Chapter 8 - Portsmouth (continued - Early History) from History of Rockingham County, NH
From: Ida Ransom - iransom@earthling.net

Source:  History of Rockingham County, New Hampshire and Representative Citizens
          by Charles A. Hazlett, Richmond-Arnold Publishing Co., Chicago, Ill., 1915

Page 109
                                CHAPTER VIII
                            PORTSMOUTH -- (Continued)

The Church of England--Early Rectors and Governors--Settled Conclu-
    sions--Death of Mason--Abandonment of the Settlement by his Widow--
    Under the Jurisdiction of Massachusetts--Claim of the Mason Heirs--
    The First Church--Richard Gibson--Pulpit Supplies--The Cutt Brothers
    --A New Meeting House--Pews and Seating--Early Laws and Rulers.

    The Church of England.--It has been charged against the early settlers
here that they were fishermen, or that they came merely for business purposes.
Many of them doubtless found the fisheries the most profitable enterprise,
and Smith sets forth the importance of that occupation and says, "Honorable
and worthy countrymen let not the meanness of the word fish distaste you,
for it will afford as good gold as the mines of Potassie or of Guiana, with
less hazard and charge, and more centainty and facility." They were fisher- 
men, but there were some very humble fishermen on the shore of the sea of
Galilee who have played quite an important and respectable part in the history
of the world, and it is true that the reason for the settlement was chiefly
commercial; the colony, as most of the colonies is North America, except
Plymouth, were sent over by merchants or came themselves to trade, and
many of the troubles, the misfortunes, and want of prosperity in this settle-
ment was owing to the fact that the proprietors had so little personal super-
vision over the settlers.  They did not come to establish religious liberty for
themselves, nor did they make a constant talk about their piety, but there is
every reason to suppose that their general character was as good as that
of their neighbors in the Bay Colony.  They were, however, supporters of
the Church of England, and therefore bitterly denounced by the Massachusetts
Colony.  In spite of the assertions which have been handed down generation
after generation and repeated without examination and without reflection, that
this was merely a business settlement, a worldly and ungodly colony, while
the saints were all at "the Bay," it is easy to show that the purpose of the
founders was to make this a branch of the Established Church of England,
and that this runs through all the charters.  In the one to Gorges, in 1639, we
find granted to him "full power, license, and authority to build and erect or
cause to be built and erected soe many churches and chappelles there on to
the said Sir Ferdinando Gorges, his heirs and assigns shall seeme meete and
convenient, and to dedicate and consecrate the same according to all the
ecclesiastical laws of this out realme of England," defining furthermore all
                                                   
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his rights and privileges to be the same that the bishop of Durham had in
the kingdom of England.  In the earliest efforts made by the city of Bristol,
the first inducement held out is "to plant the Christian religion," and that
"the one of traffic, be it never so profitable, ought not to be preferred before
the planting of Christian faith."  One of the first expeditions under Gosnold
which reached our coast carried with it a chaplain.  Royal orders and instruc-
tions were issued requiring religious worship to be conducted as in the Church
of England.  Gorges' son Robert, who arrived in Massachusetts in 1624 to
take superintendence of the churches to the great dismay of the settlers there,
brought with him a clergyman of the English Church.  One of the Puritan
writers, referring to a settlement on the coast of Maine, rejoices "that one
Episcopal colony is terminated, and its anticipated influence to advance the
interests of the national church on our soil is hastily prevented;" and speaking
of the settlement at Exeter, "thus the Granite State commenced its existence
under the auspices of energetic and honorable proprietors, who proposed to
give it the durable impression of Episcopacy as the efficient handmaid of
royalty."  In another place, referring to the efforts of Gorges at colonization,
we find "his great preferences to have it done by sons of Episcopacy rather
than by those withdrawn from its protection and rewards."
    Gorges himself, in defending his company against various charges before
the House of Commons, says, "I have spent œ20,000 of my estate and thirty
years, the whole flower of my life, in new discoveries and settlements upon
a remote continent, in the enlargement of my country's commerce and domin-
ions, and in carrying civilization and Christianity into regions of savages."1
All these are testimonies that the aim of the proprietors and settlers was quite
as truly religious as usually characterizes such enterprises.  But their religious
views were Episcopalian, and just at this period bitter strife reigned between
Puritans and Episcopalians, and the strife in the old country was transferred
to these shores.  All the proprietors interested in the settlement were of the
Established Church, and it was only natural that all the settlers who came
out under them should be zealous in that faith. Gorges and Mason, Godfrie
and Neal, Gibbons and Chadbourne and Williams, and all the names which
appear on the colonial records were doubtless of this faith, and the colonies
at the Piscataqua and the Bay were carried on with the same spirit that two
rival and highly-excited parishes would be at the present time, only intensified
by the more bitter theological hatred of that day.  The leader of the Massa-
chusetts colony even rejoiced at the death of Mason, as a proof of the
Almighty's retribution upon the Episcopal settlement at the Piscataqua and
his favor towards them.  Governor Winthrop writes, "The last winter Capt.
Mason died.  He was the chief mover in all attempts against us, and was to
have sent the General Governor, and for this end was providing ships; but
the Lord in mercy taking him away, all the business fell on sleep."  Among
the earliest inventories of the colony's goods we find mention of service books,

    1 In Mason's will we find instructions to convey one thousand acres of his estate
here for and towards the maintenance of an honest, godly, and religious preacher of
God's word, in some church or chapel or other public place appointed for divine
worship and service within the County of New Hampshire, and also provisions for
and towards the maintenance of a free grammar school for the education of youth.

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of a flagon, and of cloths for the communion-table, which show that pro-
visions for worship were not neglected, and of what form the worship was.
    Early Factors, or Governors. Anecdote of Mather.--After the departure
of Thomson, and until the arrival of those sent out by the Laconia Company
in 1630, our information about this settlement is slight and indefinite.  Then
came Neal as governor, after his departure Godfrie, with Warnerton at
Strawberry Bank, then Williams as governor in 1634.  The colony began
to extend over Great Island and along the bank of the river.  A rude fort
was built on the northeast point of Great Island, "about a bow-shot from the
water-side to a high rock, the site of the present Fort Constitution."  Under
Williams, who is spoken of as a gentleman, a discreet, sensible man, accom-
plished in his manners and acceptable to the people, the first attempt at any
combination for order and defense was made.  It is related that Neal went
on a journey of discovery to the White Mountains and the lakes, and gives
a somewhat glowing account of them: "The summit was far above the clouds,
and from hence they beheld a vapor like a vast pillar, drawn up by the sun-
beams out of a great lake into the air, where it was formed into a cloud,"
but their hopes of mines and precious stones were dimmed.  At another time
Neal forbade a man who was about to begin a settlement at a point a short
distance up the river.  The dispute which arose was about to be settled by
the sword, when a wiser thought suggested to each it would be braver not
to fight, and so the place, known to the present generation as Nancy Drew's,
was called Bloody Point, not on account of what actually happened, but
what might have occurred in the event of a duel.  Just before Neal left some
trouble arose between him and the governor of the Massachusetts Colony.
It was charged against Neal that he did not call to see the governor in
Boston on his way to England, but Neal urged that he had not been well
entertained the first time that he was there; that letters he had written had
been opened in the Bay, and except he were invited he would not call. Win-
throp says the letters were opened "because they were directed to one who
was our prisoner, and had declared himself an ill willer to our government."
But political honor was rather low at that day, and if, even at a later period
England's prime minister confessed that he had no scruple in opening the
letters of a political rival, the conduct of Massachusetts' governor can be
excused.  Yet the incident shows that no papal inquisition ever exceeded the
scrutiny of all persons or documents which came into the neighborhood of
the Puritans.  Warnerton seems to have been a wild and dissolute character.
Willthrop says he lived very wickedly and kept the Piscataqua men under
awe of him, while Warnerton, trying to collect a debt from one of the Bay
Colony, called him rogue and knave, but added they were all so at the Bay,
and he hoped to see all their throats cut. Whether he ever did anything worse
than opening letters does not appear, but the incident reveals the general
feeling that the two settlements cherished towards each other. All the early
Puritan representation of this colony were in the same strain, and in return
the bitterness of the eastern settlement against the Massachusetts was quite
as great.
    A Piscataqua man being in England in 1632 said of the Massachusetts
planters, "They would be a peculiar people to God, but all goe to the Devil ;

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they are a people not worthy to live on God's earth; fellows that keep hoggs
all the week preach there on the Sabbath; they count all men out of their
church as in a state of damnation."
    John Josselyn, of Black Point, writes of the founders of Boston:  "The
chief objects of discipline, religion and morality, they want. Some are of a
Linsie-woolsie disposition, of several professions in religion, all, like the
AEthiopeans, white in the teeth only, full of ludification and injurious dealing
and cruelty, the extremist of all vices.  Great Syndics or censors, or con-
trollers of other men's manners, and savagely factious among themselves."
    Settled Conclusions.--It seems that at this day it will never be possible
to establish to the satisfaction of the careful historian several dates, and to
explain several events in the early settlement of the Piscataqua, on account
of the confusion arising from the first patents, which seriously complicated
the different ownerships, from the absence of sufficient trustworthy evidence,
and from statements of the first writers, made without investigation, and
repeated until they have been believed to have the authority of truth: but
enough appears determined from the, recovery of the indenture of David
Thomson and careful research into the conflicting patents to regard it hence-
forth as settled that the credit of founding the Piscataqna colony belongs
entirely to Thomson, and that he had nothing to do with the Laconia Com-
pany; that this colony was permanent, and that the one at Dover was several
years later; that after the settlement by Thomson passed into the hands of the
Laconia Company, the efforts and interests of Mason really begin; that the
references to "Mason Hall," or "Mason's Manor Hall," which in so many
records give such a pretentious sound to this settlement, do not apply to any
building at Little Harbor, and if to any to a house called the "Great House,"
built by Chadboume in 1631 at Strawberry Bank, but belong rather to the
ambitious claims of his descendants at a much later date, and that the ani-
mosities and invectives which disfigure all early intercourse between the
Massachusetts and the Piscataqua may be traced first to religious differences,
and next to the overlapping and conflicting demands of successive grants
given to different companies or individuals without any accurate knowledge
of the boundaries of this new realm. 
     Death of Mason.--Mason, however, evidently preserved his faith in the
ultimate profits from all investments at this place, and on the 22d of April,
1635, obtained a grant by the Plymouth Council of a very large tract which
covered both his former charters and was to extend sixty miles from the
"first entrance of Pascataway Harbor," to take in "the South halfe of the
Isle of Shoulds," all which was to be called by the name of New Hampshire,
together with ten thousand acres on "the South East of the River of Sagade-
hock," to which was to be given the name of Masonia.  In the midst of all
the expectations from the settlement of such vast possessions Mason died, as
we have seen, in the latter part of this same year, leaving for his heir an
infant grandson.
    Abandonment of the Settlement by His Widow.--For a time Mason's
widow attempted to carry out her husband's plan in regard to the colony, and
evidently with as great a faith in its ultimate success.  One Francis Norton
was sent out in 1638 to look after her interests, but she soon wearied of the

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large and constant expenditures and the deferred income; the settlers so far
away, and soon conscious that the authority and oversight of the former pro-
prietor were gone, began to take advantage of their situation to look out
chiefly for their own interests, to divide the property among themselves for
their wages, and Mrs. Mason, if she did not abandon her legal right, evidently
in despair gave up all hope of carrying on the plantation, and ceased to pro-
vide for its needs.
   Under the Jurisdiction of the Massachusetts.--The only government which
appears in this colony from its settlement until the year 1640 was that of
the stewards, or as they received sometimes the more dignified title of
governor; such were Neale, Jocelyn, and Norton.  There was no idea for a
long time of any self-governing state, or any rule apart from that of the home
sovereignty; they went on as loyalists and members of the Established
Church, with perhaps as much quiet and order as other settlements, but as
their numbers increased, and the resolution to make a permanent colony
became more fixed, efforts appear towards the establishment of a more formal
and authoritative government.  In this year a combination was entered into
with Francis Williams, governor, and Ambrose Gibbons and Thomas War-
nerton, assistants.  But for some time previous to this the way had been
preparing for the Piscataqua to come under the jurisdiction of the Massa-
chusetts.  The latter colony soon found that the charter of Massachusetts
Bay was not as extensive as they had supposed, and had hardly become estab-
lished before they began to reach out towards and covet the lands covered
by the patent to Mason; the doubtful expressions in which these grants were
conveyed made it easier to force an interpretation in agreement with their
desires, and the more flourishing and powerful condition of the Massachusetts
would have accomplished the purpose even earlier were it not for the different
political and religious sentiments which prevailed at the Piscataqua.  For
several years, amidst all kinds of plottings and quarrelings, ambitious schemes
and desire for greater protection, efforts at union were made and repelled,
until it was finally accomplished in 1641, and the Piscataqua passed under
the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts.  Hugh Peters, an agent of the latter,
after spending some time here, in the spring of that year reported to Governor
Winthrop that the Piscataqua people were "ripe for our government; they
grone for government and Gospel all over that side of the country. Alas !
poore bleeding soules."  From 1641 for a period of almost forty years, or
until the commission of Cutt, the first Provincial President of New Hamp-
shire, under whom the new government began on the 21st of January, 1679
or 1680, the sway of the Massachusetts over their settlement was complete.
But it was not harmonious.  It was entered into out of the most selfish con-
siderations on each side, and preserved amidst constant contentions, opposi-
tions, and open revolts.  In 1651 the residents at Strawberry Bank openly
rebelled and attempted to escape from this jurisdiction, and again in 1664.
There was a constant detestation of the union, which for prudential reasons
they felt it necessary to abide by, and all the time they saw the influence of
a party whose faith they bitterly opposed gaining ground among them.
Their indignation appears in their petitions to their sovereign. In July,
1665, we find one headed by the distinguished Champernowne, and signed

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by the leading settlers, which sets forth among other grievances that "five
or six of the ritchest men of this parish [meaning of course those who had
become prominent under the power of the Massachusetts] have swaied &
ordered all offices both civill and military at their pleasures; none of yor
Honos peticonrs, though Loyall subjects, & some of them well acquainted
with the Laws of England, durst make any opposition for feare of great
fines or long imprisonment, & for want of estates could not peticon home to
his Matie for relief, which the contrary party well knoweth, have kept us
under hard servitude and denyed us in our publique meeting the Common
prayer, Sacramts, and decent buriall of the dead, contrary to the Laws of
England."  They also plead that they have been denied the benefit of free-
men, that their lands have been taken away from them, and their grants dis-
owned.  Another petition about the same time asserts, "to theire great greife"
that the sway of the Massachusetts has kept them from the good they
expected, and so prays that they may be joined to the province of Maine,
so "that they may be goved by the knowne lawes of England, and enjoy the
use of both the sacramts wch they have been too deprived of," and they
particularly mention Joshua Moody, Richard and John Cutt, and a few others,
who were evidently leaders of the Puritan party and stanch upholders of the
Massachusetts.  By the year 1677, however, the Puritan influence had so far
overcome the Church of England power that a petition with many names
and much weight appears against any change, saying that they voluntarily
subjected themselves to the Massachusetts government, and have not repented,
of it, that it has been a long-enjoyed and desired benefit which they fear to
lose. "Wee are men yt desire to fear ye Lord & ye King, & not to medle with
them yt are given to change, as well knowing what confusions, distractions,
& Damage changes of governmts are not unusually attended with."
     The most effectual petition, however, was probably one from Mason
and Gorges, praying for a governor for the province of Maine and New
Hampshire, on account of the injustice of the Massachusetts, "their violent
intrusion and continued usurpation."  This petition was received the 9th of
January, 1677, and, as we have seen, the commission of President Cutt was
sent out in December, 1679.
     Claim of the Mason Heirs.-- While all the intrigues and animosities in
regard to the rule of the province were going on, another element of dis-
turbance and angry feeling was thrown into this colony, the claim of the
Mason heirs. It was, perhaps, the shadow of this impending difficulty which
persuaded some to seek alliance with the Massachusetts, thinking thereby
to gain their favor in the courts. Mrs. Mason, soon after her husband's
death, was discouraged at the constant outlay required by the settlers, and
gave up the whole enterprise. It was but natural, as she heard of the colony's
growth and of a more stable government, to assert her claim to this region,
and to seek some return for the great outlays Mr. Mason had made. But
a few years of neglect would inevitably make vast changes in a new settle-
ment even with the most honorable stewards and laborers, and in the midst
of such conflicting grants there was easy opportunity for fraud of every kind,
while the very accumulation of unpaid wages would in a brief period make
the settlers feel they had earned all the possessions. As a matter of history,

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it was fifteen years before we find any protest from the attorney of Mrs.
Mason against cutting timber on her lands along the Pascataway, and eighteen
years before the first petition of Joseph Mason to the magistrates and deputies
of the General Court in Boston, relating the expenses Mason had been at
under the Laconia patent, and praying for some redress against the encroach-
ments upon his property by the inhabitants of Strawberry Bank.  Of course,
each year, as the prosperity of the settlement increased, the more determined
grew the heirs of Mason to recover their estate here, and in the lapse of time
the statements of his expenditures were greatly exaggerated, and the necessity
of maintaining their case led to the most bitter accusations and the most
intense feeling on all sides, and what was at first a simple claim was aggra-
vated by an appeal to all the political and religious interests which had been
aroused just at that period both in England and in this settlement. In March,
1674-75, Robert Mason, the grandson and heir of John Mason, asserts his
title to New Hampshire.  He rehearses in a long petition the history of
the settlement, the expenses of Mason, the unfaithfulness of the agents, the
inability to recover anything through the General Court of Massachusetts,
and his own vain attempts and costs to recover his estates here.  Then, again,
as the hope strengthened that his Majesty would appoint a president for
New Hampshire, the claims of Robert Mason are reasserted at great length,
with the added argument of a royal and church interest and fidelity from the
beginning, and rehearsing the unjust laws which had been passed to confirm
to the colonists the lands upon which they have been settled for years with-
out any attempt at alienation, and what he himself had expended. Of course
these claims were met by counter claims and charges, and all the fault was
surely not on one side. As early as 1676 we find the depositions of several
old settlers, whose testimony cannot all be worthless, and who on oath "doe
affirm that Capt. John Mason did never settle any government nor any people
upon any land called ye province of New Hampshire, on the south side of
Piscatqa River, either by himselfe or any of his agents to this day. And
whereas Mr. Robert Mason, his grandchild, by his petition to his maty charges
ye governors of ye Massachusetts or ye Bostoners, as he calls them: ffor tak-
ing away their govermt in a way of hostility; burning of their houses and
banishing their people out of their dwellings, they doe affirme the same to be
positively false." This fruitful source of discord embittered the whole colony
long after the appointment of the first president.
     The First Church.--The early religious interests of the Piscataqua were
all centered in the Established Church of England.  All those of any promi-
nence were of that faith, and of course the settlers they sent over were of
the same, and in the inventories of goods belonging to them we find provi-
sions for that worship which doubtless was observed at Little Harbor and
at the "Great House," which stood on what is now the corner of Court
and Water streets; but it was not until after the death of Mason that we
find them taking any steps for the erection of a church.  On the 25th of
May, 1640, we find the grant of the glebe land in Portsmouth as follows:
"Divers and sundry of the inhabitants of the Lower end of Pascataquack.
whose names are hereunder written, of their free and voluntary mind, good
will and assents, without constraint or compulsion of any manner of person

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or persons, have granted, given; and contributed divers and several sums of
money towards the building, erecting, and founding of a parsonage house
with a chapel thereto united, as also fifty acres of glebe land which is annexed
and given to the said parsonage."  We find in this same grant the names
of the first church wardens and that Mr. Richard Gibson has been chosen
to be the first pastor. This first church was erected near where the Universalist
Church now stands, and probably in the year 1638, for there is a tradition
that Gibson preached and baptized in it in the .month of August of that year.
His salary was œ60 and a house was to be built for him.
     Richard Gibson.--Richard Gibson was educated at Magdalen College,
Cambridge, from which he took the degree of A. B. in 1636, and in that year
appears as the minister of a colony at the Saco River, to which he had been
brought by Mr. Trelawney.  In seeking for some further information con-
cerning this clergyman, Rev. James DeNormandie was brought into corre-
spondence with an aged gentleman residing at Ham, Plymouth (England),
Mr. Collins Trelawney, a descendant of the one who had a grant of land
near Portland, and who cherishes a hope that it is not too late to recover the
estates which belong to his family in that region, including the whole city of
Portland, a far more gigantic scheme and forlorn hope than the attempt of
the Mason heirs.
     The ministry of Gibson appears not to have been one of perfect peace, for
in the Maine "Records" we find him complaining against a man for calling
him a "base priest." and he says that he is much disparaged thereby in his
ministry; so that it is evident the Episcopal settlements here and along the
coast of Maine were not without some elements of Puritanism, as, on the
other hand, in the Massachusetts there constantly came to the surface some
elements of Episcopacy.  Mr. Gibson, between the years 1638 and 1642,
preached at the Saco settlement, at the Shoals, and at Strawberry Bank.
In the latter year he was summoned by the General Court of Massachusetts
for the crime of marrying and baptizing at the Isle of Shoals according to
the ritual of the Church of England.  Winthrop's account of the matter runs
thus: "At this General Court appeared one Richard Gibson, a scholar, sent
some three or four years since to Richmann's Island to be a minister to a
fishing plantation there belonging to one Mr. Trelawney, of Plimouth, in
England.  He removed from thence to Pascataquack, and this year was
entertained by the fishermen of the Isle of Shoals to preach to them.  He,
being wholly addicted to the hierarchy and discipline of England, did exercise
a ministerial function in the same way, and did marry and baptize at the
Isle of Shoals, which was soon found to be within our jurisdiction."
     Gibson wrote to the minister at Dover, asking for help in opposition to the
jurisdiction of the Puritans; but they were stronger in the contest, and he
answered the demand of the marshal, and in 1642 appeared before the General
Court.  Either because the court recognized the fact that it had no authority
in the case, or because he submitted himself to the favor of the court with the
determination to leave the country, he was dismissed without fine or imprison-
ment, and soon after. This was one of the first fruits of the efforts of the
Puritans to settle a country where freedom to worship God as he pleased
should be every one's privilege.

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     Gibson is everywhere spoken of as accomplished and scholarly, but no
gifts nor graces could count for anything while he was an open defender of
the England Established Church.
     Pulpit Supplies.--Soon after the union with the Massachusetts we find
in those records this item: "It was ordered that the elders should be desired
to take the care of the inhabitants of Strawberry Bank into their considera-
tion and then help for providing a minister for them."  One was soon found,
who, being a Puritan, it was easy for Winthrop to consider "a godly man
and a scholar," --a Mr. Parker, of Plymouth,--but he was not an ordained
clergyman.  After his departure we find one after another supplying for a
short time, the Episcopal element heartily and voluntarily contributing to their
support rather than have no services, and this continued until the year 1658,
when the long and eventful ministry of Joshua Moody begins.
     The Cult Brothers.--Some time before 1646 there came from Wales three
brothers, Robert, Richard, and John Cutt, who were to have a large influence
in all the affairs of this colony. Major Cutt, a descendant, when at the siege
of Louisburg, met an English officer by the name of Cutts, and upon becom-
ing acquainted, they found they had sprung from the same family; so there-
after the major added an s to his name, as did all the descendants of the
family in Portsmouth.  Robert settled at Great Island, and was a strong
Episcopalian and royalist.  Richard settled first at the Shoals, and became
owner of most of Star Island in its day of greatest prosperity, and after
making his wealth removed to Portsmouth and was interested in all its
affairs. John settled in Strawberry Bank, where he came into possession
of the Great House, and was a merchant of prominence, honor, and esteem.
At the time of his prosperous business course the principal part of the town
was built about the Point of Graves.
     A New Meeting-House.--On the 27th of August, 1757, John and Richard
Cutt, with Pendleton, Seavey, and Sherburne, were commissioned by the town
to build a new meeting-house, not now a chapel, but still the term warden
is employed. The settlement was so widely scattered and embraced such a
great reach of territory that it is not surprising there was even at this date
some difference of opinion as to where the new church should be located.
After a long discussion and the appointment of referees to hear the reasons
of all parties, the following conclusion was reached: "Wee whose names
are under written, being deputed to consulte and determine the difference
betweene the inhabitants of Portsmouth concerning the placinge of theire
meeting-house, upon the arguments aledged on either side doe judge and
alsoe conclude all reasons weighed that it is upon all respects considered the
meatest and most commodious place to erect a meeting-house is the little hill
adjoyninge to Goodman Webster's poynt."  The tradition has it that Good-
man Webster kept a place of entertainment, and in that day the location of
the meeting-house near by might be judged not altogether without its con-
veniences.  Doubtless the importance of New Castle and the travel by that
road had something to do with determining the situation: at all events the
new meeting-house, the second place of worship in Portsmouth, was built on
that "little hill" just beyond the South Mill Bridge, on "the crotch of the
roads" (as an old record has it) leading to the pound and Frame Point, or

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what is now just by the parting of the roads leading to New Castle and the
South Cemetery, while the old chapel was converted into a house for the
minister.  Of this building there is a description minute enough to recon-
struct it, and to this came the inhabitants from the wide domain of the town
without any too tender regard for distances or for storms, from Rye, Green-
land, New Castle, and Warrington, to hear the word and tell the news.
     Pews and Seating.--In the increasing prosperity of the settlement the
new meeting-house was soon filled to overflowing, and we find a record in
1660 that the selectmen, in order to regulate the confusion occasioned by
the crowd, "placed the women in their seats as commodiously as the room
will afford."  From time to time leading parishioners were granted permis-
sion to build, at their own cost, seats or pews for themselves in various parts
of the house, seats and pews of varying length and breadth, so that the aisles,
or alleys as they were called, ran among the seats, and it was not until 1693
that the pews were made according to one regular order.  We find the choice
of a sexton to ring the bell and make clean the meeting-house for œ4
a year; and a man engaged by the town at 20 shillings per annum "for
to look after the demeanor of the boys at meeting"; and a vote that five or
six persons should have liberty "to build a pair of stairs up to the west-
ward beame within the meeting-house, and a pew upon the beam," for their
own use and at their own charge; that "strangers are not to be discommodious
to the meeting-house"; and that no boys should be suffered to sit on the
stairs or above stairs, and that no young men or young women offer to
crowd into any seat where either men or women are seated.
     Early Laws and Rulers.--After the erection of New Hampshire with a
royal province, under President Cutt, we trace the operations of an estab-
lished and authoritative government through the acts of a general assembly.
We find it framing a code of laws, comprising sixteen "capital," twenty-
seven "criminal," and forty-five "general laws."  Here is what constituted
drunkenness in that day: "By drunkenness is to be understood one yt lisps
or falters in his speech by reason of overmuch drinke, or yt staggers in his
going, or yt vomits by reason of excessive drinking, or yt cannot, by .reason
thereof, follow his calling."  Here is the law against scandal or malicious
gossip, or the dealers in false news: "That wt p'rson soever, being 16 years
of age, or upwards, shall wittingly or willingly make or publish any lie wch
may be tending to ye damage or hurt of any p'ticular p'son, or wth intent to
deceive & abuse ye people with false news or reports, shall be fined for every
such default IOS., and if ye p'tie cannot or will not pay ye fine, then he shall
sit in ye stocks as long as ye court shall thinke meete; & if the offenders
shall come to anyone of Councill & own his offense, it shall be in ye power
of anyone of ye Council aforesd to execute ye law upon him where he liveth,
& spare his appearance at ye court ; but in case when ye lie is greatly p'nicious
to ye Common Weall, it shall be more severely punished, according to ye nature
of it."  See Hoyt's "Notes on Laws of New Hampshire."
     President Cutt died in 1682, and was succeeded temporarily by his deputy,
Richard Waldron, a prominent and active man in the colony, and a zealous
friend of Massachusetts, until the appointment and arrival of Cranfield as
lieutenant-governor and commander-in-chief, and with powers greatly exceed-

Page 119

ing any of his predecessors.  His commission begins thus, "Whereas our
colony of the Massachusetts (alias Massathusetts Bay), within our dominion
of New England, in America, hath taken upon themselves to exercise a govern-
ment and jurisdiction over the inhabitants and planters in the towns of
Portsmouth, Hampton, Dover, Exeter, and all others ye towns and lands in
our Province of New Hampshire, lying and extending itself from three miles
northward of Merrimack River into the province of Maine, not having any
legal right or authority so to do, the said jurisdiction and all farther exer-
cise thereof we have thought fit by the advice of our Privy Council to inhibit
and restrain for the future,  *  *  *  Now know ye, that we, reposing
especial trust and confidence in ye prudence, courage, and loyalty of you, 
the said Edward Cranfield, Esq., out of our especial grace, certain knowledge,
mere motion, have thought fit to constitute and appoint you our lieutenant-
governor and commander-in-chief of aIl that part of our province of New
Hampshire," etc.  His commission has also these words, "and above all
things we do by these presents will, require, and command you to take all
possible care for the discountenance of vice and encouragement of virtue and
good living, that by such example the infidels may be incited and desire to
partake of the Christian religion; and for the greater care and satisfaction
of our said loving subjects in matters of religion, we do here by will, require
and command that liberty of conscience shall be allowed unto all Protestants,
and that such especially as shall be conformable to the rites of the Church of
England shall particularly be countenanced and encouraged."  This is the
exception which is always understood with liberty of conscience, especially
to favor our own, and such an exception gives unbounded liberty of perse-
cution to a narrow and bigoted official.  In "liberty of conscience" and a
desire to establish it there is not anything to choose between Puritan and
Episcopalian in this period of excited controversy; neither knew what it
really meant, each claimed it only so far as it suited his own interest or
prejudices; so history everywhere gives a partial and false impression by the
emphasis which the writer lays upon the injustice done to those with whom
he happens to sympathize.  In the "Notes on the Laws of New Hampshire,"
above quoted from, we find (page 10) this passage: "The Rev. Mr. Moodey,
the only minister in Portsmouth during the administrations of Cutt and
Cranfield, refused to baptize the children of some of his parishioners accord-
ing to the ceremony of the English Church, though often and earnestly
requested."  Liberty of conscience seems to have been interpreted by him
to mean intolerance of any conscience but his own.  Yet no one, who has
read the history of this period with any freedom from bigotry would venture
to say there was any less intolerance on the part of Cranfield, while, if
enlightenment of conscience by a pure and noble life could be counted upon,
Moodey was by far the more acceptable life.
     Governor Cranfield left the province in May, 1685, and was succeeded
for a short time by Walter Barefoote, his deputy, until the commission of
Dudley in May, 1686, and he in turn was followed by Andros from Decem-
ber, 1686 to April, 1689.  Then for a period of eleven months the province
was without any government until it was reannexed to the province of Massa-
chusetts on the 19th of March, 1690.  During this period, as is shown by

Page 120

the careful paper of Mr. Charles W. Tuttle on "New Hampshire without
Provincial Government," the attacks of Indians, especially the tragedy at
Dover, in which the venerable Richard Waldron, one of the most prominent
men in these settlements, and a number of the inhabitants were slain, and the
dangers from the French revealed the weakness and insecurity of these sepa-
rate colonies, and forced them for self-protection to join with the Massa-
chusetts, under whose rule the Piscataqua remained until Samuel Allen was
commissioned as governor of the province, August 13, 1602.  His son-in-
law, Usher, was appointed with him as lieutenant-governor, a man, as we
shall see, particularly objectionable to the people on account of his arbitrary
interest and action in the Mason claims.  Partridge, the Earl of Belmont,
Dudley, and William Vaughan successively administered the government
of this province, either as governors or lieutenant-governors, until the com-
mission of John Wentworth as lieutenant-governor, signed by the distin-
guished Joseph Addison as secretary of state, was published to the province
on the 7th of December, 1717, and the more settled history, government,
and prosperity of the province begins, as well as the longer reigns of its
rulers.
     John Wentworth was the son of Samuel Wentworth, the first of the name
in Portsmouth. He lived on the south side of what is called Puddle Dock. At
that time the vicinity of the Point of Graves was the business part of the
town, and in 1670 is the record that Samuel Wentworth was licensed with
"libertie to entertain strangers and sell and brew beare."  In 1727 the town
granted permission to build a bridge over the cove or dock, now called Liberty
Bridge, but at that time the cove extended farther into the town, so that at
high tide boats passed over Pleasant Street to the South Creek or mill-pond
by the Universalist Church.

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