USA > Vermont > Orange County > Newbury > History of Newbury, Vermont, from the discovery of the Coos country to present time > Part 5
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Little but tradition informs us as to the condition of the meadows before their settlement. It is certain that a large part of the Great Ox-bow, in Newbury, and the Little Ox-bow in Haver- hill, had long been cleared and cultivated by the Indians in their rude fashion. Of the other meadows little is known, but it is supposed that they were covered with woods among which lay a great mass of fallen timber amidst which tall weeds and tangled vines made, in many places, thickets which were almost impene- trable. But there were cleared places on most, if not all, and on Horse meadow was quite a large field.
There were several Indian trails; the location of most has long been lost, but of a few the general direction is known. The great trail, from the Merrimack to Lake Memphremagog, came up
3I
THE EARLY YEARS.
through Warren in a course, which, says William Little, in his history of that town, is followed very nearly by the railroad. Another came up the Connecticut, and at Wells River sent a branch up that stream. Indian Joe, the famous scout, used to point out a number of paths through the woods, which were made by his dusky brethren. The first road, which was marked by spotted trees from Charlestown to Coös, followed one of these trails. In various places in this town, where the woods have never been cut down, are paths which may be clearly discerned for long distances, which were here when white men came to Coös and are believed to be sections of pre-historic trails. The settlers used these woodland paths in their journeys and they gradually became public roads.
The settlers who came in 1762, made small clearings, both for the planting of corn for food, and with the expectation of thus establishing a claim to the lands upon which they wished to settle. Early in 1763, people began to come into both towns in quite large numbers. James Woodward and John Page came into Haverhill, and settled on the farms where they passed the rest of their lives. Noah White came to Newbury, and settled upon Kent's Meadow, but afterwards removed to Bradford where he became prominent.
In May came Daniel Hall and his sons in a boat from Northfield, Mass. They reached the mouth of a brook in Bradford after dark on a Saturday evening. On the morrow he refused to proceed on his journey, upon the Sabbath, and remained at the mouth of the stream till the next day. That brook-Hall's brook, Hall's pond and Hall's meadow perpetuate his name, says Rev. Clark Perry.
In November came Col. Jacob Kent from Plaistow and settled on Kent's meadow, where he built the first framed house in town. Later, not being able to buy as much of that meadow as he desired, he removed to Sleeper's meadow, where his descendants long lived. In the same month, and perhaps in the same company with Kent, James Abbott of Concord, and Ebenezer White of Plaistow, with their hardy sons and daughters, moved into Newbury. About the same time came Frye Bayley, then young and unmarried. Thomas Johnson moved over from Haverhill and located at the Ox-bow. These were men of superior character-the best possible material for a new settlement, and their influence extended over many years. Mr. Powers says that James Abbott's family was the twelfth in both towns. There were several young men who boarded in these families, clearing land, and doing other work.
In that year, John Foreman and two others, who had been soldiers for several years in the British army, left it at Quebec, and made their way to Coos. Foreman settled in Newbury, married a daughter of Richard Chamberlin, and after the war removed to Bath. Of him and his descendants a more particular account will be given later.
On the Ox-bow, April 4, 1763, was born the first English child,
32
HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.
Betsey, daughter of John Hazeltine. She married Capt. Nehemiah Lovewell, whom she outlived nearly half a century, and died November 19, 1850. A few weeks later the first white male child was born to Thomas Chamberlain and his wife, and was called Jacob Bayley Chamberlain. He settled in Canada after the war, and died there. His mother, says Mr. Perry, received a grant of one hundred acres from the proprietors, as a bounty. In the spring of the same year the first white child was born in Haverhill, but it died in a few days.
In Haverhill also was the first death among the settlers, Polly Harriman, of consumption, aged eighteen. Some weeks later "the Widow Pettibone" died in Newbury, the first death, and Abraham Webb was drowned.
It is believed that Aaron Hosmer and Susanna Chamberlain were married in that year, the first marriage at Coös.
Bayley and Hazen'visited Newbury at least once in 1763, and made preparations for removal hither and Mr. Silas Moody, a relative of the Littles, who had recently graduated at Harvard, was engaged by the proprietors to come and preach, which he did, and remained several weeks, preaching in both towns.
It would seem that the year 1763, saw considerable progress in the settlement. A sawmill was in operation in Haverhill, and the rude huts of the previous year gave place to log houses with some semblance of domestic convenience. The forests began to fall before the axe, and the smoke rolled up from many a clearing in the autumn sunshine. According to Col. Little, a road was made passable for ox teams for two or three miles south from the Ox-bow. Carpenters and blacksmiths had come to Coös, and, although their tools were few and their conveniences rude, necessity stimulated the invention of many useful contrivances.
The season had been a fruitful one, and there seems to have been a good crop of potatoes, corn and wheat, with hay for the cattle. The latter were all young, and it was desirable to preserve them for their increase and labor, so it is not probable that much beef was killed in that year. We do not learn how early sheep and swine were brought to Coös. But the woods abounded in game, the rivers and brooks swarmed with fish. Those who had been here long enough to clear land and raise crops, had a plenty, although not a great variety of food. Still their way of living must have been very primitive, when sixty miles of wilderness separated the settlers from their nearest neighbors. But the hardy men and women thought little of these things; every nerve was strained to better their condition. Many of the necessities of life were hard to bc had. Dr. Samuel White said in his old age that he had seen ten bushels of wheat exchanged for one of salt. Tea and coffee were rarely tasted at Coös in those early years. The herbs of the field were medicine for the sick. Their farming tools were rude and
.
--
RESIDENCE OF RICHARD DOE-BUILT 1820. THIS HOUSE OCCUPIES THE SITE OF GENERAL BAYLEY'S HOUSE.
33
THE EARLY YEARS.
heavy, and much strength was wasted in handling the implements of their toil. A carpenter's tool of any kind was a treasure not to be valued in money. One man was the fortunate owner of a saw, another of an auger, while a third had a broad-axe, and the mutual exchange of these articles made kindly feelings, while their loss or injury was hardly to be forgiven.
Books were few, and schools were not yet, but there were men and women of intelligence who gave a tone to the settlement. The Bible was in every house, and was the one book which every one knew. All were poor except in land, with willing hearts and strong arms to win a sustenance from the soil.
The year 1764 was a year of increase to both towns. Dea. Jonathan Elkins, Col. Timothy Bedell and Hon. Ezekiel Ladd moved their families into Haverhill. In October General Bayley came with his family, although it would appear that his son Ephraim preceded him by several months. His house was already built, which stood where Mr. Richard Doe's brick house now stands at the Ox-bow. Water is still drawn from a well which was dug in that year, a few feet from the north-west corner of the house. "He had been," says Mr. Powers, "the principal mover in every proceeding, and now he had come to bless himself, and to save much people alive, in the approaching struggle between Great Britain and her colonies." In the same year, probably, Col. John Taplin came, and his son John. He seems to have lived about where the Spring Hotel once stood, and the library stands now. The proprietors who had not been able to persuade Mr. Moody to return and settle at Coös, addressed themselves to Rev. Peter Powers, who had returned to Hollis, after being settled a few years at Newent, now Lisbon, Conn., who was well known to most of them. He came in June to look the ground over, preached acceptably in both towns, and a mutual liking between him and the people led to his accep- tance of the call made by the proprietors of the towns. The Congregational church was organized at Hollis in September of that year, and a log meeting-house was built, says Grant Powers, south of General Bayley's house, between it and the foot of the hill. After the erection of a better house of worship, it was used as a schoolhouse for some years.
In the same year, the frame of a sawmill on the lower falls of Hall's brook was raised. Everything about it except the saw, and the crank which propelled it up and down in the frame, could be made here, but the latter could only be procured at some larger place. One was engaged at Concord and in the winter time several men, who had prepared a sled which they thought would answer for its transportation, went down after it. They returned on snowshoes, drawing the sled, which had very wide runners, after them. The snow was deep, the weather extremely cold, and their progress was slow. When they were crossing Newfound lake,
3
34
HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.
being very tired they made a halt, and sat down upon the sled to rest, but one of the party, John Page, arose and went some distance after water. When he returned he found his comrades fallen into a sleep, which would soon have been death, had he not, after great effort, aroused them to a sense of their danger. "But the same party," says Grant Powers, "came near perishing when they had arrived in sight of Haverhill, and had it not been for James Woodward to perform for Page, what Page had done for them upon the pond, they would have given up the ghost." This crank, which so nearly cost the lives of six men, was placed in the first sawmill built in this town, which stood where Mr. Knight's upper dam is now, at South Newbury, in which it did service some twenty years. Somewhere about 1790, David and Samuel Tucker and Jonathan Johnson built a mill at the outlet of Hall's pond, to which they transferred this crank where it outlasted several successive mills, until about 1871, this mill, the last survivor of the old "up-and-down" sawmills in this region, went to decay. The old crank is now carefully preserved by Mr. S. S. Tueker, and is good for another century or two. It weighs one hundred and seventy-five pounds. A few weeks after this old crank began its work on Hall's brook, a sawmill was completed at the falls west of Newbury village, where several successors have been built. In the fall of 1765, a grist mill went into operation, which stood at the foot of the hill below the saw- mill, but above the bridge. This was the first grist mill in Orange county.
Haverhill and Newbury were not long allowed to remain the last setlements on the river. In 1763, David Page, who had been dissatisfied with the division of land in Haverhill, resolved to begin a settlement at Uppcr Coös. Lancaster was incorporated July 5, 1763, and in the following autumn, David Page, Jr., and Emmons Stockwell went there, built a camp, and wintered some cattle. In 1764, David Page and others moved into that town, separated from Newbury by forty miles of wilderness. Other towns in that region were soon occupied.
In 1765, Jaasiel Harriman, whom we have seen coming to Newbury in 1762, began to clear land near the great rock, south of Bath village, and on that rock his daughter raised the first vegetables in town.
Some of the early settlers, probably all who had families and household goods, came upon the ice, which furnished a level road from Charlestown, or in the open season, in boats. For the safety and comfort of those who travelcd directly by way of Plymouth, rude shelters of logs, with chimneys of stonc, were crected at intervals of ten or fifteen milcs.
Rev. Grant Powers has preserved many anecdotes of the early settlers, and their hardships, which without his painstaking would have, long ago, been forgotten. It is not the intention of this
35
THE EARLY YEARS.
volume to supplant the work which he did. His sketches should be in every house in Newbury. But he never intended his book to be considered a complete history of the Coös country. All he desired was to secure from oblivion some of the tales which still continued to be told when he preached in Haverhill seventy-five years ago. The Coos country owes a debt to Mr. Powers for his care, and we will not detract from the interest of his volume by telling his tales over again. He did not attempt to recount the real history of the times, and there is enough that he did not say to more than fill one volume.
It has before been stated that potatoes were raised in Newbury in 1762. It would seem by this that the use of the potato had, within a few years of the settlement of Newbury, become general. Potatoes were introduced into New England by some emigrants from the north of Ireland in 1719, and were first raised in the garden of Nathaniel Walker of Andover, Mass. The first mention of them in Newbury, Mass., was in 1732. In 1737, Rev. Thomas Smith of Portland, Me., says in his diary that there was not a peck of potatoes in the whole Eastern country. "So late as 1750," says Coffin's history of Newbury, Mass., "should any person have raised so large a quantity as five bushels, great would have been the inquiry among his neighbors, in what manner he could dispose of such abundance." They were first raised in beds, like onions. Yet little more than ten years later their use had come to be general.
1127789
CHAPTER VI.
THE LAND DIVIDED.
WHITING'S SURVEY .- THE MEADOW LOTS .- THE HOUSE LOTS .- THE FIFTY-ACRE LOTS .- COLEMAN'S SURVEY .- WHITING'S GORE, OR THE "HALF-MILE STRIP."- SIGNATURES TO WHITING DEED .- SPECULATION .- SURVEY OF THE "HUNDRED- ACRE LOTS."- THE P LOTS .- THE GORE .- WHITELAW'S SURVEY OF THE UNDIVIDED LANDS .- TOPSHAM LANDS .- DRAWING OF LOTS .- PAGAN'S TRACT .- WITHERSPOON'S LANDS .- CLINTON'S TRACT .- COLDEN'S SURVEY .- A PETITION.
TN the fall of 1763, Benjamin Whiting, a noted surveyor of his time, laid out the meadow lots, house-lots, and fifty-acre lots, and made a plan of them, which was accepted June 14, 1764. The several meadows were divided into sections containing from eighteen to thirty acres each, according to their supposed value. With each meadow lot was "coupled" a "house-lot" which lay upon the upland along the river road, and which had from one to five acres, and a "fifty-acre lot"lying back or west of the main road. When a proprietor had made certain designated improvements upon his "pitch," and had paid his share of the proprietors' expenses, he received a title decd from Gen. Bayley, on behalf of the grantees, of his meadow lot, with the house-lot and fifty-acre lot which belonged to it. The meadows were divided into as many lots as there were grantees. The rest of the town lay unsurveyed, except that the boundary lines were ran out, until 1768. By that time all the land on the meadows had been taken up, and there began to be a demand for land in the back part of the town, for settlement.
The proprietors employed Dudley Coleman of Newbury, Mass., a graduate of Harvard College in 1765, who afterwards became a noted officer in the revolutionary war, to come here and lay out what are called the "hundred-acre lots." But before he began this division, the proprietors, on the 27th of April, 1768, conveyed by deed to Benjamin Whiting, for two hundred pounds, all that part of Newbury which lies west of a line drawn from a point five and
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37
THE LAND DIVIDED.
three-quarters miles from the southeast corner of the town along the Bradford line, to another point, the same distance from the northeast corner of the town, along the Ryegate line. This tract, which lies between the Topsham line and the west line of the "hundred-acre lots," is seven miles, one hundred and four rods long, and one-half mile wide, and is called to this day the "half-mile strip," or "Whiting's gore." It contains above two thousand acres, and may have been deeded to Whiting to pay him for his work in surveying the east part of the town. At the north end of this strip, and in the extreme northwest corner of the town, is the "glebe" which long paid rent to the Episcopal church.
This deed is signed by the proprietors of Newbury, in 1768, whose names were as follows, in the order of their signing, Whiting the grantee being expressly mentioned as one of them :
Jacob Bayley
John Taplin
Jacob Kent
Joseph Chamberlin
Moses Thurston
Enoch Thurston
Samuel Hale
Thomas Johnson
John Hugh Thomas Chamberlain
Abial Chamberlin
Jacob Hall
Richard Chamberlin
Gideon Smith
Robert Johnston
Abner Fowler
Levi Silvester
Joseph White
Simeon Stevens
Noah White
Benjamin Emerson
Robert Hunkins
Jacob Fowler
John Haseltine
Reuben Foster
Jonathan Butterfield John Hazen
Leonard Whiting
Uriah Chamberlin
When we compare this list of the proprietors of 1768, with that of the grantees upon the charter of 1763, it will be seen that great changes had already taken place in the ownership of the town. Of the seventy-five names which are on the charter, only thirteen are attached to this deed, while seventeen new names are added. As several others of the grantees became actual settlers, it may be that they had not, in 1768, complied with all the conditions of the charter and received title deeds to their land. Of those seventy-five, about forty never settled here or obtained a full title to their land, but sold their claims. In those days men speculated in Vermont lands, just as rich men now invest in Western land, or in stocks and bonds. Men who had influence could get their names inserted in the charters of new towns, and would sell the rights thus obtained as soon as the land came into demand, while others dealt in rights and shares of wild land. By various means some men became owners of whole townships, either by buying out the actual grantees, or by means of inserting a great number of fictitious
Peter Powers
38
HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.
names in the charters. In most of the Vermont towns not one of the grantees became an actual settler. It was very fortunate for Newbury and Haverhill that so many of their grantees were men already well known to each other, and that the plans for local government were so fully matured before much settlement had begun. The advantage gained by mutual acquaintance was still further secured by the fact that all, or nearly all, who came into either town from the lower portion of the Merrimack valley, were bound, in one way and another, by ties of common ancestry. All these aided to form a close union of common interests between Newbury and Haverhill, and helped to give the towns the strong and united position which they held before, and especially during, the revolutionary war.
Coleman and his men began their survey in September, at the southeast corner of the "half-mile strip," and ran eight parallel lines from Bradford to Ryegate. The last of these lines is often spoken of as the "east line of the hundred-acre lots." They then began at the Bradford line and laid out seventy-two lots, by running cross lines, and then began at the Ryegate line and laid out seventy-eight lots-all these between the half-mile strip, and the "east line," above mentioned. These one hundred and sixty lots are called the hundred-acre lots, and are numbered from one, up. They vary much in size. Mr. Patterson used to tell of a hundred-acre lot from which one hundred and fourteen acres were sold, and there were one hundred and twelve acres left. The survey was made in a pathless wilderness, with all the obstacles of hills, precipices, swamps, and fallen timber, and was far from accurate, yet has answered the purpose of sub-division for one hundred and thirty years.
Between these divisions, there remained a tract which they divided into lots which vary in size, and are known as P lots-"P 1 in the fourth range," and so on. There are fifteen of these lots. There still remained a strip of land called "The Gore," which is of unequal width, and extends from the east side of the half-mile strip to the east side of the hundred-acre lots, through the centre of the town. The town house stands on the north edge of the gore, which is sometimes half a mile wide. The "east line of the hundred-acre lots," crosses the road between Newbury and West Newbury, a short distance west of Joseph Johnston's house, and crosses the brook road, in front of the Chalmers sawmill. Between this and the fifty- acre lots lay an irregular and rocky tract which was unsurveyed for twenty years, when Gen. James Whitelaw was employed to complete the survey, and the land was divided among such of the grantees as still remained, giving them about thirty-four acres each. After 1800, Benjamin Baldwin of Bradford laid the half-mile strip out into lots.
It will be seen that the owner of each of the cighty shares was
39
THE LAND DIVIDED.
entitled to a meadow lot, with its appendage of house lot and upland, and two of the hundred-acre lots, besides an equal share of what still lay undivided, no inconsiderable quantity of real estate.
Before Coleman finished his survey, he laid out into seventy- eight lots a strip one mile wide, on the east side of what is now Topsham, but then claimed by Newbury. This was the land which Newbury had to give up to Topsham in 1803. It would seem that Gen. Bayley paid Coleman for his labor, and had to wait a long time for his own pay, as witness the following among the Johnson papers :
"NEWBURY, April 14, 1790.
The Proprietors of Newbury to Jacob Bayley, Esq., Dr., for money paid Capt. Dudley Coleman for laying out the hundred-acre lots, £13.7.9
To 20 days work in assisting in laying out sd lots at 4 shillings per day, 4.0.0
20.9.4
Interest on account,
£37.16.1
Received of the Proprietors by an order on Col. Frye Bayley, Collector of the Proprietors' tax, £37.16.1, which is in full of all betwixt me and the Proprietors of Newbury for all services done by me, and for notes, debts, dues, and demands preceding this date, and also for Mr. Moody's preaching in this town.
JACOB BAYLEY."
It would appear by the Proprietors' book that the first division of hundred-acre lots was made soon after Mr. Coleman completed his survey of the town. The proprietors drew the lots by numbers, one lot to each share. Some owned several shares, and drew as many lots. Few of the proprietors held more than one share. At the first drawing of lots, seventy-five were taken. The Proprietors' Book does not give the date of either the first or second drawing of lots, but it is evident that several years elapsed between them, as changes in the number of shares are given, new names are mentioned, and some of the former ones are not on the second list. At the second drawing seventy-eight lots were taken, making one hundred and fifty-three in all. There remained a considerable portion of the hundred-acre lots, which was not yet assigned.
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