USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Warren > The history of Warren; a mountain hamlet, located among the White hills of New Hampshire > Part 17
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
"In Memory of the HON. PHILLIPS WHITE, ESQ., Who departed this Life June 24th, 1811, in the 82d year of his age."
The above was copied from his gravestone, a plain slate stone slab, April 20, 1865, in South Hampton, N. H. The following is on the gravestone of his wife :
" MRS. RUTH WHITE, Comfort of THE HON. PHILLIPS WHITE, Died July 9th, 1797, In the 69th year of her age."
199
A NEW CHARTER GRANTED.
much trouble they had found in getting settlers for the township. "Hundreds of other towns," said Phillips White, Esq., "have been granted and all of the other proprietors have met with the same difficulties as the grantees of Warren; in fact," said he to the governor, "have we not succeeded as well as nine-tenths of the proprietors of other townships, and have you not given them new charters? Will you not treat us as well as you have them?"
The governor acknowledged the fact, ordered his secretary to make a minute of what was required, and then in the blandest manner possible suggested that the surveyor-general would be under the necessity of making new plans, the secretary would have a great deal of writing to perform, and of course a small amount of funds would be necessary.
Col. Greeley and Phillips White, Esq., both had the same thought and assured him the money should be forthcoming. The governor was much pleased and said, "You shall have the new charter, and that soon."
His visitors thanked him and went home. They thought they should get the charter in a few days, but they were again destined to wait. The year went by, the winter and spring of 1770 passed, and the summer was nearly half gone before they were notified that it was ready for them.
Phillips White went to Portsmouth for it. ] Like John Page., Esq., he carried a bag of gold. He counted out the yellow sover- eigns to the governor, to Col. Atkinson, to the surveyor, and to the surveyor-general- in all for the procuring of a new charter the sum of seventy-eight pounds one shilling. It also cost the proprietary for the further expenses of its committee the sum of seventeen pounds four shillings .* The governor was happy to
April 29, 1773. " Voted to give Col. Greeley for services done the proprietary one hundred and twenty-five acres of land in the northeast corner of the township to begin at the said northeast corner and to run southerly on the line of said town 290 rods, thence westerly 69 rods, thence northerly 290 rods to the northerly line of the town, thence easterly on said line 69 rods to said northeast corner."
Also, " Voted to give Phillips White, Esq., for services done the proprietary, 400 acres of land in the northeasterly part of the township, to begin at the northerly line of said town adjoining the land voted to Col. Greeley, thence southerly by said Greeley land 290 rods, thence westerly 221 rods, thence northerly 290 to the north - line of the town, thence easterly 221 rods to the bound first mentioned."
See Proprietors' Records.
* For obtaining the new charter: "Voted to pay, March 25, 1771, to Phillips White, Esq., 77 18s; to Col. Jonathan Greeley, 6l 14s; to Josiah Bartlett, Esq., 2l 12s. See Proprietors' Records.
200
HISTORY OF WARREN.
welcome Phillips White, Esq., a second time. His were golden visits.
This second charter was not so long as the first. It recited the difficulties the proprietors had met. It included the prayer for more land, and then prescribed the bounds of the township, stating that they were made by actual survey by "Isaac Rindge, our surveyor-general of our lands within the province of New Hampshire." But the great point gained by the charter was that the proprietors should have four years more in which to clear and settle our wild mountain hamlet. All the remaining conditions were the same as before, and the young and gallant governor was very careful to stipulate that all the rents due to us in our council chamber in Portsmouth shall be paid. The great seal was affixed, the charter signed by His Excellency, and Phillips White, Esq., returned with it to the proprietors.
How great was their joy ! They were saved. Col. Greeley's little taproom and long dining hall saw a merry time on the night 'Squire White returned with the charter from Portsmouth. The health of everybody in general, but of P. White in particular, was drank. Influence and gold had been their salvation. Now they were sure there would be no failure on their part. Individuals went to work on their own responsibility, and some of the land was actually cleared and cultivated. But they never succeeded in fulfilling the first condition of their charter. True they accom- plished much; but when four years more had passed they incurred another forfeiture. They would undoubtedly have again lost the township-or have been compelled to pay roundly for a new title -had not the Revolutionary war, which was their salvation after the year 1774, providentially occurred.
But we will here put an end to this third book and now pro- ceed to more congenial themes in the fourth. To continue further the history of the proprietors, separate from that of the settlers, would only serve to involve everything in inextricable confusion.
BOOK IV.
WHICH RELATES HOW OUR WILD MOUNTAIN HAMLET WAS CULTI- VATED AND SETTLED.
CHAPTER I.
OF DIVERS AND SUNDRY SOUNDS HEARD ON THE HEAD WATERS OF THE ASQUAMCHUMAUKE, AND OF TWO HOTELS IN WHICH NOT A DROP OF "GROG" COULD BE GOT, EITHER FOR LOVE OR MONEY.
THERE are a few great eras in the history of all civilized communities. The entrance of the Israelites into a land flowing with milk and honey, their deliverance from Babylon, and their dispersion by Titus, are some of the distinguishing epochs of that people. The founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus, the sacking of Troy, the destruction of Carthage,-are extraordinary events in the history of other nations. So the year 1767 is one of the most distinguished in the chronology of our little mountain hamlet.
Its position was chalked on the map in 1761. It was granted to John Page and sixty-five others in 1763, and the year 1767 is the date of its actual settlement.
The old year 1766 is dying. Let us pause on the threshhold of 1767. During all the time of Queen Anne's war, of Lovewell's war, of King George's war, of the Seven Years' war, when scalp- ing parties hastened along the Indian trail down the Asquamchum-
202
HISTORY OF WARREN.
auke, and drafted men were hurrying through the woods in search of their red foe, and further back than the memory of man run- neth, Warren was a wilderness. It is in this case on the last night of 1766. There is no clearing, no house, no human being. It lies a cold, crisp, terrible solitude in the heart of a vast forest.
The low winter sun, the last of the year, has gone down in a blaze of glory; the twinkling stars are glowing in an ebon sky, and Venus, just on the edge of the horizon, is hastening down the impearled pathway of the sun. The evening hours fly swiftly by. It is chill, freezing cold, and the very silence is oppressive. No sound comes up from the Asquamchumauke; it is ice-bound. Waternomee falls, on Mount Carr, and the "Seven Cascades," between the two peaks of the mountain, are silent. They are ice- falls, frozen as they leaped, and the moon gleaming on them makes them glorious, as though their mighty. columns were pillars of ruby, amythyst, jasper and gold. Moosehillock-king of the mountains-stands up in awful silence amid the lesser peaks around him.
But hark !- the howling of a pack of wolves comes sounding down the valley, and no human ear is there to hear it. At night they will feast upon one of their own number. Another sound! The moose and deer in their yards tremble as they listen to it, and the old crow who has lived for a century amid the thick hem- locks of this unbroken forest nearly topples from his roost. It is the terrible, almost human cry of the catamount. But even this lion of the American forest is soon stilled,-it is so cold. There is a moaning in the air. Is it the wind sighing in the leafless branches of the forest? Is it the aurora borealis snapping its elec- tric streamers and crackling its flaming pennons athwart the sky? Is it a troop of pale ghosts, shades of departed Indian warriors, charging through the air across the valley to the distant mountain side? But it is still now for a moment and you see only the gnarled trunks of the trees standing like grim sentinels in the shadows of the great mountains, and the cold snow shroud of mother earth.
Listen again-for it is never long silent in this mighty wood. Hear the cry of the wolves once more, the terrible voice of the catamount, the bark of the fox in the spruce swamp, and then at
203
PENNY WISE AND POUND FOOLISH.
intervals again that strange, unearthly noise, coming from one cannot tell where. The wind perhaps ?- may be the sound from the polar light, perchance the troop of ghosts, the spirits of the departed.
What a terrible solitude it is; never broken, an ocean of woods full of dark streams, wild torrents, shaggy hills, and great mountains. But there shall never be another new year's night like this in our mountain hamlet. Before 1767 passes a change will come. Be easy for a moment, most critical reader. We have written the above that you might have some faint idea what a place Warren was just before civilization came to it. But we will now come down from our lofty stilts and plod along at our usual pace.
The Indians had taken French leave of the Asquamchumauke or Baker river valley nearly fifty years before, and had gone to Canada. The era of border wars and savage ambuscades, of scalping knives, war-whoops, and "pow-wows" had passed. Even hunters and trappers were not so numerous as formerly, as game became less and less plentiful. The time of proprietors, surveyors, line-markers, lot-locators, and road-clearers had ar- rived, and treading close upon their heels would come the frontier settlers.
Did it never occur to our readers during their progress through the third book of this most delectable history that our venerable proprietors might have been a little too avaricious for their own good? The first four years after the granting of the charter by Governor Wentworth passed rapidly away without their even so much as making an offer of either lands or money to any one who would settle in their mountain territory. The proprietors of other townships were shrewder by far, and offered both lands and money to those who would locate on and improve their "grants." The consequence was that many towns further in the woods had num- erous settlers, while our lovely little hamlet remained a howling wilderness. Perhaps John Page and the associate grantees thought the land was so fertile, the woods so beautiful, the hills so inviting, the mountains so sublime, the game so plenty, and the streams and ponds so well stocked with the speckled trout and golden salmon, that there would be a mighty rush of settlers eager to occupy our
204
HISTORY OF WARREN.
woodland paradise, and that they should make an immense amount of money by the sale of their lands even before they were lotted. But they were most thoroughly disabused of this idea about the time they lost everything by forfeiting their charter. They learned to their great cost that in order to sell any portion of their land they must first give away some of it; and they also got another " cute idea " through their heads-that they would have to pay a good smart bounty to any man, to induce him to receive a portion of the land even as a gift, and engage to settle on it. The reason of this was that there was much more land to be settled than there were settlers in all New England.
But experience, that high-priced schoolmaster, taught them the above lesson, and in 1767 they went to work in a more com- mon sense manner. At two consecutive meetings this year the subject of bestowing lands and bounties was discussed, but it was not fully determined whether they would give them or not. Yet the rumor of what might be expected to be done went abroad, and as a portion of the lands had already been laid out into lots by the proprietors' committee, a few enterprising young men began to turn their attention to them.
But before proceeding further we must consider briefly what took place on the king's great highway which the proprietors had caused to be cleared through Warren. We should not record this slight jotting of history, but that we consider it will prove a great benefit to posterity, and so we piously note it down.
The first human habitations in Warren, of which we have any correct knowledge, were the wigwams of the Indians; the next the rude camps of hunters and trappers, and following them the camps of our former surveying parties.
But when the spring of 1767 came, when the sun ran high and the warm showers descended, when the buds on the trees expand- ed, and the speckled adder tongues pierced up by the snow banks through the moist mat of leaves on the ground; when millions of flowers were developing, and the delicious yellow dandelion grew blooming so sweetly on the grassy river bank,-then it was that travelers journeying to the lovely Coos country through the land of the Pemigewassetts, built beside the committee's road, or rather the Indian trail, two exceedingly fine and hospitable hotels, even
205
WAY STATIONS FOR TRAVELLERS.
before a single white man had moved into the township. One of them was located beside the trail, on the west bank of the As- quamchumauke, and the other upon the shore of our little moun- tain pond, Wachipauka .*
They were only one-story high, a low one at that, and were built in the most economical manner. Two crotched stakes, each about six feet long, were driven in the ground about seven feet apart; a pole was placed horizontally in the forks for a "plate ;"' two others some twelve feet long each were then placed with one end on the horizontal pole and the other on the ground, serving for rafters ; on these were fastened the ribs for the roof, and then the top and right angled triangled sides were covered with spruce bark. Before the open front, which generally faced the southeast, the fire was built.
Although there was neither landlord nor landlady, chamber- maid, cook, or waiter, hostler or errand boy about these one- roomed hotels, still they were most welcome inns to the weary traveller. If he could not find provisions in them, still they afforded him comfortable shelter, with a soft bed of moss and hemlock boughs, and the dry punk, flint and steel, could always be relied upon with which to kindle a cheering fire. Whether or not the bar was well stocked with the good creature we are not succinctly informed ; but we have no doubt the guests would have raised the most congenial spirits, provided their own backs had been stouter. Their dispositions were certainly good enough, and their stomachs sufficiently strong, to have brought the requisite store of "old rum" that distance into the wilderness. Pocket pis- tols of approved construction were not unknown even in those days, and the canteen or bottle-shaped gourd slung to the side of the sturdy woodsman who set his face towards the mountains con- tained often a more potent restorative than pure spring water. Who knows but that these "first hotels" of Warren saw many a night of jovial revelry in the year 1766?
* " It may be proper for me to state in this place that our forefathers had taken the precaution to build camps on the route from Haverhill to Salisbury, one camp in every twelve or fifteen miles, and each was supplied with fireworks and fuel, so that a traveller could soon kindle him a fire, and he had the boughs of hemlock for his bed."-Powers' History of Coos, 72.
They had two camps on the Height-o'-Land, one on the very summit and one by the brook running from Eastman pond into Tarleton lake. The camp by Eastman brook was in Piermont .- History of Coos, 117.
206
HISTORY OF WARREN.
Taverns then there were, two of them, by the old Indian trail in those early times; but who cleared the first land, erected the first cabin, and brought civilization to Warren, we will tell in our next chapter.
CHAPTER II.
ABOUT JOSEPH PATCH, THE FIRST WHITE SETTLER OF WARREN, AND HOW HE HAD A FEW HUNGRY VISITORS WHICH ATE UP ALL HIS PROVISIONS.
ADAM was the first man, Eve the first woman; Noah and his sons peopled the earth after the flood; Columbus discovered America; Captain John Smith explored New England,* and
JOSEPH PATCH
was the first bona fide settler in the township of Warren.
Some men are born great, others achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them; and thus it is the good luck of Joseph Patch, by happening to be the first settler of our mountain hamlet, to be immortalized in this delightful history.
It was in the autumn of 1767 that he first came to Warren to live. He had imbibed a passion for hunting in his earliest boy- hood and it was to gratify this taste that he built for himself a hunter's camp, the last of September, beside one of our wildest mountain torrents, Hurricane brook.t
He was a young man not yet twenty-one years old. He had brown hair, blue eyes, light complexion, a pleasing expression of countenance, and was very agreeable in conversation. He was of a middle stature, well formed, muscle hard and compact, would weigh about one hundred and fifty pounds, and was capable of great endurance. He had courage, and was cool and collected in
* New England is that part of America which, together with Virginia, Mary- land, and Nova Scotia were by the Indians called (by one name) Wingadacoa .- III Series Mass. Hist. Soc. Col. Vol. 3, 239.
t Jacob Patch's statement. He was a son of Joseph Patch.
208
HISTORY OF WARREN.
the hour of danger. It is told how he lay sleeping upon- his bed of spruce boughs one dark night in his half-open camp, when the low growling of the dog at his side awoke him. The fire, which he had left burning when he went to sleep, had gone out, and all was black darkness in the woods. Only the rustle of the leaves overhead and the low murmur of the brook on the smooth-worn stones disturbed the silence. Looking cautiously out he could see nothing. His dog continuing to growl, he put his hand on the hound's back and found that the hair was as stiff as bristles. Again he looked out, and happening to raise his eyes he saw gleaming in the branches of a low maple what seemed two balls of fire. He knew what it was; only the eyes of a catamount could glow like that. He felt the cold sweat creeping over him, but realizing his danger he recovered himself, coolly picked up his gun, took deliberate aim and fired. There was a wild howl, a dead fall, a terrible struggle for a moment, biting the earth and rending the bark from the trees, and the ferocious animal was dead. The hunter's courage had saved his life. The catamount was preparing to spring upon him, and had he done so Patch would have been torn in pieces. He built a bright fire for the remainder of the night and in the morning had the pleasure of skinning the largest catamount he ever saw .*
In personal appearance he was the real backwoodsman. He had a cap of wolfskin, the hair considerably worn off; no vest or coat, but a short sheep's gray frock, which he tucked inside his moosehide breeches; a coarse tow shirt, no neck-tie, woollen stockings, and the real Indian moccasins .on his feet. His dress was stout and would not easily be torn among the trees and under- brush through which he hastened.
Patch was "born of poor but respectable parents " in Hollis, N. H. His father's name was Thomas Patch. His early educa- tion was much neglected, he having attended school but a few months in his life. His boyhood had been passed on his father's farm, and he had been in the habit of gaining a few pence in autumn by building culheag traps on the banks of his native streams, to catch mink and muskrat, and he was also skillful in setting steel traps for foxes.
* Mrs. Hobart Wyatt said she heard Mr. Patch frequently relate this adventure.
209
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT IN WARREN.
When the mania for occupying northern lands first came on he accompanied the Hobarts and Websters, his townsmen, into the wilderness. He at first resided in the family of Mr. Hobart, in New Plymouth, of whom he bought some land. But avarice and cupidity got the better of his employer's morality, and he cheated Patch out of it. In after years Hobart repented and to ease his own conscience gave our first settler two cows in payment .* Patch afterwards worked for David Webster, inn keeper, a short time, and was often employed as a guide through the woods to the Coos intervals.
Just west of the main carriage road now running through the town, just east of the railroad and on the south bank of Hurricane brook, Joseph Patch built his hunter's camp. Game was plenty. Great fat salmon were swimming in the river, and trout that would weigh several pounds apiece sported in the brooks. There were partridges in abundance, and thousands of rabbits had here a warren-so that there need be no lack of something to eat. One might hunt, trap, or fish at pleasure. Wolf, bear, moose, or deer could be shot, and beaver, otter, sable, fox, mink, or muskrat captured for a rich store of peltries. These were the inducements that brought Joseph Patch to Warren,
Could you have stood by his camp a hundred years ago you would have felt that you were a long way in the wilderness, that you had somewhat of a rural house to stop at, that there was plenty of wood to burn and that there was a great chance for clearing before there could be any very fine farms. You would have seen hanging upon or fastened to the great pine trees around the skins of all the various animals above mentioned, drying with the flesh side out, the many-colored tails pendant presenting a gay and attractive appearance.
Joseph Patch had seen, at Plymouth, the proprietors' commit- tee, that came to Warren the previous spring, and he had heard them say that in all probability land in Warren would be given by the proprietors, either in the fall or the next spring, to any one who would settle upon it, and that the first settler would have his first choice of lots. He had lost what he had purchased at Ply- mouth, and one day, as the story goes, recollecting what the com-
* Jacob Patch's statement.
N
210
HISTORY OF WARREN.
mittee had said, he thought it might be an excellent idea to select the lot where he had built his camp. After thinking of the sub- ject for some time he finally concluded as he had possession- which by the way is esteemed nine points in law -that committee or no committee, gift or no gift, he would have it if possible and remain where he was.
The next step was to choose a spot for clearing, and the first week in October he fell an acre or more of trees. The Indian summer dried them, and setting them on fire he got an excellent burn. Before snow fell he had cleared the ground ready for planting the next spring. This first opening in the forest-the initial acre clearing-was just east of the "Forks" school-house, sometimes called Clough school-house. It was in the corner of this lot that he planted the first apple tree that ever grew in War- ren. Patch next cleared a small piece of land a few rods south- west of his camp.
It now became necessary to change his hunter's camp into a cabin, so he dug himself a cellar, stoned it, built over it a log shanty, covered it with spruce bark and tightened it with moss. A chimney of flat stones was built on one side, over a capacious fire-place; his door was made of rifted boards, hewed down with his axe, and an opening in the wall, closed at will with a shutter made in the same manner as the door, admitted the light.
On the top of a great pine stump, cut smoothly for the pur- pose, he built of stones and earth a tolerable Dutch oven. Thus furnished he was ready for the winter.
The remains of the apple tree which he planted, the old cellar fallen in, and the stump on which he built his oven, are yet to be seen .*
In addition to these labors he had good success in hunting. He found several beaver meadows, one on Black brook, one on Berry brook, and one on Patch brook. There was a beautiful pond on the latter stream, formed by a dam built of poles and mud, as only beavers can build a dam, and on the shores were numerous
* Jacob Patch's statement, 1857.
Jonathan Clough's statement. Mr. C. showed likewise the apple tree, the cellar, and the pine stump on which Patch built his oven. A ruler from the trunk of the apple-tree he first planted is in existence. It was made by Amos F. Clough, in 1856. The trunk is nearly all gone, but new sprouts have grown up, marking the place of the old trec.
211
PATCH AT HOME IN THE WOODS.
picturesque, conical little mud domicils, full of various apart- ments opening only into the water, in which the beavers lived. It seemed too bad to destroy the habitations of these almost half- human and industrious villagers. But such thoughts never enter the head of a hunter, and Joseph Patch was very successful and took great pleasure in trapping these diligent animals. His mink and sable lines were also very productive. Thus he passed his time till the streams froze up and the snow flew.
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.