USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Warner > The history of Warner, New Hampshire, for one hundred and forty- four years, from 1735 to 1879 > Part 30
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Now let us briefly examine this claim, going first to our eastern boundary. There is no substantial disagreement between the
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claims of the two provinces till we get to the head of the river. That is at Great East pond, lying between Wakefield, New Hampshire, and Acton, Maine. A line due north-west from that pond, according to the Massachusetts claim, would pass through Ossipee, Tuftonborough, Moultonborough, Sandwich, Thornton, Woodstock, and Benton, to the Connecticut river at Bath, cutting off at least one third of the whole area of the state-cutting off the whole of Coos county, most of Carroll, and a large and impor- tant part of Grafton. It would barely have left the Great lake within our borders, but the "Crystal Hills," as they were for- merly called, would have formed no part of the state of New Hampshire.
Now, go to our southern border. The province of Massachu- setts insisted that by the terms of their charter the line must begin at the ocean, three miles north of the Merrimack river, and run parallel with the river on the north side to the great bend at Dracut, and then, turning at right angles, continue on three miles from the river, but on the eastward of it, up through the heart of the state, to a line parallel with the junction of the rivers at Franklin, and still three miles further on, to a point now in San- bornton, at the aforesaid Endicott tree ; then, turning square to the left, run due west to the Connecticut river, or to " His Majes- ty's other governments." This line, running due west from the Endicott tree, would pass through Hill, Danbury, Springfield, and Croydon, to the Connecticut river opposite Windsor ; and thus, all of New Hampshire south of that line and west of the Merrimack river, together with the strip three miles wide east of that river, would have been severed from this province and added to Massachu- setts. In this tract is comprised another full third of New Hamp- shire-the whole of Cheshire county, the whole of Hillsborough county except the town of Pelham and a part of Hudson, and the lion's share of Merrimack and Sullivan counties. This proposed mutilation of our territory on the south-west, together with that on the north-east, would have left the province with less than one third of its present area, and, in the eye of the country, we should have been weak ; in wealth and population, insignificant; and in shape, as uncomely as a New Hampshire senatorial district.
The Massachusetts authorities, anxious to secure every advan- tage, hastened the granting of townships all over the disputed
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territory. From Boscawen on the east to Charlestown on the west, they laid off two tiers of townships, and gave every encour- agement to cause persons to become grantees of these lands. The controversy about the boundaries was pending, and they acted upon the principle that "possession is nine points in the law."
Now we return to the king's commissioners at Hampton. Per- haps there has seldom been displayed such stratagem, such per- sistence and sharp practice, as the contending parties displayed before this board. They were men of marked ability, and their souls were in the work. I cannot follow them in their arguments or their subterfuges. Time will not permit. The pleas, the repli- cations, the rejoinders and sur-rejoinders, which were indulged in ad libitum, consumed days and weeks. A painful suspense bur- dened every mind; but finally the decision came, such as it was! On the second day of September the commissioners decided the eastern boundary, and decided it substantially in accordance with the New Hampshire claim. They begin, in this decision, at the mouth of Piscataqua harbor, and proceed northward through the harbor and river to the head thereof, and thence north two degrees west, as far as the king's possessions go, it being precisely the boundary line of to-day.
In regard to the southern boundary they were unable to make a decision, and they referred this most harassing and momentous branch of the subject to "the wise consideration of His Most Sacred Majesty, the King." The Massachusetts province was enraged at the decision on the eastern line. It appealed from that decision, and carried the war to the court of Great Britain. Thomlinson, the New Hampshire agent, was there,-quick, vigi- lant, and influential. Thomas Hutchinson, the agent of the ad- verse party, a man of rare talent and perseverance, was sent over from Boston to engineer the cause of Massachusetts. Greek met Greek, and the heat of the contest knew no abatement. The New Hampshire position before the king, in council, was, as it had been before every other tribunal, that, when the grant of Massa- chusetts, by the council of Plymouth in 1628, and the charter of Massachusetts in 1629, were made, the course of the Merrimack river, except near the ocean, was not known by the grantors. It was supposed to run, in its whole course, from west to east, and in this view only can the language of the grants be intelligible.
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If the river, two thirds of its length, runs south, and if the grantors knew the fact, how could they say " all those lands which lie and be within the space of three English miles to the northward of said river"? They do not say, all those lands within three miles, on the north and east side of the river, or within the space of three miles on the right hand side, as we ascend the river. Note the exact words, "within the space of three English miles to the northward of said river, or to the northward of any and every part thereof."
I have no doubt that the grantors intended a line substantially east and west, but the Massachusetts authorities rejected this con- struction of the language employed, and persisted in their claim to fully two thirds of all the territory within our present bounds. Even more : they intended to "gobble up" the whole province. The agents of Massachusetts, in one of their written arguments before His Majesty's commissioners at Hampton, closed with these significant words : "And the colony of Massachusetts then hoped, by putting a more advantageous construction on their charter, to have made out a right to the whole province of New Hampshire."
Gov. Belcher was a supple tool of the Massachusetts authori- ties, and, in a wily and adroit manner, did his utmost to forward their schemes. He finally became very unpopular in New Hamp- shire, and in 1741 he was superseded in the office of governor by Benning Wentworth, a favorite son of the province.
But an appeal has been taken to the king. Another season of long waiting and anxiety is endured. Months depart, years roll round, but no relief comes. Still justice standeth not afar off.
On the fifth day of March, 1740, the great decision of the Lords of Trade, under the sanction of the king, is promulgated, and New Hampshire is grateful to George the Second for terminating the long dispute.
The royal decision is far better than even New Hampshire's claim. In regard to the eastern boundary, it confirmed the judg- ment of the commissioners, giving to this province the south- westerly half of the Isles of Shoals, and confirming the boundary clear on to Canada, as it stands to-day. The decision on the southern line was a surprise to everybody. It established "a curved line, following the course of the river Merrimack at the
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distance of three miles on the north side, beginning at the Atlan- tic ocean and ending at Pawtucket falls (now Lowell), and thence due west to His Majesty's other governments."
The decision was a total and overwhelming defeat to the Mas- sachusetts claim. It was much more than that. The falling of the walls of Jericho on the sounding of the ram's horn, could not have astonished Joshua more than this decision of the king aston- ished the zealous politicians of Massachusetts in 1740. It gave to New Hampshire a large tract of valuable territory beyond what she had asked. The line claimed by this province, before committees, commissioners, and kings, starting at the ocean where it now is, would run through South Hampton, Newton, Hampstead, Derry, Londonderry, Litchfield, Merrimack, Amherst, Mont Vernon, Lyndeborough, Peterborough, Dublin, Marlborough, Swanzey, and to the Connecticut river in Chesterfield. So, by this un- looked-for decision, New Hampshire gained possession of parts of all the towns just enumerated, together with the whole of Plais- tow, Atkinson, Salem, Windham, Pelham, Hudson, Nashua, Hol- lis, Brookline, Milford, Wilton, Mason, Greenville, Temple, New Ipswich, Sharon, Rindge, Jaffrey, Fitzwilliam, Troy, Richmond, Winchester, and Hinsdale ; gained a tract of land more than four hundred and fifty thousand acres in extent, and better in quality than the average of our New England country. That decision stands good to-day.
The king, ignoring the sixty-mile point in Mason's grant on the east, carried the line on to Canada because the province of Maine was extended there, and, ignoring, also, on the south, the sixty-mile point from the ocean, carried on the line with Massa- chusetts to "His Majesty's other governments," and thus Ma- son's curve, or his straight line from point to point, is obsolete. The king does not recognize it, and New Hampshire knows it not.
CONTEST WITH NEW YORK.
We come now to another border war, in which New Hamp- shire was one of the belligerents. Previous to the Revolution, both New York and New Hampshire claimed all the territory that now constitutes the state of Vermont. New York claimed it under the terms of her royal grant. Charles the Second, in 1663, granted to his brother James, Duke of York, and to his
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heirs and assigns, " All the lands from the west side of Connecti- cut river to the east side of Delaware bay." This language seems plain enough ; but, as New York never extended to Dela- ware bay on the south, nor to within a hundred miles of it; as Connecticut and Massachusetts had established their western boundaries beyond the Connecticut river, and on a line but twen- ty miles east of the Hudson; and as George the Second, in de- ciding the boundaries of New Hampshire, allows her line to ex- tend westward "till it meets with the King's other governments," Benning Wentworth, and those in authority in this province, claimed the territory of Vermont. It is proper that I should say here, that Gov. Clinton, in a letter to Gov. Wentworth in 1750, took the position that the colony of Connecticut was extended upon the New York grant by an agreement, and that Massachu- setts first went upon their grounds "by intrusion," and that the possession was left so long undisturbed by New York that it be- came permanent. His successors took the same position through all the coming struggle, but I hardly see how they could main- tain it. The original grant of Massachusetts was prior to that of the Duke of York, and the Massachusetts grant extended "from the Atlantic ocean on the east part, to the South sea on the west part."
Gov. Wentworth, nothing daunted by these allegations from New York, went ahead. He had granted the township of Ben- ยท nington, in 1749, naming it for himself. He proceeded, in the years following, to lay out towns on the disputed territory, and to receive large fees and presents from grantees for his official ser- vices. In a single year (1761) he granted sixty townships, and, in all, between the years 1749 and 1764, he granted, in the king's name, to New England people, nearly one hundred and forty townships of land, about six miles square, on what is now the ter- ritory of Vermont.
During all these years New York sternly protested, but Went- worth sternly persisted. Both parties appealed to the king, and, July 20, 1764, King George the Third, by an order in council, declared " the west bank of Connecticut river to be the boundary between the province of New Hampshire and that of New York." This order was received and promulgated in America, April 10, 1765.
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Lieutenant-Governor Cadwallader Colden, then acting as chief magistrate of New York, treating the grants which had been made by New Hampshire as nullities, and the settlers under them as trespassers on the king's domain, proceeded at once to grant the lands anew to others, mostly to New York speculators. In two years' time his patents covered most of the lands occupied by the New Hampshire settlers. He was stimulated to this work by the very great gains derived from the patent fees, he receiving for every thousand acres he patented the sum of $31.25, while six other government officials had a similar temptation. The secre- tary of the province received $10, the clerk of the council $10, the auditor $4.62}, the receiver-general $14.622, the attorney- general $7.50, the surveyor-general $12.50. Thus, the total amount of fees for one thousand acres was $90.50, and this amount was exacted for every thousand acres, even when many thousands were included in the same patent. The fees amounted to $2,300 to a township.
The like motive operated upon succeeding governors, not only inducing them to disregard the just and equitable claims of the New Hampshire grantees and settlers, but also to disobey and set at naught the positive injunctions of the king, forbidding them, in the most peremptory terms, from making such grants.
In the autumn of 1766 the settlers on the New Hampshire Grants west of the Green Mountains called a convention, and, on mature deliberation, agreed to send an agent to the court of Great Britain, to state to the king and council the illegal and unjust proceedings of the governor of New York, and to obtain redress of their grievances. They appointed Samuel Robinson, Esq., as their agent. Mr. Robinson went upon his mission, and the re- sult was, an order of the king in council, dated July 24, 1767, de- manding that the governor of New York should not, "upon pain of His Majesty's highest displeasure, presume to make any grant whatsoever of any part of the lands described in said report (Rob- inson's), until His Majesty's further pleasure should be known concerning the same."
This order was obeyed for a year or two, but as soon as the fall of 1769 it was wholly disregarded, and grants of the prohibited land were freely made by the succeeding governors of New York, until the Revolutionary period. The whole quantity of land grant-
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ed in direct violation of this order exceeded two millions of acres. Numerous suits of ejectment were brought against the settlers, which were tried before the supreme court at Albany, in June, 1770. The court refused to allow the New Hampshire charters to be read in evidence to the jury, and rendered judgment for the plaintiffs in all cases. The settlers met in convention, and re- solved to defend their rights "against the usurpation and unjust claims of the governor and council of New York, by force, as law and justice were denied them."
Col. Seth Warner was the guiding spirit in this convention,- a man whose countenance, attitude, and movements indicated great vigor of body and mind. He championed the New Hamp- shire Cause in that contest through all its fiery trials, with a bold- ness and a persistence seldom witnessed.
But the black clouds which portend the Revolutionary war are rolling up. The separation from the mother country and the independence of the colonies begin to be shadowed. The drama of the war opens at Lexington, and all local and provincial con- tests are, in large degree, held in abeyance. On the New Hamp- shire Grants there was a set of intrepid men, trained to hardy enterprise, and ready to encounter danger. At the commence- ment of hostilities, a company of these people, styling themselves Green Mountain Boys, marched to Ticonderoga, under Ethan Allen, and wrested that fortress from the British. Another de- tachment, under Col. Warner, took possession of Crown Point. The spirit of independence prevailed. The people on the New Hampshire Grants resisted the claims of New York. The royal decision had fixed the boundary of New Hampshire at the west bank of the Connecticut river. So,. on the 24th day of July, 1776, a convention was held at Dorset, Vt., which consisted of fifty-one members, representing thirty-five towns, which, by ad- journment, met again September 25, the same year; and again, at Westminster, January 15, 1777. At this latter meeting of the convention it was resolved, no one contradicting, " That we do hereby proclaim and publicly declare that the district of territory known by the name and description of the New Hampshire Grants, by right ought to be, and is hereby declared forever here- after to be, considered as a separate, free, and independent juris- diction or state, by the name, and forever hereafter to be called,
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known, and distinguished by the name, of New Connecticut." This convention adjourned, to be held at the meeting-house at Windsor the first Wednesday of the June following. At this meeting at Windsor the convention unanimously resolved, "That the said district shall now and hereafter be called and known by the name of Vermont."
New Hampshire was understood to be not averse to the erec- tion of this new state. At any rate, she uttered no protest against it. She felt that the territory of Vermont was placed be- yond her reach ; that the royal decree of 1764, declaring "the west bank of the Connecticut river, from where it enters the province of Massachusetts Bay to the 45th degree of latitude, to be the boundary line between New Hampshire and New York," was a barrier that could not be overcome. Besides, the Revolu- tionary war was now pressing on the infant colonies with fearful force. The overshadowing cause of the country engrossed the patriotism of the hour, and if New Hampshire was guilty of any lapses relative to her boundary lines in this great exigency, she is to be pardoned.
DISMEMBERMENT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.
But the strangest part of these transactions remains to be con- sidered. No sooner had Vermont organized a government, than a disposition was manifested by a portion of the inhabitants in border towns east of the Connecticut river to dissolve their con- . nection with New Hampshire and unite with the people of Ver- mont. Accordingly, on the 11th day of March, 1778, a petition from sixteen towns on the east side of Connecticut river was pre- sented to the legislature of Vermont, then in session at Windsor, praying to be admitted into its union. The inhabitants on the eastern side of the river were conveniently situated to unite with those on the western side, and it is probable that they generally held the same opinions and views. They argued, that the origi- nal grant of New Hampshire to John Mason was circumscribed by a line drawn at a distance of sixty miles from the sea, "and that all the lands westward of that line, being royal grants, had been held in subjection to the government of New Hampshire by force of the royal commissions, which were vacated by the
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assumed independence of the American colonies ; and, therefore, that the inhabitants of all those lands had reverted to a state of nature."
But this was a mere pretence, and a weak one. It was New Hampshire on the Connecticut river as positively as it was on the Piscataqua. It was New Hampshire outside of the Masonian line by the same authority that it was inside. All the bounda- ries that New Hampshire or any other province had up to this period were derived from the king. The people here were his subjects. The royal decree had fixed the boundaries of New Hampshire, the western boundary being determined, in 1764, on the west bank of Connecticut river. Hence, to us, that movement in the border towns appears like inexcusable secession. The in- habitants in those towns had nothing to complain of. They had, in every possible way, expressed themselves satisfied with their situation. Those towns were settled under the grant of the gov- ernor of New Hampshire. They were within the lines thereof. Most of them sent delegates to the convention, or congress, of New Hampshire, which met at Exeter in 1775, the convention which formed the constitution and government under which they were then living. From the commencement of the Revolutionary war they had applied to their government for assistance and pro- tection, and had received it.
But the disaffected towns were not to be restrained. They had presented their request to the General Assembly of Vermont to be admitted to a union with that state, and in June, 1778, at its session in Bennington, the legislature of Vermont, on the representation of a committee from the New Hampshire towns, that the said towns were not connected with any state in respect to their internal police, and that sixteen towns had assented to a union with Vermont, in accordance with articles mutually agreed upon, "Therefore, voted and resolved, that the sixteen towns,- viz., Cornish, Lebanon, Enfield, Dresden, Canaan, Cardigan, Lyme, Orford, Piermont, Haverhill, Bath, Lyman, Gunthwaite, Apthorp, Landaff, and Morristown,-be and hereby are entitled to the privileges and immunities vested in any town within this state." They also resolved "that any other towns, on the eastern side of the river, might be admitted on producing a vote of a majority of the inhabitants, or on the appointment of a repre-
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sentative." Thus was this union consummated. Thus was New Hampshire dismembered, but the storm of popular in- dignation began to howl. The leaders in the seceded towns made endeavors to have the government of New Hampshire ap- point commissioners to join such as they would appoint, to meet and decide how much territory should be severed from the state, where the boundary should be, etc. Of course, neither Presi- dent Weare nor his council nor his government would listen to such a proposal. The members from New Hampshire in the Con- tinental Congress at Philadelphia were entreated to resist this scheme. Meshech Weare addressed them a letter, in which he says,-" By the best information I have, about one third,-nearly one half,-of the people in the defective towns are averse to the proceedings of the majority, who threaten to confiscate their estates if they don't join with them; and I am very much afraid the affair will end in the shedding of blood." He also wrote a very strong letter to Governor Chittenden, of Vermont, a fair construction of which would be, "If you proceed, you do it at your peril." The Hon. Timothy Walker, of Concord, who at this time was a member of the council of the state, wrote an able ad- dress to the inhabitants of Vermont, in which this passage occurs : "It is well known in New Hampshire that the disappointments of a small junto of aspiring, avaricious men, in their endeavors to raise themselves to a degree of importance in the state far beyond what their numbers or estates gave them any pretence to, is the source of all this feud." Ethan Allen, in a characteristic letter to the government of New Hampshire, speaking of those who fomented this disturbance, on both sides of the river, says, -- "Argument will be lost on them, for the heads of the schism, at large, are a petulant, pettifogging, scribbling set, that will keep any government on earth in hot water." I am very glad to state that both Allen and Warner, and other good men in Vermont, set their faces squarely against the dismemberment of New Hampshire, from the start.
The bold attitude assumed by New Hampshire, and the oppo- sition to this movement which Vermont found at home, caused a halt in these proceedings. Vermont desired admittance to the confederacy of states. She sent Col. Allen, whose personal in- fluence was great, on to Philadelphia to obtain recognition for
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the state. It was known that New York would oppose this to the bitter end. Allen went on his mission. He returned and made his report, on the 10th of October, 1778, to the legislature of Vermont, then in session at Windsor. In that report we find the following : "From what I have heard of the disapprobation at Congress of the union with sundry towns east of Connecticut river, I offer it as my opinion, that, except this state recede from such union immediately, the whole power of the United States of America will join to annihilate the state of Vermont, and to vindicate New Hampshire." At this session of the legislature, representatives from ten of the "sixteen towns " took their seats in the General Assembly, but their situation became embarrass- ing in the extreme. Immediately upon the presentation of Al- len's report, the legislature took measures "to recede from the union " which had been formed with the sixteen towns east of the river, and, on the 21st day of October, 1778, the assembly voted, first, " That the towns east of the river, included in the union with this state, shall not be included in the county of Cum- berland ;" and, second, "That the towns on the east side of Connecticut river shall not be erected into a distinct county by themselves." This was not the entertainment to which those towns supposed they had been invited, for, by these votes, the sixteen towns were denied any connection with existing counties, and denied the formation of any county by them- selves. Of course, the union was virtually dissolved, and it is said that "our army in Flanders " furnished no language adequate to this occasion. But the vote was not unanimous. On each question there were twenty-eight votes favorable to the New Hampshire towns, and thirty-three votes unfavorable. The next day (Oct. 22) the members from the east side of the river, and a number from the border towns on the west side, made sol- emn protest against this proceeding, and voted themselves " dis- charged from any and every confederation and association with the state of Vermont." They then withdrew from the assembly.
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