USA > New Hampshire > Sketches of the history of New-Hampshire, from its settlement in 1623, to 1833: comprising notices of the memorable events and interesting incidents of a period of two hundred and ten years > Part 12
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The next year, 1760, witnessed the completion of the conquest of Canada, by' the surrender of Montreal to three British armies, which penetrated to that city by different routes and arrived almost simultaneously. A New-Hampshire regiment under Col. Goffe, which after cutting a new road from Charlestown through Vermont to Crown Point, was united to a force commanded by Col. Haviland, formed a part of the great assemblage of troops concentrated around Montreal. The reduction of Canada put an end to the tragic scenes of Indian warfare on the borders of this State. effectually had the splendid achievements of the English and Colonial troops overawed the savages, that for the three last years, they had been restrained from other mischiefs than the capture or slaughter of a few persons at Charlestown and Hinsdale. They now passed under the dominion of England, and their terrific war whoops were no longer to resound through the forests of New-Hampshire. The baleful in- fluence so long exercised over them by a foreign, hostile nation, was now to cease forever.
That the French had shamefully and wickedly abused this influence, is notorious. By bidding a price for every English scalp, they continually excited the savage to the work of blood and ruin. They taught him to regard them as the only genuine friends of christianity ; the English, as heretics, whom to kill was not only lawful, but meritorious. Some religious forms and ceremonies they indeed communicated to
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107
PERIOD VI .- 1713-1741.
1763.]
the Indians,but left then profoundly ignorant of the nature and excellent principles of real christianity. A curious specimen of the kind of religion they imparted to them is found in the following incident : "The noted Therouet, an Indian Sachem, died at Montreal. The French gave him burial in a pompous manner, the Catholic priest that attended him at his death having declared that he died a true christian : For, said he, while I explained to him the passion of our Saviour whom the Jews crucified, he cried out, 'Oh, had I been there I would have revenged his death and brought away their scalps.' " Had he possessed a particle of christian feeling, how different at this solemn moment had been his language.
War between France and England still continued, but the theatre of its subsequent operations being far distant, they come not within our plan. New-England, which had freely bled in six Indian wars, was destined to exhibit for a time more peaceful scenes.
On the night of the 12th of April, 1761, the country was shaken by an earthquake, which was succeeded by another in Autumn. The summer of this, and that of the following year, were each of them remarkable for a great and distressing drought, which rendered necessary the importation of large quantities of bread-stuffs from abroad. A considerable emi- gration from various parts of New-England to Nova Scotia took place at this period. The expulsion of some hundreds of French families from the latter Province, after its con- quest by the English a few years before, had left, unoccupied, large tracts of cultivated land; as the government offered them to their own subjects on easy terms, many New-Eng- landers were induced to emigrate. Attracted by the prospect of fine farms, a considerable number of the enterprising in- habitants of Londonderry removed to that bleak re- gion, and settled in the towns of Truro and Londonderry.
A definitive treaty of peace between England and France was concluded in 1763, after a long and tremendous struggle, in which France lost all her North American Colonies, and England gained an immense addition of territory, but at a vast expense of blood and treasure. Toward her splendid successes, lier American Colonies powerfully contributed ; and in proportion to her wealth and extent, none more than New-Hampshire.
The number of eminent men who left the stage in the course of the period now brought to a close, is not great .- The Rev. Jabez Fitch of Portsmouth, who deceased in 1746, was a collector of historical facts, and left behind him some
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108
HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
[1763.
valuable manuscripts, from which Dr. Belknap derived a por- tion of the materials for his history. The Hon. George Jaf- frey, Chief Justice of the Superior Court, and a Counsellor of the Province, died in 1749. Not long after died the for- mer Secretary of the Province, Richard Waldron, who like most of the other public men of that day, was a professor of religion, and warmly interested in the welfare of the Church, of which he was a member. Daniel Treadwell, a native of Portsmouth, was one of the pupils of Major Hale, long cele- brated as the Instructor of the Grammar School in that town, who taught some thousands of youth, and "whose fame in the region of the Pascataqua was equal to that of his cotem- porary Lovel in Boston." Soon after his graduation at Har- vard, Treadwell was elected Professor of Mathematics in King's College in the city of New-York, and promised to attain to distinguished eminence in that department of sci- ence, when his early death disappointed the high-raised hopes of his friends.
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PERIOD VII.
FROM THE PEACE OF 1763 TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE REVOLUTIONARY CONTEST IN 1775.
The passage of numerous bodies of troops during the last war through the territory now called Vermont, made the fer- tility of the lands well known ; and no sooner was the danger of Indian invasion past, than they were eagerly sought for the purposes of settlement and speculation. Gov. Wentworth and his Council, almost immediately after the reduction of Canada, caused a survey to be made of the country on the Connecticut river, and six ranges of townships to be laid out, three on each side. Applicants in rapid succession were gratified with grants, and the Governor was gratified with the fees, which amounted to a sum sufficient to enrich him. A stream of immigrants poured into this region, and the settlements were soon extended up the river from Charlestown to Lancaster and Northumber- land. Many of these immigrants came from Connecticut, and planted themselves in Claremont, Plainfield, Lebanon, Hanover, Lyme, Orford, Newport, Lempster, Alstead, Marlow, and some other towns. They were a respectable class of people, ex- hibiting in point of manners, customs and modes of thinking, the distinctive peculiarities of their native State. At the same time, new settlements spread along the Merrimac from Salis- bury to Plymouth and Campton ; over the western parts of Hillsborough and Merrimac Counties, the eastern sections of Cheshire and Sullivan, and the northern part of Strafford. A portion of these immigrants, and that not a small one, pos- sessed little besides the axe on their shoulders and a flock of needy children in their arms. The forests resounded with the woodman's strokes ; the hand of industry rapidly, and as if by enchantment, laid open new fields and erected commodious dwellings ; commerce was extended ; the fisheries prosecuted with succcess; and the means of literary and religious im- provement, multiplied. The hardy and intrepid generation,
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HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
[1763.
now gone, which accomplished this vast extension of cultiva- tion and civilization, richly merits the grateful remembrance of their posterity. "Almost all the roads in which they travelled, passed through deep forests and over rough hills and moun- tains, often over troublesome and dangerous streams and not unfrequently through swamps miry and hazardous; where wolves, bears, and catamounts obstructed and alarmed their passage. The forests they could not cut down; the rocks they could not remove ; the swamps they could not causey ; over the streams they could not erect bridges. Yet men, women, and children ventured daily through this combination of evils, penetrated the recesses of the wilderness, climbed the hills, wound their way among the rocks, struggled through the mire, and swam on horseback through deep and rapid rivers."
Over the forests of New-Hampshire the Moose then roamed, and often furnished to the settlers in the wilderness welcome supplies of flesh, when none was to be derived from other sources. Col. Webster, who established himself at Plymouth when almost all the region north of Boscawen was a dark forest, had at one time in his house fifteen barrels of moose- meat. The Merrimac and Connecticut, with their numerous branches, then furnished at the proper season an abundant supply of salmon. Often were the tables, spread in the rude log cabins of that day, graced with this delicious fish, which a combination of causes has since driven almost entirely from our waters.
The conquest of Canada had not only removed the chief obstacles to the rapid extension of new settlements, but it had also given the Colonies a new idea of their own power and political importance. They began to foresee that a great and independent empire was destined to rise into existence in America. They had no expectation of a speedy separation from Great Britain, nor did they at that time desire it. But it was often said that in future ages, this country would form a powerful and independent nation ; though none then living, would see the event: this was the current language of the day. That the prediction would be so soon accomplished, they did not even dream ; and in relation to the rapid advances of the country in wealth, population and political importance, their most adventurous imaginations lagged far behind the scenes which time has since unfolded as realities.
Though the four great divisions of our population, the Pascataqua,Londonderry,Merrimack and Connecticut portions, retain to this day some vestiges of their original peculiarities :
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1764.]
PERIOD VII .- 1763-1775.
yet these different classes, connected by bonds political, social, and religious, have become so blended and assimilated as to dwell together in great harmony, and to exhibit in an uncom- mon degree that uniformity of character, so promotive of the the interests of a Commonwealth.
The numerous grants on the part of New-Hampshire of the lands west of the Connecticut, gave great uneasiness to the Government of New-York, which claimed all the territory north of Massachusetts, as far east as to that river. In conse- quence of a representation by the Governor of New York to the King, a royal Order was issued in 1764, making the west- ern bank of the river the boundary between the two contending Provinces, thus annexing the New-Hampshire Grants, as Vermont was then called, to New-York. After this decision, the latter Province claimed the right of soil as well as of ju- risdiction, and assumed the ground that all former grants under the authority of New-Hampshire were null and void. The settlers and claimants, a numerous and powerful body, were deeply interested in resisting this assumption and supporting the validity of their titles. These conflicting claims led, as might have been expected, to long and embittered disputes between them and the authorities of New-York : disputes so vehement as often to threaten bloodshed. They would readi- ly have submitted to the jurisdiction of that Province, had they been permitted quietly to hold their lands : but when suits of ejectment were brought and decided against them in the New-York Courts, the officers who attempted to dispossess them met with such menaces and perils as compelled them to retire. On the part of the people of the Grants, the irritation at length became so great, as to lead them to the fixed deter- mination not to come under the jurisdiction of New-York, but to assume and exercise a distinct jurisdiction. The Green Mountain Boys had no idea of surrendering lands for which they had given a valuable consideration, and had brought under cultivation by severe personal labor ; and New-York, by grasping at too much, eventually lost the whole.
The Rev. Robert Sandeman of Scotland, the founder of the religious denomination of the Sandemanians, came into America at this time, and fixed himself at Danbury, Connecti- cut. He formed several societies of his principles ; among others, one at Portsmouth, which still exists.
We have now come to the momentous period of the rise of that long controversy with Great Britain, which resulted in the separation of the American Colonies from the parent State. A design of taxing them, first suggested, as has been said, to
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HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
[1765.
the British Government by a native of New-Hampshire, had been conceived before the last French War, but kept a pro- found secret. During that war, their good will was too important to England to be forfeited, and therefore no attempt to execute the design was then made. After the war, the British Treasury was burdened with the interest of the im- mense expenditures incurred in its support, and it was felt that a revenue derived from America would afford a seasonable relief. The British Government accordingly determined to commence a system of Colonial taxation, and passed, 1765, the notorious Stamp Act, imposing a Stamp duty on the Colonies, and requiring all the legal written Instruments in use among a commercial people, and even licenses for mar- riage, to be executed on stamped paper charged with a duty.
This Act was viewed as an attack on American liberty, and spread alarm through the country. The people on deliberate consideration determined not to submit to its requisitions ;- they contended that the Legislature of a country three thous- and miles distant, in which they were not represented, had no right to tax them ; and they foresaw that this measure, if unresisted, would be but the entering wedge for others yet more oppressive. The anticipation of such an Act had led numbers, the year before, to form an agreement not to import British manufactures, and particularly to disuse mourning ap- parel, as an article both unnecessary, and tending to increase their dependence on the fabrics of the mother country. With the view of increasing the growth and manufacture of wool, and thus rendering themselves independent of foreign supplies, the people of Boston now came into an agreement not to eat lamb during that season. Such was the excitement in most of the Provinces, that the Distributors of Stamps were driven by considerations of personal danger to resign their office .- George Meserve, son of the distinguished Col. Meserve who died in the expedition to Louisburg, having been appointed Distributor in New-Hampshire, was compelled on his arrival from England to resign his office before he set foot on the shore ; and after landing, to ratify his resignation before he went to his own house. The Assembly at their next sesssion sent a petition to England for a repeal of the obnoxious Act. On the day preceding that in which it was to go into opera- tion, the New-Hampshire Gazette appeared with a mourning border ; on the next day the bells were tolled, and other indi- cations of strong popular excitement appeared. Suspicions hav- ing arisen that Meserve still intended to distribute the stamps, the sons of liberty were called together by beat of drum, when
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PERIOD VII .- 1763-1775.
1766.]
they compelled him to give up his Commission and take an Oath, administered by Wyseman Claggett, not to attempt to execute his office.
While the repeal of the Stamp Act hung in suspense, and it was doubtful whether the proceedings of the Courts would be deemed valid without the use of stamped papers, some licen- tious persons began to imagine that debts could not be recov- ered, and that they might set their Creditors at defiance. This bad spirit was soon put down by an Association of the more virtuous part of the community for the support of the laws, . and of the Magistracy in executing them. But the opposi- tion to the Stamp Act was so violent throughout the country, that, to the joy of the Americans, the British Parliament was induced the next year to repeal it.
The Commission and Instructions of the Stamp Distributor, which he had been compelled to surrender to the people, were by them sent back to England in a packet, to the care of the Agents of the Province, to be returned, if thought proper, to the Stamp Office in London. This was a bold step, and it amounted almost to an open defiance of the Brit- ish government. On the arrival of the packet, the Stamp Act was about to be repealed : and the Agents, apprehensive that the proceedings in New-Hampshire, if publicly known, might produce an irritation unfavorable to so desirable an issue, suppressed the intelligence till after the repeal was ef- fected.
Gov. Benning Wentworth resigned the Chair in 1766, hav- ing occupied it twenty-five years. Some traits of his character merit commendation. He was an obliging, generous friend ; and in the two French and Indian wars which occurred during his administration, he was assidious in his attention to the protection of the frontiers, and the promotion of the common cause. But his manners were some what, haughty and his resentments warm. Having, like other officers under the royal government, derived his appointment from a foreign source, he was of course more solicitous to please his superiors abroad, than to consult the feelings of the people at home. His numerous grants of land to the people of Massachu- setts and Connecticut, for the sake of the fees and emolu- ments accruing, exposed him to the severe censures of the inhabitants of the Eastern part of New-Hampshire; who saw, not without strong resentments, the people of other Provinces engrossing valuable lands to which they thought they had a superior claim. The Governor sustained himself by the plea, that they had been remiss in forwarding the set-
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114
HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
[1767.
tlement of some townships which had been granted them, and that the grantees in Massachusetts were superior cultiva- tors, and would introduce a body of immigrants who would add materially to the wealth of the Province. Being an ar- dent Episcopalian, he took care in his grants to reserve lands for the benefit of his own denomination. In his appointments to civil offices, he unduly regarded the interests of his own family. George Jaffrey was President of the Council, Chief Justice, and Treasurer ; Theodore Atkinson, Secretary, and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas ; Jotham Odiorne, Judge of the Superior Court; Thomas Packer, Sheriff; Henry Sherburne, Richard Wibird, Ellis Huske, and Samuel Solley, Counsellors ;- all either relatives or family connexions of the Governor. Some complaints against him having found their way to England, the Ministry meditated his removal. In the agitations excited by the Stamp Act, he was silent. Advan- ced in years, expecting soon to be superseded, and having a large estate in this country, it was important to him to retire from office without incurring popular odium. His nephew, John Wentworth, being in England, and having gained the acquaintance and patronage of some of the nobility, it was decided to appoint him to succeed to the Chair of this Prov- ince; and for the sake of the nephew's feelings, an opportu- nity was allowed to the aged Governor to resign, with an appearance of resigning in favor of a kinsman. He continued to reside at Portsmouth till his death, four years after his re- signation.
Gov. John Wentworth, with Commissions constituting him Governor of New-Hampshire, and Surveyor of the King's Woods in America, arrived at Portsmouth from England in June, 1767, and was received with distinguished respect .- Several Counsellors and a Committee of the Assembly, es- corted by a troop of horse, met him at the Province line, and on their return towards Portsmouth were joined by many of the inhabitants, forming in the whole a grand cavalcade .- The Wentworth family had long been the most brilliant in the Province. Courteous in manners, and disposed to culti- vate the friendship of the people, the new Governor was extremely popular, and the Assembly voted him a liberal sala- ry. He was a man of taste, delighted in agricultural improve- ments, and brought under cultivation a large farm in Wolfe- borough, on which he erected an elegant mansion. The grand and romantic scenery around Winnepiseogee Lake, a splendid, though irregular sheet of water, embosomed by surrounding mountains, attracted him to this spot. Dwight
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115
PERIOD VII .- 1763-1775.
1769.]
proposed to call the lake, WENTWORTH, in honor of this dis- tinguished cultivator of its shores; but the proposal has not received the sanction of general adoption.
Though the Stamp Act was repealed, the design of raising a revenue from America was not abandoned. A bill passed the British Parliament imposing a duty in the Colonies upon the articles of glass, paper, paints, and tea ; and establishiing a Custom House and Board of Commissioners to superintend the Collection. These duties, thoughi small, were viewed as introductory to other and heavier ones, and as establishing a precedent tending to subject all American property to British taxation. A spirit of opposition burst forth from Maine to Georgia, and an agreement was formed, to a great extent, not to import British Manufactures, till the obnoxious duties should be repealed. This was done with the hope, that the embarrassments resulting to British Merchants and Manufac- turers from the non-importation plan, would arouse them to exert their influence in favor of the Colonies. In this Prov- ince the influence of Gov. Wentworth, aided by that of his numerous and wealthy connexions, and of the crown officers, prevented for some time the adoption of the agreement: but the people in general were inflexibly opposed to the views of Britain. The Bostonians became so exasperated as to attack the houses of the Commissioners of the revenue, and force them to take refuge in the Castle. It being now appar- ent that the revenue laws could never be executed without an armed force, two regiments of troops and several armed vessels were sent to Boston in 1768. This step, far from overawing the Americans, served only to render them the more determined in their opposition.
The New-Hampshire Assenbly consisted at this time of thirty-one members, representing about thirty towns. Many of the new towns were unrepresented. The Province con- tained about sixty settled Ministers, Congregational and Presbyterian ; eiglit Attorneys at Law; eighty Justices of the Peace ; and ten Regiments of Militia.
Amid the controversies of the times, the interests of Edu- cation were not forgotten. A College, the fourth in New- England, was founded at Hanover, N. H. The Institution was originally designed chiefly for the education of Indians and Missionaries to the Indians ; and the plan of it had been conceived, many years before, by Mr. John Sergeant, Mis- sionary to the Stockbridge Indians. This excellent man pro- cured some benefactions towards the execution of his design ; but death interrupted his labors before any thing was brought
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