mations that the town was in danger of prosecution
for not keeping such a school, as the law required. In
fact, the next spring Nathaniel Peaslee was chosen
1984
HISTORY OF ESSEX COUiNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.
to appear and answer a presentment against the
town, for not being provided with a "grammer-school
master;" and another, for not keeping "Hawk's
liiver Bridge in repair."
In 1752 great alarm was occasioned by the appear-
ance of small-pox in neighboring towns, and John
Cogswell and Samuel White were appointed to assist
the selectmen to use every means to prevent its en-
trance into this town. Special constables were ap-
pointed to serve necessary warrants. But the disease
was not to be barred out by their puny barriers, and
in narj-r^Q several persons died with it.
In this year the change in computing time, from
" Old Style " to " New Style," went into effect in
England and its colonies by act of Parliament.
In 1753 a tax was laid upon coaches, chariots,
chaises, calashes and riding-chairs. These were all
then clumsy vehicles. The chaise was large, heavy-
wheeled, square-topped. Only wealthy people had
them, and they were only used on very important oc-
casions — like a wedding or an ordination. A calash
was like a very clumsy wagon-seat, set upon a heavy
jiair of low wagon-wheels, with shafts attached. In
1764 there was one chaise and nine calashes in Hav-
erhill. In 1755 eighteen calashes were returned.
Everybody rode on horseback, upon saddle and
pillion, or walked.
CHAPTER CLVII.
HAVERHILL— (Conimwerf).
From the first settlement of Massachusetts there
has been an intermittent controversy about a portion
of its northern boundary. The charter of King
Charles the First granted all " that part of New Eng-
land lying between three miles to the north of the
Merrimack, and three miles to the south of the Charles
River, and of every part thereof in the Massachusetts
Bay, and in length between the described breadth
from the Atlantic Ocean to the South Sea." What
was meant by the words "three miles to the north of
the Merrimack, and of every part thereof? " The
grantees construed the words as authorizing them to
find a beginning for their line at the point three
miles due north from the northernmost point of the
Merrimac. They accordingly sent out an expedition
in 1639 to follow up the river. The commissioners
selected a rock near the place where the Merrimac
issues from the Winnipiseogee Lake as the northern-
most point of the river, and marked it (ever since
known as Endicott's Rock). They then proceeded
three miles north from the rock, and there selected a
certain tree as their extreme northern bound. Three
miles south of the mouth of the Charles, and of every
point thereof, would, of course, form the south-
ern boundary. These lines would be extended to the
Atlantic Ocean on the east, and the South Sea on the
west. From the tree, three miles north of Endicott's
Rock, a line, extended east to the Atlantic, and west,
so far as it was judicious to do so, would take a re-
spectable portion of what is now Maine, and a large
share of New Hampshire and Vermont. True, a
considerable part of the territory embraced in the
patent, according to thii construction, had been
already granted to John Mason and others, and as
the patentees approached the Hudson River on their
way to "the South Sea," there might be other diffi-
culties in the way of enforcing the title. But at the
time referred to, neither Mason nor other individual
patentees were in a position to enforce their claims as
against Massachusetts. She accordingly granted lands
and townships, according to her own interpretation
of the charter. Haverhill, as we have seen, extended
fifteen miles from the Merrimac.
The New Hampshire patentees, on the other hand,
asserted that the northern line of Massachusetts could
not at any point extend more than three miles north
of the middle of the channel of the Merrimac. In
1677, at a meeting before the King and Council, the
agents for Massachusetts reduced their claims to a
jurisdictional line three miles from the river, according
to its course; that is, the line, beginning three miles
north of the mouth of the Merrimac should run par-
allel with the river at that distance to Endicott's
Rock, thence three miles to the tree before men-
tioned, and thence due west to the South Sea. This
was a large abatement from the first claim, and it
seems to have been considered that the more moder-
ate pretension was well founded. Massachusetts,
however, continued to exercise jurisdiction over those
parts of the towns already granted, as Haverhill and
Amesbury, that were more than three miles from the
Merrimac, and New Hampshire complained without
avail.
The charter of 1692, however, prescribed the north-
ern boundary of Massachusetts in different language,
" extending from the great river commonly called
Monomack, alias Merrimack on the north part, and
from three miles northward of the said river to the
atlantic or western sea." Did this mean three miles
northward from every point of the river? Did it con-
firm or restrict the bounds of the original charter?
About 1720, at any rate, New Hampshire began to
claim that the line should commence at a point three
miles north of the mouth of the Merrimac, and thence
run due west. This would have cut off considerable
of the territory originally claimed by Massachusetts,
but it would have left the whole of more than twenty
New Hampshire towns and parts of others, including
the present city of Nashua, in Massachusetts.
When Londonderry was incorporated, in 1722, the
enterprising Scotch-Irish people soon begun to have
HAVERHILL.
1985
difficulties with the people living in the northwest-
erly part of the original grant of Haverhill.
The same year, a committee was appointed by the
General Court of Massachusetts to inquire into en-
croachments upon lands to the north of Merrimac,
belonging to the towns of Salisbury, Amesbury and
Haverhill, over which Massachusetts, of course, was
exercising jurisdiction, according to her original
grants. Kingston, in New Hampshire, claimed that
her grant included lands in the northeastern jjart of
Haverhill, and there was trouble along the whole
northern border.
In November, 172G, a petition was presented to the
General Court from Orlando Bayley, Jacob Kowell,
and several others from Haverhill and Amesbury, in
which they set forth that they have been prosecuted
at law for land they had held for sixty years, on pre-
tense that it was in the town of Kingston and
province of New Hampshire. Writs in trespass had
been served upon the petitioners on the ground that
their land was "more than three miles from Merrimac
River," and these cases were tried in New Hamp-
shire.
The General Court informed their agent in London
about these complaints, and voted that the Governor
should remonstrate to the General Court of New
Hampshire against the proceedings and ask that they
might be stayed and all such, until the question of
boundary was determined.
In February, 1728, however, the Council made an
order reciting a petition of Richard Hazen, Jr., James
Pecker, Ebenr. Eastman and Nathaniel Peaslay, all
of Haverhill, in behalf of its inhabitants, "setting
forth that notwithstanding the Ancient Grant of
the sd Town, the many confirmasions and settl
ments of their Bounds by the Government, divers of
the inhabitants of Londonderry, within the Province
of New Hampshire, have encroached upon the Peti-
tioners' lands, mowed their meadows, cut down and
destroyed their Timber, and erected several Houses
on their Lands and have prosecuted the inhabitants
of Haverhill, in the said Province of New Hampshire,
for improving their own lands, and therefore praying
relief from this Board," and as it appeared to the
board that there was great danger that the inhabit-
ants in the two provinces would use violence on each
other unless they are speedly discountenanced by
their respective governments, " for preventing where-
of, voted, that the Inhabitants of this Province border-
ing on the dividing Line and claiming Lands there
be directed not to make any new Settlement on the
said Lands or any improvements whatsoever thereon,
and to desist from all prosecutions in the Law till
the farther order of this Government for the settle-
ment of the said Line, Provided the Government of
New Hampshire do give the like or some other effect-
ual directions."
It appears from the Council record* of that year
that Nathaniel Peaaley was twice allowed money from
125
the province treasury to defend himself against suits
in New Hampshire — ten pounds and thirty pounds, —
and that John Waiuwright and Richard Saltonstall
were granted twenty pounds to prosecute trespassers
on province lands in Methuen.
The land in dispute between people in Haverhill
and people of Londonderry lay in what were known
in Haverhill as the " fourth division" and the "fifth
division" lands, especially the latter. The " fifth
division" had been laid out in lots January, 1721, as
we have seen, by the proprietors of Haverhill. The
grantees of the proprietors had entered upon the lots,
cultivated and improved them. Thus collisions had
arisen between them and the men of Londonderry
claming the same lands. The proprietors of Haver-
hill supported their own rights and those of their
grantees with great resolution ; and after the pro-
prietors had successfully asserted their rights against
the non-commoners in their own town, and had con-
ciliated opposition, in the manner already related,
they seem to have had substantial moral support from
the inhabitants of Haverhill in maintaining their
grants against the claims and petty warfare of the
people of New Hampshire. Not that there appears to
have been much to choose between the contending
parties. The New Hampshire people brought suits in
their own courts against the Massachusetts men, whom
they regarded as trespassers. The Massachusetts men
retaliated. Assaults were committed and fights
occurred, which caused the participants to be arrested,
fined and imprisoned in either State. Indeed, there
was a long and angry border warfare — all the more
bitter because rights of property were involved, and
each party doubtless sincerely believed itself in the
right.
It is rather difficult to see how the claim of London-
derry could be upheld morally or in the law, because
Wheelwright's deed of 1719 bounds its grant on the
eastward " upon Haverhill line." Haverhill bounds
had been established since 1667, and everybody could
ascertain where " Haverhill line" was. It was a
matter of record. However, this is immaterial to our
purpose.
At a meeting of the Haverhill proprietors held
in January, 1729, a committee was chosen to pros-
ecute, " to final issue," all trespassers on the com-
mon lands ; and another to perambulate the west
line of the town. The reason of the latter action
was that the west line of the town was the western
boundary of the " Fifth Division Lots." They were
in the northwesterly part of the town, the angle,
or, as it was called, the " Peke of Haverhill."
At a meeting of the proprietors April 7, 1729,
" Wm. Mudgete did remonstrate to the proprietors
that he has lately been at great cost and charges
in defending his title to certain lands in the fifth
division, which were, and still are, claimed by the
Irish, and that the matter is now in the law un-
decided.'' He therefore prayed that the proprie-
1986
HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.
tors would "reimburse him what he has expended
in removing the said Irisli out of his house." A
committee was appointed to examine his accounts
and report. And at a subsequent meeting, Mud-
gett was allowed forty-four pounds, seventeen shil-
lings and six pence from the proprietors' treasury.
The same year, however, August 27th, the inhabit-
ants of Londonderry petitioned the Governor and
Council of New Hampshire, — " Inasmuch as the
Inhabitants of the Towne of Haverhill do often
disturb sundry of your petitioners in their quiet
posses.sion of their lands granted them by their
charier, under their pretentions of a title thereto,"
they pray for assistance, on account of the " Law-
suits which are daily multiplied by them."
The records of the General Court of Massachu-
setts show that June 29, 1731, the House received
" A petition of Nathan Webster and Richard Ilazzen,
Jr., Agents for the Proprietors of the town of Haver-
hill, setting forth their Ancient and Legal right
to the Lands they possess in said Town, as also
the late encroachments of the Irish people settled
in the Province of New Hampshire, who have cutt
down and carried away great quantities of their Hay
and Timber and other ways disturbed them in the
improvement of their lands. Praying relief from this
Court.'' Paul Dudley, afterward chief justice, re-
ported from the committee to which this petition
was referred that, inasmuch as there was a hopeful
prospect of a speedy settlement of the line, the
Governor should be directed to issue a proclamation,
directing the inhabitants of both provinces to forbear
molesting each other for the present year. The
House adopted the report, but the Council refused
to concur, and " voted, that inasmuch as there are
Courts of Justice established by Law before whom
affairs of that nature are properly cognizable, the
Petition be dismissed."
Soon after this, commissioners of the two prov-
inces met at Newbury to negotiate, but without
success. The New Hampshire commissionere then
appointed John Rindge, a merchant of Portsmouth,
agent to present a petition to the King, whose
appointment was confirmed by their House of Rep-
resentatives October 31, 1731.
The King issued an order at last, submitting
the matter to a board of commissioners, composed
of five councilors from each of the governments
of New York, Rhode Island and Nova Scotia. The
tribunal was not regarded as favorable to Massachu-
setts, as she had at the moment some controversy
with the two former about boundaries, and the
latter was thought to be prejudiced against her.
Connecticut, which Massachusetts had proposed,
was rejected, because of a supposed bias in her favor.
The time and place for the meeting of this commis-
sion was August 10, 1737, at Hampton, N. H.
At a meeting held May 17, 1737, Haverhill chose
Colonel Richard Saltoustall, Mr. Richard Hazzen and
Deacon James Ayer"towait upon the Commissioners
and represent the afiairs and boundaries of the town
to them, provided the Proprietors of the undivided
lands pay the expense of the committee." Saltou-
stall and Hazzen had already been employed by the
proprietors.
In the manuscript docket of Colonel Saltoustall, as
justice of the peace for the county of Essex, is the
record of two cases, heard before him March io, 1735,
at Haverhill, in both of which " Richard Hazzen,
et al.," are plaintiffs, which are quite certainly a part
of the proceedings by which the Haverhill proprie-
tors were endeavoring to protect their grantees.
They were actions of trespass, and in both of them
the respective defendants plead in abatement —
" 1. That the justice before whom the tryall is, is a
party concerned. 2'*', that neither the originall
Right to which this Land mentioned in the Writt is
laid out, nor the number of the Lott are mentioned
in the Writt." These pleas were overruled, and the
defendants respectively plead not guilty. One of
them, by the consideration of the justice, recovered
" double his cost occasioned by the prosecution ; " in
the other case, "It is considered that the plaintiff re-
cover forty shillings sued for in the writt and costs of
court, taxed at 12s. Id.," from which judgment the
defendant appealed. The proprietors' agent lost one
case and won one before the magistrate.
The Assemblies of the two provinces met at Hamp-
ton Falls and Salisbury respectively, on the day of
the meeting of the commission, and Governor Bel-
cher, who was Governor of both provinces, appeared
with considerable military and other pomp. The
commission decided upon the eastern boundary of
New Hampshire, which had also been in earnest
dispute, but the question as to the boundary depend-
ent upon the original and second charters of Massa-
chusetts Bay was left as they found it. By agreement,
it was submitted to the King in England.
New Hampshire employed as agent, John Tomlin-
son, who retained one Parris as solicitor — a man of
skill and shrewdness. Massachusetts employed Colo-
nel Edmund Quincy, as agent, a man of high char-
acter, but he died in England in 1738, of the small-
pox by inoculation. Her interests then fell into the
hands of VVilks and Partridge, who are accounted to
have been much inferior in diplomatic ability to the
managers for New Hampshire.
In a letter writter by Richard Hazzen, the agent
of the Haverhill proprietors. May 9, 1737, he says :
" I should earnestly request that endeavors might be
used that a line from Endicott's Tree to three miles
north of Merrimack River at ye mouth might be ye
dividing line of the Provinces which we take to be the
true intent of the Charter; but the Province having
put in a different claim, we forbear to mention it."
This was a novel scheme for finding a boundary line,
and had not, perhaps, much to recommend it. And, as
Hazzeu admits, it was just as well to forbear men-
HAVERHILL.
1987
tioiiing it, for the province had long before intimated
that it would be satisfied with much less. But New
Hampshire also would have been satisfied with much
less than she received, through the award of the
King.
This town and the other towns interested, sent
petitions directly to the King, setting forth their
rights as they conceived them under the ancient
grants. All of which was of no avail. The decision
of His Majesty, King George the Second, much to the
mortification of Massachusetts and the inhabitants
of the towns claiming jurisdiction under her, was en-
tirely in favor of New Hampshire.
April 9, 17-10, a decree of the King in Council
passed the seals, by which it was adjudged, ordered
and decreed " that the northern boundary of the prov-
ince of Massachusetts Bay is and be a similar curve
line, pursuing the course of Merrimac River, at three
miles distance on the north side thereof, beginning at
the Atlantic Ocean and ending at a point due north
of a place in the plan returned by the commissioners
(the commi>sion already referred to), called Patucket
Falls, and a straight line drawn from thence due west
across said river till it meets with His Majesty's other
governments." Pawtucket Falls is now the city of
Lowell, and a continuing line following the course of
the Merrimac west of that point would shortly turn
towards the north. Doubtless one reason for the de-
cision was the desire to avoid collision as far as pos-
sible with claims under other patents.
The King's decree was sent to Governor Belcher,
with instructions to apply to the respective Assem-
blies of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, to unite
in making the necessary provisions in running and
marking the line conformably to the decree, and per-
mitting the Assembly of either province to proceed
ex parte if the Assembly of the other should refuse.
The Assembly of the province of Massachusetts de-
clined having anything to do with the matter, but the
Assembly of New Hampshire made the necessary ap-
propriation for running and marking the line.
Walter Bryant was therefore appointed by Governor
Belcher and the Council March 12, 1741, to run the
boundary between New Hampshire and Maine (then
a part of Massachusetts) . March 16, 1741, Governor
Belcher appointed George Mitchell to run the curve
line from the Atlantic Ocean to a point three miles
due north of Pawtucket Falls. Governor Belcher also
issued a warrant or order to Richard Hazzen, direct-
ing him to cause the line to be run from a point three
miles north of Pawtucket Falls till it reaches His
Majesty's other governments. George Mitchell had
already been employed in drawing maps for the use
of the commission. Richard Hazzen was without
doubt the agent of the Haverhill proprietors, but he
was not employed about that part of the line in
which they and their grantees were interested, but in
running that part of it west of Pawtucket Falls.
George Mitchell ran and marked his line in Febru-
ary, 1741, made a map of the river from the Atlantic
to Pawtucket Falls, and March 8, 1741, at Ports-
mouth, New Hampshire, made oath to a statement
written upon the back of the map that the survey
" is true and exact to the best of his skill and knowl-
edge, and that the line described in the plan is as
conformable to His Majesty's determination in
Council as was in his power to draw, but finding it
impracticable to stick to the letter of said determina-
tion, has in some places taken from one province,
and made ample allowance for the same in the next
reach of the River."
In the month of March, 1741, Hazzen ran and
marked a line from the point about three miles north
of Pawtucket Falls, across the Connecticut River to
the supposed boundary line of New York, on what
was supposed to be a due west line from the place of
beginning. By this line, under the King's decree, it
is said that New Hampshire received a territory of
about fifty-five miles by fourteen, more than she had
claimed before the commissioners.
Bryant and Hazzen were both directed to allow ten
degrees variation for the needle. Hazzen's line was
fifty-five miles long; Bryant's was one hundred and
twenty miles long. If Hazzen, by this variation,
therefore, took anything from New Hampshire im-
properly, Bryant must have taken much more improp-
erly from Maine for the benefit of New Hampshire.
Bryant's line was run, and has since been accepted as
the true boundary line between New Hampshire and
Maine.
Mitchell and Hazzen's line, thus run in 1740, under
the authority of Governor Belcher and the New
Hampshire Assembly, at the expense of New Hamp-
shire and in the absence of Massachusetts, is the only
line ever run between the two governments. Returns
of the surveyors were lodged in the ofiice of the
Board of Trade in Great Britain, by Governor Belch-
er, and returns were also lodged in the offices of the
respective secretaries of each of the provinces, the lat-
ter of which have disappeared.
After the King's decision was made known, Thomas
Hutchinson, of Boston, petitioned His Majesty " to
direct that the several Line townships, which by the
Line directed to be run by his Majesty's order in
Council of ye 9th April, 1740, will be cut off from the
Province of Massachusetts Bay may be united to that
province." And it appears that the towns interested
— Haverhill and Amesbury — also petitioned in their
own behalf.
May 7, 1741, Gov. Belcher wrote to the Board of
Trade in England, "concerning a diflSculty arisen
upon ye construction of his Majesty's Judgment re-
.specting ye Boundaries betwixt ye Province of Mas-
sachusetts Bay and that of New Hampshire."
Belcher recites the King's decree and proceeds :
" Your lordships will be pleased to observe that it is
called the Northern Botmdaries of the Massachusetts,
but not the Southern of New Hampshire, nor the Divis-
HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSJiTTS.
ional Line between the two Provinces. From this the
people of both Provinces say, the lands from the
Northern Boundary of Massachusetts, till they meet
the Southern Boundary of New Hampshire, and so
further westward, are not under any jurisdiction or
Government, nor can the lands already ungranted be-
tween these lines be granted for the Incouragement
of New Settlers. If the matter remains thus, it may soon
produce disorders and confusion between the King's
subjects, now settled upon some part of those lands,
who look upon themselves in a state of anarchy."
To enforce his suggestion. Belcher refers to the dif-
ferent wording of the decree where it prescribes the
other boundary (between New Hampshire and Maine)
the language there being, "And as to the Northern
Boundary between the Said Provinces, the Court re-
solves and determines that the Dividing Line, etc."
No answer appears to have been made to Governor
Belcher's inquiry. The difficulty was probably re-
garded by my Lords of Trade as rather imaginary
than real, and as partaking of the nature of a quibble.
The King's decree was undoubtedly intended to fix
the dividing line or boundary of both provinces.
Greater precision in language might have been had,