History of New Hampshire

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Contents

Chapter Page

I. The Beginning 3

II. The Four Towns 29

Chapter I THE BEGINNING

The Value of History — First Things — Early Fishermen — Martin Pring — Champlain — Capt. John Smith — Grant to John Mason — David Thomson, First Settler — Mason's Hall — Edward and William Hilton — Division of Land of Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Capt. John Mason — Laconia — Settlements at Newichawannock and Strawberry Bank — Ambrose Gibbons — Sketches of the First Settlers — Dissolution of the Council of New England — Is Mason's Royal Charter Authentic? — Death and Character of Mason.

BY learning and wisely interpreting the events of the past, we seek to better understand the present and forecast the future. History is the handmaid of prophecy. The roots of the present reach down and back to the beginning of things. We would like to start with creation, as the Hebrew historian did, and trace the annals down through the ages, hoping thus to learn the chain of causes. Events, like moving pictures, pass before an ever changing company of on-Iookers, and interest in the present obscures memory of the past. Few have time and inclination to roll the film back and review slowly and thoughtfully the historic play as one connected and inseparable whole. Indeed this is impossible; we can only approximate such an endeavor. We dig and search for old records as for hid treasure, and when a few have been discovered it is the patient life-work of the historian to put them together, like pieces of a dissected map, in proper logical order.

First things fascinate us. Who discovered New Hampshire? Who first landed on her shores? When came they and for what purpose? Where were the first settlements made? What were the first forms of government? Such questions confront conflicting claims and evidences. Answers should be given impartially and without prejudice.

There can be no doubt that fishermen came often to the mouth of the Pascataqua many years, perhaps centuries, before any settlement was made on the coast of New England. Watts Fort, a little island in the Pascataqua, off Leighton's Point, in

Eliot, Maine, now covered with water at high tide, once had thereon an orchard and a habitation. Nobody surely knows the origin of the name, found in earliest deeds. Perhaps it was once the rendezvous of fishermen, while Franks Fort, just below it, may have been headquarters for an opposing band, the Franks, from Brittany. The Rev. William Hubbard of Ipswich, who wrote a history of New England before the year 1682, says that the Pascataqua was "a river of noat" and that it had been "frequented ever since the country was first planted, by such as came this way for trafficke with the inhabitants, natives and others, that have seated themselves in plantations about the uppermost branches thereof." It was probably a well known river long before there were any plantations on its banks. Fishermen were on the coast of Newfoundland at a very early date, and some adventurous spirits must have sailed along the coast of Maine and New Hampshire. Finding abundance of cod and mackerel about the Isles of Shoals and the waters of the Pascataqua and its tributaries swarming with salmon and sturgeon, they came again and brought others, returning to Europe to fincT-a market. ^^ \/ The first discoverer of this region, of whom there is any historical record, was Capt. Martin Pring, sent by some merchants of Bristol, England, in the year 1603. His small ship of thirty tons was named the Speedwell. The crew consisted of thirty men and boys. Edmund Jones was his mate and Robert Salterne was chief agent. A bark, called the Discoverer, accompanied them, with W^illiam Brown as master and a crew of thirteen men and a boy. Samuel Kirkland was the mate of this little vessel of twenty-six tons. They sailed by leave ol Sir Walter Raleigh, for the further discovery of North Virginia, as the New England of today was then called. April tenth they set sail from Milford Haven. "In June they fall in with the main coast and a multitude of islands in 43 deg. and 30 min. north, land upon them, coast along the shore near unto Cape Cod bay, sail around the cape, anchor on the south side in 41 deg. and 25 min., where they land in another bay and excellent harbor, make a barricade and stay seven weeks." Pring says that he rowed up an inlet ten or twelve miles. This was probably the Pascataqua, and he may have reached Newichawan-

JOHN SMITH nock, Cochecho, Shankhassick, or Squamscot, the names Indians then gave to South Berwick, Dover, Oyster River and Exeter River.

Martin Pring is called "a man very sufficient for his place." He was born probably in 1580, in the parish of Awliscombe, near Honiton, Devon. After his voyage to these shores he entered the service of the East India Company. He commanded an English squadron in 1617 and died in 1626. A monument to his memory is in St. Stephens church, Bristol, with the inscription, "To the Pious Memorie of Martin Pringe, merchant, sometime General to the East Indies and one of ye Fraternity of the Trinity House," etc.^

Samuel de Champlain's account of his voyage along the coast of Maine declares that he saw three or four rather prominent islands, isles asses haute, and on the west Ipswich bay. These must have been the Isles of Shoals.^

In 1614 Capt. John Smith sailed along the coast of Maine and New Hampshire and in his report made mention of Smith's Isles, which did not retain his name but were known as early as 1630 and probably before Smith visited them as the Isles of Shoals, where fishermen set up their flakes. Smith speaks also of the river Pascataque, — notice the French way of spelling it, — as "a safe harbor with a rocky shore." On his return to England he published a description of the country seen, with a map of the seacoast, which he presented to Prince Charles, who gave the country the name New England. Smith is best known as a prisoner among the Indians of Virginia, whom Pocahontas rescued from the tomahawk.

Doubtless many others, fishermen, traders and adventurers, carried back to England reports concerning this country and its wealth of fish and forest. The greatest hope of the first explorers was to find mines of gold and silver, such as had lured the Spanish to Peru and Mexico. Merchants of London and of Bristol were eager for gain. They formed companies and sent out settlers just as men are now doing with reference to Alaska. It is the prospect of gain that beckons colonists to distant lands.

1 Prence's Annals of New England, p. 103; Purchas His Pilgrim, Vol. IV.; Mag. of Am. Hist., VHI, 840-44. 2Jenness' The Isle of Shoals, p. 18.

November 3, 1620, King James I granted to forty noblemen, knights and gentlemen, styled "the Councill established at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering and governing of New England in America," a charter embracing the territory between forty and forty-eight degrees of north latitude, stretching through the continent from sea to sea. The breadth of this was from near the mouth of St. Lawrence river to the vicinity of Philadelphia. This Council of Plymouth was formed by the petition of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, "captain of our fort and island of Plymouth," and certain other adventurers.

On the ninth day of March, 1621/2, the above named corporation, called in the grant "the President & Counsell of New England," granted to "John Mason, Gent, and inhabitant oJ the citty of London," a great headland or cape lying in the northernmost parts of the Massachusetts country, "knowne by the Names of Cape Frabizzand or Cape Anne," lying between the Naumkeag and the Merrimack rivers and stretching westward to the farthest head of said rivers, together with the great Isle or Island, henceforth to be called Isle Mason, lying Neare or before the Bay harbor or ye river of Aggawam." This stretch of land "the said John Mason with the consent of the President and Councill intendeth to name Mariana." The Council authorized Ambrose Gibbons or other officer to be their true and lawful attorney, to deliver possession and seizin to John Mason.'

It is claimed that Ambrose Gibbons made a small settlement at Cape Anne in 1622 or 1623, and that in 1630 he was ousted by the Massachusetts Bay Company, whose grant covered the same territory. This claim was made in 1679, when the title of Robert Mason to New Hampshire was fully set forth by his agent.* The fact that Gibbons is mentioned in the charter of 1622 as the person to whom possession was to be delivered and the fact also that he reappears in 1630 at Newichawannock (South Berwick, Me.) as agent of Capt. John Mason seem to favor this claim.

On the tenth day of August, 1622, the President and Council of New England granted to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Capt.

3 N. H. State Papers, Vol. 29, pp. 19-23. * N. H. State Papers, Vol. XVII, p. 534.

John Mason of London a territory to be known as the Province of Maine, lying between the Merrimack and the Sagadahock (Kennebec) rivers and "to the furthest heads of said Rivers & soe upwards into the land westward untill threescore miles be finished from ye first entrance of the aforesaid rivers & half way over, that is to say to the midst of the said two rivers," and all the islands to within five leagues distance from the coast. Little was then known of the direction of these rivers, and they were supposed to be somewhat parallel and both flowing west to east. Capt. Robert Gorges was authorized to deliver possession and seizin.^

Thus far we have been dealing with discoveries and charters; we now come to actual settlements. An indenture has been found, dated December 14, 1622, between David Thomson of Plymouth, England, who had been employed by the Council of New England as messenger or agent, and three merchants, Abraham Colmer, Nicholas Sherwill and Leonard Pomery. The indenture recounts that the Council of New England had granted, October 16, 1622, six thousand acres of land and one island in and upon the coast of New England to the aforesaid David Thomson. Nothing is said in the indenture about the location of this grant, as to just where in New England it might be found. If Thomson had previously visited New England and selected his land, then this grant was in direct conflict with the grant made to Gorges and Mason only two months before. It is more likely that Thomson was allowed to choose his six thousand acres and his island anywhere within the territory controlled by the Council, so as not to interfere with the rights of other grantees, and when he found out that there was a prior claim to the land whereon he actually settled at Pascataqua, he abandoned his plantation there begun. Indeed the indenture reads that Thomson and those sent with him, as soon as they were landed in New England, should "find oute some fitt place or places there, for the choice of the said sixe thousand acres of land." He did not select it all in one place, as we shall see. It was agreed that the three aforementioned merchants should send over four men with the said David Thomson in the good ship

5 N. H. State Papers, Vol. XXIX, pp. 23-28.

called the Jonathan of Plymouth and also three men more in the ship called the Providence of Plymouth, together with victuals and provisions for three months, all to be sent this present year, making with Thomson eight men. The Public Record Office in London contains the following, in a catalogue of Patents granted for plantations in New England, "1622, a Patent to David Thompson, M. Jobe, M. Sherwood of Plymouth, for a pt of Piscattowa River in New England." This imperfect memorandum was made about the time of the Restoration of King Charles H, or about forty years after the grant, with change of names and insertion of the place selected after the grant was made. The record shows that Thompson's Point, in the Pascataqua, was known in London at an early date.

Governor Winslow, in 1624, calls David Thomson a Scotchman, and Hubbard, the historian, makes the same statement, probably quoting from the earlier authority. The marriage, however, of David Thomson, apothecary, to Amias Cole, was recorded in Plymouth, England, July 13, 1613. She was daughter of William Cole, shipwright and mariner, who, April 8, 161 5, leased unto said Thomson for six years a part of his house recently built, "neare the old conduit," in Plymouth. Mention is made of her "children" in 1625, and the business transactions of her son, John Thomson, make it probable that he was born soon after the marriage of his parents and so was not the first white child born in New Hampshire, as some have assumed and asserted.^

David Thomson came over in the spring of 1623 and built a house at Little Harbor. The foundation stones of his chimney may be seen at Odiorne's Point. The whole region about the mouth of the river was then called Pascataquack, Pascataqua, or Pascataway. Here Thomson was visited in November, 1623, by Capt. Christopher Levett, who calls the place Pannaway. He staid a month vi^ith Thomson and here met Gov. Robert Gorges. Phineas Pratt also visited Thomson in 1623 at Pascataway.

Gov. Edward Winslow's book. Good News of New England, published in 1624, says that in 1623 "Capt. Standish being formerly employed by the governor to buy provisions for the

refurnishing of the colony returned with the same, accompanied with Mr. David Thomson, a Scotchman, who also that spring began a plantation twenty-five leagues northwest from us, near Smith's Isles, at a place called Pascataquack, where he liketh well." This fixes definitely the date of the first settlement in New Hampshire.

Thomas Morton's book. The New English Canaan, written in 1635 and published at Amsterdam in 1637, after ten years of experience in New England, names David Thomson, a Scottish gentleman, among the scholars and travelers of good judgment who conjectured the natives of New England to have been descended "from the scattered Trojans, after such time as Brutus departed from Latium."'' Geraldus Cambrensis argues a similar origin for the Welsh people. Such opinions may be classified with that which traces the English people back to the ten lost tribes of Israel.

As for Mason's Hall, said to have been built by Thomson, it existed only in the fancy of careless historians. Thomson had no reason to build or name such a stone house. He probably built a house of pine logs, with chimney of stone set in clay, at its north end. He probably also built a house at Thomson's Point, on the west side of the Newichawannock, the Indian name of the river that empties into the Pascataqua at Hilton's Point. The house was a short distance below the mouth of the Cochecho river, at a place recently called Gage's Point. Thomson's Point House is in the Dover tax list of 1648, and this was the well chosen place for fish-weirs. In the vicinity some graves have been found. Possibly Edward Hilton was one of the seven men who came over with Thomson and built this house for Thomson and here set up his weirs.

About 1626 Thomson left his possessions at the mouth of the Pascataqua and went to an island in Boston Harbor, ever since called Thomson's Island. It is a reasonable conjecture, that having chosen his six thousand acres at what was afterward called Dover Neck he disposed of the same to Edward Hilton, who subsequently obtained a grant for this tract and more land on the south side of the river, thus to insure and enlarge his possessions. Thomson died soon after his removal, for his wife

T Morton's The New Conaan, published by the Prince Society, pp. 128-9 lo NEW HAMPSHIRE

is called widow in 1628. Her second husband was Samuel Maverick, a very early settler at Noddle's Island, now East Boston, whence he was constrained to depart by the oppositions of the Puritans. We shall meet with him again. It has been asserted that John Thomson, son of David, settled in Mendon, Massachusetts, but the evidence is not conclusive.^

The settlements made by David Thomson at Odiorne's Point, in what is now the town of Rye, and at Thomson's Point in Dover were temporary and abandoned after a few years, somewhat after the manner of the Popham settlement near the mouth of the Kennebec in 1607. We come now to the first permanent settlement in New Hampshire, made in 1623 by Edward Hilton at the end of Dover Neck, called ever since Hilton's Point.

The historian Hubbard says that with Thomson came in 1623 Edward Hilton and William Hilton. This has been disputed, but the evidence seems now to leave no room for doubt. William Hilton's son, William, in a petition to the Massachusetts General Court, before 1660, says that his "father, William Hilton, came over into New England about the yeare Anno Dom : 1621 and your petitioner came about one yeare & an halfe after ,and in a little time following settled ourselves upon the River of Pischataq with Mr. Edw. Hilton, who were the first English planters there. "^

Edward and William Hilton had been fishmongers in London, where the former appears as a member of the fishmonger's guild in 1621. In 1628, according to Gov. Bradford, he contributed one pound toward the expenses of the arrest and transportation of Thomas Morton of Merry Mount. William Hilton came to Plymouth, Massachusetts, in the ship Fortune, November II, 1621, and his wife and two children came in the ship Anne, arriving in July or August, 1623. They had allotments of land, four acres, in Plymouth, in 1623. This William Hilton planted corn in that part of Kittery which is now Eliot, just across the river from Hilton's Point, in 1634.^° Later he lived

S See Shurtleff's Hist, of Boston for particulars about Thomson vs. Dorchester as Claimants for Thomson's Island.

» N. E. Historic Geneological Regi.<;ter, Vol. XXXVI, p. 41. 10 Stackpole's Old Kittery and Her Families, p. 111.

A HISTORY II

at Kittery Point and at York, Maine. Evidently Edward Hilton came before his brother William to Hilton's Point, and probably with Thomson in the spring of 1623. Another person who came with Hilton was Thomas Roberts, as tradition says, some of whose descendants are now living on Dover Neck. The spot where Thomas Roberts first lived is pointed out to those interested in first things, while Hilton's house stood very near the site of the hotel at Hilton's Point. The location bears testimony to their good judgment and appreciation of the beautiful in natural scenery. They probably had charge of Thomson's fish-weir at Thomson's Point, perhaps two miles further tip the river Newichawannock, or Fore River, as it came to be called by the early settlers, and doubtless they had independent fishing in the racing tides that flow between Hilton's Point and the ■opposite point in what is now Newington, which early acquired the name of Bloody Point. When Thomson left, Hilton remained and by occupation and improvement acquired possession of the six thousand acres that had been granted to the former. Hilton's right to this and adjacent lands was recognized by the President and Council of New England, March 12, 1629, when they granted to Edward Hilton, "for and in consideration that he and his associates hath already at his and their owne proper costs and charges transported sundry servants to plant in New England aforesaid, at a place there called by the natives Wecanacohunt, otherwise Hilton's Point, lying some two leag\ies from the mouth of the river Pascataquack in New England aforesaid, where they have already Built some houses and planted Corne, And for that he doth further intend by God's divine assistance to transport thither more people and cattle," — granted to him "all that part of the River Pascataquack called or known by the name of Wecanacohunt or Hilton's Point with the south side of the said river up to the fall of the river and three miles into the Maine land by all the breadth aforesaid."

This is known as the Squamscot Patent, so called from the Indian name ■of Exeter river. It included portions of the present towns of Newington, Greenland, Stratham and Exeter up to the first fall in Exeter river. It seems strange that this patent should be given by the same company of men that a few years before had granted to Capt. John Mason a territory that included the same land now granted to Hilton, yea, and very soon after confirmed Mason in possession of this same land. On the seventh day of July, 1631, Thomas Lewis gave possession of this tract to Edward Hilton by "Livery and Seizin." The records of Massachusetts speak repeatedly of this tract of land as covered by two patents, whereas there was only one. The part at Hilton's Point has been estimated to contain three thousand five hundred acres. Mr. John S. Jonness argues that the intent of the original grant to Hilton was, that his land extended from Hilton's Point up to Quamphegan falls in the Newichawannock and that interested parties purposely misinterpreted the location of the grant. But the patent distinctly reads "the south side of the said river up to the fall," and it is impossible to make the west side of the Newichawannock mean the south side of the Pascataqua, which was the Indian name of the flood that pours out of Great and Little bays. Moreover, Hilton had lived long enough to learn where the good land was, and that stretching along the west side of the Newichawannock is very inferior in fertility and ease of access to that on the south side of the Pascataqua.'^

In the year 1629 .Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Capt. John Mason agreed to divide the grant made to them of the aforesaid province of Maine, and on the seventh of November of that year the President and Council of New England, seated at Plymouth, England, granted to Mason a province, to be called New Hampshire, "all yt part of ye Mane land in New England lying upon ye sea Coaste beginning from ye middle part of Merrimack River & from thence to proceed Northwards along ye Sea coaste to Pascattaway river & soe forwards up within ye sd river to ye furthest head thereof & from thence Northwestwards until Threescore miles be finished from ye first entrance of passcataway river & also from Merrimack through ye sd river & to ye furthest head thereof & soe forward up into ye land Westwards untill Threescore miles be finished and from thence to cross over land to ye Threescore miles end accounted from Passcataway river, together with all Islands & Isletts

UN. H. State Papers, Vol. I. pp. 29. 209, 211, 217; N. E. Reg., Vol. XXIV, p. 264.

vvthin five leagues distance of ye premises & abutting upon ye same or any parte or parcel thereof," reserving two-fifth of the ore of gold and silver, which tract "ye sd Capt. John Mason intends to name New Hampshire." Capt. Walter Neale was <k'clared lawful attorney tu deliver possession and seizin.^-

Only ten days later than the grant just mentioned, that is, November 17, 1629, a grant was made to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Capt. John Mason of "all those lands & Countrys lying adjacent or bordering upon ye great lake or lakes or rivers commonly called or known by ye name of ye river & lake or rivers & lakes of ye Irroquis a Nation or nations of Salvage people inhabiting up into ye landwards betwixt ye lines of west & Northwest conceived to passe or lead upwards from ye rivers of Sagadahock & Merrimack in ye Country of New England aforesaid Together with ye lakes & rivers of ye Irroquis & other Nations adjoining, ye midle part of wch lakes is scittuate & lying nearabout ye latitude of forty four or forty five degrees reckon'd from ye Equinoctial line Northwards as alsoe all ye lands, Soyle & grounds wthin tenn miles of any partof said lakes or rivers on ye south or west part thereof & from yewest end or sides of ye sd lakes & rivers soe farre forth to ye west as shall extend half way into ye next great lake to ye Westwards & from thence Northwards unto ye north side of ye maine river wch runeth from ye great & most westerne lakes & falleth into ye river of Canada. "i"* The intention expressed in the grant was to name this province Laconia. Gorges and Mason covenanted to govern their plantations according to the laws of England and within three years to build a fort with a competent guard and to settle at least ten families. They were given permission to take possession of one thousand acres of land on any ports, harbors, or creeks in New England, not already occuijied, whence it would be most commodious to transport merchandize to the great lakes. Edward Godfrey was named to deliver possession and seizin. It is evident that the grantors did not know the direction of the rivers named, nor the distance of lake Champlain from the seacoast, nor the difificulty of reaching the region granted. They conceived that Laconia lay back of and adjoining

12 N. H. State Papers, Vol. I. pp. 21-26.

13 N. H. State Papers, Vol. XXIX, pp. 33-38.

to the previous grant that reached sixty miles inland from the ocean. The tract called Laconia had nothing to do with New Hampshire, and nothing was ever done by Gorges and Mason to develop the tract, save that the agent of Mason, Capt. Walter Neale, tried to explore a way thereto and failed to reach the goal of his journey.

It may have been for the development of Laconia that an indenture was drawn up and sealed November 3, 1631, between the President and Council of New England and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Capt. John Mason and their associates, John Cotton, Henry Gardner, George Griffith, Edwin Guy, Thomas Wannerton, Thomas Eyre and Eliezer Wyer, wherein the Council unto the aforesaid persons did "grant, bargaine, sell, assigne, aliene, sett over, enfoffe and confirme" to them, in consideration of the fact that already they had done much for the advancement of the plantation, in the making of clapboards, pipe staves, salt pans and salt, in transporting vines, in searching for iron ore, and in the expenditure of upwards of three thousand pounds, "All that house and chiefe habitacon situate and being at Pascataway in New England aforesaid, wherein Capt. Walter Neale and ye Colony with him doth or lately did reside, together with the Gardens and Corngrounds occupied and planted by the sd Colonic, and the Salt workes allready begun aforesd, And also all that porcon of land lying within the precincts hereafter menc'oned beginning upon the Seacoast 5 miles to ye Wtward of or from the sd chiefe Habitacon now possessed by ye sd Capt. Walter Neale for the use of the adventurers to Laconia (being in the latitude of 43 degrs or thereabouts in the Harbour of pascataquack al's Pascataquack al's Pascataway), and so forth from ye sd beginning Eastwd & North Eastwd and so preceeding Northwds or North Westwds into ye harbour and River along the Coasts & Shoares thereof including all the Islands and Isletts lying wthin or neere unto the same upwards into the headland opposite unto the plantacon or Habitacon now or late in the Tenure or Occupation of Edwd Hilton & from thence Wtwds & South Wtwds in ye midle of ye River and through ye midle of ye Bay or lake of Boquacack al's Boscaquack or by what other name or names it hath towards the bottome or Westermost part of ye River called Pascassockes to the falls thereof, and from thence by an Imaginary Line to pass over, and to the

sea, where the pambulacon began, And also the

Isles of Shoales, and ye fishings thereabouts, and all the seas within 15 miles of the aforesd Sea Coasts, And also all the Sea Coasts and Land lying on ye East and Northeast side of the Harboure and River of Pascataway aforesd and opposite to the bounds above menc'oned, beginning 15 miles to ye S: eastwards of ye mouth or first entrance and beginning of the said Harboure, and so crossing into the Landward, at right angle by the space of 3 miles the whole length thereof from ye sd mouth or first entrance from the Sea and Eastwds into ye Sea, wch sd 3 Miles shall be allowed for the breadth of ye sd land last menc'- oned both upon ye land and sea." This description takes in the present towns of Rye, Portsmouth, Newington, Greenland and Stratham in New Hampshire, and in Maine the towns of Kittery, Eliot, South Berwick. Berwick, North Berwick and a portion of Lebanon. Capt. Thomas Cammock or Henry Jocelyn was authorized to deliver possession and seizin. Here, too, we see that a portion of the land thus granted was included in the grant made to Edward Hilton a little while before in what is known as the Squamscot Patent. The Council of New England, at Plymouth, England, had a way of granting lands again and again, seemingly without any reference to maps or records q| previous proceedings.

The above is called a grant and confirmation of Piscataway. The company to whom it was granted has been called the Laconia Company, because of the word Laconia in the indenture, and it may be that from this region as a base of supplies the intention was to develope the region about lake Champlain. The company did not remain long in existence, and in the division of its property on the east side of the Pascataqua river, December 6, 1633, Newichawannock fell to Capt. John Mason, to whom Sir Ferdinando Gorges gave a deed, September 17, 1635, of a strip of land three miles broad and about fifteen miles long, reaching from a quarter of a mile below the mouth of Great Works river to within the present town of Lebanon, Maine. Doubtless Mason acquired possession of this tract because of his having already planted a settlement and built mills there. Indeed more is recorded about this settlement than about the other made by him at Strawberry Bank, now Portsmouth. While Capt. Walter Neale was his agent at Strawberry Bank, Ambrose Gibbons conducted operations at Newichawannock, on the upper falls of the Asbenbedick, or Great Works river, in what is now South Berwick, Maine. Thither came, with Ambrose Gibbons, Thomas Spencer and William Chadbourne, both of whom remained after Gibbons left the place. The correspondence of Gibbons is of great interest, showing the difficulties and disappointments of proprietor and settlers. Mills and houses were erected ; a vineyard was planted in the low ground below the upper falls; and considerable trade was carried on with the Indians through the friendly sagamore Rowls at Quamphegan, the Indian name of the site of the village of South Berwick.