PROVINCIAL PAPERS
OF
NEW HAMPSHIRE
INCLUDING THE RECORDS OF THE PRESIDENT AND COUNCIL,
JANUARY 1, 1679, TO DECEMBER 22, 1680;
JULY 6 TO SEPTEMBER 8, 1681;
NOVEMBER 22, 1681, TO AUGUST 21, 1682;
RECORDS OF THE GOVERNOR AND COUNCIL,
OCTOBER 4 TO OCTOBER 14, 1682,
UNDER THE SUCCESSIVE ADMINISTRATIONS OF
CUTT, WALDRON, AND CRANFIELD:
ACTS OF THE ASSEMBLY,
AUGUST SESSION, 1699;
JOURNALS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
AUGUST 7, 1699, TO OCTOBER 4, 1701, AND
MAY 9, 1711, TO APRIL 30, 1722:
ANCIENT DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE CONTROVERSY OVER THE BOUNDARY LINE
BETWEEN
NEW HAMPSHIRE AND MASSACHUSETTS
WITH HISTORICAL NOTES,
A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF BOUNDARY LINE PAPERS,
CONTEMPORARY MAPS, AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS.
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VOL. XIX.
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ALBERT STILLMAN BATCHELLOR,
EDITOR.
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MANCHESTER, N. H.
JOHN B. CLARKE, PUBLIC PRINTER,
1891.
JOINT RESOLUTION relating to the preservation and publication of portions of the early state and provincial records and other state papers of New Hampshire.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened:
That His Excellency the Governor be hereby authorized and empowered, with the advice and consent of the Council, to employ some suitable person and fix his compensation, to be paid out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, to collect, arrange, transcribe, and superintend the publication of such portions of the early state and provincial records and other state papers of New Hampshire as the Governor may deem proper; and that eight hundred copies of each volume of the same be printed by the state printer, and distributed as follows: namely, one copy to each city and town in the State, one copy to such of the public libraries in the State as the Governor may designate, fifty copies to the New Hampshire Historical Society, and the remainder placed in the custody of the state librarian, who is hereby authorized to exchange the same for similar publications by other states.
Approved August 4, 1881.
THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.
To Albert S. Batchellor, Esquire, Greeting:
[L. S.] D. H. Goodell, Governor
Know You, That we, reposing especial trust and confidence in your fidelity and ability, have constituted and appointed you Editor and Compiler of Early State and Provincial Records and other State Papers of New Hampshire, hereby giving and granting unto you, the said Albert S. Batchellor, all the power and authority given and granted by the Constitution and Laws of our State to an Editor and Compiler of Early State and Provincial Records. TO HAVE AND To HOLD THE SAID OFFICE, With all the powers, privileges, and immunities to the same belonging, for the term of — years from the date hereof, provided you are of good behavior during said term.
IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, We have caused our seal to be hereunto affixed.
WITNESS, David H. Goodell, Governor of our State, at Concord, this 9th day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety, and of the independence of the United States of America the one hundred and fifteenth.
By the Governor, with advice of the Council.
C. B. RANDLETT,
Deputy Secretary of State.
THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.
GRAFTON SS. October 27, 1890.
Then the said Albert S. Batchellor took and subscribed the oath of office as Editor and Compiler of Early State and Provincial Records and other State Papers of New Hampshire, as prescribed by law.
Before us.
HENRY W. BLAIR,
DANIEL BARNARD,
Justices of the Peace, Quorum Unus.
To A. S. Batchellor, Editor of State Papers:
You are authorized to collect, arrange, transcribe, and superintend the publication of the New Hampshire Town Charters, as recommended in the section numbered one, in the Report of the Committee of the Governor and Council, submitted and adopted in May, 1889, and the Journals of the Assembly, Provincial Congress, Legislature, and Councils of New Hampshire, previous to the year 1800, as recommended in the section numbered two in said report.
You are also authorized to include in said work such rolls of the soldiers of New Hampshire in the French and Indian and Revolutionary wars as may be available, and which have not already been published in the volumes edited by Isaac W. Hammond, Esq.
4 PROVINCIAL PAPERS.
You will also cause such explanatory notes and citations, tables of contents and indexes, with such illustrative papers, maps, and plans as you may deem useful, to be prepared and made a part of your work.
This I deem proper to be done, and I give these directions in accordance with the provisions of the joint resolution relating to the preservation and publication of portions of the early State and Provincial Records and, other State Papers of New Hampshire, approved August 4, 1881.
Given under my hand at Concord this 16th day of October, A. D. 1890.
D. H. GOODELL,
Governor.
A. S. Batchellor, Editor of State Papers:
You are hereby authorized to arrange, transcribe, and superintend the publication of the Township Grants, Masonian Proprietary Papers, Boundary Line Documents and Plans contained in the collection of papers donated to the State by Robert Cutts Peirce of Portsmouth, the Boundary Line Papers additional to those contained in the Peirce donation above mentioned which have been transcribed from the Massachusetts archives for the use of this State, the Notes of Hazzen's Survey on the westerly part of the boundary line, as it was supposed to be between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the Acts and Laws passed by the General Court or Assembly of his Majesty's Province of New Hampshire in New England, begun and held at Portsmouth on the seventh day of August, 1699, title, I. leaf, and pp. 3-10, and the Calendar of New Hampshire Papers in the English Archives already procured by the State for the New Hampshire Historical Society.
You will also cause such explanatory notes and citations, tables of contents and indexes, with such illustrative papers, maps, and plans as you may deem useful, to be prepared and made a part of your work.
This I deem proper to be done, and I give these directions in accordance with the provisions of the Joint Resolution relating to the presentation and publication of portions of the early State and Provincial Papers and other State Papers of New Hampshire, approved August 4, 1881.
Given under my hand at Concord, this thirteenth day of October, A. D. 1891.
HIRAM A. TUTTLE,
Governor.
PREFACE.
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This volume is devoted to the presentation of such parts of the documentary history of the state as were not accessible at the time of the publication of its predecessors, or for other reasons were not given place in chronological order. The necessity for bringing his work to a conclusion within certain prescribed limits left Dr. Bouton, the editor of the first ten volumes, the choice between two courses, — to make extensive omissions of official and contemporary records having important narrative and illustrative uses, thus advancing his abstracts or selections from the body of the record over a much longer period, or to publish full and literal transcripts of all important archives within his authority, with the imminent probability that he would never be permitted to enter upon such interesting epochs as the French and Indian War, the War for Independence, and the evolution of a permanent state government and federal constitution from colonial and revolutionary conditions. By adopting the latter course, he was able to present the outlines of the documentary history of New Hampshire in those periods, in such an accessible form, that, notwithstanding its admitted incompleteness in presenting the records of certain departments of government, it has taken high rank as an authority among historical works of reference. The great and deserved success of Dr. Bouton was an important inducement to the further prosecution of the work which was afterwards resumed by the state and wisely placed in charge of Mr. Isaac Ware Hammond. His labors were embodied in eight volumes. These were XI., XII., and XIII., in which the Town Papers, so called, were published in a convenient arrangement by which the documents relating especially to municipal concerns were classified by town titles and the town chapters given alphabetical sequence; XIV., XV., XVI., and a part of XVII., in which were published the rolls of the New Hampshire soldiers who served in any of the organizations recognized in the Revolutionary service, including those borne upon the rolls deposited in state offices, and on those preserved in Washington; and the remainder of XVII., and XVIII., which were devoted to miscellaneous papers pertaining to our documentary history down to the year 1800. Some of the notable features of Mr. Hammond's service, as editor of these papers, were his thorough and comprehensive method of indexing, his common-sense arrangement of material, and the conscientious industry and completeness with which he searched out and presented all the matter relating to his subject without elimination, suppression, or needless omission. His decease
6 PREFACE.
occurred September 28, 1890, only three days after volume XVIII., the last of the series which he edited, had been received and approved by the Governor and Council. The state had no more faithful servant, and her history has found no more devoted student than Mr. Hammond. His work is his monument.
The continuation of the series has been again resumed on the plan outlined in the report of a Committee of the Executive Council which appears in the preface to Vol. XVIII.
The larger part of the current volume is devoted to the documentary history of the controversy over the boundary line between New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Always important, these papers are of especial interest at this time owing to the recent action of the two states in renewing the attempt to effect a final settlement of the long standing dispute by the appointment of state commissions on either side and legislation tending to an examination and review of the issues in a spirit of comity. This material has been gathered from the state archives of Massachusetts and New Hampshire through a personal examination of the records in official and other depositories.
In the Journals of the House of Representatives from 1699 to 1701 and from 1711 to 1722, heretofore unpublished, we believe we have presented an interesting and valuable contribution to the material through which the development of modern forms and methods of legislation and government must be traced.
The recovery of the valuable pamphlet which contains the laws of New Hampshire passed at the session of August, 1699, sets back by seventeen years the point of interest which has been heretofore attached to the Russell edition of 1716, as the earliest printed copy of the laws of the province known to the student of legal antiquities. With the reproduction of the Journal of the House for the same period, which has already been mentioned, and the Journals of the Council, published in Dr. Bouton's Volumes II. and III., a full chapter of legislative proceedings at a very remote period is perfected. It is of interest to note that this fragment is the only portion of the records from 1679 to 1711 which is complete in the four particulars of a Council Record, Journal of the Council and Assembly, Journal of the House, and Session Laws.
The reproduction of the earliest and the principal part of the official record of the first President and Council of the Province of New Hampshire from the archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society, followed by the opportune discovery and addition of similar records covering important parts of the administrations of President Waldron and Governor Cranfield, which have but recently been obtained from London, as elsewhere related, has yielded material which will hereafter be considered indispensable in the investigation of the history of that period, and without which only the outlines of the narrative of the beginning of our provincial government could be drawn. The restoration of these documents to the state by transcription, after they have remained for perhaps two hundred years undiscovered in the seclusion of English official custody or in the historical collections of a neighboring state, may be taken as a stimulus to diligent search for other important sections of New Hampshire official records which are somewhere awaiting the call to
PREFACE. 7
"come forth." An article in Vol. 5, Collections of the N. H. Historical Society page 18, is suggestive in explanation of the deficiencies of our early records. Undoubtedly there remain great opportunities to be improved in the restoration of our lost and scattered official records and papers, or in the procurement of substantial copies which may serve the purpose of the originals for practical use and reference.
The Calendar of Papers relating to New Hampshire in the English Archives, prepared for the New Hampshire Historical Society by Mr. B. F. Stevens, of London, will be included in a subsequent volume. It will indicate what papers in those records are in existence in London. to supplement those contained in our state collections. Should the publication of such papers as are now accessible in Stevens's Fac-similes and in similar works, be carried back over the period of our provincial history, which is quite possible, the Calendar will become more than a mere informant to those who do not have personal access to foreign records; it will be an actual guide in the use of fac-similes and printed copies which all the great libraries of this country are securing.
A chronological list of documents relating to the boundary line controversy will be found in the body of this volume immediately following the part devoted to those papers. It includes all that have been printed on that subject in this volume and the preceding ones in the series. This list is designed to serve as a special aid to the student of that important subject in searching the contents of our state publications.
It is a pleasure to acknowledge the cordial assistance offered by the executives of the state and all subordinate departments. A particular expression of personal obligation is due to the Hon. Ezra S. Stearns, Secretary of State, whose advice has often been sought and wisely given; whose accurate learning and excellent judgment have been a constant aid; whose devotion to the duties of his office is untiring and whose courtesy is unfailing.
Every accommodation which could be desired has also been afforded by the Hon. William M. Olin, Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in our protracted examination of the early records in his office. We are under obligations to Dr. Samuel A. Green, of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Mr. Stone, the librarian of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. and Prof. Francis N. Thorpe, of the University of Pennsylvania.
THE EDITOR.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGES.
Journal of the House of Representatives, May 9, 1711, to
April 30, 1722 179
Boundary Line Documents 177-628
Chronological List of Boundary Line Documents 629-646
Proceedings of President and Council of New Hampshire,
January 1, 1679, O. S., to October 14, 1682 647-691
Laws of 1699 693-707
Memoranda concerning Laws of 1699, by George H. Moore 709-713
Journal of the House of Representatives, August 7,1699, to
October 4, 1701 715-740