USA > Vermont > Orange County > Newbury > History of Newbury, Vermont, from the discovery of the Coos country to present time > Part 6
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96
The map of the one hundred-acre lots, made about 1774, gives 1200 acres as owned by John Pagan and John Witherspoon, which lay in a body east of the half-mile strip, and about midway between Bradford and Ryegate. East of this lay a tract of 600 acres owned by George Clinton. John Pagan was a merchant at Glasgow, who afterward held some public office in London; John Witherspoon was president of Princeton college, and of him we shall have more to say. George Clinton was governor of New York for some years.
In 1783, Dr. Witherspoon commissioned James Whitelaw and Alexander Harvey to sell and convey his lands in Newbury and elsewhere in Vermont. Deeds, on behalf of the proprietors, were granted by Jacob Bayley as early as the fall of 1763, but none were
40
HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.
recorded for several years. The only offices in New Hampshire at that time, for the registry of deeds, were at Exeter and Portsmouth. As the control of that province over Newbury ended in 1764, it is not probable that any were sent away to be recorded .* Neither is it likely that many were sent away for record while this town was under the jurisdiction of New York, or that the authorities of that province established any offices for the recording of conveyances in what is now Vermont. The third session of the General Assembly of Vermont, sitting at Bennington, in February, 1779, passed a law that all deeds or conveyances of houses or lands should be recorded by the clerk of the town in which the land lay, or that of the nearest organized town, if there was no organization. It would seem that the town authorities procured a blank book, which bears the name of the First Volume of Land Records, in which the first recorded deed was given August 26, 1779, and received for record by Jacob Kent, town clerk, August 23, 1781. This volume, and the second of the series, also contains the record of deeds of land in Ryegate, Peacham and Topsham.
Vermont is the only state in the Union in which the record of deeds is kept by the clerk of each town, instead of an officer who keeps the records for the whole county, at the county seat.
In 1764, Newbury passed under the government of New York, and in 1765, Alexander Colden, Surveyor General, made a new survey of the boundaries of the town, at the request of Benjamin Whiting and the proprietors, and fixed the southwest corner at the present northwest corner of Bradford. This did not please the people of Newbury, and a petition for himself and twenty-five others of Newbury, was presented to Governor Clinton in December, 1766, by Whiting, which stated that the west line of the town, as laid down by Colden, did not include all the lands which had been granted by Governor Wentworth, and that the west line of the town lacked ninety-six chains and fifty links to bring it up to the town of Topsham. It was ordered in council that the Surveyor General should make the return of Newbury "according to the ancient bound," as prayed for by the petitioners.
* NOTE. Since this was written, it has been discovered that several deeds of land in Newbury, made in colonial days, are on record at Exeter.
WATERFALL ABOVE WELLS RIVER VILLAGE.
FROM WATER STREET LOOKING WEST.
CHAPTER VII.
EARLY DAYS IN NEWBURY.
THE FIRST TOWN-MEETING .- TYTHING-MEN .- HOG-REEVES .- HOG-CONSTABLE .- ANECDOTES .- DEER-REEVE .- FIELD DRIVER .- POUNDS .- STOCKS .- WHIPPING POST .- MURDER OF AN INDIAN .- ST. FRANCIS INDIANS .- THE FIRST STORE IN Coos. - THE FIRST SCHOOL. - CARPENTERS. - BLACKSMITHS. - COOPERS. - BRICKYARD .- TANNERIES.
T HE first local town-meeting was held at Gen. Bayley's house, on June 12, 1764. Jacob Kent was chosen town clerk, an office which he was to hold till the end of the century ; Jacob Bayley, Jacob Kent, and James Abbott, were selectmen; John Hazeltine was chosen constable; Maxi Hazeltine and Thomas Johnson were surveyors of highways; Richard Chamberlin and Simeon Stevens were tything-men ; John Hugh was hog reeve, and Levi Sylvester was appointed field-driver. These latter titles with that of deer reeve, who was chosen the next year, sound strangely to our ears.
Tything-men were a sort of local police, the name being of Anglo-Saxon origin, which once meant the chief man of a tything or parish. In New England it was their duty to inspect taverns, keep an eye upon strangers and suspicious persons, and they could arrest, without a warrant, offenders against the laws. It was their duty to detain travelers upon the highway on the Sabbath, keep order in public assemblies, particularly in the meeting-house on the Lord's Day. When on duty the tything-man carried a wand or staff five feet long. In Massachusetts the tything-men were appointed by the selectmen, but here they were always chosen in town-meeting. There was but one for a number of years, but as the town grew, two or more were chosen from different parts of the town. A number of duties which are now performed by other officers were then attended to by the tything-men; thus the office was considered very important, and only the most staid and substantial citizens
42
HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.
were elected to it. The last tything-men were elected in 1850, but had not been chosen before for several years. There are those living who can remember the tything-men in the old meeting-house walking about during sermon, and keeping a vigilant eye on the small boys.
Hog-reeves were charged with the oversight of swine that ran at large, to see that they were yoked and ringed. They were to enforce the law against the owners of unruly hogs. In the course of time their duties extended to the care of the town pound, and the taking up and detention of stray and quarrelsome cattle. They were often called hog-wards, and their office still nominally survives under the title of pound-keeper. Sometimes this official was called "hog-constable," and a few amusing stories are told concerning the eleetion of various individuals to the position.
Many years ago the legal voters of Peacham laid themselves open to a keen thrust of the wit of their minister, Rev. Leonard Worcester, by nominating him for hog-constable. He arose and thanked his fellow townsmen for the honor they proposed to do him, and said that if elected he would certainly accept, and for the same reason that he accepted the call to become their minister. "For," said he, "I eame among you as a shepherd to his flock, but if you have so far degenerated as to become a herd of swine, it is fitting that I should be hog-constable!" He was not elected.
We have not so good a story to tell upon that topic, but there is one which will do to relate. In 1824, Dr. Calvin Jewett was moderator of town-meeting in Newbury, and when in the course of the proceedings it was necessary to choose a hog-constable, several persons declined the nomination. Whereupon the doctor leetured the voters upon their delinquency, by telling them that the office was an important one, prescribed by law, and that some one ought to be willing to fill it, to which appeal the meeting responded by electing him. He probably thought it rather more of a joke than anything else, but it could hardly have seemed one when about midnight he was awakened by several of his neighbors, who informed him that the office being important and prescribed by law, it was equally important that there should be no vacaney, and a justiee of the peace who was present swore him in !
While the country was yet new, the woods abounded in deer. Both the skin and flesh of these animals were valuable to the settlers, and in 1741, a law was passed in New Hampshire making it a crime to kill a deer between January 1st and August 1st. It was the duty of the town to choose, annually, one or more deer-reeves, or deer keepers, who were to see that the law was observed, and to prosccute its violators. But before the century ended, the dcer had passed away, and the office with them.
For many years after the settlement of Newbury most of the unimproved land was unfenced, and the rights of the owners lay
43
EARLY DAYS IN NEWBURY.
in common. It was the duty of the field driver to impound all animals running at large upon the public roads, or upon the common lands, without the consent of the land owners. For such services he received one shilling each, for cattle and horses, and three-pence each for sheep and swine, to be paid by their owners before being taken from the custody of the officer.
The first pound was made in 1766, and was a little north of the residence of William H. Atkinson. As the town grew, and domestic animals increased, Wells River was made into a "pound district," and one was built at West Newbury. These have long since disappeared. The only remaining pound stands upon the town farm, and is about fifty feet square. It was surrounded by a strong wall six feet high, now fallen down, and a heavy beam lay along the wall, on the four sides. A strong door, secured with a padlock, admitted the offending quadrupeds to an enclosure which has not been used for its intended purpose for thirty years.
The same town-meeting which voted to build a pound for the detention of unruly animals having four feet, voted also to erect a pair of stocks for the correction of such offenders as had but two. This terror to evil-doers was built by Joseph Chamberlin, and stood near his house on the "little plain." The stocks consisted of a platform about five feet from the ground, upon which was a bench on which the culprits sat, with their ankles inserted in holes of a convenient size, which were made in a frame in front of them. This was constructed of two beams, one above the other, which were hinged at one end, and holes, half in the upper and half in the lower timber, were made, of sizes to suit large and small people. The upper beam being lifted, the offender's feet were placed in the holes on the upper side of the lower one, and the corresponding upper half being brought down, it was secured by a padlock. The legs of the culprit were stretched out level, the bench had no back, and in that most uncomfortable position the unlucky malefactor had to sit from one to ten hours, according to the duration of the sentence, in full view of all who passed. For public information the culprit's name and offence were set forth upon a board placed above his head. Upon the frame work of the stocks was a sign board to which all public notices were affixed. The law of 1779 prescribed a penalty of twenty shillings a month upon any town which failed to provide stocks, and keep them in repair. The machinery of justice was expected to be always ready for work.
The Newbury stocks disappeared before 1810, but the whipping- post is well remembered by the oldest people, and stood, as late as 1836, a little north of Mr. Farnham's garden, a few feet back from the street. Small thefts, idleness, profanity, and a host of other offenses were punished by fines, by sitting in the stocks, and in aggravated cases, by whipping. Jails were few, and insecure; there was no state prison, and people could not afford to support
44
HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.
criminals at public expense. So the offender was made a public spectacle in the stocks, or the rod of correction was faithfully applied at the whipping-post. There is evidence that both means of punishment were often used in Newbury in those early days.
Mr. Perry tells us that in 1764, or 1765, a man named Neal was supposed to have murdered an Indian at the Upper meadow. Both had been drinking and were heard quarrelling. They set out on the river in a boat, but Neal reached the Haverhill side alone. The body of the Indian, in a mangled state, was washed ashore on Howard's island. Neal was tried for the murder, and imprisoned at Portsmouth, but did not suffer death. Mr. Perry has also handed down the legend that an English officer was once murdered upon a rock by the river just above the outlet of Harriman's brook.
For some years after the settlement, detachments of the St. Francis tribe of Indians annually visited the place, and spent some time in hunting and fishing. A very few domesticated themselves among the settlers. Occasionally one of them would lay claim to a farm or a piece of land, which he would give up before witnesses, for some small article. Tradition asserts that the Indian title to several farms was extinguished in this way. The settlers never seem to have had any fear of them, but Rev. Mr. Powers in a letter written about 1767, describes them as a miserable crew, to whom there seemed little hope of doing any good. They, however, soon became extinct, but there is still a strain of Indian blood in more than one family in Newbury.
Mr. Perry tells us that the first store in Coös was opened at the Little Ox-bow in Haverhill, as early as 1765, perhaps before. From a letter in the handwriting of Col. Thomas Johnson it would seem that a school of some kind was kept in Newbury in that year.
Newbury and Haverhill had now come to be considered established settlements, with a society which attracted a valuable class of residents. Dr. Smith and Dr. Samuel Hale had established themselves in the practice of medicine. The talents and piety of Mr. Powers induced people to settle under his ministry.
All the traditions of those early days tell us that the first settlers of Newbury and Haverhill had to go down the river to Charlestown to mill for some years. If that was the case, it would seem that the gristmill which had been built on Poole brook in Haverhill by the proprietors in 1762, either did not go into operation, or proved ineffective. It may be that it only ground grain coarsely, and there was no mill which could make bolted flour any nearer than Charlestown.
It is hard to distinguish the precise facts in the meagre and faded records of those early days. Our ancestors werc not given to the casy use of the pen, and seem never to have thought or imagined that a time would come when the smallest details of their life at Coös, would interest their successors. So they passed away, and
45
EARLY DAYS IN NEWBURY.
only a very few of them left any written memorials. It is from the scanty remains of these that we gather a few particulars of their labors.
The first mechanics which come into a new settlement, are those whose trades supply the most immediate necessities of the settlers. People must have clothes, and shoes; next there must be carpenters and coopers, who can work in wood, and blacksmiths, who can work in iron.
The first houses being mere huts, which furnished a rude shelter from cold and storm, were soon replaced by more substantial habitations, made of logs. There was not much exercise in them for the skill of the carpenter. Log houses are warm, when well built, and when well cared for, will last many years. The last log house built by an actual settler, on newly cleared land, in this town, was abandoned about 1873, and was occupied for many years. The present generation of young people know log houses only by pictures. The first roofs were covered with bark, which soon gave place to shingles, split and shaved. As soon as there was a saw-mill to furnish boards, many conveniences of domestic comfort could be easily made. Before that, people learned to split boards from wide and perfectly straight blocks. The ancient desk in the town clerk's office, made by Col. Jacob Kent, is said to be of boards split and hewed with an axe. Shingles, until within about fifty years, were split and shaved. Being of selected timber, straight and clear of sap, they lasted about three times as long as the best of the sawed shingles do now. The shingles on the north side of the roof of the Johnson house at the Ox-bow, remained nearly a century before they were replaced. When framed dwellings are built, men who make the building of houses their trade, settle in a new community. There were good carpenters among the early settlers, and the pains-taking workmanship of some of the oldest houses, testifies to their skill.
Jaasiel Harriman, sometimes called Joseph Harriman, from whom Harriman's pond and brook are named, is said to have been the first blacksmith who came to Newbury. Tradition says that his first anvil was a particularly hard stone, laid on a stump. Harriman soon removed from town, but Joseph Chamberlin was a blacksmith, and carried on the trade for many years.
Nails were made by hand then, and for about forty years afterwards, as machines for making cut nails did not come into use till after 1800. In all the houses in this town built before 1805, the nails originally used were made by hand. Before machines were made for the manufacture of cut nails it was quite common, although, perhaps never in Newbury, for farmers to have a small forge built in a corner of their great kitchens, at which they made nails in stormy weather, or in the long winter evenings. The state records of New Hampshire show that bounties were paid men who
46
HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.
could produce satisfactory evidence that they had made 100,000 nails within a specified time. Iron was first brought by boats up the river, from towns in Massachusetts, where it had been for many years mined and worked. Some years after the revolutionary war, iron of an excellent quality began to be made at Franconia.
Maxi Hazeltine, who lived at different times in Newbury, Haverhill and Bath, was a very skillful blacksmith, and some fine specimens of his workmanship, in the shape of locks and hinges, still exist. He made the lightning rod for the "old meeting-house" in 1788. When nails were thus made they were sold by number and not by weight, and hence came our modern designation of nails as four-penny, ten-penny, etc. There are many old bills extant in this town, which mention a certain number of nails.
On account of the scarcity of iron, and before machines were invented to work it readily, many utensils, now made of metal, were then made of wood. Consequently coopers were in demand, but now the trade has almost fallen into disuse. Wood for staves and hoops was plentiful, and there was a great demand for all the products of the cooper's art. It is related that John Mann, a cooper of Orford, made pails and tubs, which he drew to Newbury on a hand sled and exchanged for corn, about 1765.
We do not know how early brick were made in Coös, but certainly before 1770. Before that time chimneys were constructed of rough stone, laid up in clay. The first brick-yard is said to have been at the Ox-bow, where Mr. Doe's barn now stands, on the west side of the road.
We do not know when the first tannery was built at Coös. There was one in either Newbury or Haverhill as early as 1768, and one Eaton was a tanner in one town or the other, in 1777. Later tanneries are mentioned elsewhere.
CHAPTER VIII.
EARLY EVENTS.
THE FIRST ROADS .- PETITION FOR A ROAD TO PORTSMOUTH .- HARDSHIPS OF THE SETTLERS .- TRAINING FIELD .- MILITARY COMPANY .- DARTMOUTH COLLEGE IN HAVERHILL .- ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE .- SITE SELECTED .- NEWBURY LANDS PROMISED TO THE COLLEGE .- LOCATION AT HANOVER .- COUNTIES.
T HE settlements at Coös had attracted attention all through the older part of New England. It was considered a great enterprise in those days, for Bayley, Hazen and their associates to have pushed sixty miles into the wilderness. Their example was followed by a great immigration. The roads opened up the Merrimack and the Connecticut, caused the towns in the upper part of both valleys to become settled several years before they would otherwise have been. With Newbury and Haverhill as their base of supplies, settlements began in the upper country. Not only were Newbury and Haverhill becoming settled, but they already had something to send to market, and having something to sell, the inhabitants, naturally, wanted a road to get to market upon. Then and for many years later, the only direct road to Concord and Portsmouth, was by a way which could only be traversed by pack-horses. It came up over the heights from Warren by Tarleton pond, and entered Haverhill Corner by what is now called the "old turnpike" into Court street. Those who travel over that hilly road at the present day, may well wonder what its condition could have been when it could only be traversed on horse-back. It was not passable for an ox-cart for several years. But in winter, when the snow lay deep, and streams and swamps were frozen over, it was not so hard getting along. Even as late as 1772, there were tracts of woods fifteen miles long on the road from Concord to Haverhill, without a house or a clearing. We may well understand why the settlers petitioned for aid in the building of a road. Within a month after the granting of the
48
HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.
charter, Bayley and Hazen petitioned the General Court on behalf of the proprietors of both towns, for aid in building a road from Dover "through Barrington, Barnstead, Gilmantown, to eross Winnepesocket Pond at the Wares, through Salem Holderness, the Four Mile Township, and Romney to Haverhill."
On Christmas Day, 1764, Bayley again wrote, urging the importance of a road as an aid to the settlement of the upper part of the state, and said that since the previous spring, goods to the amount of a thousand pounds, lawful money, had been brought into Newbury, paid for chiefly in furs. The settlers expected within a few years to have grain, live stock, wool, sugar, butter, cheese, pelts and hides, pot and pearl ashes, to sell, and would want roads to get them to market. Portsmouth was an important market for some years, as it lay in a long-settled community, and possessed much wealth and foreign commerce. When Lake Winnipiseogee was frozen over, its straight and level sheet of ice was a welcome change to the men and teams which had traversed the hill roads for several days. It is probable that in the second or third winter after the settlement people began to go to market with their own teams.
The history of Hollis, N. H., tells us that during the first years, many of the settlers at Coos returned to their old homes to spend the winter, but this would not have continued after society had become in some measure established. When there were schools, and the ministrations of the gospel, so highly valued by our forefathers, were had, people became more contented in their new homes. There were people who in their old age told a younger generation, that all which kept them in Coös was the terror of the passage back to the places whence they came. Many a man and woman came all the way from Concord alone, the woman riding a horse and the husband walking by her side, carrying a few indispensable articles, camping out under the trees at night. Many cattle were lost upon the road by falling from precipices, or by sinking in the swamps.
The first houses were mere shelters from the wind and storm, without windows, lighted only by an opening in the wall which must be closed to keep out the cold. Sometimes oiled paper was used as a substitute for glass, which permitted a dim light to struggle through. This state of things did not last more than two or three winters, in this vicinity, but was repeated in newer towns for some years, as they became settled. People hardly seem to have minded much about their privations, but took them as necessary preliminaries to the subjugation of the wilderness. But in their old age, those of the pioneers who survived to tell of the settlement of the country, to those who were young seventy years ago, were wont to dwell with affectionate reminiscence upon those days of privation. Seen through the long vista of years the harsh features
49
EARLY EVENTS.
of the scene had faded away. Their fireside tales were less of disaster, of fear, and of want, of the danger from wild beasts and savage men, than of the many things that cheered them, of neighborly ministrations, of the kindly hands which had always a little to share, even in poverty, with their neighbor, of the intimacy which bound the few families at Coos in those early years. Their golden age was in the past, and the comforts of their later years had no zest like those first successes in their new homes. There is something in pioneer life which has a peculiar fascination, and there have been men and women who were never happy except when upon the verge of civilization, or a little beyond it.
Ever since the settlement of New England, military organizations had been carefully kept up as an aid to protection against the ever-dreaded Indian, and our forefathers in Newbury were not long in associating themselves for military defense. In the fall of 1764, the first military company at Coös was organized, and continued in existence down to the revolutionary war. The commission of Jacob Kent, as "Captain of an Independent Company of Militia, which Company is to consist of all the Inhabitants by Law obliged to do Military Duty in Haverhill and Newbury, in this Province respectively," is still preserved in the Kent family. It is dated' September 6, 1764, and was one of the first, and certainly one of the very last military commissions granted by Benning Wentworth to any inhabitant of the New Hampshire Grants. The first training field was on the plain "east of Robert Johnston's tavern," where R. J. Hibbard now lives, and was so employed for many successive years.
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.