The history of Weare, New Hampshire, 1735-1888, Part 5

Author: Little, William, 1833-1893. cn
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Lowell, Mass., Printed by S. W. Huse & Co.
Number of Pages: 1240

USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Weare > The history of Weare, New Hampshire, 1735-1888 > Part 5

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).

Capt. John Mason was first a merchant of London, then a sea cap-

* The first to write of the Merrimack was DeMonts, who heard of it while on the banks of the St. Lawrence, 1604.

THE MASONIAN TITLE.

1621.]

tain, after that governor of Newfoundland, and when he went home, was made governor of Portsmouth in Hampshire, England. Capt. Mason took the place of some one, who died, in the Plymouth com- pany, was its scribe, and soon had as much interest as Gorges in its work. These two men hold a high place in the history of our state. They got grants from the Plymouth Company, of all the lands about the Piscataqua, and those of Mason were the second link in our chain of title.

1198516

Captain Mason's first grant was made to him March 9, 1621. Its bounds were from the river Naumkeag, now Salem, Mass., round Cape Ann on the sea to the river Merrimack, and up each of those streams to the source, and from these last points its west bound to be a straight line. Marianna was the name of this grant.

Mason and Gorges got the next grant jointly, Aug. 10, 1622. It was of all the land from the mouth of the Merrimack to the Sagadahock [Kennebec], and thence to run back to the great lakes and the river of Canada. The name of this grant was Laconia.

While Mason and Gorges thus got the land, David Thompson,* a Scotchman, whose home was in Plymouth, England, with three merchants of that place, Abraham Colmer, Nicholas Sherwill and Leonard Pomerie, planned to make a settlement in the new world. They made application to the Council of New England in the fall of 1622 for six thousand acres at Piscataqua and one island in Mas- sachusetts Bay, and Oct. 16th they were granted to Thompson. He at once conveyed one-fourth part of the island to the three mer- chants in fee-simple and covenanted to convey one-fourth of the land.

David Thompson, the first white settler of New Hampshire, with his wife and four men, set sail January, 1623, in the ship Jonathan, a name which should be as celebrated as the Mayflower, and ar- rived at the mouth of the Piscataqua early in the spring.t Three more men came soon after in the ship Providence, and joined him. These vessels with thousands of others from Europe, at this period, whitened with their sails the banks of Newfoundland and New England, whither they had come to fish.

Thompson settled on the west shore of the river and called his new plantation "Pannaway " -may be the Indians' name. It was changed years after, 1655, to Little Harbor, and is now known as

* His name was variously spelled Tomson, Thomson and Thompson.

t Mass. Hist. Coll. (1876), vol. xiv, pp. 359, 373.

HISTORY OF WEARE, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

[1623.

Odiorne Point in Rye. He with his men at once built a cabin roofed with bark, cleared and planted a few acres, set up salt works, hunted in the woods, fished in the sea, and got ready to engage in the fur trade, which was his object in coming to the new world.

The stones which were the foundation of his house, the old moss- grown well near by and the mounds of the ancient grave-yard are still to be seen.

His son, John Thompson, was born at Pannaway in 1625. May be he was the first white child of our state.

Thompson and his little party soon had neighbors. William and Edward Hilton, brothers, the first from the new Plymouth colony, the other direct from old England, with a few men, plenty of food and tools, the very next July or August, 1623, went eight miles up the river to the north-west and built their huts on a neck of land called by the Indians Winnichannet. The Hiltons gave the place the English name, Northam, but it is now known as Dover Point. This was the second settlement in Captain Mason's Laconia, now New Hampshire. The third was at Hampton, and the fourth at Exeter.

David Thompson left Pannaway at the end of three years, 1626, and went to live on his island that now bears his name in Massa- chusetts Bay. Long after, 1648, the General Court of that province granted it to his son John, and it remained in the family many years.

Captain Mason and others soon sent men to go on with the work which Thompson had begun. They occupied the cabins he had built, one of which was called the "Large house," cleared more land, began a settlement at Strawberry Bank, now Portsmouth, and in 1628 our Pannaway, then called Pascataquack, made a liberal contribution toward the charge of expelling Thomas Morton, a piratical gentleman, from Merry Mount .* A little later Captain Mason and his associates sent two vessels to "Pascataquake"; first, the barque Warwicke, loaded with butter, cheese, meal, beef and other stores, and then their good ship the Pide-Cowe, with several wives on board for the men. Eighty emigrants came in one year, and the settlement was quite flourishing.

* The following were the contributions :- £. s.

£. s.

Plimouth

.2 10

Natascot .. .1 10

Naumkeak. .1 10

Thomson .. 0 15

Blackston. .0 12 Pascataquack . .2 10

Edward Hilton 1 00 Jeffrey and Burslem. 2 00

-1 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vol. iii, p. 63.

THE MASONIAN TITLE.

1627.]

The Plymouth Company now, so to speak, laid an egg that by and by was destined to hatch a big fight. Why they did it, we do not know, and may be they did not. This was it: March 19, 1627, they made a grant to Sir Henry Roswell and his friends of the land now known as Massachusetts. Its north bound was a line " three English miles to the northward of said river called Monomack alias Merrimack, or to the northward of any or every part thereof." It was a great mistake to give Sir Henry the same land they gave to Captain Mason as Marianna, and Laconia in part.

But the company soon did another thing just as strange when, Nov. 7, 1629, they gave Captain Mason a new grant. His new south bound was from the middle point of the Merrimack and through said stream to its head .* The strip of land three miles wide north of the Merrimack and all of Marianna was thus twice granted to different parties.

And then to cap the whole, with no thought on the part of the company of its grant to Roswell, to get back his Marianna, Captain Mason got a new grant April 22, 1635, of all the land from Naum- keag, now Salem, to his north and east line in the Piscataqua.t

To make it so strong that his title and ours could not fail, Sep- tember, 1635, he had Gorges quit claim to him by deed all his right to that part of Laconia now called New Hampshire.#

To state it in brief once more, these were Mason's titles: -

Grant of Marianna, March 9, 1621; Laconia, Aug. 10, 1622; New Hampshire,§ Nov. 7, 1629; Marianna, once more, April 22, 1635; quit claim of Gorges, September, 1635.

It will be seen that Captain Mason's last grants of New Hamp- shire and Marianna, upon which he would have to rely, were both of a date after that to Sir Henry Roswell. It was held that when he got the last grants he let go the first, and that Roswell now had

* Bounds of New Hampshire by the grant of Nov. 7, 1629: " All that part of the mainland in New England lying upon the sea-coast, beginning from the middle part of Merrimack river, and from thence to proceed northwards along the sea-coast to Pascataqua river, and so forwards up within said river and to the furtherest head thereof, and from thence north-westward until three-score miles be finnished from the first entrance of Pascataqua river; also from Merrimack through said river and to the furtherest head thereof and so forward up into the lands westwards until three- score miles be finnished; and from thence to cross overland to the three-score miles' end accompted from Pascataqua river, together with all islands and isletts within five leagues distance of the premises, and abutting on the same."

It is said the patent to Captain Mason for New Hampshire in 1629 was made in pur- suance of an agreement of Mason and Gorges to make the Pascataqua the divisional line between them. - Province Papers, vol. i, pp. 23, 26.

t Province Papers, vol. i, p. 32.

1 Idem, p. 41.

· § The name " New Hampshire" was not fixed upon the place till 1679. - Mass. Hist. Coll. (1876), vol. xiv, p. 375.

HISTORY OF WEARE, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

[1635.

the first grant and would hold his north bound to a point three miles north of the Merrimack. But Mason did not seem to see these facts. He felt that all was sure and he was brave to go on to clear land, plant, make salt, mine, hunt, fish and get rich. But death soon caught him. He died between Nov. 26, 1635, when his will was made, and Dec. 22, 1635, when it was proved.

He had no son, and so gave his lands, houses and goods to his grandsons, John Tufton and Robert Tufton, sons of his daughter Jane Mason Tufton,* if they would take the name of Mason. They took the name. John died in youth, Robert got the whole, and he was the third link in our chain of title.

To make it plain, these are its Masonian links: Capt. John Mason1, Robert Tufton Mason2, who took the name of Mason and died in 1688, aged 56; Robert Tufton Mason3, who lived at Ports- mouth and was lost at sea in 1696; John Tufton Mason4, who died at Havana, and John Tufton Mason5, born in 1713.

After Captain Mason's death much of his personal estate was lost. The men he had to care for it took it for their own use and as pay for their work for him. They drove most of the stock through the woods to Boston and sold it .; Some of the houses were burnt, and the rest they said were their own. New Hampshire was joined to Massachusetts in 1641, and the civil wars in England were bars to suits.

Anne Mason, widow of Captain John, was the executrix of his will. In 1650 she sent Joseph Mason to America to look up and take care of the grants. He found that Richard Leader had the land at Quampeagan falls on the Newich wannock river, and he sued him in the court of Norfolk. This court thought they had no right to hear the case, as the land might not be in their jurisdiction, and it was sent to the Great and General Court of Massachusetts, which said they must find the north line of their province and then they could tell whether they could try the case or not.

So in 1652 they sent Capts. Edward Johnson and Simon Willard, with John Sherman and Jonathan Ince, surveyors, and some Indian guides, to find the line which must be three miles north of the head of Merrimack river, as was set forth in Sir Henry Roswell's grant. They set out from Boston the last of July, went to Pawtucket falls

* Jane Mason married Joseph Tufton.

t One Norton drove a hundred head of cattle to Boston, where he sold them at £20 sterling a head. They were of the Danish breed, the first cattle brought into the state having been imported from Denmark. - Whiton's N. H., p. 18.

THE MASONIAN TITLE.

1652.]

on the Merrimack, hired the Indian guides, made a canoe * and sailed, rowed and poled up the river shaded by the cool woods. They passed Nashua in their frail craft, pulled by the falls, carried round at Namaoskeag and Isle au Hooksett, and in due time came to the crotch of the stream where the shad and the salmon were wont to part company. Here they left their boat and took to the forest. They marched up the swift, tumbling stream, by the chain of beautiful bays, to find the head of the river, which the Indians said was at Aquedochtan,t the outlet of Lake Winnipesaukee. Aug. 1st they got there, and were the first white pleasure party to that place now called the Weirs, where so many thousand tourists go every summer.

They found the latitude was 43º 40' 12", and as the line must be three miles north of the head of the river, they added three miles, which made the latitude of the line 43º 43' 12", and a line drawn due east and west through this point from New York to the sea, they said was the north line of Massachusetts.

Before they left they cut upon a stone, whose flat top was just above the water, "their mark," which at this day reads thus : -

"EJ S W W P JOHN

ENDICUT Gov."

which means -

EDWARD JOHNSON, SIMON WILLARD, WORSHIPFUL JOHN ENDICUT, Governor.

This stone is now known as "ENDICOTT ROCK," and is now care- fully preserved by the state.

Then they hurried back down the Aquedochtan to their canoe, made fast time in the swift current of the Merrimack, shot the rapids and the falls and at the end of nineteen days were safe at home again. The trip cost £84.#

The surveyors made their report to the General Court, and it held that some of the land should be laid out to Mason's heirs.

Joseph Mason did not try to get any more of the grants, but went home with his mind made up that they were lost if England did not set things right. He had seen the temper of the folks and did not

* The following are items in their account: "Ipr. for making the Bote & Ores, with all the Boards & Stuff, £3 1s 0d. Contra- the Bote and some Ruff &c. that were left, £2 17s 0d."- N. H. Hist. Coll., vol. iv, p. 197.

t Spelled " Ahquedauken " by Potter. ~ Hist. of Manchester, p. 113.

# Farmer's Belknap, p. 57; Potter's Manchester, p. 113; N. H. Hist. Coll., vol. iv, p. 194.

HISTORY OF WEARE, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

[1677.

like the way they acted in his suit. He had won his case in part, and it was a victory for Mason's heirs.

Robert Tufton Mason2 was a loyalist, and could do nothing under Cromwell. But when King Charles II came to the throne, Mason2 went to him twice with his case; the king each time sent it to his attorney-general, who held that Mason2 had a good and legal title to the grants. It then went to the Lords of Trade, who set a time to hear it, and notified Massachusetts to come to court. In 1677, that province said she made no claim to the lands only to a point three miles north of the Merrimack. The court then told the king that the case was not between Mason2 and Massachusetts, but between Mason2 and those who lived on the land, and that there was no court in which it could be tried.

So in 1679, that Mason2 might get his grants, New Hampshire was made a royal province, with John Cutt of Portsmouth, governor. Edward Randolph, Mason2's kinsman, a man of good address, stern, snart and full of pluck, brought the commission, and the new gov- ernment was set up. Mason2 soon came from England with author- ity to take his seat in its council, and at once tried to collect his rents and have the people take leases of him. Most refused, and he found it up-hill work. He got into trouble, and to avoid arrest went to England. Governor Cutt died within a year.

Mason2 at once went to the king, and by deeding to him one fifth part of the quit rents, got him to make Edward Cranfield lieutenant- governor of the province. To get Cranfield to take the place he made a deed to him of the whole of the grants for twenty-one years, for which Cranfield was to pay £150 annually for seven years.

Cranfield was just the man for the place. He could play the tyrant, had a great love of wealth, and to get rich was the one thing on which he had set his heart.

Mason2 and he soon came to America. By his commission .he could choose his own officers, fix the court, put in or out the judges, and name his own council. The assembly knew his love of gold, and to win him to their side gave him £250 for his own use. He took the funds, but was true to Mason2.

Feb. 14, 1683, he said that all who held land must take leases of Mason2, but they would not have to pay back rents; some took them, but the most refused.

Cranfield put new men in his council, made Walter Barefoot judge, Mason2 chancellor, Edward Randolph attorney-general, and

THE MASONIAN TITLE.

1683.]

James Sherlock sheriff .* Some who did not like the old clique who had "run the province," and some who were bribed to take leases of Mason2, were made under sheriffs, jurors and witnesses.

Mason2 then brought forty suits, and more, one of which was against Major Waldron, of Dover, who was afterwards killed by the Indians. With such a court and jury, Waldron stoutly protest- ing, all the defendants suffered default, and Mason2 got judgments and executions.

Major Vaughan, one of defendants, took an appeal to the king. To try it Mason2 had to go to England, but before he went he gave to Jonathan Tyng, and nineteen others, a deed of a long strip of land on both sides of the Merrimack, six miles in breadth, from Souhegan to Lake Winnipesaukee, which they had hitherto bought of the Indians. For it he and his heirs were to have a yearly rent of ten shillings. This was called " the million acre purchase." He also sold to Hezekiah Usher, the right to work the mines for a thousand years, reserving to himself one-fourth part of the royal ores. These sales were made to fix his claim to the waste land. He set sail June, 1686, and Nov. 6th, that year, beat Mr. Vaughan.

In the spring of 1687, he came back with bright hopes to enforce his claims and get his rents. But now he got "cast." Sir Edmund Andros had been made governor of all New England. A new set of men had been put in the courts and other places, who envied Mason2's claim, and thought to share it. New Hampshire would do nothing for him, and he tried to get his cases sent to the high court for all New England, then held at Boston. But all at once death put an end to his work. He died in August or September, 1688, at Esopus on the Hudson, and left two sons, John3 and Robert3, heirs to his claim.

New Hampshire now wished to unite again with Massachusetts, but was not able to do so. The king was silent as to their re- quest, and for a long while they could not learn the reason. But at last it came out. John Tufton Mason3 and Robert Tufton Mason3 had sold the Capt. John Mason grants to Samuel Allen, merchant of London, for £750, and he wanted to get rich out of them. To do this he got the king, March 1, 1692, to make him governor of the province, and his son-in-law, John Usher, lieuten- ant-governor. Allen did not try to enforce his claim for some years,

* His council were Nathaniel Fryer, Robert Elliot, John Hinckes, James Sherlock, Francis Champernoon and Edward Randolph.

HISTORY OF WEARE, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

[1700.

and when he did, he found that the files of the court in all the Mason2 cases had been stolen. So in 1700, he brought new suits. But now the court was in the hands of the defendants, and they took care to fix it and pack the jury on their side. Richard Waldron, son of Major Waldron, with whom Mason2 had the suit, was now defend- ant. At the trial Allen was " cast," and of course had to pay cost. He took an appeal to the king, and it was held that he might bring a new suit, and that the waste lands were his. Dec .. 22, 1703, he took them by " turf and twig," as the custom then was. New Hampshire now tried to buy him out; he said he would sell, but he died May 5, 1705, the day before the deed was to be made.

His only son Thomas Allen did not want to sell. By leave of Queen Anne, he brought a new suit against Waldron first in the court of common pleas where he was cast and then in the high court. The queen ordered that the jury should find a special ver- dict for Allen, but though sent out twice they refused and found for Waldron. This trial was one of the most noted ever had in New Hampshire. Allen at once went to the queen with the case, but his death put an end to it, and his heirs being minors did not renew it.

And now it seemed as though our chain of title through Mason's grants and his heirs and their assigns had come to an end, and it looked for a long time as though the titles to New Hampshire lands west of the Merrimack, would be through the grant to Sir Henry Roswell.

How the great dispute about the south boundary line of our state arose, what was done in the premises, and how by its settlement Mason's heirs were enabled to assert their claim once more, and come into possession of the land, and our title through them con- tinue, we shall try briefly to narrate.

CHAPTER VI. BOUNDARY LINE.

MASSACHUSETTS had watched all the proceedings of the Masons. She had seen how Allen had been beaten by fraud, that both Mason's and Allen's claims had every time been sustained in England, and now she began to fear that she might lose a part of

THE BOUNDARY LINE.

1731.]

her own territory and that ber north boundary line might be fixed in accordance with Captain Mason's grants.

Heretofore, she had pursued a vacillating policy in regard to that line, claiming it in many different places. Once she said it was by Mr. Weare's house in Hampton, then as far north as Pennacook, soon after up as far as the " Endicott tree" three miles north of the forks of the Merrimack; a fourth time at a point three miles north of the " Endicott rock" at the outlet of Lake Winnipesaukee, and then she came before the Lords of Trade in 1677 and said she did not claim the land only to a point three miles north of the mouth of the Merrimack.

The exact place of the line three miles north of the river follow- ing its bends was hard to fix, but Massachusetts marked it out on her map three miles off from the stream from the ocean to " Endi- cott's tree," but no survey of it had ever been made.

On account of this there was trouble on the border all the time. It was about where they should vote, pay taxes, do military duty, go to court and what officers should arrest them when they commit- ted trespass on timber lands, or did other wicked things. There was a conflict of jurisdiction, and the officers of the one province often arrested and put in jail those of the other. Offenders escaped punishment when brought to court by setting up that they lived in the other province.

Governor Allen tried to fix the line in 1696 so that he might know the bounds and stop the stealing of trees. He had the line run on his own account as far west as folks lived. New Hampshire tried to have it done in 1708, 1713 and in 1716; and both sides in 1719 chose men to adjust it, but Massachusetts, by some quibble, thwarted the effort. The border troubles went on, and Governor Belcher in 1731 tried to settle the boundary, but the Massachusetts committee, led by Elisha Cooke, prevented it.

New Hampshire was disgusted and applied to the king for aid. John Rindge, merchant, of Portsmouth, went to London to trade and was agent for our province. He got John Thomlinson, mer- chant of London, a keen, shrewd, sharp, long-headed man, to aid him. Thomlinson put £1,200 into the case, and, of course, after that he never let it sleep. He set his lawyer, John Ferdinando Parris, to work, and he exerted all his energy. Massachusetts was notified. Then she came to New Hampshire and wanted to leave it out again, ber old tactics, but our province refused.

HISTORY OF WEARE, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

[1734.

This increased her fears that she might be beaten, and to prevent a total loss she determined to take time by the forelock, get possesion of the lands and with them enrich her own people. So she at once began to grant them to her citizens and to offer great inducements to forward their settlement. She tried to hide her purpose under the cloak of patriotism. New Hampshire comprehended her brilliant diplomacy and to thwart it made grants of some of the same land, but Massachusetts persisted in her course and under the pretense that she would need a line of towns on the frontier to keep out the French and Indians, she laid out and made grants of the double row of nine towns from the Merrimack to the Connecticut, and four more towns on the east side of the latter stream, with two on the west .* These were called "towns for defence."

Then she voted nine towns to the heirs of the men who fought in King Philip's Indian war in 1675. These were known as the nine NARRAGANSET TOWNS, but only seven of them were laid out.j

To pay the men who went with Sir William Phipps, 1690, to fight. in Canada, a score or so of towns were granted them, one of which was our town of Weare, and all were called CANADA TOWN- SHIPS.#

While Massachusetts thus made these grants, John Rindge kept at work on the line case.§ He put in a petition for New Hampshire in his own name. It was sent to the Lords of Trade, and they gave notice to Massachusetts to come and defend. She held back and

* Massachusetts had already laid out Pennaeook, now Coneord, Kontakook (Bos- eawen and Webster) and Baker, or Gerrish town, otlierwise called Stevenstown, now Franklin.

The NINE TOWNS FOR DEFENCE were : No. 1. Warner, 2. Bradford, 3. Camden (now Washington) and Fishersfield (now Newbury), 4. Lempster and a part of Acworth, 5. Hopkinton, 6. Henniker, 7. Hillsborough, 8. Windsor and parts of Stoddard and Washington, 9. parts of Marlow, Alstead and Gilsum. There were four towns in the north row and five in the south.

The FOUR TOWNS FOR DEFENCE on the east side of the Connectieut river were : No. 1. Hinsdale and Chesterfield, 2. Westmorland, 3. Walpole, 4. Charlestown, for- merly called Number Four.

+ NARRAGANSET TOWNS. No. 1 is now Buxton, Me .; 2. Westminster, Mass .; 3. parts of Amherst, Merrimack, Milford and Mount Vernon; 4. ineluded the present town of Goffstown and part of the city of Manchester, but as the grantees reported that they found the land so poor and barren as to be altogether incapable of making a settle- ment, it was abandoned, and another township, at a plaee ealled Quabbin, now Green- wich, Mass., was assigned to them in its stead; 5. Bedford and parts of Manchester and Merrimack ; 6. Templeton, Mass .; 7. Gorham, Me. They were ealled Narraganset No. 1, Narraganset No. 2, ete.

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.

The history of Weare, New Hampshire, 1735-1888, Part 5

Author: Little, William, 1833-1893. cn Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Lowell, Mass., Printed by S. W. Huse & Co. Number of Pages: 1240

Author: Little, William, 1833-1893. cn
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Lowell, Mass., Printed by S. W. Huse & Co.
Number of Pages: 1240