USA > New Hampshire > The history of New-Hampshire > Part 3
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Under the authority of this grant, Gorges and Mason, in con- junction with several merchants of London, Bristol, Exeter, Ply- mouth, Shrewsbury and Dorchester, who styled themselves " the company of Laconia," attempted the establishment of a colony and fishery at the river Pascataqua ; and in the spring of the
1623. following year, sent over David Thompson, a Scotchman, Edward and William Hilton, fishmongers of London, with a number of other people, in two divisions, furnished with all necessaries to carry on their design. One of these companies landed on the southern shore of the river, at its mouth, and called the place Little-Harbor. Here, they erected salt-works, and built an house which was afterwards called Mason-Hall ;* but the Hiltons set
(1) Gorges' Narrative.
* [The site of this house was on a peninsula, or point of land, now called Odiorne's point, which is formed by Little-Harbor on the northeast, and a creek on the south, with a large tract of salt marsh on the west. This place was se- lected with great judgment. The peninsula contains about five hundred acres of land, on which is a commanding eminence ; where are evident remains of an ancient fort, and situated so as to be a complete defence against the incur- sions of a savage enemy. The house was erected a few rods to the northward
5
GRANTS AND SETTLEMENTS.
1623.]
up their stages eight miles further up the river, toward the north- west, on a neck of land which the Indians called Winnichahannat, but they named Northam, and afterward Dover.1 Thompson not being pleased with his situation, removed the next spring to an island in the bay of Massachusetts;" this the General Court afterward confirmed to him, and it still bears his name.2
These settlements went on but slowly for several years, but the natives being peaceable and several other small beginnings being made along the coast as far as Plymouth, a neighborly intercourse was kept up among them, each following their respective employ- ments of fishing, trading and planting, till the disorderly behaviour of one Morton, at Mount Wollaston in the bay of Massachu- 1628. setts, caused an alarm among the scattered settlements as far as Pascataqua. This man had, in defiance of the king's procla- mation, made a practice of selling arms and ammunition to the In- dians, whom he employed in hunting and fowling for him ; so that the English, seeing the Indians armed in the woods, began to be in terror. They also apprehended danger of another kind; for Morton's plantation was a receptacle for discontented servants, whose desertion weakened the settlements, and who, being there without law, were more formidable than the savages themselves. 3 The principal persons of Pascataqua therefore readily united with their neighbors, in making application to the colony of Plymouth, which was of more force than all the rest, to put a stop to this growing mischief ; which they happily effected by seizing Mor- ton and sending him prisoner to England. t
(1) Hubbard, MS. [p. 214 of the printed copy.] (2) Prince's Annals .- (3) Prince's Annals.
of the fort. The present possessors of the land point out the spot where it stood. They think they have discovered the foundation of the chimney and the cellar walls. These were standing when Mr. Hubbard wrote in 1680 .- Three or four thousand acres of land were annexed to this building, with an intention of forming a manor there, according to the English custom. Ad- ams, Annals of Portsmouth, 10, 11.]
* [It appears from Bradford, in Prince, i. 161, that Thompson was living at Pascataquack in 1626, and probably about that time, and not as in the text, in 1624, removed to the Massachusetts Bay, and took possession of "a very fruit- ful island and a very desirable neck of land, which is afterwards confirmed to him by the General Court of the Massachusetts Colony."]
t [The apportionment of the charges of this united effort of the earliest plantations to check the progress of Morton, as given by Governor Bradford in 1 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc. iii. 63, may serve to show their relative importance at this time.
" Plimouth,
£2 10
Natascot,
£1 10
Naumkeak,
1 10
Thomson,
0 15
Pascataquack,
2 10
Blackston,
0 12
Jeffrey and Burslem,
2 00
Edward Hilton, 1 00
Total, £12 7"
This assessment alone enables us to correct the error in Dr. Holmes, (An- nals of America, i. 209) who says, under the year 1631, " Portsmouth began to be settled this year.'
The settlement of this place commenced in the spring of 1623 by David Thompson, and appears from several authorities, not to have been broken up,
6
HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE. [1629.
1629. Some of the scattered planters in the bay of Massa- chusetts, being desirous of making a settlement in the neighbor- hood of Pascataqua, and following the example of those at Ply- mouth, who had purchased their lands of the Indians, which they conscientiously thoughit necessary to give them a just title, pro- cured a general meeting of Indians, at Squamscot falls, where they obtained a deed from Passaconaway, sagamore of Penacook, Runnaawitt of Pawtucket, Wahangnonawit of Squamscot, and Rowls of Newichwannock : wherein they expressed their 'desire ' to have the English come and settle among them as among their ' countrymen in Massachusetts, whereby they hope to be strength- ' ened against their enemies the Tarrateens ; and accordingly ' with the universal consent of their subjects, for what they deem- ' ed a valuable consideration in coats, shirts and kettles, sell to ' John Wheelwright of the Massachusetts bay, late of England, ' minister of the gospel, Augustine Story (or Storer) Thomas ' Wight, William Wentworth, and Thomas Leavit, "all that part " of the main land bounded by the river Pascataqua and the " river Merrimack, to begin at Newichwannock falls in Pascata- " qua river aforesaid, and down said river to the sea; and along " the sea-shore to Merrimack river ; and up said river to the falls " at Pawtucket ; and from thence upon a northwest line, twenty " English miles into the woods ; and from thence upon a straight " line northeast, till it meet with the main rivers that run down " to Pawtucket falls, and Newichwannock falls aforesaid ;* the " said rivers to be the bounds from the thwart or head line to the " aforesaid falls, and from thence the main channel of each river " to the sea to be the side bounds ; together with all the islands " within the said bounds ; as also the isles of shoals so called." The conditions of this grant were, 'that Wheelwright should ' within ten years, begin a plantation at Squamscot falls; that ' other inhabitants should have the same privileges with him ; ' that no plantation should exceed ten miles square ; that no lands
although Thompson himself removed within a few years to the Massachusetts colony. From Governor Bradford, in Prince, i. 161, it is evident that he was at Pascataquack in 1626; and from the preceding apportionment, it appears that this place was of sufficient consequence in 1628, to pay a sum equal to that of Plymouth. Again, from Prince, i. 196, it seems that the inhabitants on Pascataqua river in 1629, entered into a combination for the erecting a gov- ernment among themselves, and from Adams, Annals of Portsmouth, 18, there were in 1631, at least, 50 men employed by Mason, as stewards and ser- vants, besides ten Danes, who were occupied in sawing lumber and making potash. Some persons may have doubts whether Thompson's settlement and Pascataquack were the same, which will be removed by recurring to Edward Winslow's Good Newes from New-England, which informs us that David Tom- son, a Scotchman, began in the spring of 1623 "a plantation twenty-five leagues north-east from us [Plymouth] near Smith's Isles, at a place called Pascataquack."]
* The NW. line here described, will end within the township of Amherst ; and the NE. line from thence will cross the river Merrimack about Amuskeag falls, and passing through Chester, Nottingham, Barrington, and Rochester, will strike Newichwannock river about ten miles above the Salmon falls.
1629.]
GRANTS AND SETTLEMENTS.
' should be granted but in townships ; and that these should be ' subject to the government of the Massachusetts colony, until ' they should have a settled government among themselves ; that ' for each township there should be paid an annual acknowledg- ' ment of "one coat of trucking cloth," to Passaconaway the chief ' sagamore, or his successors, and two bushels of Indian corn to ' Wheelwright and his heirs. The Indians reserved to them- ' selves free liberty of fishing, fowling, hunting and planting with- ' in these limits.'1 The principal persons of Pascataqua and the province of Maine were witnesses to the subscribing of this instrument, and giving possession of the lands. ||*
(1) MS. copy in Superior Court files.
* [The portion of the text above and on the preceding page, included within parallels,and those portions thus distinguished which follow, must be rejected,as they are founded upon documents which are proved to be spurious. It is much to be regretted that any part of our history has thus become vitiated, but no blanie can be imputed to the careful and laborious author for relying on authorities which were supposed to be genuine when he wrote, and which were so considered until within a few years. The Wheelwright deed of 1629 was supposed to be an authentic document until June, 1820, when the Hon. James Savage, of Boston, in preparing Notes for the new edition of Governor Winthrop's Journal, or History of New-England, published in 1825 and 1826, had his suspicion exci- ted in regard to the authenticity of this instrument. A critical and laborious scrutiny into all the circumstances of the case resulted in the conviction that it was a forgery. His ingenious and elaborate argument, by which the forge- ry of the deed is indisputably proved, and which is too long to be introduced here, may be found in the Appendix to the first volume of his edition of Win- throp, 405-424.
If any person should remain skeptical on the subject after reading that ar- gument, let him read the testimony of Rev. Mr. Wheelwright and Edward Colcord, two of the original grantees, in an actual purchase of lands of the In- dians, nine years posterior to the pretended one. This testimony, which re- lates to the purchase made in 1638, mentioned by Governor Winthrop, (Hist. N. E. i. 290) and of which the original deeds are in possession of the editor, and have been published in the Coll. of the N. H. Hist. Soc. i. 147-149, was found among the records of the ancient county of Norfolk, kept at Salem.
Testimony of Rer. John Wheelerright.
" I John Wheelwright, pastor of the church of Salisbury, doe testify that when I, with others, first came to sit downe at Exeter, we purchased of the Indians, to whom (so far as we could learne) the right did belong, a certain Tract of land about thirty miles square. to run from Merrimack river, East- ward, and so up into the Country, of wch. lands we had a graunt in writing signed by the[m.] JOHN WHEELWRIGHT."
" April 15, 1668."
Edward Colcord's Testimony.
" Mr. Edward Colcord testifieth to all above written, and further saith that one northerly bound mentioned in our agreemt. with Wehahnonowet, the chiefe Sagamore was, the westerly part of Oyster River, called by the Indians Shankhassick, wch. is about foure miles northerly beyound Lampereele River."
" We the abovesaid witnesses doe further testety yt. they of the town of Exeter, did dispose and possesse divers parcels of land about Lamprel River by virtuee of sd. Indian Right before such time as it was actually taken in by the Jurisdiction of the Massachusetts, without interruption of Dover or any other."
To the abore is also added the Testimony of Rer. Samuel Dudley.
" Mr. Samuel Dudly doth testifie that he did see the agreemt. in writing betweene the towne of Exeter and the Sagamores for that land wch. is above mentioned, and the said Sagamore's hands to the same."
"Sworn before the Court ye. 14th : 2 mno : 1668.
THOMAS BRADBURY, Rec.
S
HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
[1629.
By this deed, the English inhabitants with these limits obtained a right to the soil from the original proprietors, more valuable in a moral view, than the grants of any European prince could con- vey. If we smile at the arrogance of a Roman Pontiff in assum- ing to divide the whole new world between the Spaniards and Portuguese, with what consistency can we admit the right of a king of England, to parcel out America to his subjects, when he had neither purchased nor conquered it, nor could pretend any other title, than that some of his subjects were the first Europeans who discovered it, whilst it was in possession of its native lords ? The only validity which such grants could have in the eye of rea- son was, that the grantees had from their prince a permission to negotiate with the possessors for the purchase of the soil, and thereupon a power of jurisdiction subordinate to his crown.
The same year, Captain Mason procured a new patent, under the common seal of the council of Plymouth, for the land " from " the middle of Pascataqua river, and up the same to the farthest " head thereof, and from thence northwestward, until sixty miles " from the mouth of the harbor were finished ; also, through Mer- " rimack river, to the farthest head thereof, and so forward up into "the land westward, until sixty miles were finished ; and from " thence to cross over land to the end of the sixty miles account- "ed from Pascataqua river; together with all islands within five "leagues of the coast."1 This tract of land was called NEW- HAMPSHIRE : it comprehended the whole of Wheelwright's pur- chase ; and unless Mason's intention was to frustrate his title, it is difficult to assign a reason for the procurement of this patent, as the same land, with much more, had been granted to Gorges and Mason jointly, seven years before. If there was an agreement between them to divide the province of Laconia, and take out new patents from the council, in preference to the making a deed of partition ; it is not easy to conceive why the western bounda- ry should be contracted to sixty miles from the sea, when the lakes and river Canada were supposed to be but ninety or an hun- dred miles from Pascataqua .? If this grant was intended as an equivalent for the patent of Marianna, which the council had the preceding year included in their deed to the Massachusetts company, it is impossible to account for the extension of New-
1630. Hampshire to the river Merrimack, when the grant of Mar. 12. Massachusetts reached to "three miles north of that river and of every part "of it."*
(1) MS. in files of Superior Court. (2) Gorges' History of America, p. 48.
The boundaries described in the true deed, dated " the third day of Aprill, 1638," are " within three miles on the Northerne side of ye river Meremake extending thirty miles along by the river from the sea side and from the sayd river side to Pisscataqua Patents thirty miles up into the countrey North West, and soe from the ffals of Piscataqua to Oyster river thirty miles square eury way."]
*Mr. Hubbard in his MS. history says, " it hath been affirmed by Mr. Josse-
9
1630.]
GRANTS AND SETTLEMENTS. (Bristol hr.
The west country adventurers were not less attentive to their interest ; for in the following spring, they obtained a patent from the council, whereby " all that part of the river Pascataqua called " or known by the name of Hilton's Point, with the south side of " the said river, up to the falls of Squamscot, and three miles into " the main land for breadth," was granted to Edward Hilton. This patent, sealed with the common seal of the council, and sub- scribed by the Earl of Warwick, sets forth, that Hilton and his associates had, at their own proper cost and charges, transported servants, built houses and planted corn at Hilton's Point, now Do- ver, and intended the further increase and advancement of the plan- tation.1 William Blackstone, William Jeffries and Thomas Lewis, or either of them, were impowered to give possession of the premises ; which was done by Lewis and the livery and seiz- 1631. in endorsed. Within these limits are contained the towns of Do- ver, Durham, and Stratham, with part of Newington and Greenland. It was commonly called Squamscot patent, but sometimes Bloody- point patent, from a quarrel between the agents of the two com- panies about a point of land in the river which was convenient for both ; and, there being no government then established, the con- troversy would have ended in blood, if the contending parties had not been persuaded to refer the decision of it to their employers. 2
The London adventurers also thought it prudent to have some security for the interest which they had advanced, and according- ly obtained a grant from the council, of " that part of the patent "of Laconia, on which the buildings and salt-works were erected, "situate on both sides the harbor and river of Pascataqua to the " extent of five miles westward by the sea-coast, then to cross "over towards the other plantation in the hands of Edward Hil- " ton."3 The grantees named in this patent* were, Sir Ferdi-
(1) MS. copy in Proprietary Office. (2) Hubbard's MS. [p. 217 of the print- ed copy.] (3) Hutch. vol. 1, p. 316.
lyn, who first came over into New-England on Capt. Mason's account. that there was an agreement made between Mr. Matthew Cradock (the first Gov- ernor of the Massachusetts company) and Captain John Mason, that the bounds of the Massachusetts should reach to three miles northward of the Merri- mack, and the remainder of the land betwixt that line and Pascataqua river, should be left for Captain Mason's patent."
The commissioners sent by Charles II, in 1664, report that " Mr. Mason Had a patent for some land about Cape Anne before the Massachusetts had their first patent; whereupon Captain Mason and Mr. Cradock agreed that the Massachusetts should have that land, which was granted to Capt. Mason about Cape Anne, and Capt. Mason should have that land which was beyond Merrimack and grauted to the Massachusetts. This agreement was sent to Mr. Henry Jocelyn to get recorded at Boston, but before he could have leisure to go there, he heard that Capt. Mason was dead, and thereforewent not. Of this, he made affidavit, before the Commissioners." Hutch. Collection Papers, p. 423.
* Mr. Hubbard says, that this patent was in the hands of some gentlemen at Portsmonth when he wrote. I have seen no copy of it but what is preserved in his MS. history. There is among the ancient files in the Recorder's office, an invoice of goods sent over in 1631, subscribed by all the above names, ex- cept the last, in whose stead is subscribed William Gyles.
4
10
HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE. [1631.
nando Gorges, Captain John Mason, John Cotton, Henry Gard- ner, George Griffith, Edwin Gay, Thomas Warnerton, Thomas Eyre and Eliezer Eyre, who, it is said, had already expended three thousand pounds in the undertaking. They were to pay forty-eight pounds per annum by way of acknowledgment to the president and council, if demanded.1 Captain Camocke, a re- lation of the Earl of Warwick,* with Henry Jocelyn, who were then intending a voyage hither, were appointed to put the gran- tees in possession. Within this patent are comprehended the towns of Portsmouth, Newcastle and Rye, with part of Newing- ton and Greenland.
The whole interest being thus divided into two parts, Captain Thomas Wiggin was appointed agent for the upper, and Captain Walter Neal for the lower plantation ;2 with him were associat- ed Ambrose Gibbons, George Vaughan, Thomas Warnerton, Humphrey Chadbournet and one Godfrey, Į as superintendants of the several businesses of trade, fishery, salt-making, building and husbandry. Neal resided at Little-Harbor with Godfrey, who had the care of the fishery. Chadbourne built a house at Strawberry-bank, which was called the great house, in which War- nerton resided. Gibbons had the care of a saw-mill, and lived in a palisaded house at Newichwannock, || where he carried on trade with the Indians. He afterward removed to Sanders'-point, where the adventurers gave him a settlement for his faithful services. He was succeeded at Newichwannock by Chadbourne, whose posterity are persons of principal figure and interest there at this day. The proprietors were also careful to provide for the de- fence of their plantations, and sent over several cannon which they directed their agents to mount in the most convenient place for a fort. They accordingly placed them on the northeast point of the Great-Island at the mouth of the harbor, and laid out the ground " about a bow-shot from the water-side to a high rock, on " which it was intended in time to build the principal fort."3
(1) Hubbard's MS. (p. 216 of the printed copy.) (2) MS. letters. (3) MS. in the Recorder's files.
* [He was nephew to the Earl of Warwick. He lived sometime at Pascata- qua, but died at Scarborough, Me. in 1663. Prince, Annals, ii. 70. 2 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc. v. 216, 224.]
t [Humphrey Chadbourne came to this country as early as 1631, on the in- vitation of Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Capt. John Mason, and under them erected the large house as stated in the text. In 1643, he purchased a tract of land of an Indian called Knowles, being a neck between the Bason and Ne- wichawannock river at Quampeagan, (Sullivan.) He afterwards lived in Kit- tery, and represented that town in the General Court at Boston in 1657 and 1659.]
# [Edward Godfrey, on whom, Mr. Savage, in Winthrop's Hist. N. E. i. 90, 91, bestows a very valuable note, was one of the first aldermen of Agamenticus, (York) and governor of the province of Maine, 1651. See Belknap's Biog. 1. 386. Adams's Annals of Portsmouth, 18.]
Il [The pronunciation of this name two centuries ago appears to have been Ne-ge-won-nuck. Capt. Danforth, an eminent surveyor, wrote it Negewonnick in 1679.]
11
GRANTS AND SETTLEMENTS.
1631.]
A great part of Captain Neal's errand was to penetrate the in- terior part of the province of Laconia, concerning which the ad- venturers had formed very sanguine expectations.1 It was de- scribed as containing divers lakes, and extending back to a great lake and river in the country of the Iroquois. This river was said to be fair and large, containing many fruitful islands ; the air pure and salubrious ; the country pleasant, having some high hills ; full of goodly forests, fair valleys and fertile plains ; abounding in corn, vines, chestnuts, walnuts, and many other sorts of fruit ; the rivers well stored with fish, and environed with goodly mead- ows full of timber-trees. In the great lake, were said to be four islands, full of pleasant woods and meadows, having great store of stags, fallow-deer, elks, roe-bucks, beavers and other game, and these islands were supposed to be commodiously situated for habitation and traffic, in the midst of a fine lake, abounding with the most delicate fish. No one who is acquainted with the inte- rior part of the country in its wilderness state, can forbear smiling at this romantic description, penned in the true style of adventur- ers : yet such an impression had the charms of Laconia made on the minds of our first settlers, that Neal set out on foot, in company with Jocelyn and Darby Field, to discover these 1632. beautiful lakes, and settle a trade with the Indians by pinnaces, im- agining the distance to be short of an hundred miles. In the course of their travels, they visited the white mountains,* which they described in the same romantic style, to be a ridge, extending an hundred leagues, on which snow lieth all the year, and inaccessi- ble but by the gullies which the dissolved snow hath made : on one of these mountains they reported to have found a plain of a day's journey over, whereon nothing grows but moss ; and at the further end of this plain, a rude heap of massy stones, piled up on one another a mile high ; on which one might ascend from stone to stone, like a pair of winding stairs, to the top, where was another level of about an acre, with a pond of clear water. 2 This summit was said to be far above the clouds, and from hence they beheld a vapor like a vast pillar, drawn up by the sunbeams, out of a great lake into the air, where it was formed into a cloud. The country beyond these mountains northward, was said to be " daunting terrible," full of rocky hills, as thick as mole-hills in a meadow, and clothed with infinite thick woods. They had great expectation of finding precious stones on these mountains ; and something resembling crystal being picked up, was sufficient to give them the name of the CRYSTAL-HILLS.3 From hence they continued their route in search of the lake ; till finding their
(1) Gorges' History of America, p. 47. (2) Jocelyn's rarities of New-Eng- land. (3) Hubbard's Ms. Hist. [p. 381, printed copy.]
" [The visit to the White Mountains by Darby Field should be referred to the year 1642, under which, see the account of it as given by Winthrop, Hist. N. E. ii. 67, 68.]
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