USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Canaan > The history of Canaan, New Hampshire > Part 11
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About the time of the annexation of Dame's Gore to Canaan, in 1846, application was made to the Court of General Sessions by the towns of Dorchester and Canaan to settle the line between them. Walter Blair, D. C. Churchill and N. S. Berry were ap- pointed commissioners to settle the line and they established it, and it was confirmed by the court October 31, 1848, as follows :
Beginning at a beech tree marked standing on the southerly side of a small stream, running from a small pond, said tree being shown to as the southwest corner of Groton, running thence North 64 degrees West 250 rods to a small beech, spotted on the side and marked cross- wise with a marking iron, thence North 65 degrees West 250 rods to a brown ash, standing between three small spruce trees about six rods west of Indian River, thence North 59 degrees West 950 rods to a stake and stones standing near the south end of a stone wall, thence 60 de- grees West 309 rods to the South east corner of Lyme. It being a stake and stones. Monuments were marked with spots on the sides and three marks acrost the tree or stake with a marking iron.
The north line of the town, taking the survey confirmed by the court, extends 2,036 rods. The perambulations of this line have been for many years South 60° East, 1,536 rods to the northwest corner of George W. Hadley's, then South 64° East 524 rods to Groton and Orange corner. John Flint's survey in 1850 shows the old town line to be South 61° East and the gore line evident- ly from Hadley's South 641/2° East 490 rods. In 1845 and 1864 the line was perambulated North 60° West 1,556 from Hadley's.
It will be seen that this town corners with Lebanon, Hanover and Enfield at its southwest corner; with Hanover on the Lyme line at its northwest corner; with Dorchester, Orange and Gro- ton at its northeast corner, and with Enfield on Grafton line at its southeast corner,
The following letter written by Ezekiel Wells and sent to the state department, in explanation of the old map and survey of 1805, soon after the map was made, will serve to explain many things about our boundaries :
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HISTORY OF CANAAN.
Sir, in answer to your letter accompanying the plan of the Town of Canaan which you seem to wish us to correct or explain, we can only make the following observations, (viz) as to the information which you first give us that by the plan of Hanover you find that they run in upon Canaan "about half a mile on one side & nearly a mile on the other" seems to be too indefinite to admit of an explanation; but you add that we have not given you any account of this contested line, and say that you want an actual accurate survey of the true & contested line with all the corses & distances marked on our plan, the line which we have laid down on our plan between Canaan & Hanover is the only line ever run between the two towns by any person, & is the line which has been mutually holden to & perambulated by them ever since the settlement of the Town, and their Charters bore date about fourty years ago and the corse marked on our plan is the same corse given by Hanover Charter and the Compass of our surveyor followed the old line without variation to be perceived altho by sd compass in general there is a small variation, and the distances on the plan is agreeable to your Requirement, Horizontally if Hanover Selectmen have given you an account of any line easterly of the one on our plan we are authorized to say that they have done it without ever surveying any such line or even ever seeing the ground on which they say it is run as you may be further informed of by applying to Esq Blaisdel, and we further say that the beach tree marked on our plan as the south west corner of Canaan is the Established bound at which Lebanon Hanover, Enfield and Canaan corners secondly you say that we have laid down on our plan what we call Orange old line but have not given the corse nor distance of it this neglect if it was one we have corrected, you say that we dont agree with Orange in the meeting of our road by more than a mile, & you expect us to be correct, which we have once said that we wore & now without hesitation say it again. You say that by lay- ing down the plans of Canaan Grafton and Orange togather you find that Grafton runs in upon Canaan about 100 rods and request us to make it certain whether the station at which you have marked A on our plan is actually the south west corner of Orange and the northwest corner of Grafton, to which we can only say that it ever has been con- sidered as such by the selectmen of the two towns in their taxation; & their jurisdiction has, we believe always bin bounded there since a Committee from the Legislature abought 24 years since established that as Grafton corner altho the selectmen of Grafton say that their Charter & act of incorporation ran in upon Canaan & Enfield (as you have observed & as we have worked out on our plan) and this is all for they peosebly consent to be bounded in their taxation at that station -
You perticularly wish us to let you know if the south east corner of Canaan & the northeast corner of Enfield are at the same station; to which we reply that they are & as laid down in our plan & as we sup- pose in the plan of Enfield whose selectmen helpt us to survey the line between us. The old line between Orange and Canaan was the Charter
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line but the new line is the one permenently agreed upon by the propri- etors of both towns & acgnized in by sd Towns. The line between Canaan & Enfield and between Canaan & Dames Gore as also that between Canaan & Hanover are the points of compass mentioned in the several Charters and by compasses in general may vary from one to two degrees as the lines was run abought 40 years since
With due respect permit us to subscribe ourselves your most obedient & very Humble servts.
The governor's plot having been taken out and the charter fixed the location of it the proprietors appointed committees to divide the land among the sixty-seven remaining rights, each grantee owning one share or right in the undivided lands. But few of the proprietors or grantees ever came to Canaan or paid any attention to their claims, and their rights were sold at auc- tion to satisfy taxes and assessments made upon the rights for laying out roads, building bridges and dividing the lands. Taxes were not laid upon the land because it was as yet un- divided and without owner.
On January 3, 1771, a meeting was held in Colchester, Conn., at the house of Thomas Wells. Aaron Cady's right was sold for eight pounds, fifteen shilling to Amos Wells; Gibson Har- ris' right was sold for two pounds to William Caldwell; Jared Spencer's right was sold for one pound, fifteen shillings to Sam- uel Joslyn. On May 15, 1771, in Lebanon, at the Inn of Cas. Hill, Nathaniel Cady's right was sold to Samuel Benedict for four pounds; William Fox, Jr.'s, right was sold to James Jones for four pounds; Thomas Gates' right was sold to Thomas Miner for four pounds, ten shillings ; William Chamberlain's right was sold to Bartholomew Durkee for four pounds, five shillings ; Wil- liam Chamberlain, Jr.'s, right was sold to Benjamin Wheaton for four pounds, five shillings, as was also the right of Jedediah Lathrop, and was resold to Thomas Gates for five pounds.
The proprietors first voted to lay out hundred acre lots in 1768, known as a "First Division of Hundred acre Lots" of upland and a "First Division of Intervale" lots containing ten acres. Subsequently there were two further divisions of hun- dred-acre lots of upland, then a fourth division of upland into seven- or eight-acre lots, a fifth division into seven-acre lots and a sixth division into six-acre lots. There was also a second divi-
8
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HISTORY OF CANAAN.
sion of intervale lots into one acre. The pitches on these divisions were not always exact, sometimes more land was inclosed and sometimes less than was allotted to the division. Along South Road there was no allowance for the most part for roads. The lots being laid out to the "Road." South Road (often called the "Post Road"), in the early days, was laid out by the county court about 1774. It was intended to be nearly a straight road, extending across the south part of the town about two hundred rods from the town line. It was laid upon undivided lands of the grantees, and should the road ever be thrown up or its course changed the land would not become the property of the adja- cent owners. A distinction must be drawn between ownership by the town and the grantees, also between the proprietors and the grantees, men who were named in the charter. Very few of the inhabitants of the town were proprietors and still less of them grantees. The town means the inhabitants of the town, the proprietors mean those who owned the original rights - they may not have been grantees, but they became proprietors for the most part by purchase.
The Proprietors' Book of Surveys is the source of title of all lands in Canaan, the beginning of an abstract. To it all titles lead for confirmation, as to points of compass and distances. It is a book of records in which the proprietors' committees con- firmed the lands as laid out. Many of the lands had been set- tled upon before they were surveyed, some were resurveyed, the old survey having been lost, and the date of record is sometimes the date of resurvey. But this record shows that the proprietors confirmed them to those who had settled upon or purchased them. The register's office of this county does not contain any of these old surveys, or pitches, only so far as subsequent owners have followed the old descriptions, which are omitted often enough to make much confusion. No plot or map was ever made of these pitches or surveys by the proprietors, and it is not to be won- dered at that they should make some mistakes; and there are some instances where they ran over on to land previously pitched, but it was discovered, sooner or later, and the lines adjusted or further allowances made of land somewhere else.
In beginning the search of a title at the present time, for the purpose of establishing the bounds, deeds are found as far back
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as 1864, in which the description is only by adjoining owners. In the '50's we begin to find points of compass and distances, only in part, and further search must be made to find all the bearings and distances. It finally leads back to the Proprietors' Book of Surveys, in which nearly every piece of land in town is recorded and described by points of compass and distances. Descriptions of property by adjoining owners is of very little value; points of compass, owing to the variation of the compass needle, which so far has constantly gone west, are not much to be depended upon; but distances do not vary, - they should be as they were a hundred years ago, allowing for the probability of human error.
Once an owner loses his bounds, he must get back to some record that will give him a definite course to follow. The old pitches began at the corner of some other lot, for the most part, and stakes and stones were used for the corner, sometimes trees, and the intervale lots were often bounded by the river. Stakes and stones have disappeared and trees, as well. Sometimes an old stump is left, or there is someone who remembers where the old stump was, - like the stump which was the beginning of the 1st Hundred of the Mill Lot by the dam at the "Corner." The river is still there, but its course is changed in many places. Still there may be instances where an old corner may be located. A survey made to Moses Dole, in 1809, mentions an island in the middle of the river. That island is there today, a little way below the site of the old paper mill. Lots, in the beginning, rarely gave any points of compass on the river, but they gave distances. The intervale lots, laid out in the meadows, sometimes included the river, the land extending on both sides. But, for the most part, the rivers, ponds, and brooks were taken as boun- dary lines.
The bearings of the lines of the old surveys having been deter- mined many years ago, some of the surveys having been made more than one hundred and thirty years, and the compass needle having traveled westwardly, it becomes necessary to determine how far it has traveled from the bearing run by the old surveyors, before any new line can be run that will coincide with the old line. So far as known there is no way to determine the amount of variation. The line is where it always was, it has not
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changed; but the needle will not point at the same number of degrees it did when the old surveyor ran it. To say that the needle has traveled so far in any definite number of years is not correct. It cannot be averaged. By setting a compass on a number of old lines this will be apparent. The forty acres of the church right and lying on the north old town line, shows a variation of three and one-half to three-quarters degrees. The south line of the 1st Hundred of the Mill lot between A. M. Shackford and F. B. L. Porter shows a variation of five and one- half degrees. This lot was first surveyed in 1771 and resurveyed in 1806. The south line of A. B. Howe's and the north line of John Currier's, surveyed in 1805, shows a variation of seven degrees. The south line of J. B. Wallace's and the north line of A. M. Shackford's, on the east side of Hart Pond, probably sur- veyed in 1846, shows a variation of seven and one-half degrees. The latter is abnormal and extraordinary and cannot be ac- counted for, but taking that variation for the other lines the land surveys correctly. Broad Street, was first surveyed in 1788, North 11° West, and resurveyed by the Grafton Turnpike Com- pany in 1804, and again in 1828 by the town which relaid the road over it, North 12° West, it now runs North 81/2° West. The common, surveyed in 1793, shows a variation of three degree and one half. The only way is to determine the variation of the com- pass upon each piece of land sought to be surveyed. This can be found by running a line between two established and well- known corners, taking some old wall, known for a long time to have been on the line. The old bearing having been found by reference to old deeds, the present bearing having been found, the difference between the two bearings can be used as the varia- tion to run the remaining lines. But if two bounds are not known, nor any walls or fences, reference must be had to the adjoining land and the survey becomes more complicated.
There are a few surveys of old pitches missing from the old book of surveys. The first one hundred acres of Israel Kellogg, located about the shore of Hart Pond, south of the road by R. H. Haffenreffer's, the third one hundred acres of the mill right, where Jonathan Carlton lived, and where E. C. Bean lately lived; the second one hundred acres of Clement Daniels' right, extending along the road by where F. P. Carter lives, and on the
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north side of the road from the Tontine settled by John Colcord, and upon which Daniel B. Whittier, the carpenter, lived in 1831; fifty acres of the third one hundred acres of the school right and fifty acres of the third one hundred acres of Josiah Gates, Jr., lying side by side on the north side of the old town line, being a part of the old Danforth and Tristram Sanborn farms.
The divisions of land were not laid out in one parcel, as the allotments would seem to indicate, as well as the votes of the proprietors, nor were they adjoining. The first hundred of Samuel Dodge, 3d, was laid out in five parcels of three, fifty, fourteen, thirty-three, and nine acres, and many others in like manner. Nor was land in each division laid to all the rights. Neither of the George and William King rights received any land in the fourth, fifth and sixth divisions of upland, or the second division of intervale. Some of the pitches refer to the lots being laid out in ranges, but there is nothing to indicate the lines of the ranges or how many or how they extended. The only references are to land in the "2nd. Range." No reference to any in the first. The implication drawn from the references is that the lands in the first range extended along South Road to the Enfield line, across the south line of the town. These lots are laid out systematically, about 200 rods by 80 rods on the road, and those on the north side of South Road are laid in like man- ner. But the land referred to as being in the second range lies north of these surveys and towards the west side of the town, above West Canaan and extending to Hanover line. The land supposed to be laid out in the second range are not all adjoining. In 1797, the proprietors voted "that Ezekiel Wells shall have the liberty of laying out a second hundred acre lot instead of a lot the Governors lot has took which was No. 1 in the 2nd. Range the lot belonged to sd Wells." This "No. 1" must have been towards the southwest corner of the town. Some of the lots bear numbers. "No. 1" was the "First Penhallow" lot, which, with the second and third "Penhallow" lots, after they were laid out on the three divisions of Richard Wibard's right, remained unoccupied or non-resident land for many years, being sold for taxes many times. These lots are what is known as the "Pen- hallow Pasture."' "No. 2" laid on the right of Daniel Fowle. Ezekiel Wells lived here before he moved to the Street. "No. 3"
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HISTORY OF CANAAN.
is south of and adjoining "No. 2,"' all on Town Hill. "No. 8" was the first one hundred of Ephraim Wells, pitched to Samuel Converse and owned by James Treadway, who, when he had the Pitch Book, pitched six hundred other acres of land to him- self, and which the proprietors afterwards nullified, to the extent of four hundred acres. This lot was the farm which Jonathan Dustin bought of James Treadway, but there is some conflict between the pitch as surveyed and the deed to Jonathan Dustin. The latter calls for fifty acres only of that right. There are numerous mentions of numbered stakes : "No. 2 in the 2nd. Range," "No. 4 in the 2nd. Range," located in the west side of the town. Nos. 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 25, 27, 29, 33, are the starting points of lots extending northerly of Town Hill and northeasterly and east of Goose Pond. They are not regularly placed and seem to have no connection with any definite system of arrangement of lots. In attempting to make a plot of these old surveys, there are many discrepancies. Lines were run at different dates, the compass changed, old roads have been thrown up, and the names of the owners of lots have changed many times. The surveyor who ran the lines failed to find the bounds of an adjoining piece from whence he wanted to start. The towns of Dorchester and Hanover laid their land in lots, symmetrically arranged and numbered in order. Canaan laid its lots without order or arrangement, and of many different shapes. This arose from letting the settlers who were on the land have whatever they pleased, and in some cases instead of laying out the land to a certain right the right was laid out to the land. In 1768, the proprietors "voted that their committee lay out to those pro- prietors already settled, ten acres of meadow and one hundred acres of upland, where they have already made their pitch, to be allowed towards their right or share in the township." "And they shall lay the same amount to any who should appear and make speedy settlement." In 1770, agreeable to the encourage- ment from the proprietors, a number of settlers appeared and made sundry pitches, and as these were to contain ten acres of intervale to each right, some thinking themselves injured in not having their proper quantity, a committee was appointed to adjust the injury, by making up to each "that may be deficient, his proportion of intervale until his ten acres is completed, and
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to be adjoining what he now improves or as near as may be and not to interfere with other pitches." It was also voted that each settler "already on his hundred acres of upland should have the first choice of his lot before any other proprietor." The remainder of the intervale, if any, was to be divided among the whole of the rights equally. There are three instances where a pitch was made and the right to which it belonged was for- gotten. Thomas Miner's intervale and Micah Porter's, situated on the Mascoma River. There was also a hundred-acre survey in the southeast part of the town, laid to Francis Whittier, upon a right the name of which does not appear. This is an extra hundred, as all the rights have their full share of hundred-acre lots.
In the first vote to divide the town land there was no con- dition attached. In 1770, the time for making pitches of upland and intervale was extended to the fifteenth of November, and to entitle any proprietors making such pitch to the property thereof as his estate, to be held by him or his heirs, he must cut and girdle one acre of trees on the hundred acres of upland and one acre on his intervale in good husbandlike manner, by the fif- teenth of November. And in case any proprietor should make his pitch of one hundred acres of upland and ten acres of intervale at any time before the committee appointed shall lay out and lot the same, such proprietor shall be entitled to his pitch so made, and the committee are hereby empowered to confirm the same by ordering a record thereof to be made by the proprietors' clerk, also the fulfilling the conditions which entitles any pro- proprietor to his pitch to be adjudged by the committee to lot said hundred acres and report to be made accordingly under their hands to the clerk to be recorded. The time was extended to November 1, 1771, but for the future each proprietor making his pitch must girdle two acres of his first hundred acres of upland, and at the next meeting the proprietors voted that two acres of intervale should be girdled. In June, 1773, the pro- prietors voted that each proprietor should have the right to make a pitch for his second hundred-acre lot of upland.
Asa Kilburn was appointed a committee to enter the pitches, on the day and time of day the pitch was made. The proprietor must attest that he has, after the time of pitching, cut bushes
1
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HISTORY OF CANAAN.
and girdled trees, and also set the first two letters of his name on a tree on said lot, and make his return to the clerk, and the first one doing this shall have the lot. The time for pitching second hundreds commenced in September and continued for nine months.
In 1781, it was voted that those who neglect to have their second hundred-acre lots properly laid out shall lose their chance of holding by pitching and have their lots flung into a "draught." The proprietors began to pitch their third hun- dred-acre lots on May 7, 1782, and "each proprietor shall pay the cost of laying out his own lot." But before making their pitches in the third division, each person must show to the com- mittee his right for pitching by deed or power of attorney or letter from the proper owners.
More stringent conditions were imposed upon some of the pro- prietors in pitching. Thomas Miner must show a good and authentic deed from one of the original grantees and fell or cut twenty acres of land in ten months. This was really a rebuke to Mr. Miner, who had pitched upon a lot without asking per- mission of the proprietors. William Record, Leonard Horr and Elijah Lathrop must produce good deeds, build houses and proceed to cultivate the land. Silas Miller must clear and cul- tivate four acres of land; Isaiah Booth must clear, cultivate and build a house; Jacob Hovey must cultivate and manure his land The seven latter men were squatters. Capt. Charles Walworth can have a hundred acres if he will lay out another hundred- acre lot in square form, pay the proprietors seven pounds and leave a three-rod road through his land. Caleb Clark can have a hundred acres if he pay the proprietors five pounds. William and Caleb Douglass can have hundred-acre lots in the third division, provided they make speedy settlement and build a house.
The surveying and recording of the hundreds and intervales dragged along until August, 1805. The proprietors voted that as many persons who had made pitches had not complied with the former vote "in regard to getting their lands so pitched laid out and recorded," and it being "impossible to ascertain what quantity of undivided land there yet remain," "therefore voted that any lands, upland or intervale, which have been pitched
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and improved or pitched only, and have not been laid out by the proprietors Committee and recorded and shall continue in that situation until the first day of November next shall be liable to be pitched and laid out by any other person having lands to pitch, notwithstanding any former pitches or possessor which the law doth recognize as a good title." There was still undi- vided land and it was impossible to find it, for many claimed land over the hundreds they were entitled to and there was no way of telling how much unless all the land should be surveyed. The proprietors' committee proposed to do this. In 1808, another committee was appointed to ascertain the amount of undivided land.
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