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 8
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HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
[1724
to be thwarted, and found his situation so uncomfortable that early in 1723 he returned to England with heavy complaints against Massachusetts. On his departure Lieut. Gov. Went- worth became Commander in Chief in a critical emergency, and conducted the affairs of the Province with great wisdom and fidelity through the perplexing scenes of the three years' war.
In the ensuing summer the Indians began to annoy the New-Hampshire settlements. In the course of that and the two succeeding seasons, several families in Dover, Durham, Kingston, and Chester, were called to mourn the slaughter or captivity of friends. Londonderry was extremely expos -. ed, but happily escaped an attack. Tradition ascribes its exemption to the following circumstance: the Rev. Mr. McGregore addressed a letter to the Governor of Canada, informing him that the settlers of that town were lately ar- rived from Ireland, and soliciting on their behalf his friendly interposition : which induced the Governor, who hastily in- ferred that they were Irish Catholics, between whom and the French existed a strong sympathy, to order the Indians to spare the place.
Capt. Baker of North Hampton, Mass., led a party of thirty four men up the Connecticut river, crossed the height of land and passed down a river which led him to the Pemige- wasset in Plymouth, N. H. where he discovered a party of Indians. The whole surrounding region was then a vast wilderness. A battle immediately ensued, in which without the loss of a man he destroyed them all. The Indian Com- mander was Walternummus. He and Baker fired at each other the same instant; the ball of the savage grazed his eyebrow, while his ball passed through the Indian's breast, who made a leap from the ground and instantly fell dead .- Baker found in their weekwam a large quantity of valuable furs, of which he took what his men could carry off and destroyed the remainder. The river down which he passed to the Pemigewasset, flowing through the towns of Went- worth, Rumney, and Plymouth, has ever since borne his name.
It was determined to make another effort to sieze Ralle, who continued to incite the Indians to the work of devasta- tion. Captains Harman and Moulton of Maine, each at the head of a company of an hundred men, marched for Nor- ridgwock in August, 1724, came upon the village by surprise, killed about eighty of the savages, and destroyed the catholic chapel. Ralle was found in a weekwam where he defended
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PERIOD V .- 1713-1741.
himself with great intrepidity, till, overpowered by numbers, he fell. Before his fall he committed an act of barbarous cruelty by stabbing an English lad, who had been under his care as a prisoner. He was a man of extensive attainments, especially in languages, of which he understood several; and left behind him a Manuscript Dictionary of the Abankis lan- guage, now in the library of Harvard University.
In September a band of thirty Indians surprised two men at Nashua, and carried them off as prisoners. As soon as an alarm could be given, eleven of the inhabitants followed them up the Merrimac. At the brook near Thornton's ferry, then called " Lutwytche's," they unwarily fell into an ambuscade, and withthe exception of Lieut. Farwell, were all killed. A party of their townsmen recovered the dead bodies and interred them in the burying ground at Dunstable.
For the protection of their western settlements, the govern- ment of Massachusetts erected this year on the west bank of the Connecticut, within the present limits of Vermont, and near the southwestern corner of New-Hampshire, a strong fort, which was named Fort Dummer.
The death of an Indian who was killed in the course of this brief war, was attended with circumstances which exci- ted considerable interest. He was one of a party of three . who were prowling in the woods near Durham. Two men having discovered their packs and given notice of the fact, undertook to guide a pursuing company to the spot. As the two went in advance of the otliers, they fell into an ambus- cade and were both killed. The company then fired upon the enemy, killing one of the number; the others though severely wounded, escaped, marking their tracks for some distance with their blood. The slain Indian was splendidly equipped ; to his scarlet coronet were attached four little bells, by the sound of which his men could follow him in the woods ; his hair was soft and fine ; a devotional book and a muster roll, were found on his person. He was supposed to have been a person of the first rank ; the most probable conjec- ture is, that lie belonged to the family of Castine, a French gentleman of distinction, who had married an Indian woman, one of whose sons was recognized by the Penobscots as their principal chief.
By the brilliant success of Harman and Moulton, together with the large bounty on scalps, a stimulus was given to the formation of volunteer scouting parties who traversed the woods, in some instances as far as to the White Mountains, in quest of Indians. They found but few, the terror of the
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72
HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
[1725.
Norridgwock exploit having induced them to retire from their villages and accustomed places of fishing and hunting, into the deep recesses of the forest. A volunteer company from Dunstable commanded by Capt. John Lovewell, remarkable for their enterprise, gallantry, and tragical disaster at last, gained a celebrity so pre-eminent, that the war itself took its distinguishing appellation from Lovewell's name. Tradition reports that he once led a scout into the region now forming the eastern part of the County of Sullivan, where he gained some advantage over the enemy ; and the circumstance of a mountain in Washington, near which this adventure is said to have happened, bearing his name, imparts to the account some degree of credibility. Of three of his expeditions we have authentic records. The first, into the region north of the Winnepiseogee, had no very important results. In his second he discovered a track which conducted him to an en- campment of ten Indians, asleep on the margin of a pond in Wakefield, whom he killed. On his return in triumph with their scalps, the bounty money amounted to quite a handsome sum.
With forty-six men, he left Dunstable in April, 1725, on his third and last expedition, of which the disastrous issue filled the Province with the most poignant sorrow. His object was to attack the principal village of the Pequawketts, within the present bounds of Fryburg, Maine. Arriving on the west shore of Ossipee Lake, he built a stockade, in which he left a sick soldier with the surgeon and a guard of eight men. With the residue of his company he came near Pequawkett and encamped for the night. At their morning devotions they heard the report of a gun, and discovered an Indian standing at some distance on a point of land projecting into a pond .- Imagining that other Indians were near, they left their packs and marched forward to attack them; but found only the Indian who had stood on the point, returning homeward with his fowling pieces and some game, who after firing and wound- ing Lovewell, was himself slain. In the mean time a strong party of the enemy under the celebrated chiefs, Paugus and Wahwa, returning from a scout, fell in with the track of the English, which conducted them to the spot where their packs were deposited; on counting which they ascertained their number to be less than their own, and immediately formed an ambush to take them by surprise. On the return of Lovewell's men for their packs, the Indians rose up from their lurking place, rushed upon them with their accustomed yells, and killed the Captain and eight of his company on the spot .-
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PERIOD V .- 1713-1741.
'The survivors retreated to the shore of the pond, where, sheltered by a rocky point of land and some large pines, they kept the enemy at bay for some hours and finally compelled them to draw off. When the shattered remnant of this gallant band collected themselves together for retreat, they found three of their number so badly wounded as to be unable to move from the bloody field, whom with the deepest grief they left behind ; eleven others wounded, but able to march; and only nine unhurt. They began their march at the rising of the moon, and in the course of their return Lieut. Farwell, the Rev. Mr. Fry of Andover, their Chaplain, a young Cler- gyman of estimable character, and one other person perished in the woods for want of dressings for their wounds.
For the numbers engaged, this was among the most des- tructive rencontres that had occurred in New-England .- It was disastrous to the Indians, who lost their leader and many of their best warriors. Not long after the battle, Col. Tyng of Dunstable went to the spot with an armed force and buried the bodies of the slain, inscribing on the surroun- ding trees their names. He found some Indian graves which he opened, and among the disinterred bodies recognized that of the Chief Paugus, who was said to have fallen by a shot from one Chamberlain.
During these occurrences three agents were sent into Can- ada, to complain of the conduct of the French authorities in furnishing arms and supplies to the Indians in a time of peace between England and France, and to obtain a release of the captives. Two of the Agents were from Massachusetts; the third was Theodore Atkinson of New-Castle, N. H .- a young man fast rising into eminence. He was the son of the Hon. Theodore Atkinson, a merchant and a Counsellor, who had died some years before. The French Governor, the Marquis de Vaudreuil, received them politely, but denied the charge of having excited the savages to war-on which Atkinson produced his correspondence with Ralle, furnishing ample proof of his hostile agency. This somewhat confused him ; but he palliated his conduct by accusing the English of treating them with injustice and oppression. Few of the captives were released at that time, and for those few an exhorbitant ransom was demanded. The Governor however promised to interpose his influence to dispose the Indians to peace, and the commission was not without a beneficial result.
In September a marauding party of the enemy entered Dover and concealed themselves in a barn, where they found
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74
HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
[1726.
an opportunity to kill two persons and wound another. This was John Evans : a profuse flow of blood from the wound made them think he was dead, and they stripped and scalped him without offering any additional violence. After they had left him he arose, and walked naked and bloody to an house, and to the astonishment of all recovered. This trag- edy wound up the scenes of the war. An Indian hostage who had been confined in Boston, and been permitted to visit his friends on parole, returned with pacific proposals, which led to an invitation to the principal Chiefs to repair to that place, where, at the close of the year a treaty was con- cluded and an era of peace restored.
The cessation of war gave Massachusetts and New-Hamp- shire leisure to resume their discussions relative to the boundary lines. Massachusetts continued to assert her Charter claim to all the lands lying south and west of a line, beginning at a point three miles north of the mouth of the Merrimac, thence running west and north at the same distance of three miles from the river, to a point three miles beyond the parallel of the junction of the Winnepiseogee and Pemigewasset, in the present township of Sanbornton ; thence due west to the Connecticut : a claim which covered far the greater part of the Counties of Hillsborough, Merrimac, and Sullivan, and the whole of Cheshire. Aware that this construction of her Charter might be overruled by the King, her government was anxious to secure at least the property of these lands, should her pretensions to the jurisdiction be set aside. Influenced by such views, Massachusetts made grants of the townships of Concord and Pembroke in 1726; and in the course of a few subsequent years, of Amherst, Bedford, New-Boston, Hopkinton, Boscawen, Hillsborough, Keene, Swanzey and Peterboro'. New-Hampshire sent a Committee to Concord to forbid the surveyors employed by the rival Province in laying out the lands, to proceed in that business : and desirous of securing at least the property of the lands within her ac- knowledged jurisdiction, made grants of Epsom, Chichester, Barnstead, Canterbury, Gilmanton and Bow. The last named township being within the limits claimed by Massachusetts, was probably granted by New-Hampshire as a practical asser- tion of her own claim to the territory in dispute. As the emigration of the Penacooks to the confines of Canada, had removed the obstacles arising from the vicinity of hostile neighbors, the settlement of Concord was commenced in 1727 ; not long after, scattering settlers planted themselves all along the banks of the Merrimac from Dunstable to Boscawen ;
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PERIOD V .- 1713-1741.
1727.]
and somewhat later, at Hollis, Amherst, Winchester, Keene, and Swanzey.
Of the immigrants who established themselves on the Merrimac and its western tributaries the greater part were from Massachusetts. They constituted a third class of the inhabitants-those on the Pascataqua making the first, and the Scottish settlers at Londonderry the second. Many years afterwards a fourth class was added to the number, consisting of immigrants from Connecticut, who planted themselves on the east bank of the river of that name. The Pascataqua, Londonderry, Merrimac, and Connecticut divisions of our population have exhibited, each one, down to this day, certain peculiarities, intellectual, moral, social and political, sufficiently indicative of the characteristics of its original. If the pecu- liarities of former generations in point of manners, customs, and modes of thinking, so long display their influence on their descendants, how immensely important that the great princi- ples of religious truth and an attachment to correct moral habits be deeply impressed on the minds of the young .- " Train up a child in the way he should go," is a dictate not less of sound wisdom than of christian piety.
The year last named is memorable on account of the second great earthquake that had shaken New-England. It happened on the evening of the twenty-ninth of October, about ten- o'clock. The atmosphere was calm, the sky cloudless, and the moon walking in her brightness. The shock extended over a tract of some hundred miles in extent, shaking the buildings, throwing down the tops of chimneys, and making in some places clefts in the earth. No lives were lost. This event excited serious reflections in many a breast, and was followed in some of the towns by an improvement of morals, an increase of piety, and considerable accessions to the churches.
Under the royal Government the same Assembly was often continued in existence for several years; being convened, prorogued, and dissolved at the pleasure of the Governor .- The Assembly had now subsisted for five years, when it was dissolved of course by the death of King George I. Writs of Election were issued in the name of George II. for a new Assembly, which met near the close of the year. This infre- quency of elections, which rendered the Representatives too independent of the people and subtracted from popular opin- ion much of its just weight in the government, was deemed a grievance : and efforts were made to obtain an act limiting the duration of the present and all future Assemblies to three
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76
HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
J1730.
years. Lieut. Gov. Wentworth was disposed to give his as- sent, and an act to this effect called the TRIENNIAL ACT, was carried through both branches of the Legislature. This gave the people great satisfaction, and was regarded as imparting additional security to their rights.
Another change in the frame of the government was at- tempted, but not with the like success. Hitherto the Governor and Council had not only constituted a distinct branch of the Legislature, but had also exercised judicial powers, being a Court of Appeals whose decision was final except on an appeal to the King. Unwilling that the Council should exer- cise judicial as well as executive and legislative powers, especially as they decided causes without jury, the House of Representatives wished to repeal those acts which recognized them as a Court of Appeals. The Council resisted the prop- osition ; and when the controversy began to wax warm, Wentworth put an end to it by dissolving the Assembly. This measure made him enemies and embittered the residue of his administration. A new Assembly, composed chiefly of the same persons as the past, being convened and having chosen Nathaniel Weare of Hampton, Speaker, the Lieut. Governor negatived the choice : a power which had been claimed and exercised by the royal Governors. Irritated by the negative, they called in question his power in this point, and did no business for some days. After they had reluctantly chosen another Speaker, the messages from the Chair and the an- swers of the House exhibited an ill temper on both sides.
William Burnet, distinguished for taste and literary ae- complishments, arrived in Boston, 1728, with a commission constituting him Governor of Massachusetts and New- Hampshire. His administration was short; and in relation to this Province, into which he came but once, unimportant .- With the General Court of Massachusetts he renewed the old controversy on the subject of a permanent salary ; but died of a violent fever in a few months after his visit to Portsmouth.
His successor as Governor was Jonathan Belcher, a native and merchant of Boston, a man of unblemished reputation, elegant manners, and ample fortune. Having after a short visit to New-Hampshire returned to Massachusetts in 1730, he. made a discovery which resulted in a serious misunder- standing between himself and the Lieut. Governor. It was this: prior to his appointment as Governor, Wentworth, not knowing whether Gov. Shute who had been long absent, would return and resume the Chair, or Belcher be appointed in his stead, had written complimentary letters to both. This
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PERIOD V .- 1713-1741.
act the Governor regarded as deceptive and dishonorable ; and at his second visit manifested his resentment by refusing an invitation to the Lieut. Governor's house, by requiring him to quit all claims to salary except what Belcher might allow, and removing his family connections from their offices. If the act in question were improper, the Governor certainly carried his resentment too far. Wentworth died soon after these unpleasant occurrences ; but his son Benning Wentworth, and his son in law Theodore Atkinson, who with their family connections wielded a powerful influence, formed a party in opposition to Belcher, the effect of whose enmity he after- wards most sensibly felt.
Trifling causes are often productive of consequences the most important. From the misunderstanding, trivial as it may seem, between Belcher and Wentworth, sprung that political party by whose exertions New-Hampshire obtained a separate Governor and a respectable extent of territory. Had it never occurred, it is quite probable the boundary lines might have been established far otherwise than they now are ; and not impossible that this Provice might finally have been reunited with Massachusetts.
The character of Lieut. Gov. Wentworth presents many excellent traits. From his father, an exemplary Elder of the church in Dover, he received a christian education which exerted much influence on his subsequent life. For a time he followed the seas and commanded a ship, in which he carefully maintained the morning and evening worship of God. As a merchant, his integrity, benevolence and public spirit pro- cured him general esteem. He was charitable to the poor, courteous and affable to all, and attentive to the institutions of religion. For the most part of a period of thirteen years, some of them marked with the perplexities of an Indian war and a high degree of party excitement, he conducted the affairs of the Province with singular wisdom and moderation ; and with the exception of the controversy between him and the Assembly near the close of his administration, to the satisfaction of the people. He possessed their confidence and affection while living, and carried with him their respect when he descended to the grave.
The progress of New-Hampshire in population and wealth was somewhat tardy. Within her acknowledged limits there were not at this time more than 1900 dwelling houses and 10,000 inhabitants ; and that part of the Province granted and claimed by Massachusetts might perhaps contain three or four thousand more. The amount of shipping engaged in the
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HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
[1731.
foreign trade was about five hundred tons ; of seamen the number was only forty ; the exports were fish and lumber, in return for which were received English manufactures, West India productions, and salt from Portugal. The revenue ari- sing from customs and excise was less than £400, while the ordinary expense of government was £1500, the deficien- cy of the revenue being supplied by a tax on polls and estates.
David Dunbar, a native of Ireland and formerly a Colonel in the British army, was appointed Lieut. Gov. of the Province in 1731, and retained the office six years. He owed large debts to individuals in England, who favored his appointment from the motive of facilitating the recovery of their claims. He had the office also of Surveyor of the King's woods, which was of much greater pecuniary value than that of Lieut. Governor. Coming here with no other views than those of emolument, he was ready to follow the leadings of interest, which pointed to an union with the party opposed to the Gov- ernor. That party aimed at the removal of Belcher from his office, at the settlement of the boundary lines in such a manner as would make New-Hampshire respectable in extent, and at the appointment of a separate Governor who should have no connection with Massachusetts. Dunbar hoped by their aid to obtain the appointment himself, with the desirable adjunct of a handsome salary. He succeeded in obtaining for Benning Wentworth, Theodore Atkinson, and Joshua Pierce, a nomination to seats in the Council ; but the oppo- sition of the Governor delayed the admission of the two first to take the oath of office for a period of two years. In the mean time, they were able as popular leaders in the House to embarrass the measures of his administration.
Belcher was perfectly aware of the designs of his opponents, and exerted himself, but without effect, to procure the recal of Dunbar : for some reason or other the English ministry re- tained him in office. He was not however admitted to a seat in the Council ; Shadrach Walton of New-Castle presided over that Board in the absence of the Commander in Chief. A very considerable party who had a preponderating influence in the Council, was warmly attached to Gov. Belcher and to Massachusetts, and would have preferred an amalgamation with that Province rather than see New-Hampshire placed under a separate Governor. They were indifferent to the settlement of the boundary lines, alledging that the ungranted lands would be considered as belonging either to the King, or the heirs of Mason ; and in neither case would the people of New-Hampshire be allowed to participate in the property .-
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