TERRITORY GRANTED TO CAPT. JOHN MASON--MASSACHUSETTS PURSUES A VACILLATING POLICY--DIFFERENT LOCATIONS FOR THE SOUTHERN BOUNDARY--CONSTANT AGITATION OF THE SAME--GOVERNOR BELCHER UNSUCCESSFUL IN SETTLING THE LINE--JOHN RINDGE APPOINTED AGENT--CAPT. JOHN THOMLINSON HIS SUCCESSOR--JOHN PARRIS ATTORNEY--MASSACHUSETTS GRANTS TOWNSHIPS--NEW HAMPSHIRE LIKEWISE--BOUNDARY LINES REFERRED TO A COMMISSION--BOTH STATES APPEAL TO THE KING--KING DECIDED IN FAVOR OF NEW HAMPSHIRE--SURVEY MADE--BENNING WENTWORTH GOVERNOR--CURVED LINE

It is very evident that the grantors and grantees knew very little about the country they were granting or receiving as the nature of subsequent developments confirmed. They supposed the river Naumkeag at Salem to penetrate far into the interior, and they likewise supposed that the Merrimack River followed a west or westerly course from the Black Rocks at its mouth to the interior.

We are led to ask the question, how or why should they know anything definite relative to the country; upon very little of it had the foot of the white man ever trod. Neither King James, King Charles nor Capt. John Mason had ever visited America; no surveyor or chainman had surveyed or measured a rod.

The ignorance of all parties relative to the boundaries of the original grants caused a series of litigations, and the final controversies were not closed until after the Revolution. The territory granted to Captain Mason and the boundaries of the same are the subjects that interested the people of New Hampshire and Goffstown for many years. Massachusetts, ever vigilant had watched with a jealous eye the proceedings of the Mason's, and also the decisions in favor of Mason's and Allen's claims in England, and she is beginning to be apprehensive lest the boundary line between Massachusetts and New Hampshire may be located to coincide with Captain Mason's grant.

She had previously been pursuing a vacillating policy in regard to the state line; at one time she said it was near the bound house in the town of Hampton, 1631, then at Penacook, next at Endicott tree and fourth at the outlet of Winnepesaukee, and finally as referred to in the last chapter, her northern boundary was three miles north of the Merrimack.

It was difficult to establish the northern boundary three miles north of the Merrimack and every part thereof since the Merrimack had a crook or elbow at Pawtucket,¹ and from that place to its source maintained a northerly and southerly direction, but Massachusetts marked out a line on her map three miles off from the stream, from the ocean to Endicott tree.²

At this time the people of Massachusetts ceased to press their claim of territory farther north than Hampton, as a line extending each and west through the forks of the Merrimack River would comprehend not only the most of New Hampshire but also a large portion of southern Maine, which was an undertaking, for good and sufficient reasons, they did not care to assume at that time. On account of the non-understanding of the line between the two provinces there was a constant trouble; the question of voting, taxation, military duty and many other things effected the rights of citizenship, as well as the annoyances pertaining to jurisdiction.

In this dilemma the matter of a division line began to be agitated, propositions ere made to Massachusetts in 1693, 1695, 1705, and 1715. The settlement of Londonderry in 1719 brought the matter more vividly before the people. Contentions were constantly arising between the people of Londonderry and Haverhill, and vexations, lawsuits and contests were the result. In 1719 a commissioner was appointed to consider the subject.

The instructions to the Massachusetts commissioners by Governor Shute were virtually "keep all you have, and get all you can." The language is rather significant in his instructions to the Massachusetts commissioners--"It will be best at your first meeting to discover what you can of their pretentions (meaning New Hampshire commissions) without making any concessions on our part till you have informed yourselves of the utmost concessions that they are allowed to make."³ Another instruction was: "You must insist that the several towns lying on the north of the Merrimack River should still remain in this government, although in some places they should run further than three miles northward from the river."

The New Hampshire committee refused to proceed, declaring that this would bring the line some eleven and three-quarters miles north of the Merrimack River⁴ instead of three miles as it should be according to the intent of their charter. The matter was delayed by constant objections from Massachusetts until 1731, when Governor Belcher again tried to settle this long contest, but was prevented.

This long and fruitless contest became wearisome to the people of New Hampshire, and they determined no longer to treat with Massachusetts, but to represent the matter to the King, and request him to decide the controversy. John Rindge, a merchant of Portsmouth, was appointed agent for New Hampshire. When Mr. Rindge arrived in England he at once petitioned the King both in his own name and in behalf of the representatives of New Hampshire "to establish the boundaries of the province."

Mr. Rindge, being obliged to return to America, left the business in the hands of Capt. John Thomlinson, a merchant of London, well known in New Hampshire; a man in every way qualified, he prosecuted the case with ardor and diligence, employing as his solicitor Ferdinando John Parris who exerted all his energy. The petition was referred to the Lords of Trade, and Francis Wilks, the Massachusetts agent, was served with a copy to be sent to his constituents. The instructions from his constituents were clothed in such ambiguous terms that it was difficult for him to understand them, and he was afterwards blamed for not observing their instructions.

The manner in which he presented his case to the board of trade produced an unfavorable opinion for his constituents and favorable for New Hampshire. While the agents of the two provinces were engaged in protecting the interests of their respective governments in England, Massachusetts, suspicious that eventually the case might be decided against her, contrary to all forms of legal procedure, began to make grants of territory in New Hampshire.

Potter says: "She had before made repeated grants of land east of the Merrimack to speculators, but the land had not been settled." She now adopts another policy--granting land to actual settlers from Massachusetts in order to hold possession of the soil should she lose jurisdiction. Hutchinson, the Massachusetts historian, says, in speaking of the grants made from 1725 to 1728, as follows: "The government under the old charter and the new had been very prudent in the distribution of the territory, but all of a sudden plans are laid for grants of vast tracts of unimproved land." So anxious was Massachusetts to grant New Hampshire land, that she even sought for reasons for granting and grantees. Concord, Bow and Boscawen were granted 1725 to 1733 and Salisbury in 1736.

In January, 1736, the General Court passed an act providing that a strip of land at least twelve miles wide, extending from Penacook to the Connecticut River, should be divided into townships of six miles square, and another line of towns on the Connecticut, from what is now Charlestown to Winchester.

These towns between the Merrimack and Connecticut rivers were numbered from 1 to 9 and those on the Connecticut from 1 to 4; they were all called "towns for defense," claiming that they would form an admirable line of defense on the frontier against the French and Indians: 1, Warner; 2, Bradford; 3, Washington and Newbury; 4, Lempster and Acworth; 5, Hopkinton; 6, Henniker; 7, Hillsborough; 8, Windsor and part of Stoddard and Washington; 9, Marlow, Alstead and Gilsum.

There were four towns in the north row and five in the south, the four towns for defense on the east side of the river were: 1, Hinsdale and Chesterfield; 2, Westmoreland; 3, Walpole; 4, Charlestown. The defense towns could exist only in name as a few settlers scattered here and there without proper armament or garrison houses would afford very slim protection to the French and Indians, and Massachusetts in granting these towns had little thought or interest if they should be inhabited for the defenders.⁵

The next ingenious scheme which she conceived was one intensely patriotic. The Massachusetts General Court, in 1733, deemed it their bounden duty to reward the officers and soldiers who served in the Narragansett or King Philips War, especially so when they could reward the soldiers or their descendants with land in New Hampshire. Accordingly (nine) towns were voted "to the officers and soldiers or their heirs, descendants, or their legal representatives who were in the Narragansett war, as a reward for their services and sufferings in said war," but only seven of them were laid out. As the war closed in 1676 they seemed rather dilatory in waiting sixty years to reward them for their sufferings.

The Narragansett towns--1, Buxton, Me.; 2, Westminster, Mass.; 3, parts of Amherst, Merrimack, Milford and Mount Vernon; 4, Goffstown and part of Manchester; 5, Bedford and part of Manchester and Merrimack; 6, Templeton, Mass.; 7, Gorham, Me.; they were called Narragansett No. 1, 2, etc., and Goffstown was known as Narragansett No. 4.⁵ All of a sudden Massachusetts seemed to remember that the men who went with Sir William Phipps in his fated expedition to Canada in 1690 were paid in paper money issued by the colony of Massachusetts; the first emission of the kind ever issued in New England. It so depreciated in value, that the soldiers received little compensation for services rendered.

Forty years after the expedition, the General Court of the province of Massachusetts with very tender and compassionate hearts granted to them about a score of townships in New Hampshire, many of which were known by the name of the town from which the soldiers in Phipps expedition volunteered, and were called Canada townships, as Weare, was called Canada Beverly; Lyndeborough, Salem Canada; New Ipswich, Canada Ipswich, etc.

While Massachusetts was busy granting towns in New Hampshire, New Hampshire adopted the same plan and granted several townships, some of which covered the same territory and some of which overlapped the line of the Massachusetts grant. This was meeting the matter as New Hampshire people said squarely, but be that as it may, it was looking the controversy full in the face, and no doubt was one event that gave Massachusetts people to understand that the line matter must be settled.

The question is often asked what right Massachusetts had to grant townships in New Hampshire and without going into detail will quote from "Hillsborough County History," page 305: "Massachusetts unjustly claimed the entire possession of Mason's grant, and finding she could not make good her claim before the King in Council, very cunningly adopted the plan of granting townships to actual settlers upon the land thus claimed, so that the fee in the same should be in people of Massachusetts."

While Massachusetts was busily engaged making grants of New Hampshire territory, John Rindge kept busily at work on the line case. He put in a petition which was referred to the Lords of Trade, and Massachusetts was cited to defend, to bring forward the controversy. Parris, the solicitor for the agents of New Hampshire, advanced the question "from what part of the Merrimack River the line should begin." This was in 1733, which was referred to the solicitor who appointed a hearing.

The attorney and solicitor general reported that in their opinion the initial point of the survey ought to be taken from "three miles north of the Merrimack where it runs into the sea," and upon this the Lords of Trade reported that in their opinion the initial point of the survey ought to be taken from "three miles north of the Merrimack where it runs into the sea," and upon this the Lords of Trade reported that commissioners should be appointed by the King to establish the dividing line.

After much time and delay, eight of the commissioners met at Hampton on the 1st day of August, 1737, and proceeded to organize, at which time Massachusetts was not ready, but finally on the 10th day of August both sides were heard from. The General Assembly of Massachusetts met at Salisbury, and that of New Hampshire at Hampton less than five miles away. The members of the Massachusetts Assembly rode from Boston to Salisbury, the governor attended by a troupe of horses.

No historian to this day has ever been able to tell why the assemblies of the two royal provinces met. While both assemblies were in session the governor with a select company made an excursion of three days to the Falls of the Amoskeag, and it is reported that he was much pleased with the fine soil of Chester, the extraordinary improvements at Derry, and the mighty falls at Skeag.

The impression formed by this cavalcade of officers and citizens has been very aptly described by the poet in ten lines which have been copied by about every historian in southern New Hampshire, and having been so favorably endorsed, we insert the same:

Skillful advocates acted for both states before the commission. Massachusetts claimed that a line should run parallel with the Merrimack River at a distance of three miles from the Black Rocks to where the Pemigewasset and Winnepesaukee meet, thence due north three miles, then due west to New York. New Hampshire claimed that the line should run from a point three miles north of the Black Rocks due west to New York. With such a vast difference in regard to claims, the commission saw that which ever way they decided, it would incur the displeasure of the other, and finally reported that they had a doubt upon a point of law, and submitted the same to the King for decision. They did not find at all but drew their pay.

Both sides appealed to the King, which appeal being entertained, the special part of the decree of the commissioners were set aside. It was said that when the first grant was made the country was unexplored, and the course of the Merrimack River was supposed to be from west to east, and it would be right and equitable to follow the line parallel to the same three miles distant as far as it followed that course, and to follow the same course to the westward, reasoning that if the river had bent to the south it would not be right to follow it, and so not right to follow it when it was found it turned to the north. The report is as follows: "That the northern boundary of the province of Massachusetts be a similar curve line, pursuing the course of Merrimack River at three miles distance, on the north side thereof, beginning at the Atlantic Ocean and ending at a point due north of Pawtucket Falls, and a straight line drawn from thence due west till it meets with his Majesty's other government."

This decision⁶ far exceeded the expectations of New Hampshire; it gave them a tract of country fourteen miles wide and fifty miles long beyond all she had ever sought; it cut off from Massachusetts twenty-eight townships between the Merrimack and Connecticut rivers, besides large tracts of vacant land and districts from six of their old towns which lay north of the Merrimack River.⁷ As would naturally be expected Massachusetts was enraged about the decision and was so indignant that Thomas Hutchinson was sent to England to have the case reopened, but he was not successful. In 1741, in the months of February and March, a survey was made. George Mitchell surveying the line three miles north of the Merrimack River, to the hard pine tree north of Pawtuck Falls in the town of Dracut. Richard Hazen began at that station and marked the line west to the supposed boundary of New Hampshire, Massachusetts refusing to take any part in the survey. By this decision was the danger to the Masonian title which had so long been in litigation averted, and our claim of the title kept intact.

After the King had settled the boundaries of the two royal provinces he decided to make New Hampshire independent of Massachusetts and entirely dependent upon herself. He appointed Benning Wentworth, son of the late Lieutenant-General John Wentworth, governor of New Hampshire and as such he continued until 1767, six years after the incorporation of Goffstown.

We will now undertake to explain briefly the boundary lines of the Masonian patents, the purchase of which is referred to in the preceding chapter. The reader will remember that the Mason grant of 1629 extended "from the middle of the Piscataqua River up the same to the fartherest head thereof, and from thence north-westward until sixty miles from the mouth of the harbor are finished; also through the Merrimack River to the fartherest head thereof, and so forward up with the land westward until sixty miles are finished and from thence to cross over land" a line joining the two points.

The exact bounds were determined by the establishment of the province lines, the southern boundary, as we have show, taking a western course from the hard pine tree at Pawtucket Falls and sixty miles on the southern boundary from the ocean terminals in the town of Rindge, about one and one-fourth miles from the southern corner of the town. The eastern boundary extended northerly on a line between Maine and New Hampshire to a point a few miles south of Conway. The northwesterly side of this triangle was a line extending from the Rindge end to the Conway end. The purchases gave quitclaim deeds to the properietors of the towns upon the westerly side of the Merrimack River, which had been previously granted and thus quieted them.

The proprietors laid out townships before the limit of their purchase was defined and it was soon discovered that they had granted several towns outside of their limit or straight line.

The Masonian proprietors were quick to foresee trouble as they had granted townships beyond their jurisdiction. They exercised their ingenuity and they claimed that the cross line should be a curve because no other line would preserve a distance of sixty miles from the sea in every part of their western boundary.

In order to comprehend within their limits the extraneous territory, they pushed the western end of the southern line from the point in Rindge where first located to the southwest corner of Fitzwilliam about ten miles westerly of the first location, and with an equally accommodating elasticity of the curved line they made it comprehend their new towns.⁸

This line known as the Masonian curve is shown on some of the old maps, particularly Carrigain's.

The territory between the curved line and the straight line formed the segment of a circle or would had the curved line been perfect, but the surveyors could not run the curved line twice alike and consequently controversies were engendered between the grantees of the lands granted by the Masonian proprietors and the crown, and litigations ensued which lasted for many years.

The Allen heirs likewise revived their claim and brought suits. The Revolutionary War proved an arbitrator of all these matters, and to settle all controversies the state of New Hampshire held that the western line should be a straight line, that the Allen heirs had no claim to any land west of the straight line.

With this decision in their favor the Masonian proprietors purchased of the state the land between the state line and the curved line for $40,000, in securities and $800 in cash, and thus adjusted the town lines as they thought they should be.

Thus ended a long and troublesome controversy in regard to "Mason's patent" that has existed in some shape or other for one hundred and fifty years.⁹

PLAN OF SOUTHERN PORTION OF NEW HAMPSHIRE SHOWING MASON'S CURVED AND STRAIGHTLINES; ALSO DEFENSE AND NARRAGANSETT TOWNSHIPS.

The Eastern part of this Mason curve line was run in 1769. From Merrimack River to the south point of Cushing Gore this line is imaginary as that portion of it was not surveyed.

The south point of Cushing Gore terminated on the east lie of Springfield about half way from Grafton to Sunapee.

ALHN Hillsborough County