Class _Z_7j?L____ 
 
PROCEEDINGS ANNUAL MEETING. I35 
 
 CORRESPONDING MEMBERS. 
 
 George M. Elliott, Lowell, Mass.; Ben. Perley Poore, Col. Eben F, L 6 (^ 
 
 Stone, Newburyport, Mass. ; Hon. Charles R. Train, Rev. George E. _ 
 
 Ellis, D. D., of Boston, Mass. ; Hon. Edward A. Rollins, Philadelphia, (^ t3 vS ' 
 
 Pa.; Hon. Angus Cameron, LaCrosse, Wis.; Gen. John B. Brown, 
 Portland, Me. ; Hon. John Wentworth, Chicago, 111. ; Hon. Edmund L. 
 Dana, Calvin Parsons, Wilkesbarre, Pa. ; William C. Crump, New Lon- 
 don, Ct. ; Capt. George Eugene Belknap, ^ensacola, Fla. 
 
 Mr. J. B. Walker read a paper in memory of the late Rev. 
 Dr. Bouton as a historian ; and, on motion of Mr. G. G. Fogg, 
 thanks were tendered to Mr. Walker for his valuable paper, and 
 a copy of the same was requested for deposit in the archives of 
 the society. 
 
 The society then adjourned to meet at 7 :45 p. m., in the sen- 
 ate chamher. 
 
 EVENING SESSION. 
 
 The society met in the senate chamber according to adjourn- 
 ment, Vice-President Prescott in the chair. 
 
 Mr. G. G. Fogg, from the committee to nominate new mem- 
 bers, reported the name of Dr. John Wheeler, of Pittsfield, for 
 a resident member of the society. The report was accepted, 
 and Dr. John Wheeler was elected. 
 
 On motion of Mr. G. G. Fogg, it was voted that Rev. James 
 DeNormandie be invited to prepare and read to this society a 
 memorial notice of the late Hon. William H. Y. Hackett, at 
 the next annual meeting. 
 
 The society then repaired to the representatives' hall, where 
 the annual address was delivered, before a large audience, by 
 Hon. James W. Patterson, of Hanover, his subject being, 
 " Our Sectional Conflicts." 
 
 On motion of Mr. J. B. Walker, thanks were tendered to 
 the orator for his able and interesting address, and a copy of the 
 same was requested for deposit in the archives of the society. 
 
 Adjourned. 
 
REPORT OF THE MAJORITY OF THE COMMIT- 
 TEE ON THE NAME " KEARSARGE." 
 
 By John M. Shirley, Esq_. 
 
 This society, at its annual meeting on June ii, 1877, created 
 a committee of three "on the name ' Kearsarge,'" with Dr. 
 Bouton at its head, and charged them " to report such facts as 
 they may be able to collect at a future meeting of the society, 
 of which due notice shall be given," &c. This action was 
 taken in my absence, without any suggestion to me that it was 
 contemplated even ; and you made me a member of that com- 
 mittee knowing that every minute of my time was engrossed 
 in other fields, and that it was impracticable, if not impossible, 
 for months, at least, for me to give the subject proper attention. 
 
 Dr. Bouton carefully examined the historical evidence then 
 accessible upon the subject, from the Gardner map or plan 
 down to the later acts of Commodore Winslow. 
 
 On March 19, 1S7S, the society held its meeting at the room 
 of the state historian ; and upon notice to all, two of the com- 
 mittee, Dr. Bouton and myself, were there for conference as to 
 the path to be pursued. At that time the chairman, so far as 
 he had not already done so, put me in full possession of his 
 views. We then agreed upon the line of examination to be 
 made by myself, and that he should embody his views, which 
 he had substantially committed to paper, in the form of a report, 
 and submit the same, with such evidence as he saw fit, to me 
 for my examination. It soon became as apparent to me as to 
 others that the days of my good old friend were numbered, and 
 that he must soon " pass over the unseen river." 
 
 After the conference in March I had three interviews with 
 the chairman in the presence of members of his family. His 
 mind was still clear, and full of the subject. 
 

 KEARSARGE. 137 
 
 At the last, he sorrowfully informed me that he was too ill 
 to embody his views in the form of a report, as had been 
 arranged between us, but that I should find them in substance 
 in a bundle of papers, mainly the work of his own hand, at 
 his house. His parting injunction was, to call soon at his 
 house and get the papers, and see that his views were laid be- 
 fore the society. In a few days I called. He was too ill to see 
 me, but sent the papers by the hand of his daughter, and they 
 are now in my possession. 
 
 Had Dr. Bouton lived, he would have spoken to you here in 
 our joint names. Under the circumstances, I have felt it my 
 duty to decline the invitation extended to me by one of my 
 associates, Mr. Fox, to vacate my place upon this committee; 
 and though the language is my own, I speak to-day both for 
 the dead chairman and myself. 
 
 The inquiry with which we are charged relates primarily to 
 two mountains in this state, — one in the northern part of Mer- 
 rimack, and the other in Carroll county. For convenience I 
 shall refer to them in the order named. The history of the 
 mountain in Merrimack county is necessarily interwoven with 
 portions of the history of Massachusetts, the Masonian proprie- 
 tarv, the Merrimack valley, and in particular with that of what 
 is now Franklin, Boscawen, Salisbury, Andover, Warner, Sut- 
 ton, and Wilmot. 
 
 We have no means of fixing the precise age of this mountain, 
 but it undoubtedly has existed for a longtime in the same place, 
 and has long been known by substantially the same name it now 
 bears, though apparently this did not come to the knowledge of 
 all the members of this committee until recently. In order that 
 certain historical evidence may have its just weight, and no 
 more, it must be read and weighed in the light of the history to 
 which reference has just been made. We will summarize and 
 condense as much as possible. 
 
 In 1641 Massachusetts extended her jurisdiction over New 
 Hampshire under the claim that her charter gave it to her by 
 the words " all those lands and hereditaments whatsoever 
 which lie and be within the space of three English miles to the 
 northward of said river called Monomack alias Merrimack, or 
 to the northward of any and every part thereof." This line, 
 wherever found, by the express terms of the charter extended 
 
1 38 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 *•' to the south sea on the west part." Such a step was not taken 
 on the spur of the moment, but prior ones led up to it. The 
 train had been carefully laid by preconcert and a variety of 
 events. Settlements had been pushing beyond their former 
 limits. Petitions for " farm lands " had flowed in. Acquaint- 
 ance had been opened with the Indians and with the traders 
 who knew of the upper Merrimack valley. 
 
 Burdet and others removed to Dover about 1636 ; Burdet be- 
 came governor, and soon manifested his hostility to the jurisdic- 
 tion of Massachusetts. He made Dover a place of refuge for 
 the Antinomian exiles from Boston. Gov. Winthrop thereupon 
 wrote them, intimating the intention of the Massachusetts gen- 
 eral court "to survey the utmost limits of their patent, and 
 make use of them." i Belknap 19. 
 
 The general court, therefore, on July 6, 163S, ordered " Good- 
 man Woodward, Mr. John Stretton, with an Indian & two 
 others appointed by the magistrates of Ipswich, are to lay out 
 the fine, figure three miles northward of the most northernmost 
 part of Merrimack for which they are to have 55. a day apiece." 
 On May 22, 1639, ^3 ^^^^ same authority, "Goodman Wood- 
 ward was ordered to have £3 for his journey to discover the 
 running up of the Merrimack ; 105. more was added by order 
 of the gov. and dep. and they which went with him Tho. 
 Houlet, Sargent Jacob, Tho. Clarke & John Manning to have 
 505. apeice &c." 
 
 On September 5, 1639, "the treasurer was ordered to pay 
 John Gardner 20s. for witness charge & carrying Goodman 
 Woodward, his instruments to Ipswich." 
 
 John Gardner was undoubtedly the one who afterwards be- 
 came so noted in Massachusetts as a surveyor. What we have 
 quoted shows beyond any reasonable doubt that five men were 
 sent "to lay out the line three miles northward of the most 
 northernmost part of the Merrimack," and that they did what 
 they were sent to do, and were paid for doing it ; but we are 
 not left to inference, nor compelled to stop with the traditions, 
 that they went to the place "three miles due north of the 
 crotch" of the two rivers, — in a word, to the si'hts of what was 
 so long known as Endicott's tree, — nor to the reasons assigned 
 by those traditions why the explorers went no farther. An 
 
KEARSARGE. I39 
 
 ancient and eminent historian, after reciting it at length, sum- 
 marizing the preexisting history of Massachusetts and New 
 Hampshire, says, — "During these transactions the Massachu- 
 setts people were inquiring into the bounds of their patent. In 
 1639 they sent persons to find out the northermost part of 
 Merrimack river. A line to run east from three miles of the 
 head of the river will take in the whole of New Hampshire. 
 They determined, therefore, that it came within their jurisdic- 
 tion ; and from that time they allowed plantations to be settled 
 particularly at Hampton as well as at any part of the colony, 
 and exercised jurisdiction over them ; but they left those on the 
 river to their liberty." i Hutchinson io8. 
 
 Another, more eminent still, under the date of 1639, says, — 
 *' Rendered sanguine with respect to their future importance 
 by the rapidit}' with which they had attained their present 
 growth, the government of Massachusetts in this year set on 
 foot an enquiry respecting the extent of their patent, and for 
 this purpose deputed persons to explore the Merrimack, and to 
 ascertain its northernmost point. Their charter granted them 
 the lands within lines drawn three English miles south of 
 Charles river, and the same distance north of the Merrimack. 
 They construed this description as authorizing a line to be 
 drawn due east from a point three miles north of the head of 
 Merrimack, which soon leaves that river, and includes within 
 Massachusetts all New Hampshire and a considerable part of 
 Maine. Having come to this exposition of their charter, they 
 declared New Hampshire, in which there were a few scattering 
 habitations, to be within their jurisdiction, and proceeded to 
 authorize settlements in that country. 
 
 "Although very early attempts had been made to colonize 
 the northern or eastern parts of New England, those attempts 
 had hitherto proved almost entirely unsuccessful." i Marshall's 
 Washington 127, 128. 
 
 It is self-evident to any person who is at all familiar with the 
 localities, that neither Goodman Woodward, John Gardner, nor 
 any other person could have traversed the route, either by land 
 or water, to Penacook and Franklin or "Aquedahian," without 
 finding themselves confronted day by day by the lone peak of 
 what was practically the sole mountain in all the region. 
 
140 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 It is evident from Waldron's testimony that after about 1635 
 he was familiar through the Indians with Penacook, both forks 
 of the Merrimack, and since 1659, at all events, with the region 
 about Penacook, in person. It is equally evident, from the tes- 
 timon3-of Peter Weare, that since about 1637 he had in the same 
 way become fi^miliar with the same region, he "having often- 
 times travelled the country," and " some of the natives always 
 with" him; and that he had been with Indians upon a great 
 mountain on the north side of lake " Winnipicioket." 
 
 The general court took further action on May 31, 1652. On 
 that day it was "voted by the whole court that the extent of 
 the line is to be from the northernmost part of the river Merri- 
 macke & three miles more north where it is to be found, be it 
 an hundred miles more or less from the sea, & thence upon a 
 straight line east & west to each sea, and this to be the true 
 interpretation of the termes of the limmitte northward graunted 
 in the patent." i Prov. Pap. 200. 
 
 At the same term of the court it was also voted " for the bet- 
 ter discovery of the north line of our pattent it is ordered by 
 the court that Capt. Symon Willard, & Capt. Edward Johnson 
 be appointed as commissioners to procure such artiste & other 
 assistants as they shall judge meete to goe with them to find 
 out the most northlv part of Merrimack river, & that they be 
 supplied with all manner of nessessaryes by the treasurer fitt 
 for this journey, and that they use their utmost skill and abil- 
 itie to take a true observation of the latitude of that place, & 
 that they doe it with all convenient speed and make return 
 thereof to the next session of this courte." lb. 200, 201. 
 
 The artists were certainly at "Aquedahtan " on August i, 
 1652. The affidavit of Sherman and Ince is as follows : " The 
 answer of John Sherman, seargeant at Watertowne, and Jon- 
 athan Ince, student at Harvard college in Cambrig, to Capt. 
 Symon Willard & Capt Edward Johnson, commissioners of 
 the general court held at Boston, May 27, 1652, concerninge 
 the latitude of the northermost part of Merrimacke river. 
 Whereas we Job. Sherman & Jonathan Ince, were procured 
 by the aforesaid commissioners to take the latitude of the place 
 above named, our answer is that Aquedahian, the name of the 
 Merrimacke where it issues out of the lake Winnapusseakit 
 
KEARSARGE. 14! 
 
 upon the first of August, one thowsand six hundred fifty-two, 
 we observed & b}' observation found, that the latitude of the 
 place was forty three degrees, forty minutes and twelve seconds, 
 besides those minutes which are to be allowed for the three 
 miles more north which run into the lake." lb. 201. 
 
 The return of the commission is as follows: " Capt. Symon 
 Willard and Cap. Edward Johnson, a committe appointed by 
 the last generall court to procure artists to joyn with them to 
 finde out the most northerly part of Alerrimacke river, respect- 
 ing the lyne of our patent, having procurred Sargeant John 
 Sherman of Water towne, & Jonathan Ince, a student at Har- 
 vard college, as artists to goe along with them, made their re- 
 tourne of what they had donne, and found viz. : 
 
 "John Sherman & Jonathan Ince on their oathes say, that at 
 Aquedahtan, the name of the head of Merrimack, where it issues 
 out of the lake called Winnapuseakit, vppon the ist day of 
 August, 1652, wee observed, and by observation found, that the 
 latitude of the place was 43°, 40', 12", beside those minutes 
 which are to be allowed for the three miles more north which 
 run into the lake." Mass. Records, i Mass. Coll. Records, 
 part I, 109. 
 
 " The said commissioners brought in their bill of chardge, 
 which they expended, and promised on, & to those that went 
 that journey to finde out the most northerly part of Merrimacke, 
 which was 28/ 12, 10, which the court allowed, and ordered 
 that the persons concerned should be satisfied out of the rate 
 according as they were promised ; and further doth order the 
 treasurer to satisfy to Captajne Willard and Captajne Johnson 
 twenty markes a pecee for their pajnes." lb. 
 
 In 1665 the general court called Willard, Johnson, Waldron, 
 and Weare into court, and put their testimony under oath on 
 file. This, it is obvious, was because it was a matter of conse- 
 quence, and not for mere idle form. Willard and Johnson tes- 
 tify as follows: "Whereas the generall court of Massachu- 
 setts in the yeare 1652, appointed us whose names are under- 
 subscribed, to lay out the northern line of our patent, and now 
 being called to give testimony of what wee did therein, to this 
 we say as followeth : Besides our returne in the court book, 
 p. 103, we indented with two Indians, well acquainted with 
 
142 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 Merremak rive and the great lake to which wee went, borne 
 & bred all their days thereupon, the one named Pontauhum, 
 the other Ponbakin, very intelligent as any in all those parts, 
 as wee conceive. We covenanted with them to lead us up 
 Merremake river so far as the river was MerremaUe river. 
 When we came short of the lake about sixty miles, then came 
 two rivers into, one from the westward of the north, & the 
 other from the northward of the east. The westerly river to 
 me, as I then thought, was bigger then the other ; but taking 
 notice of both these rivers, and knowing we must make use but 
 of one, I called the Indians to informe us which was Merre- 
 make river; their answer was the river which was next unto 
 us, that came from the easterly point which river wee followed 
 unto the lake." i Prov. Pap. 289. 
 
 This brings us to the consideration of the ancient manuscript 
 map or plan of the Merrimack valley, brought to our attention by 
 the late Dr. A. J. Thompson, formerly of Laconia in this state, 
 and latterly of Salem, Mass. 
 
 This plan was found among the maps and papers of Essex 
 county, Mass. It bears no date, and, so far as ascertained, no 
 other papers contain a distinct and unequivocal reference to it. 
 It bears upon its face this endorsement: " Plat of Meremack 
 river from ye see up to Wenepesoce pond, also the corses from 
 Dunstable to Penny-cook, Jno. Gardner." Whether it is the 
 original or a copy is immaterial. It is without doubt the ear- 
 liest " plat" yet discovered of Merrimack river from its souixes 
 to its moutli. Its style of description shows it to have been 
 prepared or drawn from data gathered at a very early period. 
 It gives, as it were, a photograph of the river, with the lakes 
 and mountains in the distance. It shows the line traced dis- 
 tinctly from Dunstable to Penacook on the east side of the 
 river, with every angle ; and the distances tabulated from angle 
 to angle tally with each other and with the scale of miles. 
 They are uniform ; but if the tests of to-day are to be applied, 
 overrun, in harmony with the i^est of this outline map, the Sun- 
 cook is put where it belongs. The "plat" itself points out 
 what are to be treated as islands and falls. Below Penacook 
 these islands and falls are indicated substantially as they now 
 are. The Uncanoonucks, Massabesic lake, and Amoskeag falls 
 
KEARSARGE. 1 43 
 
 are laid down substantially as any intelligent resident of Man- 
 chester would now place them. Up to Penacook the plan 
 seems to have been based upon actual survey. Above, the plan 
 of the river and landmarks is such as would naturally be 
 sketched bv a practical surveyor, familiar with rough and woody 
 countries, and having a clear conception of relative localities 
 and distances; and this is especially true of the river itself, the 
 lower Pemigewasset, the forks and the region west of them, 
 and the Merrimack. The plan of Lake Winnipiseogee, the 
 bays, or "ponds" as they are termed, and the general course 
 of the river as traced, tend strongly to show that " the artists" 
 could not have gone far beyond the fork at Franklin ; and the 
 probabilities are quite as strong that the observations from 
 which this part of the plan was drawn were made from the top 
 of Kearsarge itself. The mountain is distinctly indicated on 
 this map, is put down as Carasaga, and, tested as before, 
 its peculiar top is located about fifteen, instead of eleven, miles 
 from the fork of the rivers, and apparently a few degrees south 
 of west, which is its actual location. 
 
 The actual distance from the fork to the lake, by the present 
 lines of travel, is about twenty miles; but following the course 
 of the river, several miles further. By this plan, tested by the 
 scale, it is about thirty, and by the " returne " of the artists in 
 1652, who followed the river, sixty miles. 
 
 The plan does not represent either the eastern or southern 
 portions of the lake, or its general form. Every one who has 
 seen "the bays" from Bay hill in Northfield, or is at all 
 familiar with the localities, knows that they apparently rise one 
 above another, like the seats in a Roman amphitheatre ; that 
 between the lake and Beaver dam are what are known as Long 
 bay. Round bay, Great bay, Sanbornton bay, and Little bay. 
 All these, in size or otherwise, are noticeable bodies of water, — 
 much more so than the smaller ponds, or the islands, falls, and 
 streams, noted down so carefully on other parts of the plan. 
 The Long bay commences but a short distance below the 
 Weirs. It is a marked body of water, but not the largest be- 
 low the lake. Yet it is not represented at all on this plan 
 unless located miles below the lake, and connected through all 
 that distance by a narrow thread-stream, nor unless it is to be 
 
14^ NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 treated as the largest pond below the lake. It, in fact, is in 
 close proximity to the pond below it, but if represented on this 
 plan it is several miles from it. In truth, the internal evidence 
 is strong that the author of this sketch was ignorant of the ex- 
 istence of Long bay, and therefore never attempted to repre- 
 sent it at all. To assume that this part of the plan is the work 
 of the artists of 1652, or of those who for generations came after 
 them, is to assume either that they were never there, or that 
 they could not see, or that they were incapable of representing 
 or sketching with substantial accuracy w^hat they saw ; and 
 yet what appears on the plan, — the lake, the ponds, and the 
 general topography, — is precisely what can now be seen almost 
 any good day, when the streams are full, from the top of Kear- 
 sarge, and what the writer has seen time and again before he 
 ever dreamed of the existence of this plan. 
 
 The author of this sketch, too, apparently had no knowledge 
 of the giant pine on the Pemigewasset, three miles north of the 
 crotch, known as "■ Endicott's tree;" and yet this landmark of 
 landmarks, the initial point through which the line as claimed 
 by Massachusetts ran, was "commonly known," to use the 
 studied language of the master spirits of the Company of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay, in 1667 and before that time, as it was for at least 
 seventy years afterwards. 
 
 Richard Hazzen, the pioneer in the settlement of the Merri- 
 mack valley, and a great surveyor, was born July 20, 1696. 
 He graduated at Hai-vard college in 171 7. With his brother 
 Moses he was one of the first proprietors of "Pennycook," was 
 active in the settlement, and made many of the early surveys 
 there and in that region. Few men in the country were as 
 familiar with the region as he, and very few even at this day 
 are as familiar with the topography of the country, the location 
 of the ponds and streams, and their names from below Monad- 
 nock to Lake Winnipiseogee, as was Richard Hazzen. 
 
 He surveyed the southerly line of New Hampshire, com- 
 mencing March 20, 1740- Iii his diary, under the date of 
 April 13, i740-'4i, he says, — "This day we measured from 
 Hoseck river 4:2:0, which was only over one mountain. 
 
 " Observations. This mountain was exceeding good land, 
 bearing beech, black birch & hemlock, some bass-wood. Over 
 
KEARSARGE. I45 
 
 this mountain we concluded the line would run betwixt New 
 York government & these whenever it should be settled, and 
 therefore nam'd it Mount Belcher that it might be as standing 
 a boundary as Endictitt''s tree." 
 
 The testimony of Johnson, Willard, and others of 1665 (ap- 
 parently in the nature of depositions in perpetuani)., was taken 
 in full view of the coming storm between Massachusetts and the 
 royal commissioners. The course of that colony, sometimes 
 high-handed in the extreme, had raised up inany enemies who 
 had not been idle. A variety of charges had been sent to the 
 home office, among which was the one that the colony had put 
 a new gloss or interpretation upon their charter, and had, in 
 consequence, disregarded the "bound-house" limits established 
 by themselves, and had extended their boundaries, as before 
 stated, by usurpation. The commission to Col. Nicolls and 
 others to settle the "differences and dispvites" which had 
 "arisen upon the lymmitts and bovmds of their severall charters 
 and jurisdictions," &c., passed the great seal April 25, 1664. 
 Private negotiations, which rendered them measurably familiar 
 with what had been done by the colony, began between the 
 commissioners and the authorities of Massachusetts. On July 
 20, 1664, Maverick, one of the commissioners, says, — "I shall 
 desire you to repaire to the govr. & councell, and advise them 
 to take care how they dispose of such things as may bee out of 
 their bounds and not lit for them to take cognizanze of, his 
 majestyes commissioners being at length come into these parts 
 (of whom you know me to be one)." 
 
 On July 16, 1665, the commissioners, in their reply to the 
 governor and council, make their prime charge the usurped 
 extension of the limits of the colony beyond the "bovmd-house," 
 and suggest "'Tis possible that the charter which you so much 
 idolize may be foi'feited, and it may probably be supposed that 
 it hath been many way forfeited ; untill you have cleared your- 
 selves of those many injustices, oppressions, violences and blood, 
 for which you are complained against, to which complaints you 
 have refused to answer, or until you have his majesties pardon, 
 which can neither be obtained by nor bee eftectuall to those 
 who deny the king's supremacy." On July 26, 1665, the com- 
 
146 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 missioners follow up these charges in a letter to Sir Henry Ben- 
 nett, the secretary of state, devoting almost the entire paper to 
 this usurpation by extending the limits, and urging that the 
 charter should be taken away. In 1665 the commissioners, in 
 their report to the king, sandwich, between the ill-treatment of 
 the Qiiakers and the feasting of the Regicides on the part of 
 Massachusetts, the charge that " By their south line they in- 
 trench upon the colonies of New-Plymouth, Rode Island and 
 Conecticot, and on the east they have usurped Captain Mason's 
 and Sr. Ferdinand Gorges patents and said that ye comissrs. 
 had nothing to doe betweixt them and Mr. Gorge, because his 
 matie. comanded them either to deliver possession to Mr. Gorge 
 or to give his matie. reasons why they did not." They, in 
 effect, also charge the colony with bolstering up this usurpation 
 by maps made without actual survey. They say, "They 
 caused at length a mapp of their territories to be made, but it 
 was made in a chamber by direction and guess. In it they 
 claime Fort Albany, and beyond it all the lands to the south 
 sea." 
 
 In the letter of the king to the colony, of April 10, 1666, re- 
 ferring to this report, he says, — "And for the better prevention 
 of all differences and disputes upon the bounds and limits of 
 the several colonyes. His Majesty's pleasvire is, that all determin- 
 ations made by His Majesty's said commissioners with reference 
 to the said bounds and limits may still continue to be observed, 
 till upon a full representation of all pretences. His Majesty shall 
 make his own final determination." 
 
 The answer of the colony of September 6, 1676, was the 
 handiwork of skilled and experienced men. In form it was a 
 reply to the petition of Mason ; but from the nature of the case, 
 almost necessarily an answer to the charges of Mason made 
 before the general court in 1652, the complaints which had 
 been sent to the home office, and the charges of the royal com- 
 missioners in 166^, as well as the specific allegations made by 
 Mason. After reciting the grant of 1628, and the Royal Char- 
 ter of March 4, 1629, they say, "In pursuance whereof many 
 of the said patentees and other adventurers transported them- 
 selves and estates and settled in the most known accommodable 
 parts of those lands conatained in the said charter, neither time, 
 
KEARSARGE. I^y 
 
 estate nor power suffering them speedily to survey the just ex- 
 tent of their limits. Not many years distant in time several 
 others also of His Majesty's subjects obtained other grants and 
 made several settlements in the more northern and eastern parts 
 of the country, with whom for several years we had neighborly 
 correspondence being as they supposed without the limits of 
 our patent, amongst Avhom the present claimants and petition- 
 ers wei'e. These grants partly by reason of the smallness of 
 some of them and partly by reason of darke and involv'd and 
 dubious expression of their limits brought the inhabitants under 
 many entanglements and dissatisfactions among themselves 
 which there being no settled authority to be applied to, being 
 deserted and forsaken of all such as by virtue of said grant did 
 claim jurisdiction over them, and had made a successless essay 
 for the settlement of government among them proved of some 
 continuance unto the great disquiet and disturbance of those of 
 His Majesty's subjects that were peaceable and well disposed 
 among them ; to remdy which inconvenience they betook them- 
 selves to the way of combinations for government, but by expe- 
 rience found it ineffectual." 
 
 They further say, — " In this time ignorance of the northerly 
 running of Merrimack river hindered our actual claim, and ex- 
 tension of government, yet at length being more fully settled, 
 and having obtained further acquaintance and correspondence 
 with the Indians possessing the uppermost part of that river, 
 encouraging an adventure as also frequent solicitations from the 
 most considerble inhabitants of these easterly parts earnestly 
 desiring us to make proof of and ascertain our interest we em- 
 ployed the most approved artists that could be obtained who 
 upon their solemn oathes made returns that upon their certain 
 observation our northern patent line did extend so far north as 
 to take in all those towns and places which we now possess." 
 
 They then recite the voluntary submission to the government 
 of Massachusetts of these inhabitants, commencing with "Dover 
 Swamscot and Portsmouth Anno 1641." They then set out 
 the conduct of the royal commissioners ; then discuss the lan- 
 guage of their patent with reference to the "river of Merri- 
 mack" "from Winipesioke lake to the mouth thereof;" assert 
 that " according to the aforementioned observation so confirmed 
 VOL. IX. 12 
 
I4S NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 all those eastern plantations challenged by our opponents (ut 
 supra)^ are comprehended within our northerly line." They 
 concede that they have not made "the exact survey of so large 
 a grant in so hedious a wilderness possessed by an enemy." 
 They claim that when they established the "bound house" in 
 1 63 1 they did not know the uttermost extent of their right. 
 They charge Mr. Mason "with ignorance of the coasting of 
 the country," and allege in substance that he followed cove and 
 hai'bor on the coast line. They charge that Mason's agent left 
 the region in 1634. 
 
 Few things are more manifest than that this answ^er refers to 
 a state of things existing between the establishment of the 
 "bound house" in 1631 and the explorations in 1652. It is 
 noticeable that in one instance the precise words used by the 
 general court in 1639, "^ relation to the appointment of Good- 
 man Woodward, are used ; that the term artists here used 
 may refer to the work of both explorations ; and that in other 
 places this answer refers beyond a doubt to the explorations of 
 Willard, Johnson, and Ince in 1652, and the sworn returns. 
 The connection is too obvious for further comment. 
 
 We pass by the note-books of the scouts who took in the full 
 view of the mountain from the Unconoonock and elsewhere, 
 but give no name, and come to the journal of Captain Samuel 
 Willard, exhumed and brought to our attention by the praise- 
 w^orthy industry of George E. Emery, formerly of Andover, 
 N. H., but now of Lynn, Mass. In his journal of July, 1725? 
 Willard says, — " Thursday 39 we marched north & bee west 
 about 9 milles, and corsed several branches of Miller's river, & 
 campt & set out scout which found where ye Indians had lived 
 last year ; — & made a canoe at ye north end of a long pond. 
 Friday 30 we marched north in ye forenoon, and came to a 
 pound which run into Contocook river & in ye afternoon 
 marched N. W. in all about 12 miles, & campt at Peewunseum 
 pound & sent ovit skouts 4 miles & they found 3 wigwams 
 made last year. They also found in one of them a paddle and 
 some squash shells which we suppose they carried from Rut- 
 land. Saturday 31 we marched 12 miles & I with 14 men 
 campt on ve top of Wannadnack mountain* & discovered 2,6 
 
 * See history of Ipswich,— note. 
 
KEARSARGE. I49 
 
 pounds, saw Pigwackett lying one point from said mountain, 
 & Cusagecf mountain, and Winnepescockey laying N. E. from 
 said Wannadnack ; the same day we found several old signs 
 "which ye Indians had made the last year & w^here y't they 
 camped when they killed ye people at Rutland as we imagine." 
 
 "Cusagec"is probably a clerical error; the word intended 
 is probably the word used elsewhei^e "Cusagee." 
 
 On July 4, 1733, the proprietors of what is now Boscawen 
 voted to pay Mr. Richard Hazen, surveyor, ten pounds for his 
 services in taking a plan of the plantation, and the three chain 
 men that were witlr said surveyor six days apiece six and thirty 
 shillings a man for their service in assisting him, the said sui"- 
 veyor. They also voted that the committee, — Joseph Gerrish, 
 William Isley, John Coffin, Tristram Little, and Joseph Noyes, 
 they being nine days with Mr. Hazen in taking a plan of the 
 aforesaid plantation, shall have ten shillings a day each man for 
 their service. 
 
 Upon this plan, now on file in Boston, is a representation of 
 an irregular hill along the northern boundary, with the inscrip- 
 tion, " Supposed to be one of ye Kiasaga Hills." Hazen, in 
 another note, calls the region ''Kiasarja," and speaks of " the 
 hills." Hazen's plan of what was afterwards "Major Steven's 
 town," made from the survey of October 39, 1739? represents 
 the mountain, but gives no name. Clough's survey of " Steph- 
 enstown " gives a sketch of the mountain, with the inscription, 
 "An exceeding mountain, called by the Indians Coowissewas- 
 seek, and by the English, Cire-sarg." 
 
 Captain Ladd's company left Exeter July 14, 1746, in pursuit 
 of Indian enemies. Abner Clough, his clerk, kept a journal. 
 That shows that on July 23, 1746, they were at Contoocook. 
 Under the head of July 34th, Clough says, — " And from there 
 marched to a place called Contoocook pond, and scouted round 
 about the pond, but could make no discovery, and from thence 
 to Blackwater Falls. And one of our men says he saw an 
 Indian very plain, as he was some distance from the scout, as 
 he saith. And we ranged about, but could make no further dis- 
 covery, then marched over several brooks and low places, but 
 could make no discovery, & so marched to a river called Cur- 
 
 t In History of New Ipswich the name is spelled " Cusagee." 
 
150 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 rier Surge river ^ & found some camps supposed to be Indiani 
 camps, and there camped in the intervale. And it rained hard 
 all night. This day's march about seventeen miles." 
 
 The next day they marched to " Almsbury pond," and thence- 
 to " Contoocook Falls." 
 
 No man, with Clough's journal before him, can traverse this 
 route, and in particular the territory between the West meeting- 
 house in Salisbury and the crown of Apple hill in Andover, 
 without acquiring a distinct conception, both of the localities 
 noted by him, and what he meant by " Currier Sarge river." 
 Before this, Clough had no acquaintance with the Kearsarge 
 " region." 
 
 Expeditions in search of scalps were not in the habit of taking 
 with them guide- or spelling-books, or geographical or pro- 
 nouncing dictionaries. They did take guns, ammunition, and 
 scouts or guides. Clough noted down what he saw, and, as to 
 the names of localities, what he took from the lips of those who- 
 were with him. It is quite clear that Clough had no knowledge 
 of the great bend which the Blackw^ater makes to the east, com- 
 mencing near Pingry's Falls in Salisbury and taking in the whole 
 Beech Hill region in Andover and Salisbury. It is clear that 
 the place where the}^ encamped was in the " interval," a mile 
 or more below the bend, and near where the Blackwater pours 
 apparently from the mountain, vuider the lofty bluft' of one of 
 the "Kearsarge hills," into the head of this " interval." What 
 he there saw^ he called Currier Sarge river. He cei'tainly could 
 not have referred to anything else than the Blackwater, at that 
 point. These intervals then were the intervals of the Kiah- 
 sarge river, and a part of the Kearsarge "region," and were 
 from six to ten miles in an air line from the intervals of the 
 other Keya Sargg river in Sutton, on the other side of the moun- 
 tain, or about fourteen miles by the now usually travelled road. 
 When he took the first name from the lips of others, he would 
 write it as he would the names of the persons who commonly 
 bore it. The names " Kiah" and " Currier " were idem sonans. 
 Then and for generations since, the word pronounced " Ki-ah "■ 
 was indiscriminately written "Kiah," and " Currier," and that 
 usage has continued in the vicinity of the mountain to this day, 
 though within the last thirty or forty years it has become more 
 
KEARSARGE. I5I 
 
 popular, and is deemed more aristocratic, to spell it and pro- 
 nounce it " Currier." One of the race recently died in Ando- 
 ver, between ninety and one hundred years of age, who was 
 never known by any other name than " Ki-ah," and the same 
 is believed to be true of his ancestors, certainly so far as any 
 knowledge of them can be gleaned, and yet the name was 
 spelled " Kiah " and " Currier." 
 
 The decision by the highest court of the state, pronounced 
 fifty-six years ago by Mr. Justice Woodbury, in Tlbbets v. 
 Kiah, 2 N. H. 557, where the defendant set up that his name 
 was spelled " Currier," was hardly necessary to show that 
 whether the name was spelled one way or the other was of no 
 -consequence. 
 
 Perrystown, now Sutton, was granted in 1749 by the Ma- 
 .sonian proprietors, to Captain Obadiah Perry and sixty-two 
 others from Haverhill, Mass., and its vicinity. The grant 
 described the territory as " a certain tract of land, lying on the 
 west side Ky a Sargg hill," seven and one fourth miles long and 
 five wide. 
 
 The first family settled in the town in 1767, and no other till 
 1770. The first meeting of the proprietors was held at Haver- 
 hill, Mass., December 14, 1749. In 1750 the notice for the 
 second meeting of the grantees was directed to " the proprie- 
 tors to a tract of land lying on the westerly side of Ci a Sarge 
 hill so called." On April 23, 1752, a meeting was called by a 
 committee, and was directed "to all the proprietors of a cer- 
 tain tract of land granted by the proprietors of the rights of 
 John Tufton Mason, Esq., near Ci a Sarge hill, called Perrys- 
 town." On October 29, 1755, a meeting was called, directed 
 to "the proprietors of Perrystown, so called, lying near Chi a 
 Sarge!" On October 10, 1761, a meeting was called by a 
 committee, and directed to "the proprietors of Perrystown so 
 called near Kia Sargg hill." At this meeting a committee was 
 chosen to " prelamble" the line of said tract of land, and make 
 return the next meeting. On November 30, 1761, the commit- 
 tee reported " that it is the best place for a saw-mill to be 
 built to serve the town is to set said mill on the falls in Key a 
 Sargg river, which falls beres southardly or southwesterly from 
 our meeting-house lot." These falls were below Sutton South. 
 
152 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 This mill was the first one built in town, and was known as 
 Jones's mill. A meeting was called by a justice of the peace, 
 on October 2, 1765, reciting that an application had been made 
 to him by " more than one sixteenth part of the owners of 
 PerresTown (so called) near Chya-sarge Mountain in said prov- 
 ince." A meeting was called, as others had been, at Plaistow. 
 
 What is now known as Andover and Salisbury has been gen- 
 erally supposed to have been granted by the Masonian proprie- 
 tary at different times, and this is true so far as the elaborate 
 grants stuffed with details are concerned. That of Stevenstown 
 was made October 35, 1749; that of New Bretton, November 
 20, 1751 ; but the substantial grant of both was made at the 
 same time, and by the same vote, for on December 7, 1748, the 
 proprietors voted " that Ebenezer Stevens, Esqr., & associ- 
 ates have a township equal to six miles square : beginning on 
 the north of Contoocook in the most convenient form ; without 
 interfering with the township called No. 9 [?], as the grantors- 
 shall think proper ; and that Mr. Edmund Brown & associ- 
 ates have a township equal to six miles square joyning upon 
 the north side of Stevens's & associates above said tract upon 
 the west side of Pemigewasset river upon such reservations and 
 limitations hereafter to be agreed upon." Andover was at first 
 called Brownstown, from Edmund Brown. 
 
 The river was made the base line for these three towns. The 
 side lines of Boscawen were parallel, and ran fifteen degrees 
 south of west. The south side line of Major Stevens's town 
 ran south seventeen degrees west ; but the north side line ran 
 south fifteen degrees west, while both side lines of New Bretton 
 ran south seventeen degrees west. The i^esult was what might 
 have been expected. The grantees and settlers, from a very 
 early period until about 1816, were continually engaged in con- 
 troversies in relation to the western boundaries of Boscawen, 
 Salisbury, Andover, and New Chester, and the wedge-shaped 
 gores between Boscawen and Salisbury and Salisbury and An- 
 dover, in which the lines of one set of grantees overlapped the 
 others. The region at that time and long before had been 
 known as the Kearsarge region. The grants of Boscawen, 
 Warner, Salisbury, Andover, and Perrystown had left a large 
 tract of territory, which naturally was called Kearsarge Gore, 
 
KEARSARGE. 1 53 
 
 from its shape. The last division in Salisbury, on the westerly 
 end, was laid out in 1773. 
 
 The records of Salisbury afford the following light in refer- 
 ence to these controversies : 
 
 " 4ly To see if you will vote to rais money to pay the commit- 
 tee that was chosen to settle the boundaries and lines with other 
 towns and the committee that shall be chosen. 
 
 "Sept. 2, 1762." 
 
 " 3^y Voted to chose a commitee to rectiefiee the bounds at 
 the of said town voted to messure the north line to see if it is 
 long annuft. 
 
 "4ly Voted to chose three men for sd. commitee and if they 
 shall so need to tak one more at the township. 
 "November 7, 1763 [1762?]" 
 
 " 2ly To see if they will vote down both the committees that 
 are ale ready chosen for to pramblate the line round the town 
 or vote which of them shall do the work. 
 
 "Mar. 2, 1762." 
 
 " 2ly Voted to chose a committee to joyn with any other 
 committees that shall be chosen by other towns ajoyning to sd. 
 Stevens town in settling the boundries and lines between sd. 
 Stevens town & other towns. 
 
 " 3ly Voted Deacon Elisha Sweet, Peter Sanborn, Esqr,, and 
 Coll. Ebenezer Stevens are chosen a committee to settle the 
 boundries and lines as before purposed with other town joyning 
 to sd. Stevens town — &c. — 
 
 "May 13, 1762." 
 
 " Province of: ] 
 
 New Hampr. : ) We the subscribers being chosen a committee 
 by the proprietors of each township here after named to settle 
 the boundaries & lines between Stevens town and New Briton 
 (so called) have as follows viz we have began at a pine tree 
 standing on a great rock in the bank of Pemigawasset river 
 which is the boundary between each town as aforesaid running 
 west about seventeen degrees south about nine miles to beach 
 tree marked on the southerly side with letter S and on the 
 
154 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 northerly side with the letter B with many other marks thereon 
 witness our hands 
 " Stevens town 
 
 " Dated October the first, 1762. Elisha Sweet 
 
 Peter Sanborn 
 Ebenr. Stevens 
 Natha. Healey 
 John Sanborn 
 Jeremiah Lane " 
 The stump of this beech tree is undoubtedly the one referred 
 to by the legislative committee, in 1816, in their report estab- 
 lishing the line between Kearsarge Gore and Salisbury. 
 
 " sly To see what you will allow the committee pr. day that 
 went to mesure the north line from Merimak river to the head 
 and the south line of said town 
 " Jany 26, 1764." 
 
 "4ly Voted to give the committee that went to mesure the 
 north line and south line of Stevens town four pounds old tenor 
 pr. day. 
 
 "Feb. 6, 1764." 
 
 " 2ly To chose a committee to pramblat the lines with other 
 towns that adjoyn to sd. Stevens town and settle the bounds of 
 sd. township whare the bounds is not settled. 
 " March 19, 1768." 
 
 " 2ly Voted Ebenr Stevens Joshua Woodman Capt. John 
 Webster are chosen a commitee to pramblate the lines with 
 other towns and settel bounds whare they are not settled. 
 
 "April 7, 1768." 
 
 " 2ly To see what money the proprietors will rais to pay for 
 building the bridge over Blackwater river and clear the Senter 
 road. 
 
 "Sept. I, 1768." 
 
 "3ly To chose a commitee to run the line with New Alms- 
 bury and settle the south-west bound of said Salisbury as that 
 is not settled 
 
 " May 12, 1770." 
 
 " 7ly Voted the assessors be a committee to examine & de- 
 sire the clerk to enter the votes & returns &c. in the proprietors 
 
KEARSARGE. I55 
 
 book in order that the book may be removed another year to 
 the town of Salisbury. If so voted that Ensign Gale Mr. Na- 
 thaniel Maloon Joseph Been John Colings & Capt John Web- 
 ster be a committee to run the line with New Almsbury and 
 settle the bounds at the south west corner of Salisbury. 
 
 "May 30, 1770." 
 
 " 5thly To see if the proprietors will chuse a committee to 
 settle the boundaries of said Salisbury with Col. Henry Gerrish 
 who is impowered by the grantors to settle the same. 
 
 " Dec. 22, 1780." 
 
 " Sthly Voted to chuse a committee of three men to join with 
 Col Henry Gerrish to perfix the boundaries at the western end 
 of said Salisbury provided he comes with authority from the 
 grantors to settle and perfix the same. 9thly Capt. John 
 Webster, Dn. John Collins and Joseph Bean Esqr. chosen for 
 the above committee. 
 
 " lothly Voted to adjourn this meeting till the last Tuesday 
 in August, to the house of Capt. Matthew Pettingill in the 
 afternoon of sd. day. August 28th met on adjournment and 
 voted to adjourn sd. meeting to the second Tuesday in October, 
 next at the house of Capt. Matthew Pettengill at one o'clock in 
 the afternoon of said accordingly sd. meeting is adjourned to 
 ad. time & place. Tuesday 9th of October 1781, met on ad- 
 joui'nment. 
 
 " Voted to receive the report of the committee before chosen, 
 which is as follows, (viz.) this may certify to the gentlemen 
 proprietors of Salisbury that Col. Gerrish came to us with a 
 power of attorney that we esteem sufficient to settle the bound- 
 aries at the western end of the township of Salisbury, & as it 
 appeareth to us that there is a mistake in the grantors of the 
 charter of Salisbury & Andover interfering one upon the other 
 & also a mistake in the grantees in laying out their lots beyond 
 the limits of nine miles from Merrimack river ; we think it 
 best to give up our claim to the land north of the seventeen de- 
 grees on the noiih upon their confirming to us as far westerly 
 as to take in all our land that is lotted, which we have encour- 
 agement from sd. Gerrish upon a straight line. 
 
 "October 9, 1781." 
 
156 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 "3. To see what methods the proprietors will take to settle 
 the boundaries and lines at the westerly end of sd. township, 
 "Jany. 17, 1801. 
 
 " 2ndly. Voted to accept the report of the committee chosen 
 the 5th of February last to ascertain the north corner bounds of 
 said town, which report was verbally that a line beginning at 
 the southwest corner bound of said town running north one 
 degree west to Andover line be the head or west line of said 
 town. 
 
 " 3rdly Voted that John C. Gale inform Col. Henry Ger- 
 rish who is agent for the joroprietors of the gore of the proceed- 
 ings of this meeting. 
 
 " 4thly Voted to adjourn this meeting to the first Monday in 
 June next at 3 o'clock p. m. to meet at this place. 
 
 "May 4, 1801." 
 
 "Your committee report as follows — we have ascertained 
 the northwest corner bounds of Salisbury by running from the 
 southwest corner bounds of said town north one degree west 
 between Salisbury and Kearsarge Gore. 
 
 "May 28, 1801." 
 
 On June i-i, 1753, the grantees of New Britain under an 
 article " to receive the return of the committee chosen to lay 
 out said tract of land and to chose a committee to make return 
 of the plan of the laying out said tract of land to the grantors 
 and to agree with the grantors when to have the lotts drawn, 
 'voted' 4thly James Carrick, Amos Dwinell, Richard Smith 
 as a committee * « * to return the plan of the above said 
 tract of land as it is laid out to the grantors and to agree with 
 said grantors when to have the lott drawn." 
 
 This plan, so returned in i753 to the Masonian proprietary, 
 was from a survey by Williambrown Clough. It showed the 
 mountain wooded to the top, and says in a note, — "Cier Sarge, 
 a mountain large, by ye Indens Cowissewaschook ! " This, 
 with a change in spelling, is a restatement of what he had 
 already set down a few years before, on a plan of Bakerstown, 
 or Stephenstown. A copy of this plan, carefully compared 
 with the original, is now in the town-house at Andover. 
 
 There was a dispute as to whether Andover or New Chester 
 
KEARSARGE. 157- 
 
 owned a region which was afterwards claimed by Kearsarge 
 Gore, and now known as Eagle pond. At a meeting held 
 May 17, 1763, action was taken under an article " to choose a 
 committee to run out said township anew & number every lot 
 agreeable to the plan formerly exhibited & accepted by the 
 grantors, and also to settle the bounds betwixt said township 
 and INew Chester." Two committees were chosen. The com- 
 mittee to establish the lines between Andover and New Chester 
 made their report, dated "' Boscowen June lo, 1763," to a meet- 
 ing held September 5, 1763. The committee of five, chosen 
 " to run out said township anew and bound and number every 
 lot agreeable to the plan formerly exhibited and accepted by 
 the grantors," made an elaborate report, " dated at Hampton 
 Falls, Novembr. i8th, 1763," to the meeting held November 
 21, 1763. In this report they recite at length their labors and 
 difficulties, what they were able to ascertain in relation to the 
 " number trees " and lines run out years before, and say that 
 they " thought proper (as the southerly side line was not run 
 out the first ten miles) to go first on said line before we go any 
 farther here which we did ; and ran it out the full ten miles, 
 spotting as we went after we left Stevens town to a spruce tree 
 standing on Kiaserge mountain which tree we spotted for a 
 corner bound and marked with sundry letters." The report 
 was accepted, and the bills of the committee ordered to be 
 paid. At the meeting on November 3, 1773, a committee was 
 chosen " to join the selectmen of Salisbury if they see fit to per- 
 ambulate the line between the said township of Salisbury and 
 the township of New Brittain as formerly agreed upon run, 
 spotted and bounded by a committee of said townships and 
 return thereof made excepted and recorded." They also voted 
 that the committee should make return within four weeks, and 
 that they should be permitted to " hire a surveyor to perambu- 
 late the line." 
 
 On April 29, 1786, the perambulation of the line between 
 the two towns was reported and recorded. 
 
 On April 2, 1788, the selectmen reported as follows: "• Laid 
 out by the subscribers in Andover, as follows, viz : begining 
 at the road that was laid ourt by order of cort from Dartmoth 
 Colledg to Boscawen a little above where John Rowe now 
 
158 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 lives at the parth that leads to Kiresarge Gore and following 
 said parth where it is now cleared and trod over Blackwater 
 river so called and as far as Aaron Selley's house three rods in 
 •width to be a public highway forever." 
 
 As we have already seen, the territory which embraced the 
 tnountain proper, the Keai'sarge hills, river, ponds, and mead- 
 ows on the south, and the Kearsarge hill, river, meadows, and 
 falls on the west, was of a considerable extent. The limits 
 must have been somewhat indefinite, like those of Dunstable 
 and Penacook in Waldron's day; but, like each of them, this 
 region must have covered not far from two hundred square 
 miles. The grant of the townships about this mountain to 
 which we have already referred narrowed these limits to Kear- 
 sarge Gore. The residue of the plans and maps may be con- 
 sidered in connection with tlie history of that Gore. 
 
 Mitchell and Hazzen's map gives the mountain in Merrimack 
 county in the proper place as " Kyasage Mt." A copy of 
 this map is in the state-house. It was purchased in London for 
 the late W. F. Goodwin and myself. Upon its face, among 
 other things, appears the following: 
 
 "Observations on which this map is grounded : " 
 
 "New Hampshire from the surveys of Mitchell and Hazzen 
 in 1750, especially the last." 
 
 Line 44° 30' north " According to Hazzen's Survey, this Line 
 about 30 Miles distant from Pigwakket R. cuts the East end of 
 the White Hills." 
 
 This map shows Pigwakket river and the " Sawokotuk" or 
 " Sawko" river, and " Pigwakket Hills," mainly on the New 
 Hampshire side of the line. 
 
 On December 24, 1770, Governor VVentworth, without suc- 
 cess, recommended the assembl}^ to accept the "offer" of 
 " Capt. Holland the surveyor general of the sea cost of the 
 northern district of America," "to survey as much of the prov- 
 ince as can be done before the season permitts his surveying on 
 the sea cost." 7 Prov. Pap. 264. 
 
 On January 23, 1772, the governor, in pursuance of the 
 royal command, "You shall likewise take care that a general 
 plan be made of all our said province and of each county with 
 the several plantations & fortifications on it, and that an exact 
 
KEARSARGE. 15^ 
 
 map or maps thereof be transmitted to our commissioners for 
 trade & plantation," charged the assembly to " make provisions 
 for its execution which may be done this winter," and on Janu- 
 ary 4, 1772, the assembly voted " that the message sent by the 
 governor relative to the survey of this province proposed to be 
 made by Capt. Holland be complied with," and voted to give 
 him the sum of one hundred guineas. The surveys were made 
 in 1773 and 1774, but the map was not published until March 
 I, 1784, in London. This society possesses a copy of this map. 
 Upon that map the Merrimack County mountain appears as 
 "Kyar Sarga Mt., by the Indians Cowissewaschook." Whether 
 Williambrown Clough was one of Holland's assistants does not 
 as yet appear, but the internal evidence is strong that the name 
 was taken from one of his plans. 
 
 This was the first official map of the province. The Chat- 
 ham-Bartlett mountain appears upon it without a name. This 
 is strong evidence that neither Holland nor any of his assistants 
 had any "information that it was known as ' Kiarsarge,'" or 
 any other form of the word, in 1774, or even down to the pub- 
 lication in 17S4. 
 
 In 1791 Dr. Belknap gives both mountains as " Kyarsarge," 
 but this is the first instance in which the Carroll County moun- 
 tain is so termed. It is evident that Dr. Belknap got his infor- 
 mation as late as July, 1784, when, with a party of seven, he 
 visited the White hills. They left Dover on Jul}^ 20. Having 
 passed through Eaton and Conway, they encamped at the foot 
 of the mountains on July 23. On July 24, Dr. Cutler, Rev. 
 Mr. Little, and Col. Whipple succeeded in ascending Mt. 
 Washington, which they found buried in clouds ; but Belknap 
 and others, after having gone part way, were obliged to give 
 up. On July 27 Dr. Belknap preached in Whipple's barn to 
 five or six families, at what was called " Mr. Whipple's plan- 
 tation " — the first sermon ever preached there. This was at 
 "Cherry mountain." He reached home July 31, 17S4. He 
 says that he copied from a plan of Whipple's, who lived at 
 what is now Jefferson ; but Belknap changed the spelling, for 
 upon Whipple's sketch it is Kyasarge. This is the plan to 
 which Belknap refers in his letter of August 19, 1784. Life of 
 Belknap 102-104 ; 3 Belknap's History 37-40. 
 
l6o NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 It is noticeable that Belknap, in the same volume, gives the 
 •census of Kearsarge Gore in 1790 as 103, and spells it " Ky- 
 sarge," 
 
 In 1775 Kearsarge Gore was granted by the Masonian pro- 
 prietary to Jonas Minot, Matthew Thornton, and others. 3 
 Moore's His. Col. 173 ; Genealogy of the Minot Family. 
 
 Minot was the son of Samuel Minot, of Concord, Mass., one 
 of the grantees of "Alexandria" proper and "Alexandria Ad- 
 dition," now New London, and an extensive land-owner in 
 New Hampshire. He died March 20, 1813, at the age of sev- 
 enty-eight. 
 
 The plan made by Henry Gerrish, who was always a prom- 
 inent man, and for a quarter of a century the legal representa- 
 tive of important interests in the Gore, is of" Kaysarge Gore," 
 near " Kya Sarge." It also sets forth in a note that " Kyah 
 Sarge mountain contains 1459 acres." The grant of April 7, 
 1779, was of Kiersarge Gore. In 1781 the territory Kyah 
 Sarge Gore was divided among the grantees by lot. 
 
 The precise time when the Gore became entitled to town 
 privileges has not yet been absolutely determined. It v^^as prob- 
 ably as early as 1783. We know that the Gore at that time 
 was assigned its share of the public burdens. 
 
 In June, 1784^ the legislative journals show what towns and 
 places were entitled to representatives, and when they were in 
 fact represented, and by whom. On this list in one class ap- 
 pear "New London, Andover, a??d Gore." Capt. Fi^ancis 
 Walker represented Fishersfield, Perrystown, and Warner, as 
 another class upon the same list. 
 
 John Moftat died January 21, 1786. He was a land-owner 
 in about thirty towns and places in New Hampshire, and 
 owned Nos. 33, 43, and 48 of the hundred-acre lots in " Kyar- 
 sarge Gore." Prior to his death, owing to his relations with 
 Moftat, Whipple had become very familiar with these lands, 
 and upon Moffat's death became directly interested. The pro- 
 bate court ordered the sale of these lots. A schedule thereof 
 is still in existence. That decree was appealed from, and 
 finally affirmed by the superior court on the fourth Tuesday of 
 April, 1789 ; and the final proceedings were had under that and 
 the order of the probate court of May 20, 1789. Moffat's inter- 
 
KEARSARGE. l6l 
 
 ests were largely identified with those of Minot. See Whipple- 
 Moffat Papers. 
 
 The act of June i6, 1791, included "Kearsarge" in Hills- 
 borough county. 
 
 The legislative journal of June 14, 1792, says, — " Upon read- 
 ing and considering the petition of James Flanders, Esquire, in 
 behalf of the inhabitants of Kyar Searge Gore, and the report 
 of a committee thereon, and that the petitioners be heard 
 thei"eon before the general court on the second Tuesday of their 
 next session, and that in the meantime the petitioners cause 
 that the selectmen of Salisbury, Andover and New London 
 be served with a copy of petition and order of notice," &c. 
 
 The act of December 27, 1792, says, — "And the companies 
 in the towns of Boscawen, Salisbury, Andover, New London, 
 and Kearsearge Gore, shall form a first battalion," &c. 
 
 The legislative journal of June 13, 1793, shows that leave 
 was granted to bring in a bill at the hearing upon the petition 
 to disannex lots Nos. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25 from Ky- 
 arsearge Gore, and to annex them to New London. 
 
 See, also, proceedings of June 17, 1793, and upon the second 
 reading of the bill ; and also of June iS, 1793. 
 The act passed June 19, 1793. 
 
 The journal for June 20, i793? shows a resolve instructing 
 the selectmen of New London to add to the inventory of that 
 town that of the lots disannexed from " Keasarge Goi"e." 
 
 The journal of the house for Feb. 5, 1794, shows that the in- 
 ventory of " Kearsearge Gore" " stand at £20-7-8, amount of 
 valuation." 
 
 On February 12, 1794, the house proceeded to consider the 
 alterations made in the inventories by the senate, but " Kear- 
 seai'ge Gore" was left "£20, 7, 8, as agreed to." 
 
 On February 14, 1794, " the senate returned the vote, * * 
 with information that they had concurred with the house on 
 the town of * * * Kearsearge Gore." 
 
 On February 17, i794i " the following vote came down from 
 the honorable senate for concurrence ; Kearsarge Gore and 
 Mason to stand as passed by the house." 
 
 In the house, on December 26, 1794, a joint committee was 
 filled " to consider of the petition of the selectmen of Kearsarge 
 Gore." 
 
l62 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 The legislative journal of June 17, ^795' shows an act enti- 
 tied "An act authorizing the collection of taxes in Kearsarge 
 Gore." 
 
 The senate journal of June 15, 1797' shows '' a vote for a 
 committee to join such of the senate as they may appoint to 
 consider the petitions from the towns of Sutton, New London, 
 Bradford, and ' Kearsarge Gore.' " 
 
 The senate journal of December 8, 1797, shows a resolve 
 that " the selectmen or the major part of them at the charge of 
 the town parish or place where they belong to, shall take an 
 inventory," &c., naming among others "■ Keasarge Gora." 
 
 The senate journal of December 21, 1797, shows that the res- 
 olution for the taking of the new inventory, &c., be sent to the 
 post-office at Concord, for " Keasearge Gore." 
 
 The survey of " Kearsarge Gore" for Dr. Carrigan's map 
 was made in 1805 by Ephraim Eastman, of Andover. 
 
 Eastman was born in Deerfield, N. H., in 1768. Kearsarge 
 was a familiar object to him almost from his babyhood. He 
 died in the immediate vicinity of the mountain under whose 
 shadow he had lived for more than half a century. He was a 
 man of more than ordinary ability ; was a school-teacher in his 
 younger days, and had considerable culture and refinement for 
 his times, and was a practical surveyor from his boyhood 
 almost to the time of his death. He was exceedingly familiar 
 with the boundaries of townships, the disputes about them, 
 their history and traditions. His plan shows, aside from the 
 important portion of the Gore transferred to New London in 
 1793, that its width, as claimed by that town, was between two 
 and three miles at the narrowest point, about four miles wide 
 in the centre, and between nine and ten miles in length, reck- 
 oning from the extreme points. 
 
 Wilmot was created June 18, 1807, and yet in 1810 the rem- 
 nant of the Gore had one hundred and fifty-two inhabitants. 
 Eastman's survey showed that there was a dispute as to the 
 location of the boundary line between Salisbury and the 
 "Gore, "as there had been for half a century. 
 
 Other surveys were made for a like purpose. In 1805 and 
 1806, Joshua Lane, long known as " Master Lane," surveyed the 
 territory known as New Hampton, the region then known as 
 
KEARSARGE. 163 
 
 New Chester, which included that portion of the present part 
 of Wihnot known as New Canada, what is now Andover, 
 Salisbury, Franklin, Webster, Boscawen, Canterbury, North- 
 field, Tilton, and Sanbornton. 
 
 Lane's plans are now in the state-house. His work speaks 
 for itself. It needs no bush. He locates the mountain where 
 it is, and gives it its proper name. Lane had exceptional op- 
 portunities for knowing the facts. He came from a line of sur- 
 veyors who probably, from their kinship with the dominant 
 and perhaps controlling spirits of the early proprietors, had 
 been employed by them in the surveys of New Britain from the 
 earliest period. 
 
 On April i, 1811, under a proper article in the warrant, the 
 town of Salisbury " voted that Andrew Bowers, Esq., & Lieut. 
 Benjamin Pettengill, of said Salisbury, be a committee to attend 
 in the half of the proprietors of said town to the petition of Mr. 
 Abner Watkins, on the first Tuesday of the next session of the 
 general court." Watkins was then, as he had been for a long 
 time, one of the leading citizens of the Gore. 
 
 On May iS, 181 1, under articles "to see if the town will 
 agree to make any defence against Abram Watkins respecting 
 the line between this town and Kearsarge Goar," and " to 
 see what method the town will take to make such defence if 
 they should think proper to make any," Salisbury voted that 
 " Col. John E. Gale be agent for the town of Salisbury to act 
 with a committee of the proprietors of said town against Abner 
 Watkins of ' Kearsarge Goar,' respecting his petition to the 
 genl. court for an alteration of the jurisdictional line between 
 said Salisbury and said Goar." 
 
 On September 33, 1815, under an article "to see what 
 method or order the town shall take, respecting the line be- 
 tween the said town of Salisbury and Keiarsarge Gore which 
 line is now submitted to a committee chosen by the general 
 court of this state," the town of Salisbury voted " to take the 
 requisite steps to protect their interests." 
 
 On May 18, 1816, under an article "to see what the town 
 
 will do in regard to the report of the committee of the general 
 
 court relating to the line between this town and Kearsarge 
 
 Gore, which report is to be made at the next session of the gen- 
 
 voL. IX. 13 
 
164 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 eral court," the town chose "Andrew Bowers, Esquire, agent 
 for the town to act with the representative at the general court, 
 in remonstrating against the acceptance of the report of a com- 
 mittee to establish a line between this town and Kiarsarge 
 Gore, and attend to all other business respecting said line which 
 they shall judge necessary for the benefit of the town." 
 
 The senate journal of June 25, 1816, shows " a vote granting 
 a day of hearing on the petition of Jonathan Watkins and oth- 
 ers, praying that his land in Kearsarge Gore be annexed to the 
 town of Warner." 
 
 On June 26, 1S16, the same journal gives the report of the 
 legislative committee, cutting off one hundred and eighty-four 
 rods claimed by Salisbury next to the Gore, and giving Salis- 
 bury two hundred and eighteen rods west of the bound estab- 
 lished in 1762. 
 
 " The committee appointed at the last session, to examine 
 and establish the disputed line between the towns of Salisbury 
 and Kearsarge Gore, made the following report — 
 
 " 'The within named committee, having notified the select- 
 men of Salisbury and Kearsarge Gore, met and fully heard 
 them ; and that in their opinion the line hereafter discribed is 
 the true division and ought to be established as the line of juris- 
 diction between said towns, viz. — beginning at a large rock on 
 the westerly side of the highway on Warner line, opposite 
 Thaddeus Hardy's house ; thence running north five degrees 
 east about five miles to a beach stump, at the northerly end of 
 William Pingree's land, formerly John Wentworth's thirty acre 
 lot numbered fifty-four, by Andover line, it being about two 
 I'ods southwesterly from the bound between land of Jonathan 
 Brown and land of Moses Brown in said Andover, which stump 
 was heretofore known by the name of the middle northwest 
 corner bound of Salisbur}', and is situate one hundred and eighty- 
 four rods easterly of the birch tree entwining a spruce tree which 
 Salisbury claims as their northwest corner bound ; and two 
 hundred and eighteen rods westerly of the beach which the pro- 
 prietors of Salisbury marked for their first north west corner 
 bound, which line was satisfactorily proved to the committee 
 to have been the true westerly line of Salisbury, at the time of 
 its incorporation. — And they further report, determine and 
 
KEARSARGE. iS^^ 
 
 award that the town of Salisbury pay for the services of the 
 committee, their assistants and expenses, taxed at fifty-one dol- 
 lars. 
 
 'John Osgood Ballard, 
 
 ' Joseph Bartlett, 
 
 'John Smith.'" 
 
 A vote accepting said report was brought up, read, and con- 
 curred. Senate Journal, June 26, 1816. 
 
 The following petition, understood to be the work of that legal 
 antiquary, Moses Eastman, Esq., for years the clerk of court, 
 and the opinion of that eminent lawyer, Parker Noyes, upon 
 the effect of the legislative line, are worthy of special note : 
 
 "To the Honorable the Senate & House of Representatives 
 of the State of New Hampshire in Getieral Court con- 
 vened : 
 
 "Humbly show the subscribers, inhabitants of the town of 
 Salisbury in the county of Hillsborough that we are owners of 
 different lots of land in that part of said Salisbury which adjoins 
 Kearsarge Gore, which lots have ever, when taxed, been taxed 
 in Salisbury & in no other town or place from the first settle- 
 ment of the country to this day. 
 
 " We have been informed that the report of a committee ap- 
 pointed by the general court to establish a line of jurisdiction 
 between Salisbury & Kearsarge Gore was at the last June ses- 
 sion received & accepted by the general court which report 
 drew a new line of jurisdiction, whereby if that line be estab- 
 lished the aforesaid lands will be transferred to the jurisdiction 
 of & be liable to be taxed in Kearsarge Gore, which will occa- 
 sion to us great inconvenience. 
 
 " With all due respect for the respectable gentlemen who 
 composed that committee, we think the report was made from 
 an imperfect view of the subject; & that if its merits had been 
 fully laid open to the view of the general court, the report would 
 not have been accepted. 
 
 " Wherefore, we pray that the vote accepting the said report 
 may be reconsidered or that such order may be taken on the 
 subject as the wisdom of the general court shall think the case 
 requires. 
 
1 66 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 " To show that our opinion of that report is not without foun- 
 dation, we beg leave to submit the following facts & remarks. 
 
 " The proprietary grant of the tract of land now called Salis- 
 bur}', formerly called Stevenstown, was made in the year 1749 
 by the Masonian proprietors who were at the same time the 
 owners of the tract of land called Kearsarge Gore. 
 
 "The grantees of Stevenstown, soon after the grant, divided 
 part & only part of the land granted to them into lots, leaving 
 a considerable tract undivided. 
 
 "In the year 1773 they laid out the thirty acre lots at the 
 west end of the grant, adjoining Kearsarge Gore and then ran, 
 it is presumed for the first time, the west end line of their grant, 
 & marked trees to show the line. 
 
 "The thirty acre lots laid out in 1773 up to this line were 
 immediately after drawn among the grantees, & some of the 
 lots were drawn to the reserved rights of the grantors, the 
 Masonian proprietors, who have ever since claimed & held 
 those lots accordingly. 
 
 " It is believed that the Masonian proprietors by taking those 
 lots in 1773 & claiming & holding them ever since, in severalty 
 as their reserved right in the grant of Steventown did then 
 recognize the right of the proprietors of Steventown to the land 
 as far westward as that line. 
 
 "At that time Kearsarge Gore was held by the Masonian 
 proprietors in common ; & was not laid out into lots until 1782. 
 In the year 1782 Col. Henry Gerish as the agent & by the di- 
 rection of the Masonian proprietors, surveyed and laid out into 
 lots the tract of land called Kearsarge Gore, & bounded on the 
 aforesaid line the lots adjoining Salisbury. The survey & 
 plan of the lots thus made by Gerish, was adopted by the Ma- 
 sonian proprietors, & has ever since been recognized by them. 
 
 " At a subsequent period since question being made respect- 
 ing the bounds between Salisbury & Kearsarge Gore the Ma- 
 sonian proprietors appointed the said Henry Gerish their agent, 
 to join with a committee of the proprietors of Salisbury to settle 
 the question & determine the proprietary line between Salisbury 
 & Kearsarge Gore. 
 
 " In the year iSoi the said Gerish on the part of the Mason- 
 ians, & the said committee of the proprietors of Salisbury went 
 
KEARSARGE. I 67 
 
 together to the bound which has ever been known & recognized 
 as the south west corner bound of Salisbury, & from thence ran 
 northward the course directed by the Masonians & on the afore- 
 said line which was run & marked in 1773 to the north line of 
 Salisbury & there made a bound between Salisbury & Kear- 
 sarge Gore. 
 
 " Thus the aforesaid line run in 1773 was recognized by the 
 Masonian proprietors in 1773 & in 17S2 & again in 1801 was 
 settled & confirmed by the parties. 
 
 "The limits of the grant from the Masonian proprietors, 
 being thus settled by those who had the right so to do, it is 
 believed that the proprietors of Salisbury & of Kearsarge Gore, 
 are both bound thereby. 
 
 " The description of the town of Salisbury in the act of incor- 
 poration is the same as in the Masonian grant & was probably 
 copied from it. 
 
 "The proprietors of Salisbury have ever since claimed & 
 held the land westward to the aforesaid line run in 1773 & the 
 town of Salisbury has ever held jurisdiction to the same line. 
 
 " The aforesaid report takes from Salisbury a tract of land of 
 a triangular form four miles in length one hundred & eighty- 
 four rods wide at the north end, running to a point at the south 
 & lying east of the aforesaid line. 
 
 "The inconvenience which will be the consequence of cut- 
 ting the lots by this new line of jurisdiction, & transferring part 
 of a lot to Kearsarge Gore & leaving part in Salisbury, we trust 
 will be deemed a sufficient apology for this our request. 
 
 "Novr. 1816. Wd. Elisabeth Straw. 
 
 James B. Straw 
 Stephen S. Straw 
 Samuel Eaton 
 Wm. Pingry 
 James Johnson 
 Thomas Chase 
 Ebenr. Johnson 
 Moses Greeley " 
 
 This had upon the back the following indorsement : 
 
1 68 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 "A petition of a number of the inhabitants of Salisbury pray- 
 ing for a reconsideration of a vote establishing the jurisdictional 
 line between the towns of Salisbury & Kearsarge Gore." 
 
 OPINION OF PARKER NOYES. 
 
 " QUESTIONS BY COMMITTEE OF PROPS. OF SALISBURY 
 ANSWERED. 
 
 BENJ. LITTLE ) 
 
 & VESQRS. 
 
 A. BOWERS ) 
 
 "^ttestion i . Do Salisbury by assuming a line beyond what 
 their charter contained give them a right to the soil? 
 
 "A?iswer. If the proprietors of Salisbury in making the 
 bounds of their grant did go beyond the exact measure men- 
 tioned in the grant, — and the grantors, knowing the same, 
 acquiesced for a time long enough to gain title by possession, 
 or in any way recognized those bounds, as bounds, the proprie- 
 tors of Salisbury will hold to those bounds. 
 
 " If the grantors appointed an agent with powers to rzin the 
 line & jix the bounds^ — & he with the props, of Salisbury did 
 run the line & fix the bounds, the line & bounds so made are 
 conclusive on both parties, unless the agent exceeded his 
 powers. 
 
 " The neglect of the agent to report his doings to his employ- 
 ers, or their neglect to record the same will not vacate what 
 was done ; but the same may be proved by the testimony of 
 witnesses. 
 
 "If the props, of the Gore seeing the bounds which Salis- 
 bury had made to their grant, and the occupation of the land to 
 those bounds ; neglected for more than 30 years to make an 
 enti-y on the land, and have brought no action to try the title, it 
 is believed that such neglect will amount to such an acquies- 
 cence as will put an end to the claim of the props, of the Gore. 
 
 " Question 2nd. Will the props, of the Gore hold the land 
 west of the line as lately established by the general court's 
 committee "^ 
 
 '"'•Answe?'. The doings of that committee have no effect on 
 the right of soil. They have no more effect on the question 
 
KEARSARGE. I 69 
 
 between the two parties than the flying of a bird thro, the air 
 would have. 
 
 " The gen. court have not power, & could not give power to 
 their committee, to determine the bounds of the land, & thereby 
 bind the two sets of proprietors in respect of the right of soil. 
 
 " The right of soil remains & ever vs'ill remain precisely the 
 same as if that committee had never been appointed. 
 
 "The proprietoj-s of Salisbury are one body. The toivn 
 of Salisbury as a corporation is another. The rights of these 
 two bodies are as distinct, as the rights of any two persons 
 can be. 
 
 "• The only effect that the doings of that committee can have, 
 if they have even so much^ is to determine the line of the juris- 
 diction of the town of Salisbury as a corporation. 
 
 " The right of the props, of Salisbury to the soil has no con- 
 nection with, nor dependence on, the line of jurisdiction which 
 the gen. court has assigned or may assign to the town of Salis- 
 bury. 
 
 "'May6, 181S. PARKER NOYES." 
 
 "Salisbury, May 8, iSiS. 
 '•'•A. Bozvers^ Esq. 
 
 " Sir I have endeavored to answer the questions put by the 
 committee of the props, of Salisbury & by Mr. Pettingill & 
 you. 
 
 " If the answers are not sufficiently explicit, I will at any 
 time add anything I can to make them more so. 
 
 " I am respectfully your obedt servant, 
 
 " PARKER NOYES." 
 
 This opinion is contained in a letter directed on the back to 
 "Andrew Bowers, Esq., Salisbury." 
 
 The senate journal of June 20, 1S17, shows that the inhabi- 
 tants of " Kearsarge Gore," praying to be annexed to Warner, 
 were granted a hearing, to be had on the first Tuesday of the 
 next session of the general court, and the selectmen of Warner 
 were to be served with a notice thereof. 
 
 On June 13, 1818, "Kearsarge Gore" was annexed to the 
 town of Warner. 
 
170 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 It is well known to those who saw the books in the hands of 
 Watkins and others at an early day that there was an ancient 
 plan of the Gore and two volumes of records. For this Col. 
 John A. Hardy, long a prominent man in the Gore, is the 
 abundant authority. These were in existence at a compara- 
 tively recent period, and may be now. The only record which 
 has been found commences with a call for a meeting dated 
 August I, 1794, by James Flanders, a justice of the peace, which 
 recited that " application being made to me by a number of the 
 inhabitants of Kearsarge Gore in said county, getting forth that 
 they labored under many difficultys, on account of not having 
 a legal meeting to appoint public officers, praying that a war- 
 rant might issue forth at purpos these are," &c. 
 
 The application, as shown by this warrant, was similar to 
 those in other towns where the organization had failed by neg- 
 lect to call a meeting, or otherwise. The records from this 
 time forth are regular, and the name is invariably spelled 
 "Kearsarge Gore." 
 
 Carrigain's map gives, in Merrimack county, " Kearsarge 
 Mt." and " Kearsarge Gore," with its census, in 1810, 152; 
 and in Carroll count}', " Pigwacket formerly Kiarsarge." 
 
 This is the first official map of the state, and, taking into con- 
 sideration the facilities then to be had, was a work of great 
 labor, difficulty, and responsibility. It began in 1806, and was 
 completed in 1816. The legislature did not require Carri- 
 gain, if some highway or other surveyor located San Fran- 
 cisco at Portsmouth or Mt. Diablo at Pigwacket, to treat the 
 lie as historic truth. It made him a general in command, not 
 a subaltern. 
 
 It was but natural that an assault by innuendo and insinua- 
 tions upon Carrigain, his map, and the state authorities who 
 selected him and gave him their confidence and support, should 
 be made in aid of an attempt to repeal history. Carrigain may 
 have had his failings, flowing from his social nature — " Let 
 him that is without sin cast the first stone" — but the fact re- 
 mains, that he was selected, by tliose who knew him best and 
 were the most competent to judge, as the fittest man for such a 
 difficult and delicate task ; and, amid religious contentions and 
 the tempest of political changes, he was continued at his post 
 
KEARSARGE. I'jl 
 
 under Govs. John Langdon, Jeremiah Smith, John Taylor 
 Gihnan, and William Plumer. 
 
 In 1816, a legislative committee reported " that the said Car- 
 rigain has completed the map of New Hampshire with great 
 accuracy, and in a style of superior elegance." Governor 
 Plumer, in his message of June 5, 1817, says, — "As Mr. Cai"- 
 rigain acting under the authority of the legislature has recently 
 furnished the state at great expense with a map of New Hamp- 
 shire which is not only elegant but splendid, permit me to sug- 
 gest for your inquiry whether we have made him such a com- 
 pensation as is adequate to his services and expenditures ; or 
 such as will entitle us in the language of the constitution to be 
 considered as the patrons of science and the useful arts. From 
 a careful investigation of the subject^ I think it my duty to 
 recommend the case to your favorable consideration." 
 
 The committee to whom this recommendation was referred 
 made an elaborate and exhaustive report in favor of Carrigain, 
 and the result was, the legislature unanimously adopted a reso- 
 lution in favor of Carrigain, indorsing the " map" as one that 
 " appears to be executed with accuracy and much elegance." 
 
 The governor whose recommendation was thus endorsed by 
 the legislative department, was the same "unerring judge of 
 the heads and hearts of men," to use the language of an emi- 
 nent attorney-general of this state, who put Levi Woodbury 
 upon the bench of our highest court. 
 
 Carrigain's map needs no higher or more authoritative com- 
 mendation. 
 
 From the evidence thus far, the inevitable conclusions are : 
 
 I. That between the years 1638 and 1667 (besides the infor- 
 mation derived from Indians, Indian traders, and scouts), sur- 
 vey parties with guides and artists, under the authority of the 
 colony of Massachusetts Bay, visited the region now known as 
 the head of the Merrimack river, for the purpose of ascertain- 
 ing the northerly running of that river, and the " northernmost" 
 boundaries of the patent of that colony ; that the data for the 
 Gardner Plat was gathered in this way : that Endicott's tree on 
 the Pemigewasset was established as the initial point through 
 which the line of that patent ran, and was " commonly known " 
 at some time prior to 1767 ; and that the Gardner Plat, upon 
 
172 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 which the mountain "Carasaga" (which we call Kearsarge), 
 with the head of the Merrimack, and the forks of the Winni- 
 piseogee and Pemigewasset, appear relatively in their proper 
 places, was prepared before 1667. 
 
 2. That more than a hundred and fifty years ago, the region 
 westerly from the head of the Merrimack, northerly from the 
 Uncanoonocks, easterly from Monadnock, was the haunt of the 
 Indians on the war-path, and of their pursuers. 
 
 3. That for a long time, commencing about one hundred and 
 fift}' years ago, the region about the Kearsarge mountain and 
 hills was called Kearsarge. 
 
 4. That commencing at about the same time, the range of 
 bills beginning near what is now Webster, and running north- 
 erly for miles, was known as the Kearsarge hills. 
 
 5. That at least a hundred and thirty years ago, the range in 
 Sutton running westerly from the notch-pointed hill or moun- 
 tain was known as Kearsarge hill, and called such in official 
 records. 
 
 6. That more than a hundred and thirty years ago, the stream 
 south-east of the mountain was known as " Kiah [Currier] 
 Sarge " river. 
 
 7. That at least one hundred and eighteen years ago, the 
 stream which pours from New London through Sutton south 
 was known by the proprietary in Haverhill, Mass., and in 
 Plaistow in this state, and in their vicinity, as "Key a Sargg 
 river." 
 
 8. That after the grants of what is now substantially Warner, 
 Webster, Salisbury, Andover, and Sutton, and the partial set- 
 tlement of some of them, a township was left which included 
 the mountain proper and some portion of the hills, and took 
 from its shape the name of " Kearsarge Gore ; " that as such it 
 was granted by the Masonian proprietary in 1775 ; that as early 
 as 1783 it was charged with its share of the public burdens, 
 and about that time became by law entitled to town privileges 
 — in a word, was a town, and so continued, notwithstanding the 
 dismemberment by which a valuable portion was annexed to 
 New London in 1793. and by the creation of Wilmot in 1S07, 
 until it was absorbed by Warner in 1818. 
 
 9. That at most until August, 1784, and, so far as any map, 
 
KEARSARGE. 1 73 
 
 plan, or any other public document is concerned, until the pub- 
 lication of Belknap's History in 1791, no other region was ever 
 known as Kearsarge, no other hill or hills as Kearsarge, no 
 other brooks, streams, ponds, lakes, or rivers as Kearsarge : no 
 other mountain was anywhere known as Kearsarge, and no 
 other town or place has ever borne that name. 
 
 10. That the name Kearsarge, however spelled, has belonged 
 as much to the Merrimack county mountain as the Winnipiseo- 
 gee to that river and lake, the Massabesic to that pond or lake, 
 the Amoskeag to the falls, or the Uncanoonocks to the hills 
 bearing that name, and has for more tha7t two hundred 
 years. 
 
 We now come to the mountain in Carroll county. The name 
 ascribed to it by Dr. Belknap, whether rightly or wrongly, 
 was the same by which the region, the hills, the rivers, and 
 the mountain in Merrimack county had long been known, and 
 must have originally had the same meaning. 
 
 The question whether the name so applied to the Chatham 
 peak was an original, or in some sense a transferred local one, 
 must be determined by the weight of probabilities. Perhaps 
 we may best summarize the facts, and consider the question in 
 the following order : 
 
 1. There is no evidence that the Chatham mountain was ever 
 known or called by a name having any resemblance to Kear- 
 sarge before 1784. If that was its true name, no reason can be 
 suggested why it should not have been so called prior to that 
 time. Neither the Masonian nor any other grant, the curve 
 line nor any other, prevented the Indians who had lived about 
 it, or their prisoners, or the French, or the trappers, scouts, 
 guides, or Indian traders, from calling that mountain Kearsarge, 
 or from its being known as such from 1643 to 17S4, — a period 
 of nearly one hundred and fifty years ; while the presumption 
 of fact is, that if this name belonged to it, some of these or 
 some one else would have fovmd it out in that time. 
 
 2. Putting the matter in the strongest light for that mountain, 
 it had " no name " for generations after the one in Merrimack 
 possessed the name by which it was commonly known. 
 
 3. Not a particle of evidence has yet been produced or even 
 
I74 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 suggested, which aftbrds the slightest reason why the Indians 
 or any one else should have christened the Chatham peak Kear- 
 sarge, unless the name was borrowed without leave from Mer- 
 rimack county. 
 
 4. There is no pretence that this name was ever applied to 
 the hills, the rivers, or the region about this Chatham moun- 
 tain. If it was an original name there as much as in Merri- 
 mack county, why was it not applied to these, as in Merri- 
 mack county.'' It certainly could not have been because there 
 were not hills, brooks, rivers, falls, and intervales enough for 
 that purpose in the vicinity of the Carroll county mountain. 
 
 5. Whether the Chatham mountain, prior to 17S4, was name- 
 less, or known as Pequawkett, or Pigwacket, is entirely imma- 
 terial. The settlements in the Chatham, Brownfield, Conway, 
 and Fryeburg region commenced in the vicinity of i765-'7o. 
 The settlers were chiefly from Concord, Boscawen, Salisbury, 
 and Andover. They were the people with whom the Warner 
 mountain was a daily weather-gauge and a household word,' 
 " a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night," in their little 
 world. Every farmer and laborer in the whole region for 
 miles to the eastward of the Merrimack county mountain, when 
 he rose in the morning, looked first for " the storm-signal," the 
 " cap" on " Old Kearsarge." When the old settlers left it for 
 their new fields, they left, as it were, an endeared member of 
 the family behind them. 
 
 When Daniel Webster went to the Pigwacket region, he 
 found himself surrounded by his father's old comrades, neigh- 
 bors, and friends. Dr. Emery, the first physician of Fryeburg, 
 was a brother of the one who has long slept his last sleep near 
 his old home in Andover, where in his lifetime he daily drank 
 in one of the most magnificent views that the mountain affords. 
 
 In balancing the probabilities, we find in the one scale-blank 
 nothing, and in the other, to put it mildly, every weighty prob- 
 ability that these settlers carried with them both the memory 
 and the name of their old favorite, and that they applied it to 
 one of the most prominent mountains in the vicinity of their 
 new homes ; and that Dr. Belknap, aided perhaps by Whip- 
 ple, owing to his associations and interests in Kearsarge Gore 
 and the region of the Merrimack county mountain, gave it the 
 
KEARSARGE. 
 
 175 
 
 local name by which the people from Merrimacli county had 
 begun to call it. 
 
 6. No one had the right to take the name of the hills, rivers, 
 mountain, and region in Merrimack county, and bestow it upon 
 a nameless mountain, or upon Pigwacket or any other in Car- 
 roll county, or to blot from the map the name of Pigwacket, if 
 it belonged to the Chatham mountain. 
 
 The first of our great chief-justices once said, in discussing a 
 memorable issue, " If there is anything which seems peculiarly 
 a man's own, it is his name." Why should not this principle 
 apply to the great geographical landmarks of this state? 
 
 The ethics of this society ought not to fall below those which 
 prevail in the courts. 
 
 It is urged by those who would appropriate the old and hon- 
 ored Merrimack county name to the Chatham peak, that the 
 latter was never Pigwacket. Let us see. 
 
 1. It is said that the Indians had no proper names ; that every 
 word was complete and expressive in itself; and that Pigwacket 
 was an Indian word. What of it? Why had not the Indians 
 the same right to give a name to a nameless hill, plain, inter- 
 vale, river, mountain, region, or any other locality, if they saw 
 fit, as the white man? 
 
 2. But it is said that this word, or some other that looks like 
 it or sounds like it, or one that can be made up out of pieces of 
 other words and squeezed into shape until it resembles it, 
 means " level," " open land," " where said open land is suita- 
 ble for cultivation." The Pigwacket Indians may have been 
 good farmers two hundred years ago. We know they farmed 
 the game from the woods, the fish out of the rivers, and the 
 scalps from the heads of the white men. That they had so far 
 progressed as to have agricultural societies, colleges, and walled 
 towns, we have not as yet learned. Who knows at this day 
 whether the Salisbury and Sutton "level," "open lands" 
 " suitable for cultivation," gave the name to the rivers, hills, 
 and region, or the mountain to them? 
 
 Of what consequence is it whether these lands or the Pequaw- 
 ket tribe gave their name to the mountain, or the mountain to 
 them ? 
 
 If this argument has any weight, it is to show that the proper 
 
176 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 name of the Salisbury and Sutton intervales was Pigwacket, 
 instead of Kearsarge. 
 
 3. It is said, too, that the Pigwacket was " a circumscribed 
 position," the " Boston," " Concord," or " Portsmouth " of the 
 Pequawkett tribe. This is directly in the teeth of fact, Indian 
 custom, and tradition, as every man knows. They had neither 
 cities nor towns in our sense, or in any just sense of the term. 
 
 Tribes were not riveted to particular spots by a mysterious 
 and attractive force, like that of Sinbad's loadstone, nor were 
 they restricted to specified and definite limits. Their bound- 
 aries, except so far as limited by water-courses, were loose and 
 indefinite. They changed their lodges from time to time and 
 from place to place, as convenience served. In general, no tribe 
 was limited to "some particular village." They spread over 
 the indefinite regions which belonged to the tribe, and that was 
 known as the region, or country, or territory of the Iroquois 
 confederation, or of the Mohawk, or other tribe, as the case 
 mio"ht be. No good reason can be given why one I'ule should 
 be applied to Pigwacket, and another to Dunstable, Penacook, 
 or Kearsarge ; and few things are more preposterous than the 
 theory that any of these terms applied to one side of a river and 
 not to the other. 
 
 The Chatham, Conway, Fryeburg, and Brownfield region 
 was early known as the home of the " powerful Pequawketts." 
 In 1741, Bryant found both "the Pigwacket plain or intervale 
 land, and also Pigwacket river." In 1750, the " Pigwakket 
 hills" were laid down by Mitchell and Hazzen on their map. 
 On September 30, 1 765, Conway, six miles square, was granted. 
 It was described as "at a place called Pigwacket." On July 
 7, 1776, committees of the inhabitants of Conway, Fryeburg, 
 and Brownfield petitioned the legislature of New Hampshire 
 for aid, setting forth that "the said new plantations consist of 
 about one hundred and thirty families, situated at a place called 
 Pigwacket upon Saco river." 
 
 We have already seen from whence the people came who 
 settled these towns. We know that they regarded the name as 
 applying to an indefinite region, one not " circumscribed" by 
 precise or narrow lines or definite boundaries. It is impossible 
 to reconcile the fact that this name was applied alike to the 
 
KEARSARGE. 
 
 177 
 
 hills, rivers, intervales, plain, and the extensive territory re- 
 ferred to, with the theory that the word applies alone to 
 "level," "open land suitable for cultivation," or that it was 
 restricted to Fryeburg village, or to one side of the river. 
 Great farmers as these Indians may have been, we have no evi- 
 dence that Conway is or ever was in name, or exists within 
 the circumscribed limits of, Fryeburg village, or that the Ind- 
 ians planted their corn in the river, or that the Pigwacket or any 
 other hills in that region were either level or intervales. 
 
 Captain Willard says that when " campt on ye top of Wan- 
 nadnack mountain," he " discovered 26 pounds," and " saw 
 Pigwacket lying one point from sd. mountain and Cusagee 
 mountain, and Winnepeseockey laying north east of said Wan- 
 nadnack." 
 
 Great labor has been expended, research has been exhausted, 
 and great ingenuity has been displayed, in the attempt to im- 
 peach the testimony of this most important and responsible wit- 
 ness. 
 
 That the Warner Kearsarge is in full view from the top of 
 Monadnock can be attested by hundreds, and perhaps thou- 
 sands : hence we have of late the politic concession that Cap- 
 tain Willard could have seen Kearsarge if he wished. 
 
 It is conceded, also, that he could not have seen Pigwacket 
 plain, river, or intervales, or Stark, or any other hills in Maine 
 which it is now claimed were, later in 1725, known as the Pig- 
 wacket hills; and there is no suggestion even from any source 
 that any other mountain in that region was then or ever since 
 known as Pigwacket, or that Willard referred to any mountain 
 in that region, unless he did to the Chatham mountain, or that 
 he did not see that, if he actually saw anything there. This 
 reduces the issue to a single point. He says he saw it. Did 
 he tell the truth .? 
 
 The alleged facts from which it is inferred he did not, may be 
 considered in the following order : 
 
 I. That Willard had never been to the White Mountains. 
 This is the charge. The inference sought to be drawn is, that 
 because he had never been there he knew nothing about the 
 region, and therefore could not distinguish and identify one 
 mountain from anotlier. If such evidence exists, it should have 
 been produced. 
 
178 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 Under the date of 1725 Dr. Belknap says, — " New Hamp- 
 shire did not suffer so much as in former wars * * * partly 
 by reason of the success of the ranging parties, who constantly 
 traversed as far northward as the White Mountains." 2 Belk, 
 Hist. 66. 
 
 This state of things, in consequence of the wars and the ag- 
 gressive movements of Massachusetts, which recommenced in 
 earnest as early as 1716, continued for nearly half a century. 
 These rangers, surveyors, and Indian fighters made, as it were, 
 a highway from Dunstable, Monadnock, and the sea-coast, up 
 the valleys of the Merrimack, Pemigewasset, and VVinnipiseo- 
 
 But whether he had been there or not is entirely immaterial. 
 Willard, like other commanders of important expeditions, usu- 
 ally took with him his guides and interpreters, generally friendly 
 Indians familiar with the country. We know that he had them 
 with him about a month after the time when he was on Mo- 
 nadnock. They could point out the mountains, and give the 
 names by which they were known to them. 
 
 2. That so far as was then known, no name had been applied 
 to the Chatham mountain. This is begging the question at 
 issue, and is based entirely upon an assertion contrary to the 
 weight of the internal evidence. 
 
 3. That if he had known it familiarly as Pigwacket, he could 
 not have seen it either through his instrument or otherwise, 
 because it was in the haze of a summer day, and a hundred 
 miles distant. 
 
 This is a string of assumptions. There is not a particle of 
 evidence which has any tendency to show that either Willard's 
 eyesight, or his instrument, or the day, was hazy, and as to the 
 distance, the evidence is the other way. The claim that the 
 Chatham peak and Monadnock cannot be seen from each other 
 is, to those who are familiar with both, one of the most prepos- 
 terous fables ever put on record. 
 
 It is true that no one can see Monadnock from the other 
 every day or every hour in the year. That is true as resj^ects 
 Mt. Washington, which is about twenty miles distant. The 
 writer has had as fine a view of Mt. Washington from the top 
 of the Chatham peak as any man can desire, and in five min- 
 
KEARSARGE. 1 79 
 
 utes has lost it for an hour. He has also found it impossible at 
 times to make out either Lovell's mountain or the Merrimack 
 county Kearsarge from the summit of Monadnock ; but that 
 these "two mountains can be and have been seen from each other 
 distinctly by the naked eye in any reasonably clear day, is as 
 certain as it is that the sun shines, as is proved by the concur- 
 rent testimony of those most familiar with both mountains. 
 
 For all practical purposes, a viaduct runs direct from Mo- 
 nadnock to the Chatham mountain. Few things could be far- 
 ther from the truth than to say that Red hill, or Ossipee, or any 
 other mountain obstructs the view. This is perfectly obvious 
 to any one who has taken a view from the top of either moun- 
 tain, as well as from the raised map in the state-house. 
 
 4. That when he said he saw Pigwacket, he meant that he 
 neither saw that at all nor any other point, but that he was lay- 
 ing a course with his instrument to a place where he had never 
 been, which it was utterly impossible for him to see, and of 
 whose locality he was ignorant. Such a proposition is too ab- 
 surd for comment or answer. 
 
 Great responsibilities had been placed upon Capt. Willard. 
 His duties were arduous and perilous in the extreme. He was 
 sent to find out facts, and report them,— not to indulge in fancy, 
 or to give loose reins to a poetic imagination. His was a daily 
 diary, a journal of what he heard and what he saw. It con- 
 tains a mass of prosaic details. It shows in every sentence the 
 watchful eye, and the cool, practical, and matter of fact char- 
 acter of the foremost of the Indian rangers. It shows, too, 
 everywhere, a broad but natural line of demarcation between 
 the evidence of his own eyesight, what was reported by others, 
 and what was supposed or imagined. Thus he " marched " in 
 a certain direction, " corsed " certain streams, " campt" in cer- 
 tain places, " came to" certain '' pounds," " discovered" cer- 
 tain other " pounds ; " but he recites what the scouts " found," 
 
 that they " found two wigwams made in June or July as we 
 
 suppose;" that "we found several old signs" " where y'b they 
 camped when they killed the people at Rutland as ive imag- 
 ine" Few men, at this day even, mark these distinctions with 
 such precision and exactness. 
 
 There is no suggestion even that Willard, when he says he 
 
 VOL. IX. 14 
 
l8o NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 " corsed several branches of Miller's river," " came to a pound 
 which runs into Contoocook river," " campt at Pwewunseum 
 pound," '' campt on ye top of Wannadnack," " discovered 26 
 pounds," " found several old signs," " marched down ye wast 
 side Wannadnack," " corsed 3 streams that run into Contoo- 
 cook," "found two wigwams," and " came to a streame that 
 run into Mermack," did not write down the exact facts, nor 
 that he did not see with his own eyes what he said he " found," 
 or " discovered," nor that the same truthfulness does not char- 
 acterize everj'thing which precedes what is said about Pig- 
 wacket, from the beginning to the end of this expedition. It 
 must be conceded that he knew the difference between moun- 
 tains and ponds, between rivers or streams and rock or earth ; 
 that he knew the top from the base ; that in some way he knew 
 the names of these rivers, ponds, and the like, and of the moun- 
 tain from which he took his observations, and the Warner 
 Kearsarge as well. 
 
 But the logic of those who seek to justify at the same time 
 the piracy of one name and the vandalism of annihilating 
 another is, that when Willard came to the most terse and posi- 
 tive statement in his journal, to wit, that he " saw Pigwacket," 
 his capacity or disposition to speak the truth suddenly ceased ; 
 and that when he said he '■'■ saw" certain landmarks objective 
 and distinctive, he neither saw them nor knew their names, 
 and di'ew upon his imagination for their locality. 
 
 The audacity of this proposition is softened by the tacit con- 
 cession that the instant he passed the clause in question, the 
 stream of truth resumed its normal course in Willard's brain, 
 and thenceforward with full banks flowed on to the end. 
 
 The argument was born of the necessities of the case, and its 
 application from the patent line as assumed on Dr. Belknap's 
 map. 
 
 It is the deliberate and decided conviction of two members of 
 this committee and of Dr. Bouton, that Captain Willard not 
 only had the capacity and disposition to speak the truth, but 
 that he did so. 
 
 We recommend the adoption of the following preamble and 
 resolutions, prepared by and in the handwriting of Dr. Bouton, 
 the late chairman of this committee : 
 
KEARSARGE. 
 
 l8l 
 
 Whereas, of two mountains in the state of New Hampshire called 
 by the name of Kearsarge or Kiarsarge, the question has arisen to 
 which the name more properly belongs ; and whereas the judgment of 
 the New Hampshire Historical Society has been requested on the sub- 
 ject ; — therefore, — 
 
 Resolved, (1) That, after a full and impartial examination of historical 
 evidence, this society finds that the mountain called by said name in 
 Merrimack county has been known and called by that name, alone and 
 invariably-with variations in spelling— more than 150 years, or since 
 September, 1725; that the mountain so called in Carroll county was 
 first known or designated as " Pequawkett," and was never known or 
 called Kearsarge until subsequent to 1780, or after the settlement of 
 that section of country by people chiefly from Merrimack county, 1765- 
 
 1775. 
 
 Resolved, (2) That, to avoid confusion in geographical names within 
 the state, we regard it as desirable that the said two mountains should 
 be definitely distinguished by some proper authority ; and inasmuch as 
 the prior name of the one is historically fixed, both on maps and in 
 written records, and that of the other is more recent, and belongs to a 
 portion of the state known in all our early annals as the " Pequawkett " 
 —famous also in historic events ; -therefore, in the opinion of this soci- 
 ety, it would be highly appropriate and honorable that the name by 
 which it was first designated, and by which it was called on the maps 
 published by authority of the state in 1816, by Philip Carrigain, Esq., 
 should be retained, viz., Pequawkett mountain. 
 
THE ANNUAL ADDRESS. 
 
 JUNE 12, 1878. 
 
 BY JOHN T. PERRY, ESq. 
 
 My subject, if such a distinction can be claimed for a series 
 of rather loosely connected comments on various phases of the 
 past, and their still more varied treatment by modern critics, 
 each of whom gives them a turn in his own kaleidoscope, is 
 
 THE CREDIBILITY OF HISTORY. 
 
 It has been said that the historian is a prophet looking back- 
 ward. In the remotest antiquity a similar though further 
 reaching distinction was awarded the poet. The same word 
 was applied to him and to the prophet. This blending of 
 meaning no longer exists; yet the union of functions has not 
 altogether disappeared. Pope certainly wrote for all time 
 when he declared that " The proper study of mankind is 
 man." 
 
 But how shall man be studied? Psychologically, by placing 
 mind in the witness-box and compelling it to be both its own 
 eulogist and accuser ; physiologically, with the knife of the 
 anatomist and the microscope of the optician, aided by com- 
 parisons of the genus homo with other mammals, and of the 
 man of to-day with the cave-dweller; aesthetically, by convert- 
 ing beautiful abstractions and lofty aspirations into entities most 
 shadowy when most charming ; or, lastly, shall we judge him 
 by his works? 
 
 A dogmatic utterance on the relative importance of any 
 branch of human knowledge cannot win universal acceptance ; 
 but I shall not be deemed presumptuous by my present audi- 
 ence in ranking history among the sciences. 
 
 LE N 10