USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > New Ipswich > The history of New Ipswich, New Hampshire, 1735-1914, with genealogical records of the principal families > Part 4
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74
26
The Changing Boundaries
line in the region long known as the "Breed farms," lots 80, 82, A. D., it located the southeastern corner, C, in Ashby, a few rods south of the state line. The other corners were situated approximately as follows: The northwestern cor- ner, A, in Jaffrey, a mile northward from Squantum Village; the northeastern corner, B, in Temple, south of Temple Mountain, but a mile eastward from Spofford Gap; and the southwestern corner, D, near the point where the state line crosses the eastern side of Monomonac Pond.
According to the plat of Surveyor Houghton the direc- tion of the western side of the square was N. 12º E., but as at that date the western variation of the needle was not far from ten degrees, the deviation of the southern line from a true east and west direction must have been about two de- grees, which agrees with later determinations as nearly as could be expected.
The accepted position of the town after its removal to the east between its prolonged northern and southern bound- aries is less uncertain than that of the square, but the existing early records are not such as can give great accuracy. That its northwestern corner, E, was in Sharon, and about three- fourths of a mile southerly from the site of the present brick schoolhouse; the northeastern corner, F, in the southwestern corner of Wilton, near the Temple line; the southeastern cor- ner, H, a few rods beyond the Massachusetts line, and nearly south from the site of the "George Ramsdell house" east of Whittemore Hill, on 70, A. D .; and the southwestern corner, J, about three-fourth of a mile west of the present south- western corner near the Rindge turnpike, is nearly correct.
The records of the Massachusetts Proprietors are not known to be in existence, and the details of the work of the early years is very imperfectly known. It is evident, however, that the conditions in respect to improvement of shares within three years were by no means fulfilled, probably to a great extent because the title to the lands soon became understood to be very uncertain. The most valuable of the early papers which have been found is perhaps the map mentioned on the first page of chapter one. It bears no date, but the words "Province Line on this Side" written a little way beyond the northern line of the township show that it antedated Hazzen's survey of 1740-1; and the abbreviated name of some tree at nearly every lot corner indicates that the survey was
27
History of New Ipswich
made while yet the entire town was practically a wilderness. Only 128 lots are designated upon the map, those included in the North Division and the South Ranges, comprising a block four miles square. The positions of the streams, as given on this early map, make it certain that the lots are identical with those bearing the same numbers on later maps, but by some error, probably of a draughtsman who constructed the map from the notes of the surveyor without visiting the land himself, the portion of the township there represented is made its southeast corner, and a now somewhat indistinct line of writing seems to declare it to border on Dorchester Canada, located where now are Ashburnham and Ashby. Without doubt those lots numbered in the earliest survey should have been represented one mile from the southern line of the town, thus leaving a strip not divided into lots one mile in width along the north line of the town, as well as the south line. The boundaries of the lots were naturally laid out parallel to the township lines, and hence there were no rectangular lots, a condition continuing to the present day to the great discomfiture of surveyors seeking boundaries de- pendent upon early lot lines, an inconvenience greatly in- creased by a small angle in the Townsend line, necessarily transferred to the New Ipswich line and thence to the approx- imately north and south boundaries of lots throughout the en- tire block now considered, and containing about one-half the area of the town. It may be here added that the later division of the remaining half was so made as to give additional variety to the angles, and to make reference to ancient land- marks still more difficult.
But despite the serious defects mentioned, that ancient map is very valuable, if for no other reason than its presenta- tion of the names of those owning the lots settled in the early days of the town, there being only four lots of the entire number in the sixteen square miles the ownership of which is not designated. But it is somewhat surprising to find how few are the names continuing from "Old Ipswich" far into the history of New Ipswich. It is not certain that even one of the sixty-one lot-owners whose names are borne upon that early map became a resident in the town, although apparently William Brown, the owner of lot 30, N. D., after- ward long the home of his son Ebenezer, probably came to New Ipswich about 1763 and remained several years. Thomas
28
The Early Settlers
Dennis, owner of lot 57, N. D., appears as owner of the same lot in 1750, but he resided in town very briefly, if at all. Thomas Adams and Isaac Appleton, however, earnestly con- tinued their interest in the town, were the two largest land- owners at the time of its second birth, and although neither of them changed his own residence to New Ipswich, their sons, Benjamin and Ephraim Adams and Isaac and Francis Appleton, were among the prominent citizens of their genera- tion. No descendants of any of the four Ipswich grantees here mentioned have continued one of these family names in town to the present time, although it is by no means im- probable that some of the later settlers bearing the names Foster, Howe, Knowlton, Potter, Safford, Smith, Start, or Warren, may have descended from kinsmen of the early lot- owners. But a considerable amount of careful search has failed to disclose any lines of direct descent.
Two conditions joined to cause such a change, so unusual in New England history. Those early settlers were by no means fickle and impetuous men, expecting, like many who have in later years left New England for the West, to acquire wealth, in only a few years, and in default of such success ready to remove again. In a large majority of cases they were earnest, deliberate workers, planning to secure by sturdy, continued effort, a comfortable home in which they might rear children like themselves among whom. in the home they planned to make, they might pass their later years. Such plans do not change for nought, nor from sudden impulse. But in the case of New Ipswich and other towns granted by Massachusetts at about the same date, in the southwestern portion of New Hampshire, a special potent condition had a place. The claim of John Mason, presented earlier in this chapter, at the time now under consideration more than a hundred years old, and in the hands of John Tufton Mason, sixth in the line of descent from its original owner, was so long neglected during the time of special strength in English councils of the dissenting party that apparently it was al- most forgotten, and after the English Restoration its possible value found recognition very slowly. But at about the time of the rapid creation of Massachusetts townships in the dis- puted territory, perhaps indeed caused by that forward move- ment, the ancient claim became more real in public thought, with a resulting delay on the part of grantees to enter upon
29
History of New Ipswich
their distant possessions and a sad loss of enthusiasm on the part of those who had entered upon the work of wresting from the wilderness a home which, after all the faithful labor, might not be theirs. And when immediately after the first three or four little spots had been opened beside the old "country road" the surveyor ran the line which so clearly might utterly invalidate all their claims, it is not surprising that enthusiasm weakened and the advance nearly ceased. Still a few settlers came from various places; Jonas Woolson from Watertown in some way succeeded to the lots of Mark Howe, an Ipswich grantee, Benjamin Hoar from Littleton secured the lots of Robert Potter, another Ipswich grantee, but made his home on the "country road" near the home of Jonas Woolson, Joseph Stevens from Townsend instead of Jeremiah Smith, and so on until there may have been a dozen or more dwellings in the eastern part of the town. But in 1748 the second adverse condition appeared. Hitherto the settlers had seen little of the Indians, and no trouble in this respect had been experienced, nor at this time did the Indians enter New Ipswich. But they came with hostile pur- pose altogether too near the few isolated houses of the little settlement to make it seem expedient for the families to remain thus exposed. A party of about eighty Indians burned the house of John Fitch near the southern line of Ashby, and carried him with his wife and children to Canada, where they were held prisoners for several months. The inhabitants of New Ipswich with a single exception fled to a blockhouse at Townsend, where they remained several weeks, until they learned that the Indians had passed the Connecticut River on their way to Canada. The one resident who refused to abandon his home was Capt. Moses Tucker, who had won his title in previous contest with the Indians and disdained a retreat. The meeting-house which, in accordance with the conditions of the grant, had been built on the north side of the "country road," midway between that road and the sum- mit of the hill just east from the present Academy, was burned during their absence.
It cannot be denied that the prospect of a long continu- ance for that little group of families, dwelling in a few cleared openings in the wilderness scattered over an area perhaps two by three miles in extent, was by no means hopeful. The details of the condition are practically unknown. Probably
30
John Tufton Mason
no official records were made within the settlement-the methods of life were too primitive to require them ; the greater part of the Proprietors were still resident in Ipswich, Mass., where Thomas Norton, a graduate from Harvard College, was their clerk and treasurer, and undoubtedly kept a record of the Proprietors' meetings ; but very few facts concerning their activities are now known. Some light is thrown upon the early activities of the settlement by a later petition signed by twenty-eight of the sixty-one grantees or their successors, who in 1767 asked of the General Court compensation for their losses caused by the failure of the title which they had received from the Court, and relying upon which they had "built a Meeting House, a saw mill, Bridges, &c, besides Ex- pending a great deal on their Several Rights."
However, ere long the fathers of the town, who with their wives and children could not have far exceeded one hundred in number, found a way by which they might "out of the nettle danger pluck the flower safety," but the presentation of that process demands the recall of John Tufton Mason, before mentioned, who in 1746 was thirty-three years of age and was a captain stationed at Louisburg. Apparently the founding of towns and similar activities were not his chosen avocation, and he desired that he might, for a due considera- tion, transfer his title to the government of the Province, a change which he believed would be "Expedient to the Well- fare of the Inhabitants." But failing to effect such transfer, apparently, in part at least, by reason of an Entail in John Mason's will, he proceeded, according to a letter believed to have been written by George Jaffrey, afterward clerk of the purchasers, to John Tomlinson, to dispose of it as stated in that letter below :
In June 1746 Capt Mason at his own Expence had a Common Recovery pass'd at ye court of Common Pleas to dock ye Entail of his Ancestor's Will, and being determin'd to make Sale of his Right in New Hampshire which descended to him by that will he generously offered to Sell it to People of New Hampshire before any others, from a just Apprehension of ye pernicious Consequence the Selling it to our friendly Neighbors would be to all ye Inhabitants within a short time after ye Process of ye Common Recovery was Compleated Cap® Mason offered to make Sale of his Said Right to Gentlemen whom he know were Friends to the Prosperity of this Province or nearly related to Such & none refused to purchase of him, and of those Persons I believe every man in a political or private Capacity Sollicited the mem-
31
History of New Ipswich
bers of ye Assembly to Comply with your Agreement with Mason. Capt Mason being then under Order to repair to his Post at Louis- bourg in a few days, hasten'd ye Coming to a Conclusion of the Sale in his Right, and a meeting was proposed at his Request to agree with him upon the affait, & when met it was proposed to defer ye matter, to See if ye Assembly who were then Sitting would not comply with ye Agreement but Capt Mason considered ye length of time Since it first lay before them and more than a month since ye Common Recovery pass'd to dock ye entail, and ye disdainfull usage his personal Applica- tions met with from ye Assembly that he was then Resolved to have no further communication with them upon ye affair so nothing further could be offered upon that head-there were twelve of ye purchasers present and it was proposed that you should have a part equal to any of ye purchasers and Capt Mason reserved and equal part for you and an equal part Designed for Jnº Rindge and the Sum in Consideration of ye Sale was by halfe as much more than you agreed with Mason for ye Government, then the Form of a Deed was ye Subject of Considera- tion Collo Atkinson was to have 3/15 conveyed to him one for himselfe & two of weh intended to be reconvey to Mason one of wch he designed for you another for himselfe M H. W-th 315 his own and for Jnº Rindge then a minor-the other ten part to ye Persons named.
The plan sketched in that letter was carried into effect upon July 30, 1746, the consideration named being £1500, for which sum John Tufton Mason conveyed the broad expanse of country with western boundary still somewhat uncertain, but including many settlements from whose inhabitants the establishment of the northern line of Massachusetts had taken all legal title to the farms upon which they had labored, to new owners afterward known as the "Masonian Proprietors." The twelve purchasers named in the deed were "Theodore Atkinson, Richard Wibird, John Moffatt, Mark Hunking Wentworth, Samuel Moore, Jotham Adiorne jun" & Joshua Peirce Esqrs. Nathaniel Meserve, George Jaffrey jun™ & John Wentworth jun" Gentlemen all of Portsmouth aforesaid & Thomas Wallingford of Summerworth in said Province Esq" & Thomas Packer of Greenland in ye Province aforesaid Esq"," but in fulfilment of the arrangement with Messrs. At- kinson and Wentworth at the time of the purchase, John Tufton Mason, John Tomlinson, and John Rindge were soon added to the numbers, and before action was taken in respect to New Ipswich the list was further lengthened by the names of Samuel Solley, Clement March, Matthew Livermore, Wil- liam Parker, and Joseph Blanchard, the last three being given membership in return for legal assistance and advice. Daniel Peirce and Mary Moore succeeded to the place of Samuel
32
The Masonian Proprietors
Moore, and since Solley and March together had but one right, and the same ownership appears between Tomlinson and Ma- son, the power holding the fate of the town contained only eighteen units, although bearing twenty-one names on its roll.
It may reasonably be inferred that the renewed assertion of the Masonian claim, and the sale of the land to an able and influential body of proprietors, who could not be expected to release to the former owners the land they had thus legally acquired, caused the Ipswich proprietors to think that their own entire loss was unavoidable unless the vigorous denials made in some quarters of the legality of certain steps in the claim and procedure should produce in some way a more favorable outlook, and so they remained quiet awaiting re- sults until the methods of the Masonian Proprietors awakened a new hope. The first act of the new owners was to release by a quitclaim all title which they might have to sixteen towns in the eastern part of New Hampshire included in the Mason- ian claim, even though Massachusetts had won the disputed region westward from the Merrimac, and they then also adopted a liberal and conciliatory policy to any Massachusetts grants whose inhabitants acknowledged their changed condi- tion and desired to retain the lands and improvements in- dividually held by them. For some reason, which perhaps the lost records would make evident, New Ipswich seems to have been inactive in the matter, the first movement being revealed by the record of a meeting which escaped the general fate of other records.
At a Legal Meeting of the Props of New-Ipswich at the Dwelling House of Joseph Newhall in Ipswich on Tuesday the 14th of February A D 1748-
Colº Thomas Berry Moderator-
Voted That Colº Daniel Appleton Colo John Choate & Colº Thomas Berry be a Committee fully Authoriz'd & Impower'd in the Name & Behalf of the Proprietors to Treat with the late Grantees of Mason's Grant so call'd, or with Colo Joseph Blanchard or both as they shall see meet respecting their Supposed Title to sª New Ipswich and to make a full & final Agreement and Settlement of any Differences or Disputes that are between ye sª Grantees of sª Mason & ye sª New Ipswich Prop"" relating to ye Title & Settlement thereof; and what they, or either two of them do on the premisses to be Binding to the Proprietors. And if they Apprehend it not best to Agree, then to Report to the Prop™ª (as soon as may be) what may be best further to be done.
Tho. Norton Pro Cler.
4
33
History of New Ipswich
Joseph Blanchard, named in the vote at Ipswich, had acted as agent of the Masonian Proprietors in the settlements with various neighboring towns, and the case of New Ipswich was put into his hands. The following letter written by him to that body is instructive.
Gentlemen
Coll° Choat & Collo Appleton a Comtee On Behalf of New Ipswich has bin With me Treating Abt your title to that township And are disposed to Accom'odate Matters if they Can the lines of the town may be Continued, nea the Same, & you will See by their plan 120 Lotts are Lay'd out & Drawn they Request to hold them lotts as Lay'd out and their Town Lines to Stand, of, Which the northeast Corner; I must take off, I Expect it will Intersect and Cut off abt 8 Lotts, it Should Shut Home to the province line & in Liew of What I take off on ye East made up as per a plan I Send you the Seasonable & Effectuall forwarding the Settlemt they Are Willing to. But they are not Willing to Comply with the quantity to be Reserved therefore I have for that Article in Special Referred to your detemination, And to have them Easyly dealt with & their being Accom'odated, in the best way will be very pleasing to y' Hum1 Sert
Dunstable March 3ª .- 1748
J. Blanchard.
As may be seen, the foregoing meeting was just before the Indian fright which so nearly depopulated New Ipswich for some weeks, and probably delayed negotiations for a longer period ; but they were certainly resumed and on June 16, 1749, the Masonian Proprietors authorized Joseph Blanchard to lay out several towns, among which were No. 1, (Mason,) No. 2, (Wilton,) and also "the lands lying between Peter- borough on ye north the said new Towns on ye East and so far South as to leave a Town on Square lines joining ye Province line of Six miles Square in and adjoyning to New Ipswich and to Extend westerly even with ye west line of Peterborough." But this description in some way was greatly modified, and nearly a year later Joseph Blanchard, present- ing that vote as his authority, issued the Masonian Charter making the town only about five-sixths as large as the "six miles square" specified therein. Neither was its form a square, as the descriptive term "on square lines joining the Province line" would certainly indicate. Nor was its change from that form made in order to conform to the oblique angles of the Massachusetts survey and thus retain unmutilated the first lots, as desired by the inhabitants who had improved them.
34
Colonel Blanchard's Changes
But the "old Townsend line" inclining northeasterly was re- placed in the eastern town boundary by a line inclining north- westerly to about the same degree, and crossing the former line two miles or more from the Province line, which cut from the northeastern part of the town eight entire lots and a part of eight others, together amounting to more than 800 acres and including the present site of the village of Greenville, and added at the southeastern corner a triangular area of some- what smaller dimensions.
Apparently the change was made to the advantage of Mason, Wilton, and "Peterborough Slip," (now Temple and Sharon,) authorized by the same vote as New Ipswich, and it is also probable that the southern line of Peterborough was found to be nearer the Province line than had been anticipated, thus leaving scanty room for "Peterborough Slip" between Peterborough and New Ipswich, if the latter town should be allowed its original dimensions of six miles from north to south. There can be no doubt that it was supposed that the block of lots comprising the North Division and the South Ranges could be left unchanged, except those now forming a part of the town of Greenville, and that there remained an undivided strip one mile in width between the original lots and the Province line. The square town authorized by the Masonian Proprietors would have included a like strip one mile in width along the northern side of the town but north of the retained block of lots. This strip Blanchard made a part of "Peterborough Slip." The former historian of New Ipswich writes as follows concerning the unexplained change:
When we consider his non-compliance with these conditions, and the injurious change made in this township, both by curtailment of its ter- ritory and change of its location, we cannot but surmise some fraud or injustice on the part of Col. Blanchard, as well as a strange disregard to their rights and interests on the part of the grantees. We do not learn, however, of any misgivings at that time. On the contrary, both the contracting parties seem to have been satisfied; as is evinced on the part of the Masonian Proprietors by their giving Col. Blanchard a right in the township with themselves; and on the part of the grantees by the liberal compensation they voted for his service.
It perhaps, however, may justly be considered that the grant of a township right made by the Masonian Proprietors to Col. Blanchard was really made at the expense of the grantees, as it added the land held by this eighteenth right to
35
1127787
History of New Ipswich
the number otherwise to be reserved by the grantors, and the grantees were in no position to refuse compliance with whatever terms the representative of the Proprietors saw fit to offer. One of the honored sons of New Ipswich whose views receive weight from his official position, the younger Judge Timothy Farrar, left in an interleaved copy of the for- mer history a review of those early transactions, from which the following estimate is copied :-
Such was the state of things when the town came within the juris- diction of New Hampshire, and the land within the claim of the owners of the Masonian patent. Their true policy and their practice was to quiet all possessions and all active claimants, so as to raise no interested body of opponents to their absolute title, and enable them to appropriate quietly all the ungranted lands. They obviously intended to pursue the same course here. But their agent, Col. Blanchard, was a land surveyor and speculator, and he found the simple-hearted young men, who had taken up and improved their lands, were only anxious to retain their possessions, and the non-resident Massachusetts Proprietors, having neither residence nor possession, were passive in their position. He therefore undertook to make a speculation for himself and his principals by regranting the township contrary to his instructions. In doing this he satisfied such of the Massachusetts Proprietors as either by them- selves or their proxies came forward, made grants to such new friends as he wished, reserved eighteen full rights to himself and his employers, and changed the location and curtailed the limits to suit their interests.
A letter of Col. Blanchard to the Masonian Proprietors and their reply are given below, as casting some light upon the spirit prompting their action. Apparently the original plan was to reserve for the Grantors one-half of each town- ship, to be held without payment of taxes of any kind, await- ing the so-termed "unearned increment" of the present day which would arise from the labor of the grantee owners of the remaining half, and only the refusal of the grantees forced their acceptance of from sixteen to twenty shares out of an entire number in each town of from sixty to eighty. Evi- dently there was a line beyond which the proposed "alarm" was not effectual.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.