDERNESS
contributions, but "they were generally small and for specific articles and in their aggregate quite insufficient for the object." This was Mr. Arthur Livermore's remem- brance of the original subscription paper. "The effect upon my mind," he says, "was to remit to me the tradition that the Liver- mores among them substantially built the church and allocated the pews. . . The land on which the church was built was never conveyed to Trinity Church. It remained in the ownership of the Liver- mores."
Robert Fowle was the pastor of Holder- ness for fifty-eight years. He was a grave and rather silent man. He wore a black coat and a white cravat on week days, and a black gown and bands on Sundays. He divided his time between the two churches, riding over the College Road from one to the other, in all kinds of weather. The congregation assembled in the churchyard, and waited respectfully till the minister ap- peared, with his wife upon his right arm and his prayer book under his left. A large dog marched behind, sober like his master, and with a habit of barking at late comers.
THE OLD CHURCH-EXTERIOR
THE OLD CHURCH-INTERIOR
73
ROBERT FOWLE, THE PARSON
One of the parson's four daughters played the bass viol in the choir. The ritual was of a very quiet order and the sermon was in entire accord with it. The Holy Com- munion was celebrated twice a year: at the church near the squire's house at Christmas, and at the church by the bridge at Easter.
The journals of the diocese1 show that Mr. Fowle was a member of the first con- vention at Concord, in 1802. He was chosen in 1823 a deputy to the General Convention which met in Philadelphia. In 1829, he said of his church, "It is not flourishing, and I think it will not flourish." He had then been rector forty years. In 1831, the prospects were momentarily brighter: each of the two churches had a Sunday-school, and each school had forty scholars. But that year, Mr. Fowle was absent from the Convention, and he never came again. Indeed, since 1814, he had attended only six of these annual assem- blies. In 1838, the Rev. Edward Liver- more reported to the Convention: "The.
1 Batchelder's Eastern Diocese, i, 262-272, Claremont, N. H., 1876.
74
HOLDERNESS
church has been long established in that town, - most of the early settlers being of her communion, and the present rector hav- ing officiated there more than fifty years. Most of the older inhabitants of the town retain their reverence and attachment for the doctrines and forms of our communion, but a large part of their descendants have apostasized from the Faith and the Church of their Fathers. The remote location of the parish from others of our churches, and the possession of two places of worship in which Divine Services were alternately performed, are among the causes of its present low condition." In 1841, Bishop Griswold said in his Convention Address, "Our venerable brother of Holderness has for many months been unable to officiate, and except some active missionary is sent thither, our church in that place will cease to be." Mr. Fowle died in 1847, and is buried in the graveyard by Squam Bridge. The Free Will Baptists,1 founded in 1780, at New Durham, by Benjamin Randall, came over to Holderness in the midst of a
1 Parker's History of Wolfeborough, p. 269; Kelley's History of New Hampton, p. 33.
75
ROBERT FOWLE, THE PARSON
revival at New Hampton, and established a preaching station in 1800. They believed in the free payment of ministers as op- posed to the collection of the minister's salary by taxation. There is no record of any such open contention at Holderness between their minister and the town min- ister as divided society in New Hampton and in Wolfeborough; but they quietly succeeded, and Mr. Fowle, ill and aged, as quietly failed. He preached against "enthusiasm," meaning the emotional pre- sentation of religion, but the enthusiasts prevailed.
VIII THE COUNTRY TOWN
W ITH the death of Mr. Fowle, the portion of the history of Holderness which may fairly be described as the time of the beginnings is concluded.
Life went on very quietly in the country town as the seasons passed. The town meeting assembled regularly, as it does to this day, on the second Tuesday in March, and debated the condition of the roads and the levying of the taxes. In 1795, the post- master general advertised for proposals for carrying the mails from Portsmouth by Dover, Rochester, and Moultonborough to Plymouth, returning by New Hampton, Meredith, Gilmanton, Nottingham, and Durham; and from Concord by Plymouth to Haverhill. The mail came once a week from May to November, and once in two weeks from November to May. The news of the busy world, the progress of the War of Independence, the annals of the estab-
77
THE COUNTRY TOWN
lishment of the nation, with dim rumors of the lands beyond the ocean, came in the pages of the "New Hampshire Gazette," which began in 1756, and is still published at Portsmouth.
The "New Hampshire Gazette " in 1802 contained an advertisement of books, "for the amusement and instruction of Young People of both Sexes," just received from Philadelphia. Among the titles were "The Little Teacher," interspersed with cuts, "The Troubles of Life," "A Friendly Visit to the House of Mourning," "The Story of Joseph and his Brethren," "The Canary Bird, a Moral Story." A little gleam of light appears in a book on "Youthful Sports," but this is immediately dimmed by "Juvenile Trials, for robbing orchards, telling fibs, etc." This sombre aspect of life is reflected also in the commencement programme of that year at Dartmouth, when Arthur Livermore, the squire's son, was made an honorary master of arts. One of the topics was the question, "Does the World tend naturally to Dissolution ?"
The boys found some excitement in hunting bears and wolves. Occasionally,
78
HOLDERNESS
when the wolves made themselves more than usually obnoxious among the sheep- folds, all the farmers would be summoned to scour the woods, afterwards celebrating the victories of the day by a great feast at night.
There was land to be cleared, and fields to be ploughed and planted, and cattle to be cared for, and harvests to be gathered. The markets were at Newburyport and Boston, whither were carried the products of the place, - pork and butter, pease and beans, and flour. In the winter the driver prepared for the journey by putting in a store of "mitchin." This was bean porridge frozen into a solid lump. When he came to an inn, he chopped off a sufficient quan- tity for his dinner, and melted it before the fire. The country tavern provided shelter and drink, but most of the guests brought their own food. Tea and coffee were un- known in Holderness in the early part of the nineteenth century.
There was a good deal of drinking, but its effects were mitigated by the out-door life which the men lived. Samuel Shepard kept liquor at his inn on the College Road.
79
THE COUNTRY TOWN
So did Levi Drew, as early as 1788, at his tavern near Long Pond, probably on the Province Road. This business was con- ducted under an annual license from the town. The innholder was permitted to sell "rum, wine, gin, brandy or other spirits by retail, that is, in less quantity than one gallon, and may sell mixed liquors, part of which are spirituous." This was the for- mula of 1808. Parson Fowle remarks, with- out comment, that much of the Holderness whiskey was made from potatoes.
Of serious offenses, there is no record or remembrance. There are frequent refer- ences to the building of a pound for strayed animals, but no mention of a jail for strayed men. A curious entry on the last leaf of the town-meeting book contains the confession of John Bayley and his wife Mehitable, that on the 29th of October, 1797, they did unlawfully take from the cellar of Mr. John Loud ten pounds of butter, and from his barn a bag of apples. John and Me- hitable had been married the year before by Mr. Fowle, and were evidently finding it difficult to keep the family expenses within their legitimate income. But the
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.