USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > New Ipswich > The history of New Ipswich, New Hampshire, 1735-1914, with genealogical records of the principal families > Part 3
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In 1768 it was voted "to open the Road through m". Joseph Kidder's Land to accomodate the South East Treavil to the Meeting House" and also through Benjamin Safford's land to his barn; that is the half-mile of road known in the former history as Main or Barrett street.
In 1770 the facility of communication between the north- ern and southern lines of farms advancing toward the moun- tain line at the west was much increased by a road from the
15
History of New Ipswich
road between XIV: 2 and XV: 2, S. R., built for the ac- commodation of Nathaniel Carlton eight years before, to the region soon to be the home of Stephen Hildreth, if he had not already arrived; there seems to have been some practicable route not definitely recorded between his home, XIV : 2, S. R., and the road to Binney Hill.
At this date the greater part of the town had acquired so complete a network of streets, including no small number concerning the origin of which no record has been found, that a further continuance of the record of the creation of additional thoroughfares does not seem expedient, as it will not throw sufficient additional light upon the progress of the town. Occasionally, however, a record of later date seems to have relations that ought not to pass unnoticed.
In 1771 the "bridle road" toward Rindge extending from Simeon Wright's to John Walker's was made an "Open Road" and continued to Rindge line, passing, by an old route now traceable through the woodland with considerable difficulty, a short distance south of Binney Pond and on to the Rindge line not more than forty rods farther north than the present road past the ruins of the old school-house of the union New Ipswich and Rindge district. A branch from that road not far west from Binney Pond turned northerly to lot 106, N. L. O., the home of "Capt. James Preston," later of Richard Wheeler. The last quarter-mile of that road is located with- out difficulty.
In 1775 a road from the house of Aaron Chamberlain, (now of I. E. Aldrich,) 56, N. L. O., to the road from Smith Village to the Breed farms was accepted. Doubtless that was the more northerly of the two roads which might be thus described, that is the one meeting the Breed road at the old "Collins house," 60, N. L. O., now closed. The south- erly road meeting the Breed road near the Breed house on 80, A. D., then occupied by Daniel Ramsdell, was voted in 1843. The road easterly from the Chamberlain house to the Ashburnham road was not voted until 1832, the only high- way to that farm before that date being the one first pre- sented above under the date of 1775.
In 1780 the road was accepted from Col. Thomas Heald's house upon 187, N. L. O., later the Estabrooks tavern, south- erly to Abel Hildreth's on the Ashby line, 68, A. D.
16
The Turnpike
In 1816 the demand for a more direct route from the eastern part of the town to the Congregational church re- cently erected on the spot now held by its successor was satisfied by the construction of the road from the hill west of the farmhouse of Benjamin Champney to the church.
In 1817 the present road ascending Page Hill from a point upon the Rindge road about one-fourth of a mile southerly from Smith Village and meeting the old road be- tween the Joseph Warren house and that of Stillman Gib- son, previously the property of Dea. Joseph Chandler, on XIII : 2, N. L. O., was accepted. The southerly branch road to the house of Jeremiah Prichard, since for a long time known as the "William Wheeler farm," was made at the same time.
In 1828 the river road from the High Bridge to the Mason (now Greenville) town line was constructed, and in 1836 the road extending southeasterly from the Congregational church and meeting the road from the Bank Village to Dr. Stillman Gibson's at "the whirlpool."
That part of the Rindge road passing just westerly of Smith Village which lies farther north than the shop built by Charles Taylor, but now owned by Hughes, was built in 1847, and the southern portion three years later.
In 1853 the road from the western part of the Bank Vil- lage to a point on the turnpike about midway between the Center Village and the High Bridge was built through VI: 1, S. R., and also the road from the northern end of Gibson Village to the "Willard house" near the center of VII: 3, where it connects with the old road of 1755 running past that house.
The record of the prominent roads of the town would be far from complete if the story of the turnpike, following approximately the line appearing earliest upon maps of New Ipswich, were omitted. Although that enterprise, designed for public convenience and private emolument, long ago met the fate of similar projects elsewhere, it really for a time was a noteworthy element in the activities of the town, and it seems strange to those who can recall the middle of the preceding century that members of the younger generation hardly know accurately what its name means, or that it ever was anything more than a street of the Center Village. But this promising highway, entering New Ipswich at the Wheeler
3
17
History of New Ipswich
tavern in 5, A. D., and leaving it near the northwest corner of the town, was a noted route for rapid travel a century ago, and still more valued by the owners of the four- or six-horse wagons which in those days conveyed the farmer's crops to market, and the desired goods, bought in the same lower country towns, on the return trip. But the turnpike and the four rather noted taverns scattered along the nine miles of its length within the town, elements in the circulatory system of those earlier days, have no place in the age of railroads and have disappeared.
The story of the turnpike, written by one who clearly remembered the days of its activity, is here copied from the former history of the town.
"At the very commencement of the century the 'Third New Hampshire Turnpike' was projected. It was very strongly opposed by those in the westerly part of the town through whose lands it was to pass, and who wished to have it take a more southerly route, and gave rise to some riotous proceedings by no means creditable to those concerned. One party sustained the contractors in breaking through the lands, while another did what they could, by threats and annoy- ances, to drive off the working party. Ploughs, shovels, and other implements were carried off or mutilated, and not a few bruised heads and lawsuits resulted.
"The turnpike was fifty miles long, extending from Townsend to Walpole. Its location was as bad as it could well be, and was laid out on the idea that the most direct course was both the shortest and the most expeditious ; hence there was the tugging directly over the summit of steep hills, when it would have been as near to go round them on nearly level ground. The contract for constructing it was chiefly taken by Col. Bellows of Walpole, assisted by Squire Hartwell and others; and sections of it were undertaken in this town by Seth Wheeler and Maj. Adams. It proved an unprofitable enterprise. It cost about $50,000, divided into shares of $200. A very small dividend was declared for a few years; but in 1813 the stock had depreciated so much that it sold for twelve dollars a share; and about the year 1819, for some small sum, which was raised by voluntary sub- scription, it was made a free road and adopted by the town. The toll-gates were placed, one at the foot of the hills in Mason, and the other near where the Rindge road turns off
18
The Turnpike
above the Flat Mountain. The people above this latter gate, however, did not choose to pay toll for coming to the village, and therefore cut a road around it. Travellers and teams soon learned to avail themselves of the same loophole, and the directors found it more judicious to allow the citizens and their neighbors to travel two or three miles free, and catch those who travelled long distances; so the gate was removed westward to near the borders of the town."
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CHAPTER II
NEW IPSWICH IN VARIOUS FORMS-GRANTS, CLAIMS, CHARTERS, AND SURVEYS
ID
B! Fİ T HE early his- 1 1 M tory of New P England shows that many a town, when it first lawfully X received a dis- tinctive appel- lation, was of 1 far too broad extent for a per- is C N manent unity oof feeling in HI ABCD Original reported grant. Amended grant. Second grant. LPOR Present boundaries. EFGHJK LMNO local matters, and so with passing years it became expedient to recognize the more or less divergent desires of different sections, and to make such divi- sions as would permit local differences and yet retain harmo- nious action upon broader common interests. Such were many of the early New England units. But New Ipswich had no such experience ; it was never a part of an earlier town, nor did it witness the birth of a younger town in its own area.
It might, therefore, seem that its form must have been ever the same, and that no such rather complicated figure as is presented in the margin could have a place in its his- tory. But this graphic presentation gives no suggestion of the division by some stress within a larger unit; the causes of the varying boundaries must be sought at a distance. Space cannot be taken here for a full discussion of the vary- ing interests which had a part in the decision of the loca- tion and conditions of New Ipswich, and without doubt some threads in the tangled web of causes and effects left no clearly formed, intelligible figures in the result.
20
Errors in Early Grants
But perhaps a brief presentation of two of the more po- tent causes of the tardy determination of the town bound- aries will satisfy the general reader. These causes were, first, the general ignorance of the English authorities in re- lation to the immense American areas under their rule, and second, the long continued hostility between the parties of the Puritan and the Cavalier.
The permanence of the first of those causes is suggested by a map of the New England region published as late as 1768 in an atlas evidently prepared for the use of the upper classes in England, as its price was six guineas, in which the name "New Ipswich" was applied to the southern part of Winchendon, Mass., previously known as "Ipswich Can- ada," while the true New Ipswich, which at that time had been an incorporated town for six years, was shown, as on an older map of 1748, as a square designated by the words, "To Ipswich," which was so misplaced by a rotation of twenty-five degrees that its southern and eastern sides crossed the state line, thus locating one-twentieth of the area of the town, at its southeastern corner, in Massachusetts. But this was a very insignificant error in comparison with those of the early grants, apparently sometimes the result of care- lessness, but more frequently due to a more or less defined belief that the American rivers flowing into the Atlantic necessarily flowed approximately parallel from the western region, so that grants of land might conveniently be bounded by these streams and by lines running westwardly from their headwaters to the Pacific Ocean, the distance to that body of water being entirely unsuspected. Evidently any consid- erable deviation of the rivers from their assumed parallel di- rections must superimpose two or more grants and present for decision very difficult problems of ownership. The case of New Ipswich presented difficulties due in part to a care- less overlapping of grants, but in part also to the unwarranted assumption concerning the lines of river courses, both the errors of "the Council established at Plymouth in the County of Devon, for the Planting, Ruling, Ordering and Governing of New England in America," in whose charter granted by King James I, November 3, 1620, the territory included in the grant was defined as "lying and being in breadth from Forty Degrees of Northerly Latitude from the Equinoctial Line to the Forty Eighth Degree of the said Northerly Latitude, in-
21
History of New Ipswich
clusively, and in length of and within all the breadth afore- said throughout all the Main Lands from Sea to Sea."
Two grants made by that "Council of Plymouth" demand attention in considering the troubles of the settlers in New Ipswich more than a century afterward, although later ac- tion of King Charles I and also of King William and Queen Mary complicated the question to some extent. On August 10, 1662, the Council granted to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Capt. John Mason, both members of the Council and the one first named its president,
all that part of the main land in New England lying upon the sea-coast betwixt ye rivers of Merrimack and Sagadahock, and to the furthest heads of the said rivers, and soe forwards up into the land westward until three-score miles be finished from ye first entrance of the afore- said rivers, and half way over; that is to say, to the midst of the said two rivers web bounds and limitts the lands aforesaid together with all the islands and isletts within five leagues distance of ye premises and abutting upon ye same or any part or parcell thereof.
Later grants to the same parties apparently cover the same ground in part, but confirm the center line of the Merrimack river as the southern boundary.
But upon March 19, 1627/8, the Council granted to "Sir Henry Roswell, Sir John Young, Knights, Thomas Southcott, John Humphreys, John Endicott, and Simon Whetcombe"
all that part of New England in America aforesaid, which lyes and ex- tends between a great River there, commonly called Monomack alias Merrimack, and a certain other River there called Charles River, being in a bottom of a certain Bay there commonly called Massachusetts, alias Mattachusetts, alias Massatusetts Bay, and also all and singular those Lands and Hereditaments whatsoever, lying and being within the space of three English Miles on the South part of the said Charles River, or of any and every Part thereof; and also all and singular the Lands and He- reditaments whatsoever, lying and being within the space of three English Miles to the Southward of the southernmost part of said Bay called the Massachusetts, alias Mattachusetts, alias Massatusetts Bay; and also all those Lands and Hereditaments whatsoever which lye and be within the space of three English Miles to the Northward of the said River called Monomack, alias Merrimack, or to the Northward of any and every part thereof, and all Lands and Hereditaments whatsoever lying within the limits aforesaid North and South in Latitude, and in Breadth, and in Length, and longitude, of and within all the breadth aforesaid throughout the Main Lands there, from the Atlantick and Western Sea and Ocean on the East part to the South Sea on the West part, and all Lands and Grounds, Place and Places, Soil, Woods and Wood- Grounds, Havens, Ports, Rivers, Waters, Fishing and Hereditaments
22
The Massachusetts Claim
whatsoever, lying within the said bounds and limits, and every part and parcell thereof.
A year later this grant was confirmed by King Charles I, who at the same time constituted the grantees and others who had been admitted during the year as their associates, a corporation bearing the title "The Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England."
Obviously the strip of land three miles in width along the northern bank of the Merrimack River which was in- cluded in both of those grants was certain to cause trouble sooner or later ; but the unrecognized fact that the river flowed in a southerly direction instead of toward the east until within about thirty miles of the sea was still more threatening, as it was uncertain which grant included the large extent of land lying westerly from that part of the Merrimack above the point of change in its direction. While the doubtful ter- ritory remained inhabited only by Indians and hunters no practical questions demanded solution, and the location of the "furthest head" of the river from which, according to Gorges and Mason's grant, the bounds were to extend "soe forwards up into the land westward," was left unsettled, al- though the claims of each party were known. Massachusetts claimed the three-mile strip on the eastern side of the river nearly to Lake Winnipisaukee, where, as was claimed, the river was formed by the union of two smaller streams, while New Hampshire asserted that the name had never been rightly applied to the stream above the farthest incoming of the salt water at high tide, which was near Haverhill, Mass.
For many years there was no appeal to English authority ; but had the attention of the home powers been invoked there seems little doubt that there would have been a clear division along the party lines so sharply drawn in the middle of the seventeenth century, the Royal-Episcopalian sentiment favor- ing Gorges and Mason, and the dissenting element which brought the Commonwealth into power their fellow-partisans in Massachusetts. At all events it is a striking coincidence that 1653, the year in which Cromwell turned the key behind the Long Parliament, also saw the name of Governor John Endicott cut upon a rock, afterward covered by the rising waters of Lake Winnipisaukee, as establishing the north- eastern corner of Massachusetts.
23
History of New Ipswich
The Gorges and Mason claim was divided at an early date, the doubtful section being taken by Mason, but neither he nor those to whom later the Masonian claim was as- signed thought it advisable to enter upon a vigorous contest. But about 1725 settlers began to multiply on the disputed region by virtue of grants from Massachusetts, which was not at all averse to securing that possession which so often proves to be "nine points of the law," and an era of pro- tests, committees, and commissions ensued, with a final refer- ence to the King, George II, who on March 5, 1739/40, decided that the river should be followed only as far as its course was from the west, and in determining the point of departure from the river, he gave New Hampshire a strip fourteen miles in width which she had not claimed, including of course New Ipswich, in which the only settlers were Abijah Foster with wife and daughter and probably infant son Ebenezer in their new home near the spot to be afterward occupied by Union Hall. Perhaps Jonas Woolson had re- turned from his winter sojourn in Littleton, Mass., and may have been at work preparing a home for his future wife where now stands the home of the Country Club, or he may have been in company with Benjamin Hoar, who had come with similar purpose to the next lot toward the river.
Immediately after the decision of the king, Jonathan Belcher, governor-in-chief over both provinces, sought a joint survey of the common state line from the designated point, three miles north from Pawtucket Falls, due west to the Hudson River. New Hampshire at once assented, but for some reason the Massachusetts authorities delayed action, and on March 24, 1740/1, Surveyor Richard Hazzen with chainmen and other suitable assistants entered upon that duty, which he completed seventeen days later. A few lines from his private journal are here quoted which show the changes in town boundaries made necessary by the establishment of the new line, that the line might not divide any town.
In the Course from the point where I first Set out the Line Crost through part of Dracutt and Nottingham, and leaves but a small part of Dracutt Northerly of it; but, the Greatest part of Nottingham, the Greatest part of Dunstable falls on the Northerly side and but a Small part of Groton, and Townsend; the Greatest part of the Towns of New Ipswich Rowley Cannada & Sylvester, fall Northerly of the line, by the best Information I can gett: the Greatest part of Winchester if
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The Ipswich Grant
not all falls on the Northerly Side, and a third part of the lands of Northfeild, if not more, tho but Two Houses Only: There are many other Towns further North which were beyond my observation laid out & peopled by the Massachusetts Bay.
The result of the conditions which have been considered upon the formation of New Ipswich may now be presented in more definite form, and perhaps the motive of the initial step can be stated no better than in the words of the early American historian, Dr. William Douglass, quoted in the for- mer history of the town as follows: "About the middle of the last century, the General Assembly of Massachusetts was in the humor of distributing the property of much vacant or Province land; perhaps in good policy and forethought, to secure to the Massachusetts people, by possession, the property of part of some controverted lands." Our Assem- bly, at that time, were in such a hurry to appropriate vacant lands, that several old towns were encouraged to petition for an additional new township; and when they were satiated, the As- sembly introduced others, by way of bounty to the descend- ants of the soldiers in the Indian War of King Philip, so called, (1675,) and these were called Narragansett townships; and others to the soldiers in Sir William Phipps' expedition into Canada, (1690,) which were called Canada townships."
Many of those grants were made in 1735/6, and on Janu- ary 15 of that year New Ipswich was granted to petitioners largely from Ipswich, Mass., whence the name of the new social unit, not yet a town, although later events destroyed the original predominance of settlers from Ipswich and neigh- boring towns. The grant was made in the following terms :
PROVINCE OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY.
Jany 15th, 1735-36.
In the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
In answer to the Petition of John Wainwright and John Choat Esqr. Representatives of the town of Ipswich, In behalf of sundry in- habitants of sd town, Voted that the prayer be granted and that John Wainwright and John Choat Esqrs, with such as shall be joyned by the Honorable board be a committee at the charge of the Grantees and such of the Inhabitants as they shall think proper, to lay out a township of six miles square in some of the unappropriated lands of the Province and that they return a plat thereof to this court within twelve months for confirmation, and that for the more effectual bringing forward the settlement of the sd new town; Ordered that the said town be laid out into sixty-three equal shares, one of which to be for the first settled minister, one for the ministry and one for the school,
25
History of New Ipswich
and that on each of the other sixty shares, the Grantees do within three years after the confirmation of the plan settle one good family who shall have a house built on his home lot of eighteen feet square and seven feet stud at the least, and finished; that each right or Grantee have six acres of Land brought to and plowed or brought to English Grass and fitted for mowing, that they settle a learned and orthodox minister and build a convenient Meeting house for the public worship of God, and that said committee take bond of each Settler of forty pounds for his complying with the conditions of settlement, and that each settler that shall fail of performing the aforesaid conditions shall forfeit his share or right in the new town to the Government and the same to be disposed of as they shall see cause.
In Council read and concurred and Thomas Berry, Esqr. is joined with the committee in the said affair.
Consented to,
J. BELCHER.
In accordance with the above action a township six miles square was soon after laid out by Surveyor Jonas Houghton of Ipswich, and the plot, a mere outline, was returned to the General Court for approval. In the record of action thereon it is described as "bordering Southerly on a township laid out to Tileston and others, Canada Soldiers, and adjoyning to the town of Townsend," but apparently the word "adjoyn- ing" was not to be taken literally, as it was voted that it "be accepted as it is reformed by the pricked lines as within set forth so as it adjoyns to Townsend," showing that, as was often the case in the early township surveys, such land was chosen as seemed most desirable to the grantees with little consideration whether the strips lying between the new town- ship and its nearest neighbors were sufficient for the forma- tion of other new townships in due time. In this case, how- ever, the General Court deemed it advisable to leave no such intermediate space, and so removed the new township nearly four miles eastward, at the same time changing its form from a square to a figure not far removed from a rhomboid in order that it might conform to the western line of Towns- end, then considerably larger than in later years.
The embryonic New Ipswich is represented in the initial diagram of this chapter by the square ABCD, and its figure after legal birth by EFGHJK. The exact position of the square is somewhat uncertain, but probably it included a little more than one-half of the present New Ipswich, its eastern bound- ary line passing a little eastward of the summit of Kidder Mountain, thence southerly just east of Davis Village and through the site of Smith Village, and crossing the state
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