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 6
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The usaal varieties of fruit trees are cultivated, and great attention has been paid to this branch of industry within thirty years. In fruit-bearing years, hundreds of barrels of choice apples are shipped from town, besides the large quantities which find their way to Lowell, Lawrence, or Manchester.
FLORA OF WINDHAM.
By my request, W. S. Harris has kindly furnished the fol- lowing.
Wild Flowers. - "The town of Windham has an extensive and varied flora, numbering probably about five hundred varic-
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FLORA OF WINDHAM.
ties of flowering plants (including, of course, the trees). Some very rare plants occur in town; among them are the purple clematis, known to grow in only one other locality in New Hamp- shire, and the walking-leaf fern, equally rare in the State, this being the second town where it has been found ; the scarlet painted-cup, and white azalea. A number of plants whose natu- ral home is farther north are found here sparingly, the red cur- rant, Linnaa, and creeping snowberry among the munber.
"The Mayflower, the earliest and favorite spring blossom of New England, grows only along the western border of the town. The hepatica, which appears very early, the anemones, the golden caltha, the graceful scarlet columbine, dwarf cinquefoil, early sax- ifrage, the violets, of which eight species are found here, dande- lion, rhodora, and bluets, are among the early spring flowers which are abundant and well known.
"Later appear the buttercups, daisies, lupine, cone-flowers, crane's-bill, St. Johns-worts, yarrow, pink lady's-slipper, and wil- low-herb. In muddy brooks and small ponds the lovely white water-lily is found, and the gorgeous cardinal-flower rears its Haming spikes along the brook-sides. The blue pickerel-weed, the iris, trumpet-weed, milkweeds, and three kinds of wild lilies are also common.
"The white clematis, Virginia creeper, wild grapes, ground-nut, and poison-ivy are among the most common of the climbing plants. Of flowering shrubs, the June-berry, choke-cherry, thorn, wild roses, sweet-brier, cornels, viburnums, elder, meadow-sweet, and hardhack are abundant, and the fragrant clethra is found along the borders of the ponds. The mountain laurel is scarce. The climbing bitter-sweet and the black alder are noticeable in autumn on account of their scarlet fruits.
The wild strawberry, high and low blackberries, red and black raspberries, three kinds of blueberries, blue and black huckleber- ries, and cranberries are the most valuable of our wild berries and fruits. Many of these kinds are annually gathered in large quantities, the surplus being sold in neighboring cities, and form- ing quite a source of income. The pitcher-plant, Indian-pipe, bladder-worts, and dodder are remarkable for peculiar forms and habits of growth.
" Various kinds of beautiful asters, purple and white, and showy golden-rods, are very abundant in autumn; the fringed and closed gentians are found sparingly. The witch-hazel is the latest of all our antum flowers, the yellow blossoms sometimes remaining until the middle of November. Very many species of sedges and grasses are found. The fern family is represented by no less than twenty-three varieties, including the beautiful maiden- hair, and there are four species of lycopodium."*
* W. S. Harris has a herbarium representing the flora of Windham, not yet completed, but containing specimens of nearly three hundred varieties of herbs and flowering shrubs, all gathered in this town.
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HISTORY OF WINDILAM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
LOCALITIES.
The place anciently called the Glen is the valley or hollow where the old Hopkins farm was situated, now owned by Mr. Scott.
Golden or Golding's Brook, tradition says, is so called from the fact that an ox by that name died upon its banks at an early date. This was at the time when the Chelmsford and Dracut people used to turn their cattle into this neighborhood in spring, to get fresh grass and to browse during the summer. They also set the forests on fire to kill the wood, so that the grass would grow more luxuriantly, and in early days the hills in that part of the town were black with the burned and dead trees, caused by these devastating fires. A Mr. Golding owned land in its vicin- ity. This undoubtedly gave it its name.
Catamount Rock, so called from the fact that a catamount was killed upon it. It is a large circular bowlder, and rises some four feet above the surface of the ground. It lies in the pasture of L. A. Morrison, some twenty rods west of the road leading from his house to E. O. Dinsmoor's, and in close proximity to the boundary lines between J. H. Dinsmore, W. D. Cochran, and L. A. Morrison.
Indian Rock is a large rock close to the highway between John II. Dinsmore's and Windham meeting-honse, and about fifteen rods cast of the spot where the cross-road from Olin Parker's strikes this highway. This rock rises some five feet above the ground, and on the top is a circular hole about four inches deep and six inches in diameter. Tradition says this was used by the Indians in which to pound their corn.
Butterfield's Rock deserves a fuller description. It is one of the curiosities of the town. Some have supposed that it took its name from an old hunter by the name of Butterfield, who anciently pitched his cabin there, and was accustomed to find shelter by night under its shelving sides. It was known by this name long before the hunter existed, and was probably included in the land, or took its name from a Mr. Butterfield, of Chelmsford, Mass., who had land in Londonderry anterior to the Scotch settlement, and possibly an ancestor of the hunter. This rock is situated on one of the most lofty eminences or swells of land in the town, and from which surrounding towns can plainly be seen. It is a large bowlder of granite or gneiss, seated upon the onteropping surface of mica slate, and rises twenty feet in height, its sides measuring sixteen or eighteen feet. In appearance it is erratic, there being no rocks of a similar kind in the vicinity. It rests upon a very small base, and is almost a rolling stone. It evidently came from a distant locality, and is upside-down, as there is a basin on the under side of half-a-bushel's capacity, into which you can thrust your head, and where your voice will sound like speaking in a brass kettle. Tradition says that the old hunter
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SURFACE.
used to thrust his head in here at night. The sides of this cavity or basin are perfectly smooth, showing that they must have been worn by the grinding action of pebbles and rapidly flowing water, and that the present position of the bowlder is the reverse of what it once was. On the ledge which supports the bowlder are frac- tures or distinct marks of the great ice sheet which ages ago, in the glacial period, overspread the country, and of whose carrying force the rock is an exhibition, as it was brought to its present position by the glaciers, from its home miles away in the north- west. The level top of this rock affords a rectangular play- ground of sixteen or eighteen feet upon a side. Its general form is like a hopper supported upon the apex. [See engraving. ]
Deer Ledge lies north of J. W. Simpson's pond, and is situated on the high, romantic, and precipitous sides of the hill of ledges. Its name is derived from the traditional fact, that an Indian drove a deer over the precipitous sides of this ledge into the water. The pond was called Deer-ledge Pond. Golden Pond was called Rocky Pond.
Devil's Den lies some thirty rods northwest of the house once owned by John Kelley. It is a cavern among a great ledge of masses of rocks, a few rods west of the extemporized road which goes around a hill upon the legal highway.
Raccoon's Den. - About twenty-five rods on the south side of the brook which is the outlet of Mitchell's Pond, and on or near the land of William D. Cochran, there is a den, the entrance to which is on the top of a ledge, where raccoons have made their winter quarters apparently for centuries. They remain in a torpid state during the coldest of the weather. Six were killed by one person soon after they had left their den. A little west of this den, on the same side of the brook, and in close proximity, is a cavern in a ledge called the
Wolf's Den. - It is not known that any wolf was ever killed there. John Cochran, the carly settler and emigrant, in exploring this cave, penetrated so far that his tobacco box fell out of his pocket and tumbled down into the region of darkness. This adventure of one of Windham's earliest settlers may be consid- ered the prelude to the bolder act of General Putnam, who not only looked into a wolf's den, but pressed in till he saw the wolf.
Porcupine Corner, at the corner of the old road now discon- tinned, foot of Senter's Hill, so called in early times, since called Potash Corner.
Porcupine Meadow lies east of Isaac Emerson's,
Buck Hide Meadow lies east of J. P. Crowell's.
SURFACE.
The surface is broken, and the larger part of the town is hilly. In the south are the pine plains, very regular and even, and easily tilled ; but usually its soil is not so strong and productive as the
36
HISTORY OF WINDHAM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
hillier and rougher land. The soil of the town is hard and rocky, but productive. There is hardly a rod of land but what something is growing upon it, and from many a crevice in a ledge a tree will spring forth. The farms have been greatly improved since the advent of the mower, and the rocks removed from very many of the fields. Grass is almost wholly ent by the mowing- machine, which made its first appearance in town about 1857.
We have many hills, but no very high eminences; none which are five hundred feet above sea level ; some four hundred feet and over. Among these is that elevation on which stands Butter- field's Rock, and Jenny's Hill. Other slight elevations are scat- tered through the town.
The business of the people is mainly agricultural, and there are many good farms in town. Some of the best farming land is on and in vicinity of the Mammoth Road in the west part, and also the farms in and near the Range.
The first settlers prized very highly the natural mowing land. The meadow-grass was used to sustain their stock till the uplands could be put in grass-bearing order. The natural meadow land was large in extent, and a great amount of hay has been produced upon this during the one hundred and sixty years or more sinee the first settlement. The town is well watered, and nowhere is there better or purer water than gushes forth from our granite hills.
INDICATIONS OF THE GLACIAL PERIOD.
The northwesterly portion of the town would be interesting to the geologist. The valley or meadow between John A. Moore's and Kendall's Mills, and the surrounding hills, are all of interest to an inquiring mind. Years ago my attention was called to the " Kettle Hole" near the corner of the roads at Ephraim McDaniels's, and also the ridge which crosses the highway near this, being lost there in the hill, and running in a southwesterly direction with the regularity of a railroad bed, passing over the meadow west of Dea. Samuel Campbell's and Gardner Robinson's, There its appearance is the most remarkable, and from a distance appears as if it was the work of man. The Beaver Brook is upon one side, the meadow upon the other, and this long, high ridge resembles a curve in a railroad where it is lost to view. At the spot where the highway cuts through it, it is composed of sand and small rocks apparently not much different from the imme- diate hills.
This' ridge is what geologists call a " kame," meaning a sharp ridge. Their explanation is, that the ridge marks the courses of the flow of surface water during the latter stages of the melting ice sheet, away back in the far-distant ages of the glacial period. The ice at that period was of great depth, and at the time this ridge was formed, filled all the valley. The sur- face streams, swollen by the action of the summer sun, would at
B7
SCENERY.
that period flow with great violence during the hot season, and their course would be marked by vast masses of gravel or stones which would be lodged in ice channels, or spread out over masses of ice. As the ice finally melted, the gravel and stones would settle down from it into the form in which the ridge exists.
The explanation of the " Kettle Hole " is that it marks a place once filled by a great mass of ice, which was covered up by the sand and gravel, and when in "the latter days the ice melted," a deep hole was formed without any outlet.
SCENERY.
Any notice of Windham would be exceedingly faulty which did not describe the beauty of its scenery. The diversity of the landscape is such that the eye never tires in beholding its beauties. Our grand old hills, our valleys, our lakes and streams of water, or broken masses of granite promiscuously piled together, all have their attractions, and to native as well as stranger eyes are charming. A number of towns are visible from Butterfield's Rock, and from the house of Mrs. Sally Clark on the same elevation of land the view is beautiful. The eye can scan the country for many miles, and the mountains in the dis- tance, forest-clad, green with summer verdure, or snow-capped in winter, call forth feelings of admiration. There are many pretty views in the Range. From Cemetery Hill, the eye sweeps Cobbett's Pond and takes in the abrupt prominence of several hills. Northwest of Isaiah W. Haseltine's, the scene is changed and is equally good.
Jenny's Hill, called for Miss Jenny McGregor, daughter of Rev. James McGregor, of Londonderry. This is a great swell of land, and is as high as any in town. It is good grazing land to the top. The view takes in many towns, and many churches appear in the distance, with their spires of faith pointing heaven- ward. Only a few rods from the summit of this hill stood the house in which the elder Gov. Samuel Dinsmoor was born. This is in the easterly part of the town.
Spear Hill is on the Potash Road, near the Salem line.
Breakneck Hill is in the northerly part of the town, near the place lately owned by James Smith.
Mount Ephraim is the highest elevation on the highway between the James Noyes and Charles Campbell farms.
Golden Row, or Row Road, is the road leading from Wind- ham meeting-house to Pelham line. It follows the general course of Golden Brook.
Stone Dam. - A natural stone dam across Beaver Brook at Butler's Mills. Holes were drilled into it, and a plank or wooden dam is above it. Stone Dam neighborhood ineludes a large part of School District No. 5, and derives its name from this dam.
Buck Hide Meadow lies east of Joseph P. Crowell's, and
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HISTORY OF WINDHAM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
derives its name from the fact that an ox was mired there and died.
Marble Head .- The street leading by Isaac Emerson's to Fletcher's Corner.
Carr Hill. - From the house of Mrs. Sally Clark, in the north- west part of the town, the view is extensive towards the west. The range of mountains passing through Peterboro', Temple, and New Ipswich, N. H., is in full view, and far beyond is seen the sharp blue peak of Mount Monadnock, in Jaffrey, N. II.
Bear Hill is the first rise on the highway west of Joseph C. Armstrong's house, so named from the fact that Capt. Joseph Clyde shot a bear on a large hard pine on the top of the hill.
Dinsmoor's Hill is in close proximity to Jenny's Hill, and was owned by Robert Dinsmoor, the " Rustic Bard," and brother of the first governor, Samuel Dinsmoor. A part of this land, com- mencing at the top of the hill and running to Cobbett's Pond, was laid out to Richard Waldron before the settlement. The view from this hill is the loveliest in town. It can hardly be sur- passed. To the west for miles is seen a long range of mountains, blue in the distance, and which have a sublimity about them grand to behold. To the south, the winding valley, and Cobbett's Pond lying among the hills, bright and sparkling in the sunlight. On the east of it, the farm-houses in the Range, and the farms lying in gentle slope from the highway to its shores. On the west of it, the land is covered with wood, dense and green in summer foli- age, in autumn clothed in a garment of many colors, and at the head, the sepulchres of the fathers. On the north, the eye has a sweep of country for thirty miles, and the church spire of Chester, the villages of Hampstead, Atkinson, churches in Haver- hill, Salem, Methuen, Lawrence, and houses in Andover are all in view. No person with any poetry in his soul can see, unmoved, the loveliness of the landscape and grandeur of this scenery. It must and does have an influence upon character, and one invol- untarily exclaims in the language of poetry, -
" Tell me, where'er thy silver bark be steering, By bright Italian or soft Persian lands,
Or o'er those island-studded seas careering. Whose pearl-charged waves dissolve on coral strands ; Tell if thou visitest, thon heavenly rover, A lovelier scene than this the wide world over."
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THE FIRST GRANT OF LAND IN WINDHAM.
CHAPTER II.
THE FIRST GRANT OF LAND IN WINDHAM. - LAYING-OUT OF LAND IN WINDHAM AFTER THE ADVENT OF THE SCOTCH SETTLERS IN LON- DONDERRY. - ORIGIN OF THE FARMS IN WINDHAM RANGE. - MINIS- TERIAL LOT OF WINDHAM.
THE first grant of land in Windham was one of five hundred aeres ordered by the Legislature of Massachusetts, to Rev. Thomas Cobbett, of Ipswich, Mass. It was surveyed and laid out in October, 1662, by Joseph Davis, Jeremiah Belcher, and Simon Tuttle. This was approved by the General Court at Boston, May 27, 1663. The bounds were renewed May 2, 1728, by Jona- than Foster, John JJacques, Thomas Gage, and David Haseltine. This farm was laid out in 1662, or fifty-seven years before the Seotch made a settlement in Londonderry, of which Windham was a part.
The reason that Massachusetts exercised jurisdiction in New Hampshire was that, in 1645, the few settlements on the Piscata- qua River in New Hampshire, had formed a union with their more powerful sister colony, and remained in a quiet, peaceable, and flourishing condition, being heartily united in all their civil and religions affairs, till 1680, when a separate government was established in New Hampshire by Charles II.
Felt's History of Ipswich says : " The land allowed to Mr. Cob- bet was laid out at Methuen, and was included by New Hamp- shire in 1741, when his grandchildren, Nathaniel and Ann Cob- bet, petitioned the General Court for an equivalent. They were allowed 1,500 acres near Charlemont. This farm was in Wind- ham, and upon the south line from a swamp that joyns upon Haverhill bounds, so ranging by west and by north point until yon come to a great rock upon the north side of a long pond called draw pond." This line "was twenty score rods long." It is impossible now to fix the bounds, but the farm lay upon Cob- bett's Pond. Tradition speaks of the farm as there; and in my possession is a copy of the original deed belonging to Lient. John Dinsmoor, and copied about one hundred years ago.
Cobbett's Pond takes its name from Rev. Thomas Cobbett. He was born in Newbury, England, in 1608; settled in Ipswich, Mass. ; died Nov. 5, 1682. People often sigh for the "good old times," and hold up "the fathers " as patterns for all that was
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HISTORY OF WINDHAM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
good and excellent. They were good; but viewed by the light of the present, they had grievous faults; and history records the sad but curious fact, that at the funeral of the excellent man and beloved pastor, Rev. Thomas Cobbett, there were consumed "by the mourners " one barrel of wine and two barrels of cider, and as it was cold, then "some spice and ginger for the cider." His living children were Samuel, John, Thomas, and Elizabeth (Belcher).
1715. - Policy Pond was once wholly in Windham, and in early times was called "Haverhill Pond." In 1715, four years before the Scotch people settled in Londonderry, the General Court of Massachusetts granted a tract of land to Rev. Mr. Higginson, in what was afterwards Windham, but in Salem since 1750, begin- ning upon said pond and running south upon Haverhill line 730 poles to a tree standing in Haverhill line.
LAYING-OUT OF LAND IN WINDHAM AFTER THE ADVENT OF THE SCOTCH SETTLERS IN LONDONDERRY.
1723, March 5. - Sixty acres to John Dinsmoor. This in- cluded the " Hopkins farm," now owned by John Scott, on Derry line.
1723, Oct. 29. - Two hundred and fifty acres of land to Rev. James MacGregor, lying northeast of Cabbage's Pond.
1728, Jan. 21. - One hundred and five acres to Rev. James MacGregor, southerly of Policy Pond, bounding on Col. John Wheelwright's farm.
1728, Jan. 22. - Two hundred and eighteen acres to James Clark, lying on Oylstone Brook, and by his own meadow.
1728, June. - Five hundred acres to Col. John Wheelwright, bounding on Policy Pond, marked by easterly part of pond ; thence east 220 rods; thence south 390 rods; thence west 240 rods ; thence north to pond, bounding of James MacGregor.
1737, March .- The Proprietors of Londonderry laid out to Samuel Shute, Esq., late governor of New Hampshire, by virtue of his name being entered in the charter, a farm of five hundred acres near Buck Hide Meadow. This land lies south of West Windham Depot and east of Beaver Brook. Mr. J. P. Crowell owns a part of it, and perhaps the Depot may be on it.
ORIGIN OF THE FARMS IN WINDHAM RANGE.
" Quiet profound " did not always abide with the Scotch emi- grants in Londonderry. They did not escape the perplexities of life, and a company entered their strong protest against what they considered an unjust division of lands among the settlers, and asked for redress.
There were disturbing elements in the society of the carly set- thers. Selfishness was prominent then, as now, in the breasts of
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ORIGIN OF THE FARMS IN WINDHAM RANGE.
all. Many of those who lived in the " Double Range" were dissatisfied with the division and distribution of the land. "One method, 'to do as they would be done by,' did not prevail there." So fourteen frecholders in the 'ownship of Londonderry (now Derry) signed the annexed petition : -
PETITION FOR REDRESS OF INJUSTICE.
" To the Honourable John Wentworth, Esq., Loutt Governor commander in chief of Hampshr, and to the General Assembly of both houses.
" The humble petition of the subscribers to this Honorable As- sembly, wee complean of wrong don to us and grivoos injustice in laying outt of our land by unjust methods viz. that a part of our proprietors have taken their chois of all our comons and we are nott allowed neither lott nor chois and rendered unsheur of having our hom lotts made Equal with others, one method Dos not prevall hear to do as they wold be done by. Wee the Com- plenentt Desire and make request for a practicable reull that may yealld saiftty to every party and thatt a magor vote may not cutte any s propriator outt of his right by design or conning which shall further appear by a paper annexed hereunto, which will make it appear mor fully to have ben practised hear on propertie hurttofore another the complanentt seke for redress from this Honorable house, and your petitioners shall ever pray. May the 15th 1728.
JOHN BARNET. SAMUEL ALLISON.
JOHN MORISON. WILLIAM UMFRA.
WILLIAM NICKELS. JOHN BARR.
JOHN ANDERSON. JAMES MORISON. ARCHIBALD CLENDENIN. JOHN STUART.
ROBT. WEAR.
SAMUEL BARR.
JOHN BARNET, JR. GABRIALL BARR .*
" This petition was presented to the General Assembly on the 18th day of May, 1728. The 23d was appointed as a day of hearing. Both parties appearing unitedly declared that they had settled the difference among themselves, and humbly prayed the Government to give a sanction to their agreement.
"In Council, May 23, 1728, Voted, that the Said Agreement be and hereby is established and confirmed. The Agrement was as follows, At a Proprietary Meeting at Londonderry the 15th day of April 1728, it was voted that the fourteen petitioners 'shall have Five Hundred and Ninetyfour acres of land within the said Town of Londonderry.' The petitioners shall have one half the land that fronts on Cobbetts Pond, on the South side and the East end of the said pond, so beginning at the middle of said Pond and running out a square line from the Pond Three Hun-
* Town Papers of New Hampshire, vol. ix, pp. 492, 493.
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HISTORY OF WINDHAM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
dred and twenty rods if Policy Pond will allow, thence extend- ing East not to run past ye east end of Policy Pond southerly, and so running along ye habitable land breaking no form of land until the aforesaid Petitioners' compliment of five hundred and ninety four acres is made up exclusive of any meadow," * etc.
Part, if not all, of this land was laid out in October of 1728. Like the rest of the common land of Londonderry, it was formed into a "range," so that it might " be laid out in order." This was the origin of that section of farms, which for nearly one hundred and fifty years has been known as " Windham Range."
It is impossible to designate all of the ancient landmarks, but the following are approximately correct.
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