Transcription of the history section from 1724 to 1750 from Walpole As It Was and As It Is by George Aldrich, The Claremont Manufacturing Co., Claremont, N.H., 1880, page 7.
Note: This section of the book has opinions that are not shared by the website owner/transcriber, particularly about Native Americans. It is not this site’s intention to offend anyone. This site, however, does not alter the original written words of these old books that are transcribed and presented here.
Topics: Introduction—Shad and salmon—Wigwams—Gov. Belcher—John Wentworth—His son Benning—State boundaries—Equivalent lands—Indian fight at Great Meadows—Capture of Nehemiah How—Settlement of John Kilburn and family—Shooting of David Rugg—His Burial—Charters—Settlements of Charlestown, Hinsdale, Chesterfield, Keene and Westmoreland.
HISTORY OF WALPOLE.
A little more than one hundred and twenty-five years ago the territory which is now included in the present town of Walpole was one unbroken, gloomy forest, which shaded the deep, rich soil that the summer sun had not warmed for centuries. What is now called “Derry Hill” was thickly wooded with a heavy growth of beech, birch and maple. “Boggy Meadow” and the table lands east were heavily timbered, mostly with stately white pines, towering, in many instances, to one hundred and fifty feet or more, while on the river bank monstrous elms and buttonwoods luxuriated in the deep, mellow soil.
“Fall Mountain” (now known as “Kilburn Mountain,” so christened by Dartmouth students, some twenty-five years ago) also was covered with a heavy growth of white pines, which had, perhaps, withstood the blasts of centuries; while on the south and east the yellow pine covered the area to a considerable extent.
Old, decaying trees, which had fallen in every conceivable direction; fantastic forms of withered limbs and old standing trees, denuded of their bark, contrasted strangely with the freshness of a later growth. Reptiles sported in the slimy pools of the lowlands or crawled unharmed over piles of decaying timber.
The rattlesnake lay coiled asleep in some sunny nook, or was noiselessly drawing his hideous form over the mouldering [sic] vegetation, in quest of some luckless frog. The huge, ungainly, black bear, unsuspecting of danger, was shuffling from [8] place to place, seeking some esculent root from the marsh, or craunching [sic] the mast that had fallen from the oak or the beech. The red deer and stately moose cropped the uncut herbage of the openings in summer, and browsed on the tender twigs of deciduous trees in winter.
The smaller streams were filled with speckled trout, which had never been lured by the sportsman’s fly, the Boggy Meadow’s and sedgy swamps, on a summer’s evening, were overhung by clouds of mosquitoes and the exhalations that arose from decaying vegetation sowed the seeds of malarial disease and death. The night was made dismal by the moan of the catamount or the howl of the grey wolf, seeking the destruction of innocent life. Silence reigned by day unbroken, save by the continuous roar of the “Great Falls,” or, broken perhaps, morning and evening, by the tattoo of the male partridge cheering his mate.
The red man was the sole human occupant of the soil, and was as wild as the savage beasts around him,—a predatory vagabond, in constant warfare with his own race; seeking the destruction of the settlers, or leading them into a captivity worse than death; the bark of the white birch his canoe; strings of shells his ornaments, his calendar and his coin; huts made of bended saplings and evergreen boughs, roofed with the rind of trees, his habitation; leaves of the forest and skins of wild beasts his bed; his religion, if any, the adoration of nature; his morals not much above the instinct of intelligent animals; disputing with them the occupancy of the thickets, and dividing with the squirrel and bear the fruits of the hills—such was the scene that greeted the vision of the first settlers.
Annually, in the months of May and June, shad and salmon, in great numbers, set out from the ocean for the head waters of the Connecticut and its tributaries. Shad, unable to pass the rapids at the Great Falls, were crowded into the basin below and far down the river, while the salmon, more agile in their movements, were able to surmount the rapids and fulfill their summer mission of depositing their spawn, [9] and returning again in the fall to the ocean. The shad, less fortunate, after a time became discouraged at their futile attempts to run the rapids, fell back, and ascended some of the larger tributaries. Their number was immense. From time immemorial the Great Falls had been the best fishing ground to be found in all New England. Tradition says that there were once Indian wigwams on or near the site where now stand the railroad station near cold river then the dwelling near by, extending below more than one fourth of a mile, the Indians being a sub-tribe of the five nations called the Abenaquis or Abenakees, meaning the pines. There were also other wigwams of the same tribe on a small brook in Westmoreland, on land now owned by Robert E. Green, about half a mile south of Walpole town line which is called Wigwam Brook to this day. In the narrow defile between Fall mountain and the river was the Indian path where they used to travel from the white settlements in Massachusetts below to Canada, in their marauding expeditions. The blossoming of the shad tree (Amelanchier Canadensis) was the signal for all the Indians for many miles around to gather about the falls for the purpose of shad and salmon fishing. Imagination can see them now, perched upon the rocks, spearing the twenty-pound salmon or scooping with their nets multitudes of shad, or, perhaps, crossing and recrossing in their bark canoes the basin below, while the old squad was doing the drudgery about the huts, the papoose, half naked, wallowing in the filth, and the dusky maiden loitering about in the shade of the stately elms, stringing her ornaments and wampum. ‘Twas here, it may be, they held their orgies and concocted their hellish designs on the white settlers. The ploughshare of civilization has unearthed Indian skeletons, spear heads, arrow heads, heaps of clam shells and numerous other Indian relics, which, together with the rude carvings on the rocks at the Falls, are indubitable evidences of there having been a famous wigwam in this vicinity in pre-historic times.
The Indian, naturally morose and sullen in his disposition, and having been driven from time to time from the graves of [10] his fathers and his fishing and hunting grounds by the encroachments of the whites, needed but little to incite him to plunder and the most cruel barbarity; consequently he was found continually harassing the frontier settlements, in small predatory banks, burning the habitations of the early settlers, destroying their cattle, killing men, women and children, or forcing them into a captivity worse than death.
The tales of those atrocities were the first lessons taught the children of the early settlers. The grey haired veteran with his grandson upon his knee recounted to him, the hundredth time, the Indian tales of by-gone times. The child drank in every word, and became so much excited that his thoughts by day and his dreams by night were but one continued picture of murder and pillage. Thus he became thoroughly schooled, at manhood, with all the wiles of Indian warfare. Under such circumstances it seems almost incredible that any one could have the courage, hardihood, or even temerity to plant himself in a howling wilderness, far removed from any friendly habitation and nearly in the jaws of hostile Indians; yet, notwithstanding, in 1749, John Kilburn is found, with Ruth, his wife, Mehitable his daughter (Hetty) and John, his sin, snugly settled down in a small log hut on the fertile interval, about one-fourth of a mile south of Cold river, a little to the north of east of the residence of Mrs. Joseph Wells, on the east side of the highway passing her house. Ezra Kilburn, the grandson of John, senior, told the author of these pages, some thiry years ago, that the exact spot where his grandfather’s hut stood was where is now growing the sprout of an old appletree planted by his grandfather, near the location described above: while others say that this abode was south west from Abenaque springs.
In order that the reader may fully understand the true condition of affairs in relation to the grants made on Connecticut river it will be necessary to go back a few years antecedent to the first settlement.
In 1724, the government of Massachusetts erected a strong fort for the protection of her western settlements, just opposite the town in Hinsdale, N.H. (now in Vermont) which territory [11] was then supposed to belong to Massachusetts. This was fort Dummer. With that ecception there were no forts of settlements north and west in Vermont; all was one gloomy wilderness on both sides of the Connecticut north to the Canadas.
Incidents trivial in themselves often result in important changes in nations, as well as in the lives of individuals, as the following narrative will show. At this time (1728) Massachusetts and New Hampshire had but one Governor, but each Province had separate Lieutenant Governors and Assemblies. William Burnett, was at this time Governor, and was succeedded two years later by Jonathan Belcher, a native and merchant of Boston; a man of elegant manners and large fortune. Having made a short visit to New Hampshire, and returned to Massachusetts, he made a discovery which resulted in a serious misunderstanding between himself ‘and Lieuteuant Governor Wentworth, Benning Wentworth’s father. It was this; prior to his appointment as Governor, Wentworth, not knowing whether Governor Shute, who had been long absent, would return and resume the chair or Belcher be appointed in his stead, and being eager for office, had written complimentary letters to both. This act Belcher considered dishonorable on the part of Wentworth, and he carried his indignation and resentment so far that in a subsequent visit to Portsmouth, he declined an invitation to dine with the Lieutenant Governor, at his house. He also cut off the emoluments incident to his office and dismissed from office all his friends and relatives. Wenthworth soon died, but his son Benning and his brother-in-law, Theodore Atkinson, took up the cudgel of resentment, and, being backed by their friends and influential connections, formed a strong party in opposition to Belcher, which finally resulted not only in the dismemberment of the territory claimed by Massachusetts but in the appointment of a separate Governor for the province of New Hampshire, in the person of Benning Wentworth, in 1741, and Theodore Atkinson was made Secretary.
From 1733 to 1740, the warfare between Wentworth and Governor Belcher increased in warmth, one feature of the [12] quarrel being the settlement of the boundary line between Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
John Tomlinson supported the Wentworth party and obbtained a royal order constituting a board of commissioners, to be selected from the councillors of the provinces, with power to settle the contested line. This board met at Hampton N. H. Aug. 1737, and in a few days the Assemblies of both provinces met in the neighborhood; that of Massachusetts at Salisbury, and that of New Hampshire at Hampton Falls. After a long session and angry disputes the Commissioners agreed on a result which established the eastern boundary line as it now is, but left the southern boundary undetermined. It was seen by all parties that this protracted dispute could only be settled by a Royal decree; consequently petitions were submitted by each party to the English Monarch who ordered a Commission, to run and establish a line between the provinces.
This was done in 1738, commencing three miles north of the mouth of the Merrimac river, on the Atlantic ocean, and following a curved line on said river to Pawtucket falls, and from thence due west to “His Majesty’s other Governments.” This line gave New Hampshire a territory fifty miles long and fourteen broad more than she expected, which was very gratifying to Wentworth, but mortifying to Belcher. In the mean time a large number of grants had been made by Belcher on both sides of the Connecticut, as far north as No.4, now Charlestown. The grantees soon ascertained that their titles were worthless and prayed to be reannexed to Massachusetts, where they had supposed they belonged; but their prayers were not answered. It was ordered by the general court of Massachusetts in 1735, on petition, that townships should be laid out on Connecticut river from the Great Falls on the east side south to lands granted to Josiah Willard and others, in as many townships of six miles square as the territory would admit, in one tier, and on the west side, commencing at the same point, to the “Equivalent Lands” in as many townships of an area of six miles square as the territory would contain. [13] New Taunton, now Westminister, was one of those towns and was considered then No.1.
These “Equivalent Lands” were grants made by Massachusetts, but on running the line between Massachusetts and Connnecticut, in 1713, they tell within the limits of Connecticut. Massachusetts wishing to retain them, set off a portion of what she then considered her own territory, to Connecticut as an equivalent. The whole area comprised 107,793 acres, in four different localities; 43,943 acres were in the vicinity of Westmoreland N, H, and Brattleboro Vt. In 1716 these lands were all sold at Hartford Ct. by auction, and brought a triffle more than one farthing per acre,–the money thus obtained was applied to the use of Yale College.
In 1735 Governor Belcher obtained leave of the Massachusetts Assembly, for services rendered by his brother Andrew in the Canada expedition of 1690, to survey and layout, in two pieces, 1000 acres of the unappropriated lands of the province; and accordingly ‘two plots’ of land on Connecticut river were laid out by “Thomas Hinsdale and chairman on oath.” One of these ‘plots’ was laid out on the east side of Connecticut river, in the vicinity of Cold river, and the other on the opposite side. It is said that a plan of the town granted to Willard, Bellows and others in 1736 is on file at the state house in Massachusetts. Whether this last grant embraced the first is not known. The name of the town was orlginally Great Falls, and afterwards Bellowstown prior to the time that Col. Benjamin Bellows obtained his grant in 1752. The name Bellowstown show pretty conclusively that some person bearing the name of Bellows must have owned land in the vicinity of the falls prior to Col. Bellows’ settleement. In 1736, several towns were laid out bordering on Connnecticut river, among which were Westminister, Vt. No. 1, Walpole, No.2, Goldenstown, (now Rockingham, it is inferred) No.3, and Charlestown, No. 4. The same year a grant was made by Massachusetts to John Flynt and others. The above nos. were changed a few years later and made to correspond to the several forts. Chesterfield was made No. 1; Westmoreland, [14] No.2; Walpole No 3; and Charlestown No.4. The plots of these townships known as 1, 2, 3, and 4 were accepted by the General Court of Massachusetts, Nov. 30, 1736. The following persons were appointed to call the first meetings of the proprietors of the above named townships, viz. Samnel Chamberlain of Westford for No, 1, (Chesterfield,) Nathaniel Harris of Watertown for No.2, (Westmoreland,) John Flynt for No.3, (Walpole) and Thomas Wells for No.4, (Charlestown.) It does not appear that the grantees of No.3, ever occcupied the township; if they did at any time, most likely they were driven away by the Indians. There are some reasons to suspect that the Flynt, subsequently killed by the Indians, was the grantee above mentioned.
In 1745 a body of French and Indians, the latter twelve in number; attacked the garrison at the Great Meadow (now Putney Vt.) on the 12th of October, at noon. A brisk fight was carried on for an hour and a half and one Indian was killed, but the fort was defended with so much courage and determination, that the enemy withdrew. In lieu of victory, they killed and drove off most of the cattle. Nehemiah How, who was cutting wood about eighty rods from the fort, was taken by the Indians and no attempt was made to rescue him. As they were leading him away by the side of the river, on the west side, they espied two men approaching in a canoe when they fired and killed one of them, David Rugg, and the other, Robert Baker made for the opposite shore and escaped. The Indians scalped Rugg and mounted the scalp on a pole and carried it through Charlestown, in triumph to Crown Point. This David Rugg was the identical man (without much doubt,) who, tradition says, was hoeing corn on Boggy Meadow and was shot by the Indians from the west bank of the river, and was buried on what is now called Rugg Meaddow, near the river just opposite the lower farm-house.
The same year, also, a dispute arose respecting the boundary line between Massachusetts and New Hampshire and Col. Benjamin Bellows of Lunenburgh was appointed surveyor, on the part of Massachusetts, to mark the line. This appointment [15] brought Mr. Bellows in contact with Benning Wentworth, then Governor of the province of New Hampshire. The Governor being anxious to settle the western portion of the state, and perceving Colonel Bellows to be a man possessing resolution and other qualities for a pioneer life induced him to accede to his wishes and make a trial in Walpole.
The condition of the settlements bordering on Connecticut rive, about the time Col. Bellows came to Walpole, is briefly told. In 1744 England declared war against France, and, in consequence, their respectlve colonies in America became involved in the struggle. The war lasted till 1763. The French in Canada incited the natural cupidity of the Indians living in the vicinity (the St. Francis tribe), by offering bounties for captives and white men’s scalps, to more than their usual activity in harassing the border settlement. During the period of thIrteen years there was scarcely a family to be found in the beautiful valley of the Connecticut which did not mourn the loss of some near and dear relative by the tomahawk or fire-arm of the savages, A narrative of all the depredations committed by the Indians during this period would fill volumes,
There was a strong fort at Charlestown which was settled in 1740, one opposite to Hinsdale, built in 1724, (Fort Dummer,) and two at Hinsdale, Hinsdale’s and Bridgman’s. Hinsdale was settled in 1683, resettled in 1739, and incorporated in 1763. Westmoreland (Great Meadows) was settled in 1741, Putney and Westminister built two forts on Putney Meadows for mutual protectIon. One was built in the center and the other and larger one on the site of the house lately owned and occupied by Col. Thomas White. It was sufficiently large to build fifteen dwellings wlthin its inclosure. Some of those forts were built of heavy hewn timbers and were inclosed with palisades. They afforded ample protection to the inhabitants when within the gates. Keene and Chesterfield were both settled before Walpole; the former in 1739, and the latter in 1736. Keene however was laid out in 1731.