USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Windham > The history of Windham in New Hampshire (Rockingham country). 1719-1883. A Scotch settlement (commonly called Scotch-Irish), embracing nearly one third of the ancient settlement and historic township of Londonderry, N.H > Part 3
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HISTORY OF WINDHAM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
Cæsar's conquest, 55 B. C., to A. D. 449. During Roman supremacy the Scottish clans made repeated raids into the rich provinces of Eng- land, and escaped with valuable booty. The Roman legions could not subdue them.
In A. D. 208, the Wall of Severus was built by the Romans, from the Solway Frith to the mouth of the river Tyne, as a last and most tre- mendous barrier to the warlike clans. The wall was twelve feet high, eight feet thick, and extended some seventy miles. A ditch thirty-six feet wide and twelve feet deep was dug on the Scottish side of this wall. There were a large number of towers, eighty-one forts, and three hundred and thirty turrets upon this wall, built at proper distances from each other, so that a fire lighted in one could be seen in another. This was for signalling the approach of danger, and notice could quickly be given the entire distance. Yet over this great wall, guarded by soldiers, the Scots often broke, laying the provinces of England under contribution, and escaping again to Scotland.
Caledonia was the name by which Scotland was known to the Romans, and it took its present name about A. D. 840.
Kenneth McAlpin, son of Alpin, surnamed the Hardy, was the first king of the Scots and Piets, who included all of the inhabitants of Scot- land, as he became the king of the two nations in 842. He and his imme- diate successors styled themselves kings of the Scots and Picts. From this union in A. D. 842, the Scottish nation maintained its position among the nations of the world, till its union with England in 1603. During this intervening period there was confusion, turbulence, and war; but Scotland never was permanently subjugated. In 1603, James VI of Scotland, heir of the English throne, succeeded Queen Elizabeth, with the title of James I. Since that date the two nations have been united under one government.
Among the most famous of Scottish heroes, and one who justly holds a sacred place in Scottish hearts, was the patriot and hero, William Wallace. He freed his nation from the grasp. of Edward I of England. He was finally betrayed, and by Edward was beheaded in 1305. The historic Scotch names appear in the Londonderry settlement, and among them is the honored name of Wallace. Robert Bruce took up the work which had fallen from the hands of Wallace, and June 25, 1314, with thirty thousand men, fought the battle of Bannockburn, defeated Edward II with one hun- dred thousand men, and Scotland's freedom was thus fully assured. The Scotch were heroes, Bruce was the "plumed knight " of the Scottish host, and his name is covered with imperishable renown. During all these centuries the Scotch people were inured to hardships and the dangers of battle.
The foregoing brief sketch gives a glimpse of events in the Father- land, and of our ancestors, for several hundred years. It brings us down to the commencement of the main events which resulted in the persecu- tions in Scotland, the emigrations to Ireland, and finally to Londonderry and Windham in 1719. The causes which led to this Scotch emigration are familiar to many, but not to all, and it appropriately fluids a place in this history ; for had it not been for these events, there would have been no settlement here, no history, and no such homes as we have in Wind- ham. So the " oft-told tale" will be told again.
In the reign of Henry HI, in the year 1172, Ireland had been subjugated by the English. but for several centuries their anthority in the island was held by a feeble tenure. After repeated rebellions, the English authority was permanently established under Queen Elizabeth in 1601, and a large part of the lands of the rebellious Catholics was contlseated by the govern- ment. It was a favorite project of the government to plant new settle- ments of Scotch and English in Ireland, for the purpose of keeping in check the wild and turbulent spirits of the Irish. For this purpose the confiscated lands of the Irish were offered at a low rate for purposes of
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PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.
settlement. The soil and climate were attractive, and colonies of English und Scotch were soon successfully planted. James I and the London guilds offered greater indueements than were ever offered before, to the Scotch who would move across the North Channel and settle on the vacant lands, and the English who would carry English thrift and enterprise into the desolated country. One fourth of the territory of Ireland had fallen to the crown, including most of the province of Ulster, nine of the northern counties, and portion of the counties on the eastern coast.
James the First reigned till 1625, and during his reign numerous settle- ments were made. In 1613 the first Presbyterian church ever established in Ireland, was founded at Ballycorry, County of Antrim. Yet neither in Scotland nor Ireland did the Scotch enjoy that religions freedom or tolera- tion which their unconquerable spirits sought and demanded. Though James was a Protestant as well as his predecessor Elizabeth, yet they were of the Angliean, or Established Church of England, which differed widely in its forms and ceremonies from the simple service of the stern Scotch Presbyterians. During the reigns of these sovereigns, varions acts were passed by Parliament regulating the religious affairs of the king- dom, and requiring that all should adopt the modes of worship and arti- cles of faith of the Established Church. The Puritans of England and the Presbyterians of Scotland rejected with scorn the interference of the gov- ernment, and demanded greater simplicity of worship than that allowed by the governmental church. Of the Puritans it has been said that the name Puritan was given as a word of reproach, and arose from this senti- ment of the non-conforming class. The very reproach, persecution, and consequent deprivation and suffering, prevented all but those zealously in earnest from joining this ostracized sect. Those very persecutions in England and Scotland were the means of driving Puritans, Pilgrims, and Scotch Presbyterians to the American wilds, and planting upon the wild shores of New England a conscientious, hardy, and liberty-loving race, who founded those institutions, fostered and developed by succeeding gen- erations, which are the beneficent ones enjoyed by us to-day. A writer says, "The Puritans were anthracite on fire."
Bancroft says of them: "The austere principle was now announced, that not even a ceremony should be tolerated, unless it was enjoined by the word of God. The church of England, at least in its ceremonial part, was established by an act of Parliament, or a royal ordinance ; Puritanism, zealous for independence, admitted no voucher but the Bible, -a fixed rule, which they would allow neither Parliament, nor hierarchy, nor king to interpret. The principles of Puritanism proclaimed the civil magistrate subordinate to the authority of religion; its hanghtiness in this respeet has been compared to 'the infatuated arrogance' of a Roman
pontiff. The principle thus asserted, though often productive of good, could not but become subservient to the temporal ambition of the clergy. Puritanism conceded no such power to its spiritual guides ; the church existed independent of its pastor, who owed his office to its free choice; the will of the majority was its law, and each one of the brethren possessed equal rights with the elders. The right, exercised by each congregation, of electing its own ministers, was in itself a moral revolution ; religion was now with the people, not over the people. l'u- ritanism exalted the laity. Every individual who had experienced the raptures of devotion, every believer who, in his moments of ecstasy, had felt the assurance of the favor of God, was in his own eyes a consecrated person. For him the wonderful counsels of the Almighty had chosen a Saviour; for him the laws of nature had been suspended and controlled, the heavens had opened, the earth had quaked, the sun had veiled his face, and Christ had died and had risen again; for him prophets and apos- tles had revealed to the world the oracles and will of God. Viewing him- self as an object of divine favor, and in this connection disclaiming all merit, he prostrated himself in the dust before heaven; looking out upon
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HISTORY OF WINDHAM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
mankind, how could he but respect himself, whom God had chosen and re- deemed? He cherished hope ; he possessed faith ; as he walked the earth, his heart was in the skies. Angels hovered round his path, charged to minister to his soul; spirits of darkness leagued together to tempt hin from his allegiance. His burning piety could use no liturgy ; his penitence could reveal his transgressions to no confessor. He knew no superior in sanctity. He could as little become the slave of a priestcraft as of a despot. Ile was himself the judge of the orthodoxy of the elders; and if he feared the invisible powers of the air, of darkness, and of hell, he feared nothing on earth. Puritanism constituted, not the Christian clergy, but the Chris- tian people, the interpreters of the divine will. The voice of the majority was the voice of God; and the issue of Puritanism was therefore popular sovereignty." *
The course of the English government and the endurance of the Scotch Presbyterians will now be traced.
The monarchs of England, bent on absolute power, strove to overturn the Presbyterian government of the Scottish church, which was an ob- struction to them and favorable to liberty. James I, when he came to the throne in 1603, endeavored to corrupt and overawe the general assemblies of the church of Scotland, and to induce them to introduce prelacy and the ceremonies of the established church of England. His son. Charles I, on his accession in 1625, was more bold and direct, and by his own author- ity endeavored to make the Scotch worship by rule, and attempted to im- pose a book of canons and a liturgy, which failed of success, causing the triumph of the cause he intended to destroy, and his own overthrow and death by execution, Jan. 30, 1649.
In 1581, the General Assembly of Scotland drew up a confession of faith, or national covenant, condemning the Episcopal government, which was signed by James I, and which he enjoined upon all his subjects. It was again subscribed in 1590 and 1596. In 1638 the subscription was renewed, and the subscribers engaged by oath to maintain religion in the same condition as in 1580, and to reject all innovations introduced since the latter date. This oath, annexed to the confession of faith, received the name of The Covenant. This abjured both Popery and prelacy, and was signed by the great mass of the Scotch people. Those who adhered to this covenant were called Covenanters.
The great principles for which the Presbyterians, or Covenanters, con- tended, were : that Christ alone was king and head of his church, and Ile alone had the right to appoint her form of government; that the Presby- terian polity was the only form of church goverment instituted in the word of God; and that the church is free in her government from every other jurisdiction, except that of Christ, the head of the church.
Soon after, Cromwell came to the front, the Protectorate was estab- lished, and continued till a little after Cromwell's death, Sept. 3, 1658. Macaulay, in speaking of the Scotch, says, "In perseverance, in self- command, in forethought, in all the virtues which conduce to success in life, the Scots have never been surpassed. In mental cultiva-
tion, Scotland had an indisputable superiority. Though that kingdom was then the poorest in Christendom, it already vied in every branch of learning with the most favored countries. Scotsmen, whose dwellings and whose food were as wretched as those of the Icelanders of our time, wrote Latin verse with more than the delicacy of Vida, and made dis- coveries in science which would have added to the renown of Galileo." t And again he says, "Scotland was Protestant. In no part of England had the movement of the popular mind against the Roman Catholic Church been so rapid and violent. The reformers had vanquished, deposed, and imprisoned their idolatrous sovereign. They would not endure such a
* Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. I, pp. 279 and 461-6.
| Macanlay's History of England, Vol. I, p. 49.
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PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.
compromise as had been effected in England. They had established the Calvinistic doctrine, discipline, and worship, and they made little distinc- tion between Popery and Prelaey, between the Mass and the Book of Com- mon Prayer."*
Again the government of England underwent a change at the death of Cromwell, Sept. 3, 1658. He was succeeded by his son Richard; but the government soon slipped from his weak grasp, the Stuarts returned, and Charles II became king in 1660. Charles HI sought by flues, by impris- onment, by banishment, by tortures, by public executions, and by open massacre, to enforce conformity to the Angliean Church. He was sup- ported by his brother James, afterwards James II, Viceroy of Scotland. Hle was a bigoted Catholic, and the Scotch Presbyterians were the legiti- mate objects of his hate. The fires of persecution were rekindled, the sword again unsheathed, and bathed ngain in the blood of thousands of slaughtered saints. To attend any religious service save that of the es- tablished order, was punishable with death. " A part of the Scottish nation sullenly submitted to superior power, but there were many fierce and reso- Inte men who considered the obligation to observe the covenant stronger thun the obligation to obey the magistrate; so the Scotch Covenanters, in defiance of law, persisted in meeting to worship God after their own fash- ion. Driven from the towns, they assembled on heaths and mountains. Attacked by the civil power, they without seruple repelled force by force. At every conventiele they mustered in arms. They repeatedly broke out into open rebellion. They were easily defeated, and mercilessly punished, but neither defeat nor punishment could subdue their spirit. Hunted down like wild beasts, tortured till their bones were beaten flat, imprisoned by hundreds, hanged by scores, exposed at one time to the license of soldiers from England, abandoned at another time to the mercy of bands of ma- randers from the Highlands, they still stood at bay in a mood so savage that the boldest and mightiest oppressor could not but dread the audacity of their despair." These very events occurring in Scotland were in- timately associated with the history of the families of some of the first settlers of Windham. They set in motion a train of events which led to this settlement.
In 1679 a battle was fought at Bothwell Bridge, on the east bank of the Clyde, between the Covenanters and the royal forces under the Duke of Monmouth. The disastrous results of the fight to the Covenanters caused Robert Stuart, who was in the battle, to fly the country, and take up his abode in Ireland. He was the father of Charter John Stuart, one of the first sixteen settlers in Londonderry in 1719, and grandfather of John Stuart, of Windham Range; and the names of some suffering Covenanters that have been reproduced in this settlement, are the same which are upon the Windham records, and are names of those who move among us, and are familiar to us all. Margaret MeLaughlan, a "mother in Israel," and Margaret Wilson, a sweet girl of 18, suffered martyrdom by drowning near Wigton, because they would not abjure the Presbyterian faith. In 1685, John and Alexander Jamison, Joseph Wilson, and John Humphrey had listened to the preaching of Mr. Renwick in the fields, and were over- taken in New Cummock by a band of Claverhouse's soldiers, and three were immediately shot. James Campbell, at this same time, and near this place, was hunted by the same band of soldiers, but escaped. While Claverhouse and his dragoons were scouring the counties of Ayr and Lanark for victims, Alexander Brown was a vigilant Covenanter whom they wished to apprehend. He saw them, and was seen by them, as they approached his dwelling. Escape was impossible. So assuming a cool and careless demeanor, he advanced to meet the soldiers, as if anxious to make their acquaintance. This stratagem outwitted his wily foes. They said to him, " Know you if Alexander Brown be within?" " He is not at
* Macaulay's History of England, Vol. I, p. 50.
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HISTORY OF WINDHAM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
present within. He went out recently, and I have not seen him return," replied Brown. "}le is in the house, and you wish to conceal him," shouted a surly trooper, and immediately the soldiers burst open the cot- tage, made a vigorons search, but Brown had escaped, and the troopers burned his house, and departed. Such was the state of Scotland during the reign of Charles II. The latter ruler died Feb. 6, 1685, and was immediately succeeded by his brother, James 11, the bigoted Catholic, the cruel and unrelenting foe of Scotch Presbyterians. He who as viceroy had shown such love for persecution of the Covenanters, -as king his enmity was exhibited with greater virulence. Bands of soldiers hunted the Covenanters like beasts of prey.
At Clydesdale, the place from which the Clydes of Windham emigrated to Ireland, three Covenanters, poor laboring men, were asked, May 11, 1685, if they would pray for the King. They refused to do so, except under the condition that he was one of the elect, thinking that to pray for one pre- destined to perdition was an act of mutiny to the decrees of God. Upon their refusal they were immediately blindfolded and shot. So the work of death went on. In the very heart of mountain solitudes the brave Cove- nanters were tracked and slain. Yet often in the most retired and nn- known retreats, worthy men of that epoch found shelter, braving the fierce mountain winds, the sleet and tempests, that they might escape unrelent- ing persecution. David Steel, after being promised his life, was shot at Shellyhill in 1686, before his own door; and Mary Wier, his young, sweet, and loving wife, as she bound up his shattered head, and closed his eyes, exclaimed, " The archers have shot at thee, my husband, but they could not reach thy soul; it has escaped like a dove far away, and is at rest !" Isabella Allison, of Perth, a young woman of about 27 years, was con- demned and gibbeted for her opinions' sake. There were multitudes of such persecutions and heroic deaths. It was during these fierce persecu- tions, between 1684 and 1688, that the MeGregors, the Cargills, ancestors of those families in Londonderry, and the MeKeens, ancestors of the Mc- Keens of Windham, fled from Scotland to Ireland. Circumstances indicate that about this time the Morisons, ancestors of those of that name in this town, escaped to Ireland.
While the government was persecuting the faithful in Scotland, and with bloody hands consigned hundreds to the grave, large bodies of the Scotch, having suffered the extreme of cruelty, and worn out with the unequal contest, escaped in open boats across the North Channel to Ire- land, and joined their countrymen there. They left a land which was dear to them, sundering the ties of kindred and association, and became from necessity unwilling exiles in Ireland, where they were often joined by their families. There their religious peculiarities became more marked, their devotion to Presbyterianism more strong for the sufferings they had endured, and their hatred of Catholicism burned within them with a stronger and fiercer flame which nothing could subdue, and which nought but death could quench. These exiles were from all parts of Scot- land, though they entered Ireland from Argyleshire, that being the contig- uous territory. The enstoms and home-life of our ancestors, and the feelings of wives and families forsaken by the husband and father, find fitting expression in the first two stanzas of the following poem, written at that time; and the hopes of all Protestants for deliverance from their Catholic persecutor by William, Prince of Orange, And expression in the latter part of the poem. Their hopes were destined to fulfilment.
"O, the ewe-bughting's bonnie, baith c'ening and morn, When our blythe shepherds play on their bog-reed and horn; While we are milking, they're lilting baith pleasant and clear - But my heart 's like to break when I think of my dear! O, the shepherds take pleasure to blow on the horn, To raise up their flocks of sheep soon i' the morn; On the bonnie green banks they feed pleasant and free - But, alas! my dear heart, all my sighing's for thee!
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PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.
How blythe wi' my Sandy, out o'er the brown fells,
.
I ha'e followed the flocks through the fresh heather-bells! But now I sit greeting amang the lang broom, In the dowie green cleuch where the burnie glides doon.
O, wae to the traitors! an' black be their fa', Wha banished my kind-hearted shepherd nwa ! Wha banished my laddie ayont the wide sea, That aye was so leal to his country and me.
But the cruel oppressors shall tremble for fear, When the true-blue and orange in triumph appear; And the star of the east leads them o'er the dark sea,
. Wi' freedom to Scotland, and Sandy to me !"
Having thus given a brief sketch of Scotland, of the character of our Scotch ancestors, of their fortitude under suffering, of their fixedness of purpose, of their struggles and sacrifices for religious liberty, of their Hight to Ireland, where they still were Scotch, I will briefly relate their history till their emigration to America. I have already alluded in the first part of this chapter to the prime cause for the Scotch and English settlements in Ireland. But the first residents there met with great trials and great calamities. Between them and the native Irish existed a feud, bitter and unrelenting, which has been bequeathed to their successors of both races. "And to this day a more than Spartan haughtiness alloys the many noble qualities which characterize the children of the victors, while a HIelot feeling, compounded of awe and hatred, is but too often discern- ible in the children of the vanquished."
On Irish soil dwelt two distinct populations. They were locally in- termixed. yet sundered by race and religion. They were of different races, spoke different languages, and were kept asunder by national character- istics as sharp and distinct as those of any two European nations. One was civilized, the other in barbarism; and the Scotch and English resi- dents exercised over the natives the power which wealth always exercises over poverty, knowledge over ignorance, and enlightened over barbaric races. The sequestered estates of the Catholic Irish were occupied by the Protestant settlers. But the wrath of the Irish did not die out; it only slumbered. It was while King Charles the First was striving to force Episcopacy upon the Scottish people, which the Covenanters and Puri- tans so fiercely resisted, while he was making those alarming contentions in Scotland and England, that in 1641 the native Irish, who had long been brooding over their wrongs, took advantage of the trouble on the other side of the channel, rose in rebellion, and with untold barbarities massacred more than 40,000 Protestants. This occurred October 23, 1641. After this event settlers lived in alarm for several years. But soon a change occurred in the Government, the King was justly beheaded, and the Pro- tectorate was established. A man was at the helm of State who was both able and willing to protect the Protestants from their bigoted enemies.
In 1649 the strong arm of Cromwell bore an avenging sword. He re- solved, once for all, to put an end to the conflict of races and religions in Ireland. With his army he waged relentless war against the Catholics, punishing them more severely than they had ever been before during five hundred years of conflict. Large cities were left without their people, lands were laid waste, and the inhabitants either died by the sword, or sought refuge in other parts of Europe, or were shipped by thousands to the West India Islands. The void which he had thus created he also filled by large bodies of Scotch and English colonists of the Calvinistic faith, who soon redeemed the fertile, but desolated, war-smitten provinces of Ireland, making them once more prosperous, and a land of plenty ; and by their industry and thrift to fill with their products the markets of England, so that Englishmen clamored for laws of protection against them.
David Gregg, grandfather of David Gregg, the early settler of Windham, was a captain in Cromwell's army, and was one of those thrifty Scotch colonists who went from Argyleshire in 1655, and settled near Londonderry, Ireland; some of his descendants, not in the Gregg name, are in
2
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HISTORY OF WINDHAM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
Windham to-day. About 1680, Daniel Campbell, father of Henry Camp- bell1, ancestor. of the Windham Campbells, settled at Londonderry, Ireland. Thus the influence of those far-off' troublous times affected this distant settlement, and is still seen and felt. Those influences were like a stone cast into the sea, producing ripples, ever enlarging, and which will never cease. After the subjugation of Ireland by Cromwell, comparative peace and prosperity prevailed for several years. The Cath- olies were wisely disarmed, while the Protestants were provided with weap- ons, and were thus prepared to defend themselves. And the custom of discharging fire-arms at Scotch weddings in Ireland and in this settlement arose from the event last related, and was the token of the joy of the Scotch, no less than their triumph.
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