USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Some things about Coventry-Benton, New Hampshire (town history) > Part 2
USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Benton > Some things about Coventry-Benton, New Hampshire (town history) > Part 2
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At another adjourned meeting, held December 20, 1805, two hundred and twenty-five acres of land were granted to William Coolidge upon condition that the said Coolidge within three years from the first day of January, 1806, "should build, erect and complete a good and sufficient grist-mill upon the Gulph Stream (afterwards called
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Whitcher Brook) running through lot numbered thirteen, in Gerrish's survey, and keep the same in good repair and procure, or give good attendance therein, during the term of ten years from the erection and completion of said mill, to the acceptance of the selectmen of the town of Coventry, aforesaid, for the time being."
At a meeting held at the tavern of Nancy Hale, in Cov- entry, June 16, 1814, Thatcher Goddard and Onesiphorus Flanders were appointed a committee to make a division of the common land lying between Gerrish's, McDuffie's and Willard's surveys and Warren line, this land having been surveyed into lots of thirty-five acres each. A plan of this division was made, known as the third division, and was ac- cepted at an adjourned meeting held May 29, 1816, thus completing the surveys and divisions of land by the pro- prietors.
The meetings subsequently held by the proprietors were chiefly for the purpose of settling up the affairs of the pro- prietary. The last meeting of which record exists was held July 4, 1818, and at this meeting a tax of two dollars and fifty cents was levied on each share of the undivided lands for the purpose of paying the debts of the proprietary. The entire amount expended by the proprietors in protecting their rights in the township, in surveying and dividing into lots such of the territory as was surveyable, in paying the expenses of proprietors' meetings, through a term of twenty years, in redeeming lands sold for taxes, in defending and prosecuting lawsuits and in surveying and constructing high- ways was a little upwards of $4,000. For this they had ob- tained in regularly numbered surveyed lots of land including grants and pitches by settlers and the Governor's reservation, some 22,000 acres, leaving about eight thousand acres undi-
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vided. This was in two tracts, a small one on the easterly side of Black Mountain, and a larger one, of from six thous- and to seven thousand acres, on the sides and summit of Moosilauke Mountain. This land was never divided into lots, but was held by various parties, as shares or rights in the names of the original proprietors, was taxed as non-resi- dent, until about. 1889 or 1890, when all the shares had been acquired by Ira Whitcher, of Haverhill, a native of the town, who divided the territory into four tracts, numbered one, two, three and four, and later sold them as such tracts.
The records of the meeting of the early proprietors show an earnest effort on their part to secure a settlement of the township, and to realize something from their rights. But the task of making a flourishing farming town out of Coventry was an impossible one, and the proprietors doubt- less expended nearly as much money in their attempts to make the township a valuable property as they ever secured in return. Only a few of those who were proprietors pre- vious to 1800 ever attempted to make a settlement in the town ; Jonathan Hale, Obadiah Eastman, and Samuel Marston.
It was a non-resident proprietary, and absentee landlord- ism rarely pays, even under favorable conditions.
Some of these non-resident proprietors, however, were greatly interested in the town, and merit more than a passing notice. John W. Chandler, of Peacham, Vt., was the son of Gen. John Chandler, a Revolutionary soldier, and was born in Newtown, Conn., in 1767. He removed to Peacham, Vt., with his father as one of the earliest settlers in that town. He was representative to the General Assembly in 1797, Judge of Probate from 1797-1800 and in 1806, 1808, 1809, 1817-1821; Register of Probate in 1805; Councillor in
.
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1814-1815 ; Judge of the County Court in 1800-1806, 1813-1817. Died in Peacham July 15, 1855.
Reuben Page was a younger brother of John Page, of Haverhill. He was was born in Rindge, N. H., in 1753. He served in five campaigns in the Revolutionary war. Went to Corinth, Vt., in 1780 and settled in the north- east corner of the town. Part of the farm is in Newbury. He died August 3, 1843 and is buried in the "Grow bury- ing ground," in the southwest corner of Newbury, Vt.
Stephen P. Webster, of Haverhill, was a son of Rev. Stephen Webster, of Haverhill, Mass., and Mary (Little). Graduated at Harvard in 1792. Married Mary Peabody of Atkinson. State Senator, 1803-1806. Councillor, 1839-40.
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CHAPTER II.
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT.
Just when and where the first settlement was made in Coventry, and just who was the first settler does not appear. There were several settlements made prior to the year 1800, as appears from the record of settlers claims allowed by the proprietors at their meetings in 1798, 1799 and 1800.
At a meeting of the proprietors January 18, 1799, Eph- raim, Rachel and Silas Lund were quieted in the possession of 76 acres of land on the Oliverian, which they claimed had been settled in 1777, and this same year Josiah Burnham, whose attempted survey of a part of the town had never been accepted by the proprietors, was also quieted in the posses- sion of 82 acres, on his claim that he had settled and improv- ed the same in 1777. Pelatiah Watson had also settled ad- joining Burnham and the Lunds in 1778, and he obtained at this same meeting possession of 40 acres, as did Stephen Lund' 82 acres in the same locality, which he claimed was settled in 1783. In the absence of other testimony it may be set down as tolerably certain that the Lunds, with Burn- ham and Watson, were the first settlers of the township, and that they made pitches and began to establish homes in the year 1777. Jonathan Hale had also begun a settlement in the immediate vicinity a little later, and had obtained large grants from the proprietary. In 1783 he purchased the Stephen Lund tract, in the same year the Ephraim, Silas and Rachael holdings ; in 1784 the Pelatiah Watson tract, and in 1787 he bought out Burnham's rights. This gave him a tract, much of which was improved, of upwards of a thous-
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and acres, which he conveyed to Thatcher Goddard in 1800, though he continued to live on it for many years as an inn- keeper, in a house on the Coventry Meadows road between what is now known as the Hyde farm and the farm owned by James Crimmings, and which was known at first as the Niles farm.
The antecedents of the Lunds, Watson and Burnham are unknown, and where they went after leaving Coventry is, except in the case of Burnham, purely a matter of conject- ure. Burnham, who had some knowledge of surveying, came early to the town, pitched a lot for himself, and made surveys of other lots, but the surveys were not recognized as valid by the proprietors. The year 1805 found him in the jail at Haverhill, imprisoned for debt. Among those who occupied the same room with him in the jail were Russell Freeman, Esq., and Capt. Joseph Starkweather, likewise imprisoned for debt. On the evening of December 17, 1805, a quarrel arose between them, the result of which was that both men were fatally stabbed by Burnham, his weapon being a large double edged knife which he had car- ried with him when he went to jail. Burnham was tried and convicted of murder and sentenced to be hung July 15, 1806, but the date was subsequently changed to August 12, in order that he might "have further time to prepare for death." His execution, which occurred at Haverhill, and which was the second occurring in Grafton county, was one of the great events of the time. It occurred on Powder House hill at Haverhill corner in the presence of 10,000 people, who had gathered from near and far to witness the gruesome spectacle. Entertainment was rare in those early days, and the most was made of this one. Previous to the execution a lengthy sermon, preceeded by music and prayer,
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was delivered to the assembled multitude by the Rev. David Sutherland of Bath, the victim about to be launched into eternity furnishing the preacher with his most vivid illus- trations.
Barnabas Niles and his son Salmon settled on the Mead- ows, somewhere about 1778, just to the north of the settle- ments made by Ephraim Lund, Stephen Lund, Burnham and Watson, their farm being what is now known as the Hyde farm. To the south were Joseph Lund, James Ford, Jehiel Niles and Elisha Ford, on land now known as the James Crimmings and A. L. Warren farms, while a little later Robert Elliott established himself also on the Meadows near Haverhill line.
Almost coincident with these first settlements on the Meadows were those made next to Warren line and near the base of Moosilauke, in the neighborhood afterwards known as High Street, by Obadiah Eastman, Samuel Marston, Moses Noyes and Samuel Jackson. Each of these settlements was made prior to 1790, those of Obadiah Eastman, Moses Noyes and Samuel Jackson being presumably the oldest. Obadiah Eastman, with his sons, established themselves on what was afterwards known as the Lathrop farm, on the North and South road, so called, about a mile from Warren line. This farm came to be one of the best in town, but has been abandoned for nearly fifty years, and the substan- tial stone walls once surrounding its fields and pastures now surround a vigorous forest growth. The buildings have long since vanished, but a recent visit to the spot where they once stood, shows an acre or two of land still free from forest growth, the cellar walls still intact, a few feet from the house cellar the smoke-house cellar (about five by six feet ) with walls in nearly as good condition as when Squire
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Obadiah constructed them nearly a century ago, and the walls of the various yards about the barn and the out-build- ings still in good condition.
The settlement lot of Moses Noyes, and the two lots of Samuel Jackson, were nearer Warren line than the Eastman homestead, and covered the territory now known as the Dickey farm, and the farm next north-west, toward Warren Summit. Samuel Marston settled the farm which later came into the possession of Jonathan Welch and his sons, Silas and Bartlett Welch. Marston came to Coventry from Chichester, and two of his sons, David and Jonathan, were among the first settlers of the north part of Coventry, about 1804 or 1805, while another son, Joseph E., remained for a time on the old homestead. Samuel Jackson purchased his one hundred acre lot in 1783, of one Francis Porter, of Pe- terborough, and paid for it one hundred dollars. His pur- chase was made in good faith, and he began its settlement immediately, and had made for himself a comfortable home- stead, when, in 1800, he discovered his title was worthless, and he petitioned the proprietors for relief. They gave him a title to his land, in view of the improvements he had made, at a meeting held May 23, 1800.
Aside from these settlers on the Meadows and at High Street, clearings had been made and homes established near Haverhill line at the foot of the mountain lying between Owls Head and Sugar Loaf. A survey of ten one hundred acre lots had been made there by Major Caleb Willard for Gen. John W. Chandler, of Peacham, by order of Samuel Atkinson, dated July 9, 1786. In the same year James Masters, James Curtis and Robert Whittom settled on lots ' numbered 6, 7, and 8. This section was subsequently known as the "Page Neighborhood," or "Page District."
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. None of these settlers remained many years in town, and the work of settlement they had begun was carried on by others.
Of these early settlers who established themselves in town prior to 1800, there were two or three who took an active part in the direction of affairs : Salmon Niles, born March 11, 1768, the son of Barnabas Niles, came to town with his father, and took a leading part, both in his own right and as representing others, in the meetings of the proprietary, and also, after the town government was organized, filled various town offices with efficiency. Of his eight children born in town, none remained there, and, early in the centu- ry, his farm passed into other hands.
Major Jonathan Hale, of whom mention has previously been made in the chapter on the proprietary, and whose farm on the Meadows was the largest in town, and whose house was one of the notable inns on the road between Haverhill and Plymouth, was born in Bradford, Mass., about 1740, the youngest son of Jonathan and Susanna (Tuttle) Hale. His family was a notable one. His eldest brother, Dr. John Hale, was a physician at Hollis, N. H., and was a surgeon in the Old French war and in the Revolutionary war. His sister, Abigail, married Col. William Prescott, of Pepperell, Mass., who commanded the Massachusetts troops at Bun- ker Hill. The historian Prescott was their grandson. His brother, Dr. Samuel Hale, came to Newbury, Vt., as one of the earliest settlers, and his sister, Martha, was the wife of the Rev. Peter Powers, the first minister of Newbury and Haverhill. Jonathan Hale removed with his parents to Sut- ton, Mass., and later lived in Concord, N. H., from whence he came, to the Coos country at the time of the early settle- ment of Haverhill and Newbury. During the war of the Revolution he was a member of the Committee of Safety
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of Haverhill. He was also 2nd Major in Col. Morey's twelfth New Hampshire regiment of foot, his commission dating from 1775. In 1781 he was sent by Gen. Jacob Bailey to West Point with dispatches for Washington. Mr. F. P. Wells, the historian of Newbury, Vt., thinks that at that time he lived in that town. He continued to reside in Coventry after he had sold his farm to Thatcher Goddard, in 1800, but took no important part in town affairs after the organization of the town government. He died in 1837, at an advanced age, and if anything can be judged from the tax list, he must have been in somewhat reduced circumstan- ces. While in 1833 he was still assessed for 140 acres of land, with a horse and chaise and three cows, in 1836 his taxable property consisted of a horse valued at $10 and three cows valued at $50. Major Hale was, however, a man of superior education for his times, and his services to the proprietary of Coventry, and to the early settlers, was of first importance. Little is known of his family, except that one daughter, Mary Hale, born Nov. 23, 1777, became the wife of William Coolidge, Esq., one of the very earliest set- tlers at the north part of the town, and for the first years of its organized history prominent in town affairs. He had three other daughters, Nancy, Susanna and Hitty.
Obadiah Eastman was undoubtedly the leading man in town affairs, both in securing the division of the town into lots, in encouraging its settlement, in building roads, in protecting the rights of the proprietors against the encroach- ment of Haverhill and Warren, as well as of individuals, in securing the organization of a town government, and, in short, doing anything and everything to promote the inter- ests of the town to which he so thoroughly devoted his best endeavors. He was the first Justice of the Peace of the
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town, appointed in 1789, the moderator of the first town meeting, a member of the first board of selectmen, the first to represent the town in the General Court, when Coventry and Warren constituted a representative district, indeed, it is no disparagement to others to call him the first citizen of Cov- entry in its early days. He was born in Amesbury ( ?), Mass., May 7, 1747. His wife, Mehitabel, was born April 27, in the same year, and they were married Nov. 19, 1767. Mr. Eastman rendered good service in the war of the Revolution, and came to Coventry and established his home sometime before the close of the war. He reared a family of eight children, five sons and three daughters, and he alone of the earliest settlers has descendants still residing in town. He died Jan 10, 1812, and was buried in the High Street cemetery. A marble monument was in recent years erected over his grave, which has also been marked by the Sons of the American Revolution with the insignia of the Society.
Some idea of the number of inhabitants of the town in 1789 may be gathered from the petition sent to the General Court, Dec. 11, 1788, asking for the appointment of Mr. Eastman as a Justice of the Peace. The petition states that the signers are "a greater part of the inhabitants of Coven- try," and it is signed by Ephraim Lund, Jeremiah Brown, Robert Elliott, Daniel Doty, Onesiphorus Flanders, Josiah Burnham, Joseph Flanders, Timothy Lockwood, John Marston, Ebeneezer Bailey, Samuel Bowdy, Nathan Mead and Silas Lund. All these signers were residents on the Meadows, at High Street, or on the Willard survey tract, no settlement having been made in the north part of the town.
During the war of the Revolution none of the settlers, so far as is known, entered the army, but the straggling and
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struggling settlers endeavored to do their patriotic duty as the following extract from Hammond's Town Papers shows :
"To the Hon'ble Gen'l Court of the State of New Hamp- shire, now sitting at Portsmouth.
"Humbly show that the inhabitants of Coventry in said State, that when called on, they hired one Jacob Whittier and one Edward Clark to serve as soldiers of said town in the Continental army during the war, and gave them a gen- erous bounty-that said town is so far removed from the seat of government, and not. organized with town officers, never made a regular return of them, and that there is an extent now against them for delinquency, wherefore, your petitioners pray that they may be credited with said Whittier and Clark, and have an order to discharge said extent, and your petitioners as in duty shall ever pray, etc.
Feb. 1786. (Signed) MOSES Dow,
in behalf of said town."
Proof of the services of Edward Clark was furnished, and the town was allowed therefor the sum of £60.
The census of 1790 gives the population of the town as 80.
There seems to have been no hurry on the part of pioneer settlers in locating in the north part of the town, which, however, subsequently became, and still remains, the most important section of the township. The forests were heavy, the soil was in the main rocky, the surface was hilly, the slope of the land was to the north, and the section was with- out roads, and miles removed from the settlements in the south and west part of the town, and from the center of North Country life at Haverhill. One of the charac- ters of the section during the early part of the last century, Ben Wiser, who lived by fishing, hunting and his wits, and many of whose stories and sayings are still remembered by
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the older people, once remarked of North Coventry : "When the Almighty made the world, he made a will. He gave over all the country east of Swiftwater to the fowls of the air and the wild beasts, and the Whitchers, Tylers, Howes and Marstons, who broke that will, will never prosper." There was, however, some degree of prosperity, but it was prosperity won by dint of the sternest sacrifice and the most unremitting toil.
When the first town meeting was held, Dec. 30, 1801, for the purpose of organizing a town government, there were no residents on the north side of the town, but in the years intervening between 1804 and 1812 several settlements were made, the first being by William Coolidge, William Whitcher, David Marston and Jonathan Marston, followed soon after by Kimball Tyler, Jesse Tyler, Peter Howe, Daniel Howe, Daniel Noyes and Abraham Norris. Of the thirty-three rateable polls found on the first recorded tax list in 1812, these eleven above mentioned had established for themselves homes in the north part of the town.
William Coolidge, son - in - law of Jonathan Hale, settled in 1803 or 1804, and cleared his farm from the vir- gin forest, on land which is now a part of the farms of George Bailey and Birt Cox. He was the one settler of the town of liberal education, as the proprietors' records and the early town records, in elegant handwriting, orthography and punctuation, so rare in early town records, abundantly attest. He was clerk at many meetings of the proprietors, the first town clerk, and for several years one of the select- men. He built and operated the first grist-mill in town, and a few years since the circular mill stones were to be seen in the yard of the clapboard mill of the late William East- man. He was born January 28, 1777, and his wife, Mary
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COVENTRY-BENTON, N. H.
Hale was born the same year. None of his four chil- dren, three sons and one daughter, remained in town, but removed with their parents in 1816 to Vermont. His mill privilege and the land lying to the east of it, being what is now known as the Annis farm, he purchased of John W. Chandler in 1804, and removed to it, erecting a house on the North and South road, near the meeting, house some three years later. This property he sold upon his removal from town to Moses Knight, of Landaft. It had become by that time considerably improved, the price obtained being $1325. He rendered the town great service, but during the hard times following the war of 1812 became financially in- volved and lost most of his property, acquired with so much self sacrifice and hardship. Mr. Coolidge was a native of Middlesex county, Mass., his immediate family residing, during the war of the Revolution, in Waltham.
David Marston, son of Samuel Marston, settled and be- gan clearing his farm on a lot west of that of William Cool- idge about 1805, which, with the additions purchased in 1808, is now the farm owned by Orman L. Mann. He was a man of shrewdness and tact, and was prominent in the early settlement of the north part of the town, filling all the various town offices with marked ability, serving for sev- eral years as town clerk, selectman, constable, collector of taxes and the then important office of tything man. David Marston was born Sept. 17, 1779, probably in Coventry, and married Susannah Bronson, of Landaff, (born July 29, 1777) Jan. 23, 1803. Their two daughters, Mehitable and Lucy, and their son, William Coolidge, were born in Coventry. William Coolidge Marston, born July 28, 1815, removed to Haverhill, where he was a substantial citizen and prosperous farmer. His son, Moody C. Marston, and grand-
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son, John G. Marston, are well known citizens of Bath. William Whitcher was born in Warren, on the farm cleared and owned by his father, near Coventry line, the locality since known as Warren Summit, May 23, 1783, the third of the eleven children of Chase and Hannah (Morrill) Whitcher. Chase Whitcher was one of the first settlers of Warren, a soldier in the war of the Revolution, and a direct descendant of Thomas Whittier, through Na- thaniel, Reuben and Joseph, who came from England in 1638, and settled at first in Newbury, Mass., afterwards re- moving to Haverhill, Mass., where, in 1688, he built the house in which his most famous descendant, John Greenleaf Whittier, was born, which, until the death of the latter, has since been in the Whittier family, and is now owned by the Whittier Memorial Association. The name of the descend- ants of Thomas has been variously spelled-Whittier, Whit- cher and Whicher, the former being the most common form, though, until the beginning of the nineteenth century it was pronounced as of two syllables, "Whit-cher." Chase Whit- cher was more famous as a hunter and trapper than a farm- er, and his son William doubtless learned of the opening for a settlement in the north part of Coventry through the fa- ther's hunting expeditions. He married Feb. 25, 1807, Mary, the daughter of Samuel and Sarah (Collins) Noyes, of Landaff, born Nov. 5, 1787. To them were born be- tween the dates, Dec. 26, 1807, and Feb. 24, 1831, a fam- ily of sixteen children, ten sons and six daughters, all of whom, with a single exception, lived to marry and establish homes of their own. He purchased parts of lots numbered 15, 13, 22 and 59, and built his first house on the spot where his son, Ira Whitcher, some forty years afterward es- tablished his home. He took an important part in town af-
WILLIAM WHITCHER.
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COVENTRY-BENTON, N. H.
fairs, serving as tax collector, constable, selectman and agent for building highways, in short, filling for many years, all the various town offices. He was a pioneer in building highways, and did more than perhaps any one man to secure communication with the adjoining towns of Bath and Haverhill, which, in the early part of the century, had be- come leading business, political and social centres. After the death of Obadiah Eastman and the removal from town of William Coolidge, he was commissioned a Justice of the Peace, and for years was familiarly known as "the Squire," in later years, "the Old Squire." He was a man of deep piety, of old school puritanical principles and notions, and was for many years, in the early history of the town, in the habit of conducting religious meetings in barns, school houses, or private houses, in his capacity of regularly licen- sed local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal church, or as assistant to the early circuit riders who now and then made appointments on their horseback pilgrimages through the backwoods towns. He was never elected a representative to the General Court, but he lived to see four of his sons, Mos- es, Ira, Chase and Daniel, serve successive terms in that body with honor to themselves and credit to the town. His life was one of great activity and he lived to see the town, for which he had done so much, a prosperous community, dying in March, 1859, in the 76th year of his age.
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