USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Warner > The history of Warner, New Hampshire, for one hundred and forty- four years, from 1735 to 1879 > 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
July 31, 1746, twelve gentlemen, all living in Portsmouth but one, purchased of John Tufton Ma- son, tracts of land containing "two hundred thousand acres, more or less," it being all the land that the said Mason then claimed in the province. The names of these twelve purchasers were Theodore Atkinson, 1 Mark Hunking Wentworth, Richard Wibird, John Wentworth, George Jaffrey, Samuel Moore, Nathaniel Meserve, Thomas Packer, Jotham Odiorne, Thomas Wallingford, Joshua Pierce, and John Moffat.
This was an important step to the proprietors of Warner, as the township became, at this time, the lawful property of the aforesaid twelve men. “New lords, new laws," is the old adage; and the Ames-
61
THE MASONIAN PROPRIETORS.
bury proprietors could not determine whether it would prove a good thing or a fearful thing to fall into the hands of this company. The company con- sisted of men of wealth and position, and they will be known henceforth as the Masonian Proprietors.
Theodore Atkinson was a graduate of Harvard, in the class of 1718. Soon after leaving college, he was appointed clerk of the court of common pleas. He was many years colonel of the First Regiment New Hampshire Militia ; also was collector of customs, naval officer, and high sheriff of the province. He was appointed secretary of the province in 1741, and chief-justice of the supreme court in 1754.
Mark Hunking Wentworth was a brother to Gov. Benning, and the father of the last royal governor, John Wentworth.
Nathaniel Meserve built, in 1749, the " America," for the British government,-doubtless the first ship of the line built in America. He was a colonel of New Hampshire troops in the expedition against Crown Point, having the command at Fort Edward. In the second expedition against Louisbourg, in 1758, he and his son, Lieut. Nathaniel Meserve, fell victims to the small-pox.
Col. Samuel Moore was a wealthy ship-master, at Portsmouth. He was one of the grantees of New Breton, now Andover.
George Jaffrey, Joshua Pierce, Jotham Odiorne,
62
HISTORY OF WARNER.
and Richard Wibird were members of the council of the province, and Samuel Solly, who soon became one of the Masonian proprietors, by purchase or by the death of an original member, was also on the council board.
The grantees of Warner, notwithstanding all these accumulating discouragements, kept heart as well as possible, and pushed ahead. They trusted that the Masonian proprietors would do the fair thing. They held a fully attended meeting at Amesbury, Decem- ber 18, 1749, and
" Voted to build five houses in said Township, at the cost of the proprietors ; the dimensions to be ac- cording to the Act of Court."
January 26, 1750,-less than six weeks after the above vote was passed,-the following record is found :
"We the subscribers, pursuant to the above vote, have built four houses on the Township No. one in the line of towns agreeable to order of Court.
Thomas Colby, Jarvis Ring,
Moses Morrill, Gideon Straw."
FURTHER ENCOURAGEMENT TO SETTLERS.
At a meeting in Amesbury, Feb. 12th, of the same year,-
"Voted that the five first families that will go and settle shall have the 5 houses voted last meeting and
63
A NEW COMPLICATION-GRANT TO RYE.
shall receive 20 pounds old tenor, provided they go there to work next spring and move their families by the last of September next."
" att ye same meetinge voted that each proprietor pay his proportion of ye charge that has Been in Buldinge the Houses in said township at the next annuell meetinge."
These houses stood on, or very near, the Stephen Davis muster-field. They were never occupied, but were burned by the Indians at the same time they put fire to the saw-mill. And so this scheme, also, ended in smoke.
A NEW COMPLICATION-GRANT TO RYE.
The Masonian proprietors, on the 14th day of March, 1749, granted the town of Warner to seventy- six men, seventy of whom belonged in Rye and New- castle. Most of these were Jennesses. The other six were Joseph Parsons of Bradford, Mass., Andrew McClary and John Blake, Jr., of Epsom, Stephen Ger- rish of Boscawen, Hunking Wentworth and Thomas Packer of Portsmouth.
The Salisbury and Amesbury proprietors must have known of this grant when they were building houses and making other efforts to induce families to become settlers in Number One, but they regarded this grant to the Rye proprietors as conditional, and they did
64
HISTORY OF WARNER.
not believe those proprietors would be able to fulfil the conditions prescribed. Too much space would be required to insert those conditions here. It is enough to say, they were extremely exacting and harsh.
But at last the multitude of adversities (not the least of which was the renewal of the French and Indian war, which stopped the tide of emigration to the frontier) compelled the grantees of Warner to de- sist in their endeavors for the settlement of the town- ship. From 1750, onwards, for eight or ten years, " they rested from their labors," so far as caring for their interest in the " disputed territory" was con- cerned.
It is evident, however, that they recommenced efforts for the settling of the town as soon as 1760 or 1761. There are no records in existence covering this period, but there is proof that their agents or employés, in passing through Concord and Hopkinton, notified the inhabitants thereof that settlers in Num- ber One would receive a gift of 40 acres each, and liberal treatment, if they availed themselves of these offers promptly.
CHAPTER V.
A NEW EPOCH-SETTLEMENT OF THE TOWN-DANIEL ANNIS- REUBEN KIMBALL-THE FIRST CHILD.
OLUMBUS discovered America in 1492. Capt. John Smith, of Jamestown memory, discovered the Isles of Shoals in 1614. Plymouth was settled in 1620; Dover, New Hampshire, and Portsmouth at Odiorne's Point, in 1623 ; Nashua, in 1673 ; Concord, in 1727; Boscawen and Canterbury, in 1734 ; Hop- kinton, in 1742,-but the inhabitants of that township left their homes a few years after this on account of the hostility of the Indians. They returned, how- ever, in 1752. Salisbury was settled in 1750; Hen- niker, in 1761; Warner, in 1762; Sutton, in 1767; and Bradford, in 1771.
About the time of the settlement of Warner and the adjacent towns, the tide of emigration was setting strongly inland. Cheap land was sought for. The romance of a home on the frontier influenced thou- sands. Young men and young women were seeking the virgin soil of the wilderness. Many who had
66
HISTORY OF WARNER.
reached middle life were doing likewise. They did not hesitate to brave the trials and deprivations inseparable from a life in the woods. While many of these adventurers were called to endure disappoint- ment, hardship, and want, most of them bettered their condition by disposing of such property as they had nearer the sea, and going back into the unoccu- pied country.
SETTLEMENT OF THE TOWN.
A peculiar interest attaches to those who happen to have been the first settlers in any town or place. We naturally desire to know who they were, where they came from, and how they fared. We are also interested in ascertaining the exact spot on which they settled, and the exact time when the event oc- curred.
The curiosity of the readers of this volume will be gratified in these respects, for the author has been unexpectedly successful in searching for facts in rela- tion to these points. In the spring of 1762, the first settlements in Warner were made. Daniel Annis and Reuben Kimball, with their families, made these set- tlements. Kimball was the son-in-law of Annis, and they both came from Hopkinton.
The Salisbury and Amesbury proprietors, not relin- quishing their claim to the township, began to make renewed exertions to people it as soon as 1761. They
67
SETTLEMENT OF THE TOWN.
gave assurances that if they should maintain author- ity in the premises they would accord most generous treatment to any and all who should become settlers in Number One. They were, indeed, hampered, and, one would think, utterly defeated in their enterprise, by the complications which have been referred to ;- but they still persisted in claiming the township as rightfully theirs; and after a struggle of several years more, and the expenditure of large sums of money, they were victorious.
As already stated, the first two families to settle in Warner were from Hopkinton, our nearest neighbor- ing town on the south-east. The home of Daniel An- nis was on the south-west slope of Putney's hill. He owned lot No. 5, on the west side of South Range, and lot No. 5 on the east side of the same range; and he lived on one of these lots. He also owned land on Sugar hill, and two intervale lots on the south side of Contoocook river. He had not been long a resident of Hopkinton,-not more than five or six years : in- deed, nobody had been there a great while.
Charles Annis was born in Enniskillen, Great Brit- ain, in 1638. He came to Essex county, Massachu- setts, in 1666; and he is believed to be the common ancestor of all the Annises in New England. We soon find them in Newburyport, Amesbury, Bradford, and Haverhill. We find Daniel and John (brothers) in Bradford, Mass., as early as 1740. The proprietors
68
HISTORY OF WARNER.
and settlers of Penacook (Concord) belonged in Ha- verhill, Bradford, and that vicinity. About 1745, Dan- iel Annis disposed of his property in Bradford, and moved to Concord, New Hampshire. He settled the east side of the Merrimack, perhaps at or near the spot where the village of East Concord now stands. He was assigned, among others, in 1746, "to man the garrison near Captain Ebenezer Eastman's." In 1748 he united, with others, in a petition to "His Excellen- cy Benning Wentworth, Captain General and Gover- nor of His Majesty's Province of New Hampshire," praying that a small number of soldiers might be placed in the garrison near Henry Lovejoy's grist-mill, " which he had erected at great expense, which was a good mill, and at a place the most advantageously to accommodate the three towns of Rumford [now Concord], Contoocook [now Boscawen], and Canter- bury." The petitioners set forth that "the ill con- sequences of abandoning the garrison the past year hath been severely felt by us." Lovejoy's mill was at West Concord, on the stream which is the outlet of Penacook lake.
Hopkinton, though granted by Massachusetts, in 1735, to citizens of Hopkinton in that province, soon found itself, as did Warner, outside the limits of that jurisdiction. A new charter had to be obtained, as in the case of Warner, and it had to come from the Ma- sonian proprietors. When this took place, most of
69
SETTLEMENT OF THE TOWN.
the old Hopkinton grantees retired. The few origi- nal members that remained called a meeting in 1750, at Concord, N. H., to admit new proprietors, and to stimulate settlement. Daniel Annis, and several fam- ilies of the Kimballs, enlisted in this enterprise, and became settlers in Hopkinton. Annis became also a proprietor (he being a man of considerable means), but he did not move to Hopkinton till about 1757.
Reuben Kimball's home, or that of his father (Jer- emiah), was on Putney's hill. The first Kimball that is found in this country is Henry. He came over in the Elizabeth, from Ipswich, England, in 1634, and settled in Watertown, Mass. A nephew of his, by the name of Caleb, came to Ipswich, Mass., and was killed in King Philip's war, at Bloody Brook, 1675. Richard, a brother of the latter, settled in Bradford, Mass., and raised a large family. Thomas, another brother, was an early settler at Bradford, and was killed by the Indians, May 3, 1676. At the same time his wife and five children were taken prisoners, and carried forty miles into the wilderness. On the 13th day of June following they were set at liberty, and allowed to go home.
The Kimballs soon abound in Essex county, and in other parts of Massachusetts. At as early a day as 1746, a number of them are found in Concord, N. H. These came from Bradford and that vicinity. They are also among the early settlers of Hopkinton. Some
70
HISTORY OF WARNER.
of these came direct from Essex county, while others, like Daniel Annis, came first to Concord, and thence to Hopkinton. They settled near Kimball Fort, which stood on the highest point of land on the Concord road, a mile below Hopkinton village. They settled, also, on and around Putney's hill. Jeremiah Kimball came from Bradford, Massachusetts. He died in May, 1764, aged 56, and was buried at the Old Fort on Putney's hill. He was the father of Reuben, who married Hannah, daughter of Daniel Annis, and set- tled in Warner in 1762.
These two men, not being quite satisfied with their situation in Hopkinton, took a tramp up into town- ship Number One. This they did in the early sum- mer of 1761. It was but a short trip, and they came and returned the same day. They were pleased with the country, as well as with the liberal propositions which the proprietors of the township were making. They made a second journey, tarried longer, and se- lected their lots. During the summer and fall of this year they cleared a number of acres, sowed winter rye, and made preparations for building. Annis se- lected the ground where Paine Davis now resides. It was Lot 72 in the first survey, containing sixty acres. Kimball went up south-west, a third of a mile, and selected a forty-acre lot, which for many years con- stituted one half of the old Origen Dimond farm. It was Lot No. 26, of the first survey, but the lots were
71
SETTLEMENT OF THE TOWN.
not surveyed and numbered till after these men had made their settlements.
Annis had a large family,-not less than four sons and three daughters, now young men and young women. The sons were Daniel, Jr., Thomas, Moses, and Solomon, and the daughters were Hannah (Mrs. Kimball), Rachel, and Ruth.
In the spring of 1762, these families " came to stay." Mr. Annis, the first of May, had his house completed. It stood on the little plat of ground between the main road and the railroad, just above Paine Davis's shed. The front door of the house was within ten feet of the present wall. The humble barn of this pioneer stood on ground which the present large barn on that place covers, and the barnyard was where the shed now is. Across the road, on the side-hill,-perhaps five rods from the front of the house,-was a living spring, from which the family for years obtained their supply of water. But the spring became dry long years ago, and those who drew there- from thirst no more.
Here, after fifty years of vicissitude and toil, Daniel Annis pitched his tent for the remainder of his life. He pitched wisely. Hopkinton had now a small num- ber of inhabitants, but none of them had crossed the Contoocook river to found their homes. To the northward, the habitation of no white family could be found this side of Canada. The stillness of the day
72
HISTORY OF WARNER.
and the silence of the night may have been, for a time, unwelcome to the stirring nature of Daniel An- nis. No stage-coach rolled along the public way ; no railroad train thundered by at the rear ; no wood- man's axe echoed in the distance; no birds sang in the wilderness ;- and yet it was a charming place. The soil was productive : a part of the intervale was open prairie land. A road, such as it was, led by the front door of the house, connecting New Hopkinton with the meeting-house lot in New Almsbury. The peaceful river was sweeping gently by, a few feet at the rear of the house, and the gray summit of old Kearsarge stood out boldly at the north.
Daniel Annis brought a part of his family with him to this new home the first of May, 1762; but he left his wife, two unmarried daughters, and one or two sons at Putney's hill. He had not yet disposed of his property there. Reuben Kimball, and Hannah Annis his wife, came to Warner with the father, and, if we make no account of the Indians, Hannah Annis Kim- ball was the first woman who ever slept in town. Kimball and his wife made their home with Mr. An- nis till the last of June. Having completed their humble log house and their humbler barn, and hav- ing dug and stoned their well, which was “ seven feet deep," Reuben and Hannah, the 30th day of June, 1762, went up to this primitive home on the hill, there to make their abode. Six acres were then in
73
SETTLEMENT OF THE TOWN.
corn, potatoes, and winter rye. The latter was now " five feet tall, with long heads, and beginning to turn." Kimball was 24 years of age, and his wife 22.
Daniel Annis now brought other members of his family to Warner,-perhaps all the others. He lived here the remainder of his days (28 years), died in 1790, and his dust sleeps in an unknown grave in the old cemetery at the Parade.
When this Kimball lot was surveyed, and the title of the occupant to it was confirmed by the Amesbury proprietors, it was numbered 26. It was a " gift lot," containing forty acres. It was half a mile long, and forty rods wide. The whole lot was annexed to the Dimond farm in 1767, but at a subsequent time it was divided. The south end (and the larger part of the lot) still constitutes a part of that farm ; but the north end, on which Kimball's buildings stood, has for a great many years been a part of the Ira P. Whittier pasture, which was formerly owned by Gilman C. George, and by his father before him.
To visit the site of the buildings where this young couple settled in 1762, one should go to the Ballard place (now owned and occupied by Marshall Dunbar); go up the new Joppa road from Dunbar's shop a few rods, and turn in to the left; then follow Dunbar's cart-path up through his first and second fields; get over the wall from the latter into Whittier's pasture,- and there, about twenty feet from the wall, will be
74
HISTORY OF WARNER.
found indistinct traces of the old cellar, and of the foundations of the house and barn. The old well is distinctly marked, and an ancient apple-tree stands near by. It is a sightly place, there being nothing to obstruct the view to the north, the east, or the west. But no buildings have stood on this ground to tell the story of the joys and sorrows of that young family, for a hundred and twelve years. A solemn air seems to pervade the place, for here, on this lonely height, a century and a sixth ago, on a dark October night, when the storm was howling down the mountain sides, the first child of Warner was born !
Subsequently, another child was born here to the same parents, and still another ; but after living here five years, Kimball sold his farm to his brother-in-law, Abner Watkins, and moved to what is now known as the Kimball road, where he died in 1811. His son Jeremiah followed him on the same place. The two sons of Jeremiah,-Chellis F. and Reuben,-are well remembered by the people of Warner of the present day.
This second home of Reuben Kimball, too, is de- serted. It was near the corner (sometimes called Kimball Corner) where one road leads off to Joppa, and the other down to the Parade. Four generations of Kimballs have lived at this place,-Reuben, senior, Jeremiah, Rev. Reuben, and his children. But the old two-story red house was taken away many years
75
THE FIRST CHILD.
ago, and the farm, as a place of residence, was given up.
The body of Reuben Kimball, the first, was buried at the Parade, under the blossoming apple-trees, near the wall, and not far from the south-east corner of the cemetery. On the slab that marks the grave are the following words :
In Memory of Mr. Reuben Kimball, Who died May 2, 1811, Aged 73.
THE FIRST CHILD.
The place has now been designated where Warner's first child was born. The event occurred in October, 1762. The baptismal name of this child was Daniel, and his life was one of quiet romance. Born and cradled in the region of hills, Daniel Kimball gazed, with youthful eye, on the grandeur of a broken coun- try. He learned to love the mountains, and when he " became of age," he made his adopted home in their very midst. He started out, in 1783 or 1784, to "seek his fortune." With a small bundle of clothes swung on a stick over his shoulder, he sallied forth. His eye was towards the north,-the country of cheap land ;- in fact, the country where the land was free to actual settlers. He travelled alone, passing through Sutton, 6
76
HISTORY OF WARNER.
New London, Springfield, and on to Enfield, making the whole journey between " sun and sun." He put up at Enfield for the night. Archelaus Stevens and his family had gone up there from Hampstead, and settled, a few years before this time. Daniel Kimball stopped with this family, and ate and slept in their house. Polly Stevens was a blooming damsel of eighteen. Possibly Daniel K. was aware of her pres- ence in that house, but he pushed on the next morn- ing up into Canaan. He selected a lot on Sawyer's hill, in that town, and went industriously to work. Every Saturday night he returned to his patron fami- ly in Enfield. In due time Daniel Kimball and Polly Stevens were "no more twain." They made their pleasant and satisfactory home on Sawyer's hill. Their first house, to be sure, was made of logs, but it was just such a one as the male head of this little family had been born in, and there was no complain- ing. Within ten years from their first occupancy of this place, they had a comfortable frame house, and it stands to-day. It is good enough. Their farm was about an average one in that locality. It was good for wheat, oats, grass, and potatoes, but only moder- ately good for corn. Their roads were steep and rough, and they have not been much improved since that day. The home of Kimball was on the ridge of Sawyer's hill, two miles north-west from " Canaan street." At the rear of his buildings abruptly rises
77
THE FIRST CHILD.
Moose mountain, to the height of 2,300 feet. In front, at the south-east, and in full view to its very base, stands old Cardigan, lifting its silvery head 3,100 feet above the level of the sea. Thus the view from this point is very striking.
Just across the road from the Kimball house, and not five rods from the front door, is a natural pond, embracing less than a sixteenth part of an acre. This pond, on the 28th day of August, 1878, was full of fragrant lilies. Here this couple settled down for life. Here they raised up, to be men and women, ten healthy children. Here they lived respected, and died in peace.
The writer has pursued this " first child of Warner" to the end; has found where he was born, where he performed his life-work, and where he died. He has followed him to his grave. He is inurned in the old cemetery on Sawyer's hill. A clump of red rose- bushes and a white marble slab mark his burial-place on the mountains. On this slab the chisel of the engraver has only said,-
Daniel Kimball, Died July 29, 1843, Aged 80.
CHAPTER VI.
PROPRIETORS' RECORD-EFFORTS FOR COLONIZATION-GIFT LOTS -SETTLERS' BOND-EARLY SETTLERS.
PPARENTLY without much fear of the Jen- nesses before their eyes, the Salisbury and Amesbury proprietors met at Amesbury, in June, 1763, and proceeded to business. The exact record of this meeting is in the words following :
"att a Meeting of the Proprietors of township No. one in the line of towns, on ye 21st of June, 1763, voted that Joseph Jewell Francis Davis Moses Morrill and Daniel Quimby be a Committee to Go and hire a servayer and what help thay shall think Proper and Go and Run a Line Round said township att the same meeting voted to allow the committee half a Dollar per Day for thare time voted that this meeting be ad- journed to the 19th day of July next at Captain Jon- athan Barnard's house."
This committee, for some unknown reasons, never performed the duty assigned them. They may have taken a tramp in some portions of the township, but they run no line round the town, and made no report of such transaction.
79
PROPRIETORS' RECORD.
At the adjourned meeting, July the 19th,-
"Voted that the first ten settlers Provided thay . shall settel Emediately on sª township shall have for thare Incouragement a forty acre Loot of upland and five acres of Intervail Each, the five acres of Interval Nigh sª upland."
On the 9th day of August, 1763, the proprietors of Number One met again at the house of Capt. Jona- than Barnard, Innholder, in Amesbury, and after or- ganizing,-
Voted to lay out a division of 60 forty-acre lots of the best land in the township, exclusive of intervale, and that Enoch Blaisdell, Barnard Hoyt, and Elipha- let Danford be a committee for laying out the said lots.
At the same meeting, voted that the men that will first agree to settle in the township with their fami- lies shall have their choice of the forty-acre lots.
Voted that each proprietor shall pay eighteen shill- ings, old tenor, to defray expenses of laying the set- tlers' division of lots.
The names of those persons, who at this meeting agreed verbally, or by letter, to become settlers in township Number One, are as follows, viz. :
Enoch Blaisdell, Barnard Hoyt,
Eliphalet Danford, Daniel Flanders,
Stephen Danford, Zebulon Flanders,
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.