History of Sandwich

When Governor Benning Wentworth granted a charter for Sandwich on October 25, 1763, he named the town after his friend John Montague, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich. The land was considered so inaccessible that the grant was enlarged, making Sandwich one of the largest towns in the state. The Earl is known as the inventor of the sandwich, requesting from his servant a thin slab of meat placed between two slices of bread, which he consumed while intent upon the gaming table.

The following April, the town’s proprietors met at Samuel Folsom’s house in Exeter and hired Orlando Weed of Gilmanton to be their settling agent at a cost of 700 acres, 70 English pounds, and seven cows.

Eleven months later, Orlando Weed brought a group of settlers from Exeter through Gilmanton, across Lake Winnipesaukee to Moultonborough, and finally down a blazed trail through the dense forests of Sandwich. They settled in the Lower Corner where Orlando Weed’s son Henry built a mill on Potash Pond (Little Pond).

In 1790 the population was 905. By the 1830s, Sandwich had a population of 2,744, and the only state towns larger were Portsmouth, Exeter, Dover, Concord, Londonderry, Sommersworth, Gilmanton, and Barrington. Sandwich had mills, stores, blacksmiths, craftsmen and artisans, schools, churches, a doctor and lawyer, and one of the state’s most prosperous commercial bases.

A letter from Mrs. Gen. Montgomery

Haverhill, N.H.
Nov. 6, 1850

Dear Sir:

My Mother, who was Phebe Beede, is now in the room with me and says her father was Daniel Beede the first settler of Sandwich. He was born at Kingston, NH July 21, 1729. He married (1st) Jan 26, 1750 Patience, daughter of Joshua Prescott, born 1724, and she was aunt of John Prescott and Joshua Prescott who were among the first settlers of Sandwich. He married (2nd) Dorothy the widow of Nathaniel Ethridge Feb 27, 1795 who after his death married Capt. Joshua Prescott Sept 19, 1802. He died at Sandwich April 7, 1799. He was a delegate to the Revolutionary Convention which met at Exeter, Dec 21, 1775 and to the Constitutional Convention of 1791-2. He was a member to the Legislature every year until he was appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, which office he held until his death.

Sandwich was owned by John Taylor Gilman, Nathaniel Folsom and their friends at Exeter and they wanted grandfather Daniel Beede who was living in Gilmanton, NH at the time to go there and settle, and as an inducment they offered to give each of his children [tradition has it only his sons] one hundred acres of land. At that time he had six sons and two daughters. He had no sons born in Sandwich, Cyrus, the youngest son was the last child born in Gilmanton. He was born March 9, 1766. Four daughters were born in Sandwich of whom my mother (Phebe) was the youngest but two. When grandfather first went to Sandwich he took but one family with him and that was Israel Gilman and wife. [The Gilman's genealogy gives Israel's, but is unable to trace out this one or any of his living descendents. John Cook says he lived where Daniel W. Weeks now lives and which was bought by his father Thomas Beede Weeks of Paul Wentworth. The house is on the cross road leading from the Asahel Wallace place to Benjamin Burleigh Hoit's. Gilman was buried on the place northerly about fifty rods from the house. He was blind in his last days. His son Jonathan died when he was one of the selectmen and was buried there. Caleb Gilman, who lived where John S. Severance does and afterwards moved to some unknown part of Vermont with a family, was his son, Joseph Flanders who married his widow Sarah Gilman Mar 16, 1803 sold the place to Paul Wentworth. Israel's mountain was named for him.]

He took with him fifteen laborers to clear the land and one hired girl, Mary Wells, who afterwards married Benjamin Blanchard. The very day they arrived they felled the trees and built a log house in front of your fathers [Dr. Crosby's now Paul Wentworth's] house where the grave yard now is and where grandfather Judge Beede and where my father John Purrington and my brother John Twombly were buried. It was late in the autumn when they arrived and snow fell the very first night. Grandfather Beede took a cold and had a fever. He had to send to Plymouth for Dr. Rogers who was obliged to find his way by marked trees to the place. Grandfather moved direct from Gilmanton where he owned a farm and he left his second son, my mother's brother, Daniel Beede Jr. to take care of his stock of cattle, thresh the grain and send it to them ready ground from time to time. [Daniel Beede Jr. married Dorothy Hackett June 8, 1775 and the names of his eleven children are given in the Reporter of October 11th last. He lived on the present Albert Quimby place (known formerly as the Fellow's place). His descendents principally moved to Maine. His son Aaron once had a small store where Leander Pierce now lives.]

Uncle Cyrus Beede was the youngest child when the family moved to Sandwich. Mother thinks he was about a year and half old. He was born Mar. 9, 1766. Aunt Martha, (Mrs. Stephen Hoag) born Mar 9, 1770, was grandfathers first child born in Sandwich. From this you can figure very accurately when the town had its first tree cut and its first log house built. We have the old family bible and that family records is in it in grandfathers own hand writing.

In a few years after the first settlement there was a number of families that emigrated to the place. There was Christopher Tappan, the ancestor of all the Tappans in Sandwich, whom mother well remembers as being excellent.