Part 22 (2/2)

[Footnote 16: The same rule prevailed in Ma.s.sachusetts. For the result, see Baldwin, _Early History of the Ballot in Connecticut_ (Amer. Hist. a.s.soc. _Papers_, IV.), 81; Perry, _Historical Collections of the American Colonial Church_, 21; Palfrey, _New England_, II., 10.]

[Footnote 17: Winthrop, _New England_, I., 368.]

[Footnote 18: Trumbull, _Connecticut_, I., 507-510.]

[Footnote 19: Palfrey, _New England_, II., 377.]

[Footnote 20: Winthrop, _New England_, I., 283, 312, 484.]

[Footnote 21: _New Haven Col. Records_, I., 12.]

[Footnote 22: Trumbull, _Connecticut_, I., 98.]

[Footnote 23: _New Haven Col. Records_, I., 11-17.]

[Footnote 24: Trumbull, _Connecticut_, I., 107; Doyle, _English Colonies_, II., 196.]

[Footnote 25: _New Haven Col. Records_, I., 69.]

[Footnote 26: Ibid., 112.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAINE IN 1652]

CHAPTER XVI

NEW HAMPs.h.i.+RE AND MAINE

(1653-1658)

After the charter granted to the Council for New England in 1620, Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason procured, August 10, 1622, a patent for ”all that part of y^e maine land in New England lying vpon y^e Sea Coast betwixt y^e rivers of Merrimack & Sagadahock and to y^e furthest heads of y^e said Rivers and soe forwards up into the land westward untill threescore miles be finished from y^e first entrance of the aforesaid rivers and half way over that is to say to the midst of the said two rivers w^ch bounds and limitts the lands aforesaid togeather w^th all Islands and Isletts w^th in five leagues distance of y^e premisses and ab.u.t.ting vpon y^e same or any part or parcell thereoff.”[1]

Mason was a London merchant who had seen service as governor of Newfoundland, and was, like Gorges, ”a man of action.” His experience made him interested in America, and his interest in America caused him to be elected a member of the Council for New England, and ultimately its vice-president.[2] The two leaders persuaded various merchants in.

England to join them in their colonial projects; and in the spring of 1623 they set up two settlements within the limits of the present state of New Hamps.h.i.+re, and some small stations at Saco Bay, Cas...o...b..y, and Monhegan Island, in the present state of Maine.

Of the settlements in New Hamps.h.i.+re, one called Piscataqua, at the mouth of the river of that name, was formed by three Plymouth merchants, Colmer, Sherwell, and Pomeroy, who chose a Scotchman named David Thompson as their manager. They obtained a grant, October 16, 1622, for an island, and six thousand acres on the main, near the mouth of Piscataqua; and here Thompson located in the spring of 1623.

He remained about three years, and in 1626 removed thence to an island in Boston harbor, where he lived as an independent settler.[3] The other plantation, called Cocheco, was established by two brothers, Edward and William Hilton, fish-mongers of London, and some Bristol merchants, and was situated on the south side of the Piscataqua about eight miles from the mouth of the river.[4]

November 7, 1629, Captain Mason obtained a patent[5] from the Council for New England for a tract extending sixty miles inland and lying between the Merrimac and Piscataqua rivers, being a part of the territory granted to Gorges and himself in 1622. He called it New Hamps.h.i.+re in honor of Hamps.h.i.+re, in England, where he had an estate.

Seven days later the same grantors gave to a company of whom Mason and Gorges were the most prominent merchants, a patent for the province of Laconia, describing it as ”bordering on the great lake or lakes or rivers called Iroquois, a nation of savage people inhabiting into the landward between the rivers Merrimac and Sagadahoc, lying near about forty-four or forty-five degrees.” And in 1631 Gorges, Mason, and others obtained another grant for twenty thousand acres, which included the settlement at the mouth of the Piscataqua.

Under these grants Gorges and Mason spent upward of 3000[6] in making discoveries and establis.h.i.+ng factories for salting fish and fur trading; but as very little attention was paid to husbandry at either of the settlements on the Piscataqua, they dragged out for years a feeble and precarious existence. At Piscataqua, Walter Neal was governor from 1630 to 1633 and Francis Williams from 1634 to 1642, and the people were distinctly favorable to the Anglican church. At Cocheco, Captain Thomas Wiggin was governor in 1631; and when, in 1633, the British merchants sold their share in the plantation to Lord Say and Sele, Lord Brooke, and two other partners, Wiggin remained governor, and the transfer was followed by the influx of Puritan settlers.[7]

After the Antinomian persecution in Ma.s.sachusetts some of Mrs.

Hutchinson's followers took refuge at Cocheco, and prominent among them were Captain John Underhill and Rev. John Wheelwright. Underhill became governor of the town in 1638, and his year of rule is noted for dissensions occasioned by the ambitious actions of several contentious, immoral ministers. Underhill was the central figure in the disturbances, but at the next election, in 1639, he was defeated and Roberts was elected governor of Cocheco. Dissensions continued, however, till in 1640 Francis Williams, governor of Piscataqua, interfered with an armed force. Underhill returned to Boston, and by humbly professing repentance for his conduct he was again received into the church there.[8] He then joined the Dutch, but when Connecticut and New Haven were clamorous for war with the Dutch in 1653 he plotted against his new master, was imprisoned, and escaped to Rhode Island,[9] where he received a commission to prey on Dutch commerce.

Meanwhile, Mr. Wheelwright left Cocheco, and in 1638 established southeast of it, at Squamscott Falls, a small settlement which he and his fellow-colonists called Exeter.[10] In October, 1639, after the manner of the Rhode Island towns, the inhabitants, thirty-five in number, entered a civil contract to ”submit themselves to such G.o.dly and Christian lawes as are established in the realm of England to our best knowledge, and to all other such lawes which shall, upon good ground, be made and enacted among us according to G.o.d.” This action was followed in 1641 by their neighbors at Cocheco, where the contract was subscribed by forty-one settlers; and about the same time, it is supposed, Piscataqua adopted the same system.[11]

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