USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > New Ipswich > The history of New Ipswich, New Hampshire, 1735-1914, with genealogical records of the principal families > Part 6
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But the first work of the new proprietors was not warlike. There were no indications that the locality had ever been a favorite abode of the Indians, and the settlers made very few preparations to meet an attack. Ephraim Adams, son of Thomas Adams recently mentioned, had "flankers" about his house, still standing near the crossing of the Turnpike by "Saw Mill Brook" on 21, N. D., and perhaps the house of Moses Tucker, on VI: 1, S. R., or his later dwelling on I: 2, S. R., gave him similar protection during his experience as sole resident of the township in 1748. But no public structure was ever thought needful for safety, nor did the Proprietors see fit to repair the flankers around the Adams house when for some reason their attention seems to have been called to their weakened condition.
Evidently the first duty of the settlement, awakened to fresh activity by its renewed title to its land and its enlarged membership, was to complete an equitable division of the township among the Proprietors. About one-half of its area, the North Division and the South Ranges, had been divided under the Massachusetts grant, and the divisions were re- tained, although, as stated in a previous chapter, the bounds of the Masonian grant had sadly mutilated the North Divi- sion. Apparently a few additional lots had been also assigned, but about one-half of the entire township remained to be surveyed and drawn by the grantors and grantees not later than August, 1751; this division was ultimately accomplished, but it was by no means an easy duty, nor, although the rec- ords are nominally complete, are the methods and principles of the division easy to follow. The first meeting of the new Proprietors was held one year before the charter which con- stituted them Proprietors was granted, but it proceeded to business, as is shown by a copy of the record.
At a meeting of the Proprietors of the Township of New Ipswich lying in the Province of New hampshire in New England Appointed by Joseph Blanchard, Esq". Agent to the Claimers of the Patant under John Tufton Mason, Esq". who are Grantors of said Township Heald at the House of Capt. Joseph French in Dunstable in said Province on the 16: of April A: D: 1749: Colonel Joseph Blanchard chosen modera-
46
First Proprietors' Meeting
tor for said meeting. John Stevens chosen Proprietors Clark Colo1 Blanchard chosen Treasurer. and it was Voted as Follows (viz) that all the Lotts that was heare to fore laid out in said township and are now Taken off by the other Townships (viz) by the Township Nomber one and Nomber Two: shall be by a Committee to be chosen for that Purpus Laid out in the Common land in said Township and Quallefied by said Committee. Said Lotts that are to be laid out are to be laid adjoyning to the other lotts formerly laid in said town and as con- veniant for settling as may be and that those persons formerly owning sª Lotts Being Grantees to Have sª Lots which are new laid out in Lue of the Lotts Taken off as a fore said
Also Voted that if any of said grantees have or had any lands in the Township or any part there of formerly called Townsend and now falls into the Township of New Ipswich shall have a whole wright or part there of laid out in the same place to them said Commitee Quallifying the same Eaqual to other shares.
Voted that the whole of said wrights in said Township to be but Sixty three also Voted that the said Committee Do as soon as may be with a Surveyer under oath Proceed and lay out to each of said Sixty three Rights Two Seventy acre Lotts and that thay copple the same togather makeing them as neare as may be of Equel vallue. and that said lotts Be Prepaired to be Drawn on the Last Tuesday of October next at this Place at ten of the Clock in the morning. Voted that the Lotts Taken off the Towns afore said be Laid out and Compleated fit for a Draught by the Eight of May next.
Voted and Chose for a Comtee. to Lay out the Lotts Taken of as afore said Major Jonathan Hubbard and John Stevens But wheare the said Stevens hath lands to lay out then Benja. Hoar to Help lay out sª Stevens land.
Also John Stevens chosen Surveyer for said Service.
Voted that the Comtee. and Surveyer afore said be Directed to lay out to m'. Benja. Hoar a Lott adjoyning Oliver Hoars lott Equel in Vallue to his former lott laid out in or near the same place.
Voted to chuse five men as a Comtee. to lay out and Copple the Seventy acre lotts afore said Chose for said Comtee. Mr.". Jsaac Appleton Jona- than Hubbard Ruben Kidder Benjamin Hoar of Littleton and John Stevens.
Voted that said Comtee. shall have for there Service in laying out said Lotts and Coppleing the Same while thay are in said Township about said service thirty shillings per Day old tenour
voted to pay Colonol Blanchard for his Service and Expence in Pro- cureing said Township and granting out the same Two Hundred and Ten pounds old Ten".
Voted to Rayse on Each of the forty Two Settleing Rights in said Township fourteen pounds old Ten". to Defray the Charges of the Same Voted to Chuse a Comtee. to agree for a mill place if need be and also to agree with Sum proper person to Build a Cornmill and Sawmill in said Town in the most Conveniant place to accomidate the Proprietors.
Chose for said Comtee. Ruben Kidder Deak" Benja. Hoar m. Isaac Appleton and John Stevens.
A true Coppey Attest
John Stevens Proprietors Cler
47
History of New Ipswich
Evidently the Proprietors present at that initial meeting had definite plans in the charter issued a year later. But in that charter appear other acts which are not recorded until June 20, 1750, two months after the date of the charter. At that later meeting, held at the house of Benjamin Hoar in New Ipswich, Thomas Dennis, Francis Choate, Nathaniel Smith, and William Peters were admitted as Proprietors, but their names appeared upon the list given in the earlier char- ter. References are made to the lots held by the new mem- bers under the Massachusetts grant which are not in accord- ance with the old map showing that first assignment of lots. Apparently action universally held desirable was not delayed by close adherence to technical order. Apparently the divi- sion of the common land into seventy-acre lots, ordered at the first meeting, was modified in accordance with that prin- ciple. Under the Massachusetts grant the township was six miles square and land seemed to abound. Surveyors were accustomed to make abundant allowance for "uneven ground and swag of chain," and in that survey they seemed to have made an allowance for the obliquity of the angles of the lots nearly twice as large as was required. Moreover, much space was left for roads between the lots, and finally the Masonian township was only five-sixths as large as its pre- decessor, and the "common land" was not sufficient to allow the later lots to contain seventy acres each, wherefore the committee, in violation of their instructions, laid out lots containing nominally only sixty-six acres, which action in due time was formally accepted. Even after such recognition of necessity the difficulty seems to have persisted, as is indi- cated by the official records and maps presenting lots upon one side of a straight line as being considerably wider than the lots extending between the same limits upon the other side of the line. In most places the discrepancy may have been merely the result of greater care in measurement and an omission of such allowances as had place in the earlier surveys, but in one section of the town. where the lots were probably laid out latest, or where, as later records indicate, the survey was not fully completed except upon the map, apparently a more heroic treatment was believed to be de- manded, and the remaining land was forced to meet the de- mands. There seems to be no escape from the conclusion that the narrow lots comprising the western two miles of the
48
Assignment of Lots
"New Laid Out" must be considerably narrower than the recorded dimensions. This belief is supported by a vote passed in 1757, after ineffectual attempts at a preceding meet- ing, "to Run the line through the township thats not yet run on the New Laid Out Land," for which action a committee was chosen. No report of that committee is to be found, but more than ten years later, in 1768, the matter again rises and a second committee was chosen "to Examan the narrow Lotts so called," and three years later a report from that committee or one of later appointment simply stated the correct num- bers of the lots from 98 to 109, which were said to have been previously uncertain on account of trees falsely marked at lot corners. But the real difficulty, without doubt a re- sult of a too liberal distribution of the agrarian wealth be- lieved to be almost limitless, was apparently kept carefully unacknowledged, like many an analogous transaction of later years.
The complete assignment of town lots, as shown in the record of John Stevens, Proprietors' clerk, is presented in the following table, with a few entirely obvious errors corrected, and a few changes also inserted, as borne upon the record of later action taken to remedy cases of injustice, most of which were cases due to the unexpected difficulty in the north line of the town before stated at considerable length.
5
49
History of New Ipswich
GRANTORS
North Division
South Ranges
New Laid Out
After Division
Atkinson, Theodore .
43, 61
107
Blanchard, Joseph
II: 4, IV: 4
24, 172
Livermore, Matthew
62
VII : 1
V: 1
10, 102
80, 81
Odiorne, Jotham
23
VII: 4, XIII : 4
44
160, 161
Peirce, Joshua
VIII: 3
2
89, 90
Peirce, Daniel )
13
XV: 3
167, 169
Rindge, John
IX: 3
11
176, 177
Solly, Samuel
XV : 4
64
181, 182
March, Clement (
Tomlinson, John
60
163, 164
Wallingford, Thomas
IV : 3, VIII : 4 VIII: 1
56, 109
87
Wentworth, Mark H.
38, 39
67, 94
Wibird, Richard .
28, XIII : 2
162, 165
84 155, 157 173
Jaffrey, George .
29
126, 128 93
Meserve, Nathaniel .
14
XIV : 2 V: 3
68, 95
Packer, Thomas
82, 83
Parker, William
58
Moor, Mary
Mason, John Tufton
59
85, 86
Wentworth, John
Moffat, John
50
Assignment of Lots
GRANTEES
North Division
South Ranges
New Laid Out
After Divisions
Adams, Thomas .
17, 18, 21, X: 2, XIV: 4, 22, 24, 25, XVI: 1 50, 51
70, 156, 158, 166, 168, 178, 180
Appleton, Isaac . . 9, 41, 42,
63 64
III: 2, VI: 2, VIII: 2, XI : 1, XVI: 2
69, 72
72, 116, 117,
119, 123,
138, 139
170, 171,
183, 184,
1/2 of 185
Brown, John
31, 60 30
VI: 4
120, 144
Bullard, Ebenezer
II: 2, II: 3
129, 130 179
Chandler, John
III: 1, IV: 1
105, 108
Choate, John
27
VI: 3
66
113, 114 97 73
Dennis, Thomas .
56, 57 54
VII: 2, IX: 4
71
112, 133
Foster, Abijah
33
I: 3
152, 159
French, Joseph
III: 4, X: 3
146, 147
Heald, Timothy
65, 66, 142, 186
Hoar, Benjamin . . Hoar, Benjamin, Jr.
26, 36, 53 40
16, 104
69, 135, 136, 65, 66, 74, 149, 150
Hubbard, Jonathan .
47
88, 92
Kidder, Joseph
48
148, 151
Kidder, Reuben .
46, 55
III: 3, XIII: 1, XIV: 1, XIV : 3
131, 132,
Lovewell, Zaccheus .
XI: 2, XI: 3, XII: 3
186
115, 140, 143, 145
Marsh, John
37
Minister, -first
32
XIII : 2
106
Ministerial
20
XVI : 4
187
78, 79
Patch, Isaac
15
V: 4
70
Powers, Peter .
1, 12 7
71 122, 124
Pudney, Henry
49
School
Smith, Nathaniel
45
XII : 4, XIII : 3,
103
110, 111, 134, 174 91, 154
Spaulding, Andrew
·
Stevens, John .
28, 34,
52 X: 4, XII: 2, 98, 99, 101 XV: 1 VII: 3
Stevens, Joseph White, Archibald
35, 44
19
·
Woolson, Jonas
IV: 2, XV : 2
175 118, 121
Choate, Francis .
I: 4, X: 1
67
Dinsmore, Hannah
125, 137
Emerson, Daniel .
II: 1, V: 2, VI : 1 IX: 2 IX: 1
76, 77, 96,
I/2 of 185
1/2 of 153 75
Nevins, David .
XI : 4
Peters, William
XVI: 3 XII : 1
1/2 of 153 5, 127, 141
Bullard, Joseph
I: 2
65
Brown, William .
Choate, Robert
History of New Ipswich
This history of the township, as shown in the records of the meetings of its Proprietors, is full of interest to those whose personal relations to the town give a vision which recognizes the outcome of the everyday plans and acts of their ancestors. They may not have been large men, but they were earnest men, and although sometimes perchance the Kentish tenacity of grasp upon that which they believed to be their own may have had an unlovely aspect, yet in it lay much of the honorable history then unwritten.
Largely isolated and thrown upon their own resources, they felt themselves sufficient. They rarely sought the aid of authority from without in the settlement of their dif- ferences; the threatened appeal to courts seems to have been made rarely, if ever, in that time of pure democracy.
New Ipswich in those days had no rulers; its few officers had no stipulated terms of service, but were removable at pleasure with no delay beyond that of the few days' required notice for a meeting of the Proprietors. There were really only two officers, the clerk and the treasurer. In 1751 Jonas Woolson, Ebenezer Bullard, and Joseph Kidder were made a "Committee to Draw Orders on the Treasurer for any sum or sums of money that shall be voted to any person or persons by the proprietors for service done for them," which commit- tee was later mentioned as the committee to "take care of the prudentials of the place," and in 1753 Reuben Kidder, Ephraim Adams, and Benjamin Hoar succeeded to the same duties under the latter title. But that step toward the crea- tion of a board of selectmen was not permanently approved, and in October of the same year it was voted to "dismiss the Prudential Committee formerly chosen." In 1754 Francis Appleton was chosen a "Referee to peruse the accounts laid before the Proprietors," and in later years this forerunner of an auditor was occasionally appointed. Evidently orderly conduct of a meeting of the Proprietors required a presiding officer, and such meetings were quite frequent. But sixteen different moderators presided over one or more of the thirty- seven different meetings recorded during the twelve years before the incorporation of the town, and of these no one was chosen more than four times. Such public duties as could not be completed in a full Proprietors' meeting were usually placed in the hands of special committees whose work was usually not considered complete until formally approved at a succeeding meeting.
52
Proprietors' Work Ended
In the years of laying foundations necessarily the recorded action was largely in relation to three matters that might not safely be deferred. The division of the town among the grantors and the grantees came first, and the adjustments demanded by the encroachments upon the lots by the new boundaries of the township were very difficult to make when the "common land" of the Proprietors was exhausted. The question remained open till the incorporation of the town and for ten years afterward, during which latter period the records of Proprietors' meetings, held only at intervals of about one year, were nearly occupied by that topic. Practi- cally, however, all that is of interest at the present time is given in the preceding table.
The location and maintenance of highways formed a sec- ond matter for consideration almost equally imperative in its demands, which has been presented in the first chapter of this book; and the requirements of the charter in relation to the building of a meeting-house and the settlement of a minister, conditions without doubt in accord with the per- sonal views of by far the greater part of the proprietors, formed a third subject for long discussion prior to efficient action. This matter is presented later in connection with other church matters.
On April 5, 1762, it was "Voted to apply to the General Court to get the Place called New Ipswich incorporated," and also "Voted Capt. Reuben Kidder to go down to Court to get the Incorporation effected and that the said Kidder shall Proceed in the affair as he shall think best & that his Necessary Charge shall be Paid by the Propriety." The act of incorporation, as given on a previous page, was issued on the ninth of September following, and the activities of the Propriety ceased except as far as action was requisite in re- lation to the settlement of claims mentioned above and the disposal of the meeting-house.
The successive Proprietors' clerks and dates of service were: John Stevens, 1749-1752; Benjamin Adams, 1752-1755; Timothy Heald, 1755-1761; Ichabod How, 1761-1768; Isaac Appleton, 1768-1772.
The treasurers were: Joseph Blanchard, 1749-1751; Jo- seph Stevens, 1751-1755; Benjamin Hoar, 1755 -.
The last Proprietors' meeting found recorded met Decem- ber 17, 1772, but by successive adjournments continued until
53
History of New Ipswich
December 30, when it adjourned for a fortnight, and no further record follows the name of Isaac Appleton, Proprie- tors' Clerk.
Perhaps the story of New Ipswich prior to its attainment of a legal majority may best be closed in the words of the former historian of the town, who wrote of the period :
We find the whole number of tax-payers to be ninety-five. They were all in the prime of life, the oldest of them, Capt. Tucker, being only fifty-eight years of age. Among them we find four widows, show- ing that the universal destroyer had already commenced his work here, and ten or twelve had already become tenants of the old burying- ground; besides which, tradition says there were five buried near the head of Safford lane, previous to the opening of the old cemetery in 1753. Among these were a son and daughter of Ebenezer Bullard; a son of Joseph Bullard; two sons and a daughter of Benjamin Adams; the wife of Ephraim Adams; a daughter of Benjamin King; two sons and a daughter of Benjamin Hoar; Samuel Perham, his wife and a son; Abijah Foster, the first settler, and one of his sons had died in the army.
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126
CHAPTER IV THE OLD SCHOOL-HOUSES
TO O one whose childhood and youth was spent in a country town of New England few memories are more distinct than those of "the little red school-house," in or near which were received so many impressions leaving indelible traces on his character that such educational experience seems to him almost an essential part of a complete life. The district school, despite its undeniable serious defects, did a work that could hardly have been done equally well in any other way, a work of education for the citizens as well as for their chil- dren sometimes amusingly democratic in the development of its details. It is proposed here to present its growth in New Ipswich, as presented in the official records.
The former history prefaces the story with these words: "The cause of learning has been well sustained, and has done much for the reputation of the town; not so much, however, in its earlier history, as could have been desired. In the grant of the township it was provided that one right should be set apart for the support of schools; and thus, with enlightened foresight, the Proprietors did all that was incumbent upon them, to furnish the means of education to the settlers. But we have no intimation that any school was kept until after the incorporation of the town, fourteen years after the actual settlement. It is true there could have been very few who were not either too young or too old to attend schools at that early period, and those few must have been widely scat- tered. Doubtless they received private instruction at home from their parents, who, we have abundant evidence, were intelligent and well-educated people. In 1762, the year of all others most memorable in the history of the town, it was 'voted that a school be kept in town three months this year, and no more, as near the meeting-house as a house can be provided.'"
This action was taken at the second meeting of the town, held only about a month after the first meeting at which the only business was the organization by election of officers un- der the charter of incorporation. The article in the warrant
57
History of New Ipswich
for the second meeting under which the action concerning the school was taken read as follows: "To see if the Town will vote the Number of months the school shall be Kept in said Town and what part or parts of said Town it shall be Kept in," which would seem to suggest that the school was already established in some form.
The records give nothing further for two years, but Octo- ber 8, 1764, it was "Voted to hire three months Schooling this fall and Winter Coming." The next year an advance was made, and it was "Voted to have four months Schooling this fall and Winter coming at several places at the Discres- sion of the Select men viz four and if any persons Refuse to provide a place for Schooling after Sutable Notice from the Select men that quarter shall be Destitute & the other parts shall have the Benefit that do provide a sutable place."
The year 1766 was the period of governmental interregnum between the expiration of the first town charter and the re- ception of the second, during which no records were written, and it is uncertain whether the school was continued, and in 1767 the vote provides school for only three months, the divi- sion however evidently being maintained, as the selectmen were to "order where the school shall be kept." In 1768 ac- tion was taken earlier and the idea of a permanent division into school districts seems to be in evidence, as on March 14 it was "Voted to Divide the Town into Destricts for the benefit of Schooling & Each Destrict to have their proportion according to there pay. Voted to Choose a Committee to Di- vide the Destricts & proportion ye money Choosen for said Committee Lieut. Aaron Kidder. Lieut. Nath. Stone Lieut. Joseph Bates Capt. Moses Tucker mr. Samuel Whittemore mr. James Chandler & Reuben Kidder Esqr. Voted to Raise twenty Pounds Lawful money for the Benafit of Schooling this year."
A new element appears in 1769 when it was "Voted to Raise Twenty Pounds Lawful Money for Schooling", but it was added "Voted to Indemnifie the Select men from all fines that they may be Exposed to by their not providing a Grammer School Master." This somewhat peculiar action was an attempt to avoid compliance with a law requiring towns above a certain population to maintain a grammar school where Latin might be taught, an additional expense naturally objectionable to a large part of the citizens. The
58
The Grammar School
same action was taken in 1770 and 1771, but in this latter year a formal protest was entered for record by Ebenezer Champ- ney, Benjamin Hoar, John Dutton, Isaac Appleton, William Shattuck, and Thomas Farnsworth, and on the following year seventeen men signed a dissent against similar action as being "Repugnant to the Law of the Land in such case made and provided." Probably it was on account of this protest that at a meeting a few months later it was "Voted that the Grammer School shall move to the Several Distrects beginning at the middle Distrect & so on, to the next highest Distrect accord- ing to their pay and in the same manner the several Distrects in said Town, the East Distrect being the least is to have a months schooling and the other Distrects as much longer as their pay is more." This arrangement after a few years seems to have been changed by an appropriation of £20 for a gram- mar master in the middle district, where grammar scholars from all parts of the town might go, an arrangement which seems to have soon been made unnecessary by the founding of the Academy. The vote for this grammar school was re- freshingly frank, as the record says: "Voted to pay the mid- dle district £20 towards keeping a grammar school through the year so as to keep the town from being presented and the town have liberty to send to said school."
Although a committee was chosen to divide the town into districts in 1768, no record of their action appears, and the first assignment of money was recorded in January, 1770, and apparently that was stated to be in obedience to a vote passed only a week previously in accordance with which the selectmen divided the school money voted the preceding March. This action of the town was as follows :
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