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 4
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PERIOD II .- 1641-1679.
1679.]
dron of Dover, John Gilman of Exeter, and Christopher Hussey of Hampton, Counsellors. Thus was dissolved by an act of arbitrary power the union of Massachusetts and New- Hampshire, after it had subsisted thirty-eight years to mutual satisfaction.
The Governors who presided over Massachusetts, and of course over New-Hampshire during the union, were Richard Bellingham, John Winthrop, John Endecott, Thomas Dudley, John Leverett, and Simon Bradstreet. A particular account of these Fathers of New-England belongs to the history of the former Province rather than that of the latter. Gov. Winthrop died in 1649, leaving a character eminent for candor, disinter- estedness,and piety. Though he came to this country rich,such were his liberality and public spirit that he died comparatively poor. Gov. Bradstreet, who was elevated to the chair in 1679, butlived almost all the original settlers of New-England, his exact temperance being the means of prolonging his life till 1697, when he died at the age of 94. Without pretensions to splendid or showy talents, his integrity, prudence, and christian leportment procured him the esteem and veneration of all classes of men.
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PERIOD III.
FROM THE ERECTION OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE INTO A DISTINCT PROVINCE IN 1679, TO THE CLOSE OF KING WILLIAM'S WAR IN 1698.
Edward Randolph, a messenger whose arrival was thought to bode no good, brought the commission for the new govern- ment to Portsmouth on the 1st of Jan. 1680. It was received with regret not only by the people, but even by the gentlemen appointed to office, who were sincerely attached to the union with Massachusetts and reluctant to a separation. The only consideration that induced them to accept their offices, was the apprehension that their refusal would be followed by the ap- Submitting to the necessity of the change, they published their commission, took their oaths of office, and appointed a Fast to implore the blessing of Heaven on the rulers, and "the con- tinuance of their pretious and pleasant things."
The King's Commission was the basis of the new govern- ment and the only substitute for a definite Constitution. As it authorized the six Counsellors named in it to add three others to their number, they elected Elias Stileman, Samuel Dalton. and Job Clements. Agreeably to a clause which empowered the President to nominate a Deputy to preside in case of his absence or death, he appointed Major Waldron to this office. A change which denied to the people and gave to the King the appointment of President, Counsellors, and other principal governmental officers, couldnot but be disrelished : nor was this the only objection-it was viewed as the entering wedge of ar invasion of their property.
In March the first Legislature of New-Hampshire, consisting of a President and Council of nine, and an Assembly of Rep- resentatives of eleven members, met in Portsmouth, and the session was opened with prayer and an Election sermon by the Rev. Mr. Moodey. Their first measure was to prepare ar affectionate address to Massachusetts, expressive of their grat itude and attachment to that Province and their regret at the
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1740456 PERIOD III .- 1679-1698.
1680.]
separation. They held four sessions in the course of the year, in which they framed a code of laws and established Inferior Courts of Judicature. The President and Council, either with or without a Jury at the option of the parties, constituted the highest Judicial tribunal, with an allowance however in cer- tain cases of an appeal to the King. The Militia was organized into six companies, of which Major Waldron was Commander in Chief. Of persons admitted to the privilege of voting, Ports- mouth had at this period seventy-one, Dover sixty-one, Hamp- ton fifty-seven, and Exeter twenty.
Robert Mason, the claimant of the Province, came over from England at the close of the year with a writ from the King commanding the President and Council to admit him to a seat in their body. Aware of his designs to compel them to submit to his claim as Lord Proprietor, the people prepared to resist them and guarded their rights with unceasing vigilance. He demanded rents of several persons ; urged the people to take leases from him ; and on their refusal forbade them to cut fire- wood and timber. Irritated by their opposition he openly threatened to sell their houses and lands for rents ; a menace which produced an application to the President and Coun- cil for protection. As their feelings harmonized with those of the people, they willingly interposed and forbade Mason to proceed. On this interference he was so exasperated as to publish a summons to the President and some of the Coun- cil to appear before the King within three months, to make answer to charges he intended to bring against them. Resent- ing this contempt of their authority, they issued a warrant for his apprehension ; but he evaded it and returned to England.
Randolph had obtained from England the appointment of Surveyor and Collector of the Customs for the whole of New- England, and made Walter Barefoot, a rash and reckless man, his deputy at Portsmouth. The President and Council, pro- e King ceeding on the ground that the royal authority could be exer- ;ised here only through the medium of their Commission, re- used to recognize Barefoot's'authority, and fined him for an attempt to execute an office not derived from the constituted authorities of the Province.
The population of New-Hampshire at this period did not xceed 4000. Many of the people had been impoverished by he Indian war, having had their buildings burned, their cattle :illed, and their business interrupted. The soil was not suffi- iently cultivated to furnish a full supply of provisions. Mon- y was scarce and taxes were usually paid in lumber or pro- uce. Whatever of foreign commerce there was, centered at
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36
HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE ..
[1682.
Portsmouth ; and consisted in the exportation of fish and lum- ber, and the importation of such commodities from abroad as the exports were able to command.
President Cutts administered the government but little more than a year, being removed by death in April, 1681. He was one of the founders of the church in Portsmouth and highly estimable for integrity and benevolence. As he lived beloved, he died generally lamented. His body was buried in a se- questered spot in his orchard, which his descendants after- wards inclosed as a family cemetery, and which is now sur- rounded by buildings. Having in the commencement of his administration nominated Major Waldron as his Deputy, this veteran magistrate succeeded him in the Chair and remained at the head of the government almost two years, till he was superseded by the arrival of Cranfield.
Convinced that the men then in office could never be brought to favor his designs, Mason felt it necesshry to procure the ap- pointment of a Governor more subservient to his interests .- By an offer to the King, whose profusenes made him neces- sitous and greedy, of one fifth of the rents he might recover, he procured the appointment of Edward Cranfield, Esq. as Lieutenant Governor and Commander in Chief of the Pro- vince ; and by mortgaging the residue of his claims as security for the payment of an adequate salary, he induced him to ac- cept. Cranfield came here in October, 1682, and published his commission. A worse Governor, with the exception of Andros, New-Hampshire never had. He was a man of arbi- trary principles and an overbearing deportment ; needy and ra- pacious, he made no secret that his object in this quarter was the betterment of his fortune. His principles-his necessities -his devotion to the Masonian claim-all conspired to render him odious to the people. Mason, who returned to the Pro- vince about this time, and six others of the former Council were reappointed to their offices, and Barefoot and Chamberlain were added to the number. Cranfield soon exhibited a speci- men of his disposition by suspending Waldron and Martyn, two of the popular leaders, from their seats at the Council board, and by removing Capt. Stileman from the command of the fort, a station he had long holden with general approbation .- The Assembly meeting in November, the Governor thought it politic to make some show of conciliation by restoring the suspended Counsellors to their seats, on the pretence that he had examined the allegations against them and found them in- sufficient. With the hope of detaching him from the Maso- nian interest, the Assembly made him a grant of £250, which
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PERIOD III .- 1679-1698.
1683.]
he gladly accepted : but on their refusal to pass a bill to his liking for the support of government, he hastily dissolved them. This rash measure enkindled the resentments of the people and produced some riotous proceedings at Exeter and Hampton, on account of which one of the ringleaders was arrested and sent to England for trial.
Notwithstanding these indications of resistance the Gover- nor continued to carry matters with an high hand. He called on the people by Proclamation to take leases from Mason with- in one month, and on their refusal talked of seizing their es- tates and compelling them to submit to the payment of quit rents, by bringing a frigate into the harbor and quartering sol- diers in the liouses. Waldron, Martyn, Gilman, and other op- ponents of the proprietary claim, he suspended from their seats in the Council, filling the vacancies with men of his own views. To prepare the way for a favorable decision of Mason's cause, he new-modelled the Courts, making Barefoot, Judge; Mason himself, Chancellor ; Randolph, Attorney General ; and Sher- lock, Sheriff. A few persons were either awed or flattered to take leases of their farms from the claimant, and these served for deputy Sheriffs, Jurors, and Witnesses. In the next place he "caused actions of ejectment to be brought against Wal- dron and other principal land holders, who made no defence, alleging that the jurors were interested. As might have been expected from Courts so constituted, the verdicts were in favor of Mason : but as he could neither dispossess the occupants nor find purchasers, the judgments in his favor were perfectly in- operative. Irritated by these acts the people sent Nathaniel Weare of Hampton to England, to complain on their behalf to the King and solicit Cranfield's recal. He privately repaired to Boston, and thence to London. Major Vaughan of Ports- mouth was active in promoting his mission to the King, and accompanied him to Boston, for which on his return he was arrested by the Governor's order, and detained in prison sev- eral months.
The government now became extremely oppressive and vex- atious, interfering both with the rights of conscience and the long established usages of the people. An order was issued commanding the ministers to admit all persons of suitable age, not scandalous or vicious, to the Lord's supper, and their chil- dren to baptism ; and to administer the sacrament to those who might so prefer it, "according to the liturgy of the Church of England." The overseers of the several towns were forbid- den to call town meetings on public business without leave first obtained.
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38
HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
[1684.
His pecuniary necessities compelled Cranfield early in 1684 to convene an Assembly at New-Castle, the place of his resi- dence, of whom under pretext of a foreign war, he demanded supplies for the repair of the Fort, and for other purposes .- Having no confidence in him, they refused compliance, and he angrily dissolved them. An order from England obliged him to call another in May, which being as unmanageable as the former, he immediately dissolved. A third was convened in July for the purpose of passing acts for the suppression of piracy, the American seas being then infested with bucaniers. They passed the necessary acts; but no money could the Governor obtain. Disappointed in his mercenary plans, he ventured on a bold usurpation of power. Having found an opportunity by the suspension of some of the members and the death of others, to model the Council to his own mind, he at length brought that body to concur with him in continuing taxes formerly imposed, by their sole authority, without the concurrence of the Representatives. Not only was this meas- ure unauthorised by his Commission, but it was in defiance of a Provincial law which declared that " no act, imposition, law, or ordinance should be made or imposed, but such as should be made by the Assembly and approved by the President and Council." So flagrant an assumption of power over a people fond of liberty and jealous of their rights, could not fail to awaken a spirit of determined resistance, and the Constables returned the taxbills with information that the people would not pay them. The bills were then committed to the Provost, who seized the goods of some, and imprisoned others; but at Exeter and Hampton he was forcibly resisted, being beaten, and at the latter place deprived of his sword. A troop of horse- men being ordered out to enforce the collection, not a trooper appeared ; and Cranfield was obliged to yield the point.
A singular instance of his arbitrary disposition is found in his persecution of the Rev. Mr. Moodey: This gentleman, as a strenuous advocate of the popular cause, was obnoxious to the Governor. A member of his church fell under strong suspi- cion of perjury ; he thought it his duty to institute an enquiry into the affair; the Governor, whom the offender had found means to interest in his favor, forbade the proceeding ; but Mr. Moodey was not to be deterred from the maintenance of chris- tian discipline in his church. Incensed at his proceeding, Cranfield sent him a written order to administer to himself, Mason, and one other, on the next Sabbath, the Lord's supper according to the ritual of the Church of England. Moodey refused : and being prosecuted, plead in defence that he was
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39
PERIOD III .- 1679-1698.
1685.]
not Episcopally ordained and therefore not qualified to admin- ister the ordinance according to the rites of the English Church; that he did not receive his maintenance as a minister of that Church; and that the English laws under which the demand was made, were not intended to be binding in this country on persons not of the Episcopal denomination. This plea not- withstanding, he was sentenced to be deprived of his benefice and suffer six months close imprisonment. After a confine- ment of half this period he obtained a release, but under a strict charge to preach no more in the Province. He went to Boston, where he found sympathy, and was employed to sup- ply a pulpit in that place. After some years lie returned to Portsmouth, resumed the Pastoral charge of his flock, and continued with them in usefulness and peace.
Not long after Moodey's trial Cranfield transmitted to Hamp- ton a threat of making a similar demand on the Rev. Mr. Cot- ton, who, to evade a prosecution, retired to Boston. The Governor and his chief adviser, Randolph, were virulently op- posed to the Congregational churches, and not unfrequently threw out hints of depriving the people of the control of their meeting-houses and compelling them to contribute to tlie sup- port of Episcopal ministers. Threats like these had no other effect than to excite a determined opposition.
At this period the settlements on the Connecticut river were extended into Hinsdale, on the south border of the County of Cheshire. This town was then considered as a part of North- field in Massachusetts, and long remained under the jurisdic- tion of that Province. With this single exception, the western part of New-Hampshire exhibited an unbroken forest for al- most half a century afterwards.
Mr. Weare, whom the people had sent to England as their agent, presented several charges against Cranfield, which, after an hearing before the Lords of Trade, occasioned a report cen- suring him in certain points. The King accepted the report -but without any further mark of disapprobation granted a previous request of the Governor for leave of absence from the Province, on which he embarked for Jamaica in 1685 .- New-Hampshire had in his eye no charms when he found it would not yield him the golden harvest he had expected to reap ; and the people rejoiced in being rid of a man whose violent conduct had excited deep and general indignation .- It is said however by Belknap, that on reflection he became sensible of his misconduct, and while he was afterwards Col- lector of the Customs at one of the West India Islands, made
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HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
[1686.
it a point to treat shipmasters from the Pascataqua with marked attention.
On Cranfield's departure Walter Barefoot, whom he had nominated as Deputy Governor, succeeded to the Chair and officiated as Chief Magistrate about a year. Not only was he a man of rash and violent temper, but on other accounts justly odious to the people. Under his countenance and protection, Mason renewed his attempts to enforce the execu- tion of the judgments he had obtained against the principal land-holders ; but in attempting to take possession of their es tates the officers were forcibly resisted, and he found himself compelled to desist. In the course of the season the Penacooks and Ossipees, alarmed with apprehensions of being attacked by the Mohawks, gathered their corn early and deserted their habitations. Jealous that they were preparing for war, the government sent to demand the reasons of this movement .- The Indians assigned the true reason, and disclaimed any hos- tile design ; entering into an engagement not to remove again from the neighborhood of the English without giving due no- tice of their intention.
In May, 1686, a new form of government went into operation. Charles II., now dead, had long wished to place the New- England Colonies under an administration that should render them completely subject to his control, and had procured three years prior to this date, a judicial sentence declaring the for- feiture of the original Charter of Massachusetts. Death ter- minated his strides toward despotic power; but his suc- cessor, the arbitrary James II. pursuing the same object, ap- pointed JosephDudley to be President of Massachusetts, Rhode- Island, New-Hampshire, and Maine. He retained his office but a few months, in which nothing memorable transpired, and was superceded at the close of the year by the arrival at Boston of Sir Edmund Andros with a Commission from the king of almost unlimited powers, constituting him Governor in chief over every part of New-England. With the advice of his Council, he was empowered to make laws, impose taxes, and grant lands on terms to be approved by the king. New- Hampshire came of course under his jurisdiction,and furnished two members of his council, Mason and John Hincks.
Andros began his course with fair professions, but soon be- gan to disclose his selfish and tyrannical designs of enriching himself and his frends by illegal and oppressive exactions. Pretending that the forfeiture of the Charter of Massachusetts had annulled land titles, and that Indian deeds were no better than the "scratch of a bear's paw," he compelled land-hold-
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PERIOD 111 .- 1679-1698.
1688.]
ers in that Province to obtain new titles to estates they had enjoyed half a century, and pay exorbitant fees for the pa- tents. Taxes were imposed at his pleasure, the press was re- strained, and liberty of conscience infringed. Town meetings were disallowed with the exception of one in each year, and without a permit no person might leave the country: the ob- ject of these restrictions being to prevent the assembling of the people for consultation on their grievances, or the departure of Agents to England to carry complaints to the king. But in spite of his precautions the Rev. Dr. Mather of Boston, at the desire of the oppressed inhabitants, effected a passage to London in 1687 and laid the complaints of the country before the throne. The times were indeed ill. From the misrule of Andros New-Hampshire suffered far less than Massachusetts : still, she had been drinking the cup of oppression for several years, and had been under a government of me rather than of laws. Cranfield, Barefoot, and Andros, who, with the ex- ception of the short administration of Dudley, had been in succession at the head of government eight years-and Ran- dolph, who was a prominent man under each of these admin- istrations, were all the minions of arbitrary power.
Even Mason, though at first a warm friend to the Governor, did not escape the effects of his rapacity. Major William Vaughan of Portsmouth, one of the richest men in the Prov- ince, who had lost his case in an action of ejectment brought against him by Mason in Cranfield's court, had ventured to appeal to the king-but without success ; after a hearing in England the verdict against him was confirmed. Bringing with him this decision in his favor, Mason returned to this country full of hope that he was on the point of succeeding in establishing his claim as Proprictor of New-Hampshire. But his views were thwarted in a manner quite unexpected. An- dros and other governmental agents looked with an envious eye on his large share of lands, and with the hope of enrich- ing themselves by granting the lands to others, contrived vari- ous expedients to defeat his designs. In the midst of the controversy, his death happened suddenly on a journey to Al- bany, and his claims passed into the hands of John and Rob- ert, his sons and heirs.
The calamities of the country were now aggravated by an other war with the Indians, aided by the Canadian French. It commenced in 1688, continued with one or two short inter- missions for ten years, and was distinguished by the name of king William's war. Andros in the spring of the year went in the Rose Frigate and plundered the house of the Baron de
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HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
[1689.
St. Castine, a Frenchman who carried on a large trade with the Indians at Penobscot. The Baron, a gentleman of an- cient family, who had left the vine-covered hills, and the green vallies of France for an abode in the wilds of Maine, had ac- quired great influence over them, having conformed to their customs and married the daughter of Modokewando their Sachem ; and in resentment of the attack by Andros he ex- cited them to attack the English. The Indians alledged griev- ances of their own. They complained that the cattle of the English devoured their corn-that the fisheries of Saco river were obstructed by seines-that encroachments were made on their lands-that they were cheated in trade. They began reprisals in Maine, killing cattle and in a few instances, persons. Andros led a body of troops into this quarter; but as the In- dians retired into the wilderness, his attempt to subdue them was a total failure.
After the Colonies had endured the oppressions of this ra- pacious plunderer more than two years, a rumor reached Boston of that great revolution in England, which expelled the arbitrary James II. and raised to the throne William III., a prince possessed of views far more liberal. Affecting to discredit the intelligence, the Governor imprisoned the man who brought it, on the charge of spreading a seditious rumor ; but the people were animated with hope and joy. On the whisper of an intended massacre by his guards, the determin- ation of the Bostonians was instantly taken. Aided by crowds who flocked in from the country, they rose in arms on the 18th of April, 1689, and imprisoned Andros and some of his adherents, who were soon sent to England for trial ; thus ridding New-England of a Governor whose name stands at the head of the black list of her oppressors.
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