gass \-'A--^.- Book — .M-S^C^ / ^p' Bi-Centennial Souvenir i693-i893 V NEW CASTLE, NEW HAMPSHIRE COMPILED BY Chestkr B. Curtis. 'I ^ v/Y Printed and Illustrated By the Republican Press Association, Concord, N. H. INTRODUCTION. This little book is, necessarily, a hasty compilation. Its lirst object is to preserve, in tangible tbrm, a record of our bi-centennial celebration, together with a few facts, culled from histor}'-, bearing more or less directly upon this event. Furthermore, it is intended to convey to absent sons and daughters an idea of the New Castle of to-day. Our social position acquired during the past decade, necessitates a brief statement of our present flourishing con- dition. It is hoped the numerous illustrations will supply that which is lacking in the few paragraphs here given. To Mr. John Albee, the compiler expresses his appreciation of the use of" New Castle, Historic and Picturesque," from which a part of the following extracts are taken, some verbatim. Also to those citizens who have contributed the illustrations, and to the authors of the literary exer- cises of the day, the compiler expresses his thanks. c. B. c. OFFICERS OF THE TOWN OF NEW CASTLE. SELECTMEN. Fred Bell, Chainnan. Ambrose Card. Charles H. Becker. Howard M. Curtis, Clerk and Treasurer COMMITTEE ON CELEBRATION. William Edward Marvin, President. EXECUTIVE BOARD. John Albee, Chairman. Conrad Push. Fred Bell. Ambrose Card. Charles H. Becker. Moses R. Curtis. Conrad Push, Chester B. Curtis, Secretaries. OFFICIAL PROGRAMME. Rinirinf; of bells. 6 a.m., i^>i-. 6 p.m. National salute fired from Fort Constitution. II A. M. Procession and Flag-raisings. Speech at Grammar School by Col. T. E. O. Marvin. Speech at Primary School by Exercises at Fort Constitution. Address of Welcome, Fred Bell, Chairman of Selectmen. Address by John Albee, Chairman of Exec- utive Board. Oration bv Frank Warren Hackett. 1 p. M. Dinner in Stone Shed. 2 p. M. Sports. lo-oared boat race. New Castle, Portsmoutii, and Kittery Point crews. Bicycle race. Potato, obstacle, and sack races. lOO-yards dash. Yacht race by Piscataqua Yacht Club. 7 p. M. Band concert. Bonfire, fire-works. Music furnished bv the Dover Cornet Band. NEW CASTLE, N. H. It Is difficult to separate the history of New Castle from the general affairs of the Province of New Hamp- shire in the early times. We may naturally claim whatever transpired here, as the building of forts, the entry and clearance of vessels, the residence of gov- ernors, and the meetings of councils and assemblies, as a part of the town's history. New Hampshire has forgotten that story ; or, when she remembers, is apt to locate it at Portsmouth. The fact is, that the settle- ment of New^ Castle was prior to that of Portsmouth; and that for the first seventy-five years it was the cap- ital of the province, and two thirds of the provincial officials were citizens of the town. There are two aspects, two periods, that chiefiy make the history of New Castle interesting : the first is the town as the centre of all the principal events of the earliest provincial period ; the other is when, lett only to its own local affairs, it gradually became insular, clannish, and peculiar. In regard to the causes ot its early importance and subsequent obscurity, they were altogether natural. As soon as the colonists found out what were likely to be the natural resources and business of this part of New England, they planted themselves on this island, directly at the mouth of the Piscataqua, where the facihties for maritime affairs, for fisheries and Indian trade, were most convenient. But in those days it was necessary to protect your property and 3'our person by defences of some sort at exposed points. Now an island affords the most natural and easiest opportunities of defence. The form of this island was already that of a fort, very nearly square, with jutting points of land at the four angles, like bastions. Rude fortifications were early built on these four corners, which immediately gave the island still more the appearance of a great coast defence. The first was constructed by Capt. Walter Neale, between 1630 and 1640, at Fort Point. It was the duty of New Castle to keep a constant guard at the main Fort or Castle, of from four to six men ; and also a watchman on Jaffrey Point, and one or two in the vicinity of the free bridge. On this account the town was generally exempted from the levies for other mili- tary duty. New Castle was the pet of the province ; looked upon as a common possession, a barrier town, a place of refuge in case of extreme danger or disas- ter. So much for the military situation. No actual local government, independent of the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, was put in operation in New Hampshire before i68o-'8i, so that there is very little doubt the very first representative body ever con- vened in the state was at New Castle. The date of the first Council meeting is "Great Island, January 15, 1683," and every one of its meetings was here until the year 1697. ^^^ ^^^^ members of this first recorded Council, including the governor, Edward Cranfield, lived at New Castle. Their first meetings were in the private houses of some of its members. The Jaffrey cottage, now owned and occupied by John Albee, Esq., and the residence of Jotham Emery, Esq., formerly the Prov- ince House, have been the scenes of these assembhes. New Castle became a port of entry about 1686 ; and for one hundred years thereafter the shipping interests 5^y^^^^JE»'^jgs^^!^l^,< al ^ ^_ l ll^Mli W> aBl^l l »ll > «"J > J^■ iig*^»"^ » »•** « »»« i'.,,. i.l,...,. both in numbers and activity, of the settlements upon this river ; and it long remained the place of chiefest importance. Nor is this to be wondered at. Not that the soil was superior — rather the contrary ; but here fishing could with most convenience be carried on. Here, too, was security against sudden incursion from hostile savages. Then, again, it is to be remembered that most of the adventurers were west of England men. They came from Cornwall, and from Devon. They loved the sea; they loved to be near it. Strong affection for the familiar scenes of the home they had left may have exercised a controlling influence in the choice they were now to make. The settler may well have preferred to cast in his lot at a place where daily he 36 could look out over the ocean, ready to catch the first glimpse of a sail that should bring tidings from " merrie England." To this subtle attraction of the element so potent to shape the life of him that once yields to it, your own poet-historian, Mr. Albee, alludes, with a deli- cacy of touch that is the pervading charm of his valuable little book. " Fond local attachment," he truly says, " belongs to dwellers by the sea. Nor can they be happy away from their boundless horizon." ^ Travel at that primitive day was accomplished almost exclusively by water. The river was a highway. A ferry was early established to the main land, but scarcely any one here went on horseback. So late as 1680, in a tax-list of fifty-seven estates, one finds only three horses owned upon Great Island. One was the property of George Walton, Senior ; the other two belonged to Der- mont Usher. The first grant of land upon Great Island, so far as we now know, bears the date of October, 1637.- Vines, Jocelyn, and Warnerton, as agents of Gorges and Mason, lease, at an annual rent of two shillings, a neck of land lying upon the north-west side of the island, of about one hundred acres, commonly called Muskito Hall,^ to Francis Mathews, and his heirs, for the teim of one thousand years. If Mr. Mathews had cherished the purpose of conferring upon his descendants the privilege of living upon an estate thus agreeably described with the opportunity for active enjoyment that its name implies, all at the rate of two shillings a year, — he was doomed to a speedy disappointment, for the land soon passed into other hands. One wishes that we might be furnished with some particulars in regard to these first settlers of New Castle. You would like, I dare say, to ascertain in just what part of the town this or that remote ancestor of yours had his home lot. What were the incidents that befell him in the round of his simple yet stirring life ? The records to which we would naturally resort for light upon this interesting period, have been destroyed. You will be surprised, when I tell you that they perished, not from fire, or by accident, but at the hands of the selectmen of the town. One winter's night, five men met at a tavern (or ordinary, as it was then called) kept by George Walton, who had come here, a fisherman, from New- foundland. The party had with them a volume containing the accumulated records of perhaps seventeen or eighteen years of the infancy of the settle- 1 New Castle, Historic and Picturesque, by John Albee (Boston, 1884), page 4. - The salt-marsh around the head of Sagamore Creek early invited occupation. Mr. Francis Williams, chosen governor under a combination for local self-government, which had been entered into about 1633 by Great Island, Little Harbor, and Strawberry Banke, ]ived on the "Salt Creek." So at least I infer from the record of a deed made by him in 1645. For faithful services as a factor of Mason, a large grant upon Sanders Point had been made to Ambrose Gibbens in 1632. We may safely set down Sanders Point as the earliest English name that has been preserved in this region. It applies to the neck of land upon which the bridge from the Wentworth touches, at its further end. s Later called Wotton's Neck. I find it described as Muskito Hall, in court records, as late as 1829. To-day the name is applied to a narrow stretch of water in that vicinity. 37 ment. Slowly they turned over leaf after leaf of this book, and marked here and there an entry that they thought worth preserving. The rest they crossed out. They voted (for they were the selectmen) to begin a new book of records, into which the town clerk should copy such entries as they had approved. 'J'he old book thus dishonored they threw aside. This transaction took ])lace on the night of the 13th January, 1652. ^Vllat became of that old town-book, no one knows. It is enough to say that our earliest records at Portsmouth start in 1652, — the result of that night's work at Walton's inn. The entries copied from the old first-book are few and meagre. i Time does not admit of my entering upon an explanation of this strange act. It was no secret conclave of conspirators. The leading men of the town in an official capacity were carrying into execution a carefully concerted plan. Suffice it here to say that the procedure was in strict conformity with the methods by which Massachusetts Bay had seized upon this region, and with a rigid hand maintained her jurisdiction. The story of usurpation is all the more difficult to unravel, for the very reason that the Bay authorities did not scruple to make use of the records for their own purposes, nor hesitate to malign those who stood in their path^ . Until recently New Hampshire history has been written from the standpoint of the Puritan. Perhaps nothing more readily reminds us what that standpoint was, than certain familiar resolutions, with which you are very familiar: Resolved, That the saints shall inherit the earth. Resolved, That we are the saints. It is in no spirit of controversy that I speak of the intolerant traits of character tliat prevailed among the very worthy leaders who governed our neighboring colony, and were willing to govern us. These men acted according to the light that they had. If they actually believed that a man here who happened to think otherwise than they did, could do so only at the instigation of the devil, we of to-day can stretch out the hand of forgiveness. But the truth of history is to be zealously sought for, and when found, as zealously defended. We may rejoice that a new era has opened before us. The asperity and the rank injustice that marks the pen of the Puritan chronicler is largely shorn of its power for mischief, now that the sources upon which it drew for inspiration are understood and duly estimated. The prevailing religion among those who first settled here, was that of the Church of England. Mr. Albee has, I think, very satisfactorily shown that there must have been a church here soon after 1640, at which the Reverend Robert Jourdan ministered. Little by little, however, the Puritan faith made 1 Of late, England h.is seen a revival of interest in early records, and the kingdom is being searched to discover old documents and papers. The cheapness with which printing can now be done, and the increase in number of those who aim to preserve historic material, both in England and America, combine to make it probable that some originals may yet be brought to light that belong to the annals of our early settlements here. It is by no means unlikely, therefore, that by the next centenary a more accurate and minute account of the inhabitants of Great Island, at their first coming here, can be laid before the audience then to he assembled, than is possible at the present day. 39 headway, until at last church worship was abandoned here, and people went to meeting at the Banke. As the town taxed everybody to support the minister, the location of the meeting-house came to play an important part in the life of the town. It was no slight undertaking, especially in winter, to row against wind and tide to Portsmouth. There, on the hill below the south mill bridge, stood a building, described as "of sixty feet by thirty with galleries, a low belfry and a bell, the windows with diamond panes set in lead." Alongside of it were a cage, and a pillory and stocks. To Mr. Nathaniel Fryer, of Great Island, had been accorded the privilege of building next door to the meeting-house, a little cabin, wherein the Fryer family doubtless found it convenient to "fix up," before facing the congregation. In the many attempts to gain a right to be set off as a separate parish (which eventually resulted in the incorporation of New Castle) one argument pressed by the petitioners was the great hazard and danger of getting their families to meeting. To this Portsmouth neatly rejoined : " We have never heard and hope never shall of any lives lost in attempts to come to meeting. If at any time there should be any danger of that, they well know mercy is to be preferred before sacrifice." Candor compels the admission that a good deal of staying away from meeting on the Lord's Day was practised in the olden time upon this island. Nehemiah Partridge, it seems, had a servant named Robert (never mind his family name), whose predilections in this regard have gone into our public archives. Robert stands confessed of record, not only of having a vacant seat charged up against him on several successive Sabbaths, but on "the Sabbath before last Sabbath [so the record runs] he did eat part of two pigs that were roasted at Christopher Kenneston's." The pigs had been stolen, but Robert was not accused of being privy to that enormity. Robert's offence consisted of profanation of the Sabbath, and absenting himself from Mr. Partridge's service. Upon examination before the Worshipful Richard Martyn, of the Council, Robert got sentenced to be publicly whipped upon his naked body nine stripes. Could his Honor have looked down the vista of a century and a half, and caught the full flavor of Charles Lamb's disserta- tion upon this subject (I do not mean the subject of staying away from meet- ing — but of roast pig), his sense of judicial duty could scarcely have been tempered with more mercy ; for the court suspended execution until Robert should again neglect his master's service, or profane the Sabbath, — " then forthwith to be whip])ed with nine stripes, as above." It is but a step from the meeting-house to the school-house. We do not underestimate here in New Castle the importance of giving to our boys and girls a good, plain, common-school education. That this policy was early determined upon, is apparent from the records. In March, 1669, the town voted that "a piece of land at Cireat Island, not exceeding an acre, be sequestered to build a school-house on, and that a school be built on it at the towne's charge, the selectmen Captain Pendleton and Mr. Dering to see it done." The house was accordingly built, and on the 9th May, 1672, liberty was granted to Nicholas Hogkins to swing his ferule within its walls. With your permission, I will read Master Hogkins' letter 40 of application for this office. It will serve to remind us that the art of pre- paring one's own recommendation is of no recent origin. We shall also see what happy work that gentleman made of it. " To the Inhabitants of Portsmouth " Nicholas Hogkins humbly deaclareth That being by the ordination and providence of God a resident upon the Great Island about 15 months and affecting ye public benefit of ye unlarned and untaught youth heare or adja- cent do by your favourable permission countenance and choyce intend to ex- ercise myself in teching those arts with which God hath betrusted me and with which I may for future be endowed hearby manifesting my respect to obedience of and complyance with the laws and orders of this place either sacred or civill and endevowing to manifest myself Yo Reall servant " Nicho Hogkins." On the 15th March, 1674, is the entry that " upon motion made by Widow Lock to live in the school house on the Great Island in order to the teaching of children to read and sow have granted her desire." The jurisdiction assumed by the Bay Colony over us, lasted from 1641 to 1679. Forty years of a strong government had wrought a wide-spread change in the condition and the sentiments of the people. Those who were Puritans (some of whom had come here from the Bay) were aggressive and united, backed as they were by the authorities. They alone held the offices, and they had gradually got possession of the land. The Church of England party little by little was pushed to one side ; a few yielded, and ranged themselves with the dominant faction. Upon the restoration of the king to his throne, the opponents of the union with Massachusetts sought redress of their many grievances. Mason's heirs had all along been active against the encroachments of the Bay. To adjust these, and other difficulties, and to capture New Netherland from the Dutch, a fleet of four vessels of war was sent over, with a small force of soldiers. Four royal commissioners accompanied the expedition. On the 20th July, 1664, two ships, the Rlartin^ and the William and Nicholas put into this har- bor. They remained at anchor for a day or two, and then sailed for the ren- dezvous at Long Island. They took New Netherland, now New York; but the commission accomplished nothing in the way of curbing the power of the Bay Colony. The next year three of the commissioners visited Portsmouth, where some of the people had signed petitions, saying that the Massachu- setts had usurped power, and that they were kept from open opposition by fear of fine and imprisonment. It is a long but a deeply interesting story. I have time only to say that of the strong adherents to the policy of separation, a few lived here at New Castle. At last, after a struggle of many years' duration, the union of the two colo- nies was dissolved by order of the king. New Hampshire was erected into a royal province, under a president and six councillors, with an assembly of eleven deputies. The commission was sealed iS September, 1679. Guns 41 were fired here upon receipt of the tidings. John Cutt was appointed presi- dent ; Martyn, \'aughan, and Daniel of Portsmouth, Oilman of Exeter, Hus- sey of Hampton, and Waldron of Dover, were named as the council. .Singu- lar to state, they were every one a firm friend of the Bay Colony. President Cutt lived but a year after taking office. Waldron succeeded him for a short term, when there came upon the stage one of the most restless, strong-willed, and zealous representatives of royal authority that ever crossed the Atlantic. Edward Cranfield, — who, as his renmins lie buried in the cathedral at Bath, probably came from Somerset — is, upon the whole, the most interesting histor- ical personage to whom New Castle may lay claim. Here he lived during the RLalDl.NCl. Ol I, ...1. A. 11. Wlllll. entire term of his brief service as governor. From almost the day of his arri- val he succeeded in plunging our little province into a state of turmoil and excitement, of which this immediate locality was the centre. Great Island was the court end of the capital of the province. Here, with the advent of the provincial government, sat the council, and here the assem- bly met. Here, too, the courts of justice tried offenders, and they were kept busy at the work. Here was the jail. The house of Captain Stileman had been devoted to that purpose, and the new governor found opportunity to make not a few leading citizens acquainted with its interior. We came near having a portrait of His Majesty, King Charles, the Second, together 42 with the royal arms, set up here in fine style, only it so happened that the vessel on which they had been shipped never reached her destination, and the province had to get along without them. Robert Mason asserted the right of collecting quit-rents of the landholders, in virtue of the patent to his grandfather. Captain John Mason. This claim had all along been bitterly resisted. Mason mortgaged the province to Cran- field for twenty-one years, to secure to Cranfield the payment of ;^i5o for seven years. Mason was made a councillor, and afterwards chancellor. Cranfield's commission as lieutenant-governor passed the seals gth May, 1682. By another commission from the Duke of York he was made vice-admiral, judge, register, and marshal of the admiralty, with power to appoint substi- tutes. Upon Cranfield far greater powers were conferred than had been given to his predecessors. Sailing from Plymouth in the frigate Lark, he was nearly seven weeks reaching this coast. The ship put into Salem harbor, ist October, 16S2. The royal governor hurried overland to Portsmouth, where he arrived on the 3d. He was quick and alert. Early the next morning he set about the duty of officially announcing his presence. He took the oath, swore in his council, and issued a proclamation. The Lark soon made her appearance. She stayed here till early in January. The governor at first established quarters at the house of Captain Walter Barefoote. Afterwards, he went to live at that very attractive spot, the Jaffrey house, a mansion that we pray may stand as sturdily for years to come as it has for more than two centuries past. Time forbids my dwelling upon the many commotions that swiftly followed each other in Cranfield's administration : the dismissal of the assembly, the Jaffrey affair, the Mason land suits, the imprisonment of the Reverend Joshua Mood}', the rebellion at Hampton, and the conviction and awful sentence of its ring-leader, Gove, for the crime of treason. Upon complaint made to the king, an arrangement was at last effected by which Cranfield withdrew in 1685, and later retired to the Barbadoes, where for some years he faithfully served his royal master. All these events have, as the expression goes, passed into history, though as that history has been to a large extent written by clergymen opposed to the Episcopal faith, its statements will bear certain qualifications. New Hampshire owes to Jeremy Belknap a debt of gratitude for a work that in point of purity of style has nowhere been excelled. We can see that as a historian the writer tried to be impartial in narrating facts, to be just in stat- ing conclusions, and charitable in imputing motives. When treating of Cran- field, however. Dr. Belknap does not stop at moderately emphatic terms of disapproval. " Vindictive," " cruel," " deceitful," " malicious," and other like adjectives are freely employed to denote the warmth of the historian's denun- ciation. "Cranfield's hypocrisy," he tells us, "is detestable." One can scarcely dismiss a suspicion, that could the historian of New Hampshire return to-day in the flesh for the purpose of revising what he wrote more than a century ago, he would soften, at least some of these ex- pressions. Dr. Belknap, it is proper to explain, had no access to the other side of the controversy. Letters written at the time and dispatched to England by 43 Cranfield, are now before us in print, — thanks to the energy and the liberality of a worthy son of Portsmouth, the late John Scribner Jenness. Cranfield, it is plain to see, was hot-headed and stubborn. He wofully lacked tact. He utterly failed to enter into the tone and temper of the people he had undertaken to govern. It may l)e that personally his manners were not agreeable, for he had not in his nature a particle of conciliation. Pos- sibly it is true that he was disappointed at not making out of the office the money upon which he had counted. But like many an unpopular occupant of public station, Cranfield has been made to carry a heavy load of charges, for a part of which he is not justly responsible. Kesu Some day this striking episode in New Hampshire history will be written anew. Facts, some of them not heretofore consulted, will be thoroughly sifted. A picture will be drawn of those turbulent times, which shall do even-handed justice to all the actors, chiefest of whom is Cranfield. New Castle will furnish the background of the picture. The canvas stands ready for the artist. As though the good people here had not had their fill of e.xcitement, another kind of agitation occurred in Cranfield's day, that must have gone nigh to turning the island completely upside down. I refer to a stone-throw- 45 ing devil, who played his pranks on the premises of our old friend, George Walton. Luckily for posterity (who always want an authentic account of the marvellous), the Secretary of the Province, Mr. Richard Chamberlain, lodged and took his meals at Walton's, l^eing an " ocular witness " and handy with the pen, Mr. Chamberlain was thoughtful enough to set down then and there an account of these violent activities, with the whizzings and snortings that accompanied the same. When Mr. Chamberlain went back to England, he gave to the world a little book, printed at London in i6g8, and entitled " Lithobolia." It is a famous little book now. Cotton Mather heard of what was going on here, and he also has embalmed it in literature, written in his well known simple and lucid style ! Tremendous as was the event, it bore a character strictly local. The brickbats and the hammers, the pewter pots, and sundry other articles con- venient for missiles, were hurled about nowhere else than within the boundary lines of Mr. Walton's real estate. Here, however, they freely circulated. Inasmuch as the demonstration had assumed a concrete form at a time when people were just recovering from the effects of a great fiery-tailed star, that had been blazing in the heavens, some of the wiser heads were sure that the devil, the comet, and Governor Cranfield had solemnly entered into an unholy league for the purpose of terrifying and harassing the Province of New Hampshire. We of a later generation have reason to be proud of our stone-throwing visitor. To be sure, his name never got upon the tax-list, but we know that he stayed long enough in town to entitle him — if not to vote, — at least for ever after to hail from New Castle. No other incorporated community in the land (or in Europe either for the matter of that) can match us in this peculiar line. Moreover, though twice at least the black cat of witchcraft showed itself within our territory, it has left behind it, thank God, no stain of the gallows. What single date may hope to awaken in us at this hour so lively an interest as that of the year 1693.' The event distinguishing that year above the rest, we pay honor to by these commemorative exercises. All of us, I dare say, would like to know what the town of New Castle looked like just after it had been born. It is safe to say that it must have had every appearance of being a healthy child. I am admonished, however, that your patience has been taxed to such an extent by my attempt to bring before you some conception of how they started off in 1623 with their infant settlement, that there is really very little time left us to look at the infant town.' As for the christening, I am inclined to agree with Mr. Albee. He is good at guessing. This time I think he has hit the mark. The fort, as we know, ' From records of the North Church, Portsmouth, we know that in 1692 the families in the parish numbered 231 : at Strawberry Banke, 120 ; at Greenland, 68; at Great Island, 43, — the families south of Sagamore Creek being classed with Greenland. The census of 1890 gives us a total of 488. In 1773 our numbers were 601. The highest figure, I think, that New Castle has ever attained, is 932, in the census of 1820. In 1880 the town had 610 inhabitants. Several towns in Rockingham county show a decrease of population in the last decade. One thing is sure ; we are to-day escaping the evils of a redundant population. 46 was not infrequently termed the castle. It cost the rate-payers a pretty penny, too, to keep it in a state of what may be called " warlike posture." To judge from the frequency with which the subject figures in council and assembly records, the fort must have been always either actually undergoing repairs, or else deplorably in need of them. It so happened, while our chief men were nearing the goal of their hopes, in their efforts to bring about a sej^aration from Portsmouth, that a good deal was going on at the fort or castle in the way of making it as good as new. We can accept this plausible explanation, in default of a better. The first town meeting was held on the 20th of December, 1693, '" ^^^ '^^^ meeting-house that stood near the fort.^ The honorable office of selectmen was conferred upon John Clark, James Randall, and Francis Tucker. John Leach was chosen constable.^ The limits of the present address do not admit of my entering into the details of our political town history. That is a subject that deserves to be treated by itself. Ample materials for a sketch, instructive as well as enter- taining, are at hand in our local records. The town-meeting is justly admired as the nursery and the conservatory of our liberties. The true democratic instinct here enjoys free, natural play. Every man meets his neighbor on a plane of equality, to discuss and decide questions of local concern. So far from being a mass of dry, dead matter, of no practical use to this busy age of ours, the recorded proceedings of our early town-meetings have much to teach us, illustrating as they do the steady growth and development, in its primary stage, of the foundation principles of self-government. Let me then invite your attention to the urgent need that exists for doing all that is to-day possible to put your town records into proper shape. The record that begins in February, 1756, ends abruptly on page 46 with the proceedings of a meeting 26th January, 1767. There are entries thereafter of meetings from iSoo to 1807, together with many pages of mar- riages and births. It can hardly be that one or two more books were not kept of the records from 1766 to 1800. These books maybe in existence somewhere in the neighborhood. Let search be made for them. There are loose papers of various dates covering this period. They should be carefully examined and classified, ready to be copied into a book, if we do not find the missing volumes. I regret to add that from 1856 to 1S65 the records also are missing. Let us hope that these defects shall be remedied at as early a day as possible. I feel, too, upon this occasion, that I may fitly urge you to guard these town books against all possible danger of future loss. Do not let it come to pass that fire destroy them. Not to you alone who live here ; or to those whose lot it was to have been born here, are these old records of value. They are precious, and as the years pass, they will have grown more precious to thousands scattered over the country, who can trace back some ancestral tie that reaches New Castle. - Albee, page 136. 2In 1793 the selectmen were Henry Prescotl, George Frost, and John Tarlton. In 1893, they are Fred Bell, Ambrose Card, and Charles H. Becker. 47 To the foresight of some of our good townspeople do we owe it that the town has a transcript of the oldest book. This admits of the copy being deposited for safe keeping at a distance from the original. It is a wise pre- caution, — a kindness to posterity. Let the school children visit these records, and learn from them a lesson in history. Let us all look upon these pages as so many visible links binding us to the past. They who lived here two hundred years ago were not all old people (as one is apt carelessly to assume), but men, women, and children, of every age and condition. We simply have stepped forward to take their places. Soon we too will be gone. Let not the ancestor be totally forgotten upon the soil where once there smiled for him a happy home. The first hundred years of the town, almost co-e.xistent with the eighteenth century itself, brought in their train a varied fortune. The peaceful pursuits were the fisheries, or voyages along the coast, or to the West Indies. There were serious troubles with the Indians, and wars with the French, when New Castle manned the forts — (there had been a fort also at Jaffrey's point as early as 1665,)^ or by night patrolled the shore from here to Little Boar's Head, or contributed her share of that product peculiar to the New England seaport towns — that half sailor, half soldier, and all fighter — to the taking of Louisburg.2 There were coronations at Westminster, and changes of high officials at home. It was a gala day when a new royal governor was proclaimed. They would fire muskets on the parade at Portsmouth, and then the guns of the fort here would respond with a noisy salute. When the Earl of Bellamont was proclaimed in 1698, it took four gallons of rum with a due proportion of sugar, nutmegs, and limes (amounting to i _;^, 7 Shill., and Sd) to make the ceremony here at the fort pass off nicely. The receipt (not for making the punch, but in payment of the bill) is on record. What chiefly interests us, I think, is the apt name of the lieutenant who takes charge of these ingredients — Samuel Comfort. Towards dark on the afternoon of the I3tli December, 1774, a horseman rode in hot haste into Portsmouth. The king in council had passed an order prohibiting the exportation of gunpowder and military stores to America. The rider brought warning from the Boston committee of safety that a sloop of war had dropped down into the roadstead there, bound thither, it was thought, to strengthen Fort William and Mary. He was Paul Revere. The next day the roll of drum had brought together men from all direc- tions to the door of the state house. By three o'clock in the afternoon a band of about four hundred, headed by Captain Thomas Pickering, coming from Portsmouth, Rye, and New Castle, surrounded the fort here and demanded its surrender. Captain John Cochran held it with five men. He told the patriots on their peril not to enter. In his report the captain says, — " I ordered three four-pounders to be fired on them, and then the small arms, and before we could be ready to fire again we were stormed on all quarters." I XVII State Papers, 542. - Among the names of New Castle men who took part in the siege are Captain Abraham Trefethren and Thomas Card. Henry Trefethren and Lewis Tucker lost their lives in this campaign. 48 Seizing and confining the captain and his guard, the invaders broke open the magazine and carried off a hundred barrels or more of the king's powder. This powder did service for the cause of liberty at Bunker Hill. This exploit was followed up by a later attack, in which John Sullivan and John Langdon (both destined to become eminent) were leading actors. The party secured and brought away certain cannon and small arms. This daring enterprise, in which your townsmen took part, assigns to the spot where we now stand a place of honor as the scene of the first overt act of rebellion in the colonies. New Castle is thus brought into the very fore- ground of the opening scenes of the Revolution. You well know the story of Governor John Wentworth's coming hither to seek the shelter of the fort, and of the ships of war in the harbor. There are in the town office two letters written by the governor at that time to the selectmen of New Castle. On the 13th August, 1775, the selectmen (John Simpson, Henry Pres- cott, and George Frost, Jr.) addressed the governor, stating that the town had kept a watch at night, and that "about Twelve o'clock last night they were attacked by a number of men from His Majesty's ship, the Scarborough, one of whom was taken and carried aboard, and another wounded." The select- men pronounce it " a very extraordinary and alarming piece of conduct," and they ask that the man be released and set on shore. The governor prom- ises to look promptly into the affair, with what result it does not appear. On the 17th August, the governor requests the selectmen that he be sup- plied with provisions, for which he will pay, he having at least twenty in the family, and no communication with Portsmouth. The selectmen reply in a tone respectful, but spirited, as follows : " May it please Your Excellency : " In answer to Your Excellency's Letter of this Day we are sorry to inform you that this Town is so poorly furnished with Provisions of any kind that it is quite out of our Power to furnish your Excellency, and as the Com- munication is now stoped with Respects to the Transportation of Provisions from the Country to this Town it is not in our Power to procure more than a bare sufiiciency for our own subsistence, all which we are obliged to go to Portsmouth for. " We are Your Excellencies most obed'. Hum''''' Servants "John Simpson, " Henry Prescott " Selectmen of New Castle " New Castle Augt : 17 : 1775 " During the Revolution earthworks higher up the river were relied upon for the defence of Portsmouth. The fort here was left with but a handful of men. Captain Meshach Bell at one time had just six men under his com- mand. In the War of 1812 it was fully garrisoned under Captain Marshal. In 1861 the state troops garrisoned Fort Constitution. As an incident of the Revolution, it may be mentioned that on the ist 49 December, 1777, a ship arrived here from Europe bringing Baron Stciil)en, who came over to aid us. To that gallant officer's wonderful work in ])er- fecting the drill of the continental soldier was due, as you know, no small measure of our success. On Monday, the 2d November, 17S9, this fort gave a glad welcome of thir- teen guns to George Washington, president of the United States, who was being rowed by in a barge. At this date Captain John Blunt, who had piloted Washington's boat across the Delaware on the memorable eve of the Battle of Trenton, was living on Blunt's Island. It is thought that Wash- ington went ashore there to see Captain Blunt in hi.s own home. 1 The military service required of the inhabitants of this town, it must be remembered, was promptly furnished at the fort. Yet there were those who enlisted and went forth to military duties in the field. Ten years ago there were living in New Castle one pensioner of the War of 181 2, Abram Ama- zeen ; and five widows of soldiers that served in that war, — Mrs. Mary White, Mrs. Hannah F. Vennard, Mrs. Grace Beal, Mrs. Mary Kinnear, and Mrs. Mary Lear. Mrs. Kinnear died at the age of 95 years and 9 months. During the War for the Union New Castle contributed of her men and means. On last Memorial Day flowers and the flag that we love so well marked the spot where those lay sleeping at Riverside and at Tarltons who died in order that the Union might live. They number eight at the former and ten at the latter cemetery. A full list of officers of the army who have been stationed at Fort Constitu- tion would be interesting. I have not had time to prepare it. Of the com- manding officers the following partial list is, I think, appro.ximately correct : 1821, Major John B. Walbach ; 1822, Captain Fabius Whiting ; 1829, Cap- tain Felix Ansart ; 1839, Captain Justin Dimick; 1849, Major Charles S. Merchant; 1849, Captain Richard D. A. Wade ; 1850, Major John M. Wash- ington ; 1853, Captain William Austine. In December, 1853, Lieutenant-Colonel Washington and Captain Horace B. Field (who had been stationed here), of the 3d Artillery, were lost in a gale on the ill-fated steamer San Fi-ancisco, when four officers and one hun- dred and eighty men perished. As a boy I can remember the company marching up across the Parade at Portsmouth, on their way to Fort Colum- bus, New York harbor, thence to be transferred to the Pacific coast. Lieu- tenant Winder was among the saved.2 Colonel Justin Dimick and his family were long identified with New Cas- tle and Portsmouth. I may also mention the fact that Major Robert Ander- son, of Fort Sumter fame, was stationed here as first lieutenant in i834-'35. Another officer was Francis Vinton, second lieutenant (i833-'36), who re- signed and became eminent as the Reverend Doctor Vinton, of New York city. Sergeant James Davidson, who had sole charge of the fort for many years, 'During their terms of office President Pierce came here in the Wabash, man-of-war, and President Arthur was taken through New Castle on his way to Portsmouth. 2 His son, Lieutenant William Winder of the navy, was born at Fort Constitution. 4 50 deserves honorable remembrance. On the morning of the 2d June, 1S55, the frigate Constitution, lying off this harbor, fired a salute. It was returned from the fort, the sergeant himself firing it alone. I can easil)' recall with what admiration, when a boy, I regarded the soldierly bearing of Sergeant Davidson. New Castle in 16S6 became a port of entry. The trade was then confined to the products of the forest — masts, planks, and staves, — the fisheries having been given over. Twenty vessels of 290 tons belonged to Great Island in 16S1. In 1839 the fishing business was very extensive. Fifty schooners were owned here in whole or in part. Captain Thomas Tarlton was a large owner. So was Captain Thomas E. Oliver. Other owners were the Bickfords, the Batsons, Whites, Curtises, and Amazeens. Some years later the manufacture of shoes was carried on here for a while with some success. In former times, when the fishermen were off at their business, political excitement occasionally dropped to a low ebb. A town meeting was duly warned for the last Monday in August, 1794, to vote for four representatives in the Congress of the United States. The following entry appears on the back of the warrant : "Monday, August 25, 1794. The select men assembled at the meeting House agreeable to the within warrant but as no others came except Henry Prescott Jun'r, they thought bsst to depart without doing any business. Henry Prescott, Town Clerk." There has never been over much wealth in New Castle, and the sea-faring element has predominated. Boys did not go to college : they went to sea. New Castle's claim to men of distinction is a modest one. Theodore Atkinson was chief-justice of the province. Colonel Shadrach Walton was a man whose career would have done honor to any locality. His great-grandson, Benjamin Randall, also a native, was a man of rare merit, the founder of the Freewill Baptist denomination. The first president p7-o tern, of the senate of the United States, the patriot John Langdon, was born in the town of New Castle. John Frost is the name of one of New Hampshire's best and most useful citizens. Sampson Sheafe was councillor for more than twenty years; Jacob Sheafe, his son, was born here in 17 15. George W. Prescott (who died in 1817) was graduated from Dartmouth, be- came a lawyer, and was United States attorney for the district of New Hamp- shire. I am told that Harriet Prescott Spofford is of this Prescott family. Now that a new era has dawned for New Castle, and summer visitors are more than charmed by its attractions, the town gets the benefit of some re- flected light in a literary way. If the poet be neither made nor born here, he at least sojourns here awhile. John Albee is one of us. The Town Report shows that he is still in the sunshine of civic distinction, being number three on the board of education. Arlo Baker was a bird of passage, but Stedman and Barrett Wendell are of our summer population. The latter is identified with our home industries, for I understand that he keeps a literary work- shop at full blast here in a little building hid away somewhere in the woody region of Frost Fields. Besides these whom I have named, as brilliant a historian as ever wrote English loves New Castle so well that he comes and dwells where on summer days he can from his window at Little Harbor look out upon the river view that he has so faithfully ))ainted in a late volume of that fascinating series, "The Conquest of Canada." There remain not a few subjects which for lack of time I am obliged to pass over without mention. The topography of the town, with special ref- erence to territory once of incorporated New Castle, that now belongs to Rye or to Portsmouth ; the bridges, early and late, and the means resorted to for raising funds wherewith to build them; the joining of Rye to New Castle in sending a representative to the General Court; the experiment of annexing Star Island in 1716, and how it turned out; the old custom of nightly hanging a lantern upon the flagstaff at the fort before a light-house was thought of; the long line of faithful ministers of the gospel who have labored here, not forgetting in this connection the Reverend Mr. Chase's negro man Cuff, "the saxton," who rang the bell and cleaned the meeting-house; the changes that followed the opening of The Wentworth, the enterprise of its owner in beautifying the grounds, sparing no pains to render it a summer dwelling-place worthy of the views one gains there, views that once seen are never forgotten. These, and many other topics, were full of interest could we bring them before us. We have thus for a few brief moments contemplated the New Castle of the past. We have seen her the home of a sturdy, a frugal, a self-respecting people. We have seen her true to the traditions of her Anglo-Saxon, lib- erty-loving ancestry. We have seen her prompt in war ; hardy and industri- ous in peace. We have seen in her annals the bright incentive to the main- tenance of a high standard of activity for the future. Let us in turn uphold her honor and dignity. Grateful that Providence has watched over and protected our whole country, let us for the new century upon which we have now entered look forward to blessings yet to come, in the full hope that as prosperity shall dwell within our borders as a Nation, so shall the Divine favor in no small measure continue to rest upon this good, old, island town of New Castle. ^i«K UC^u?i]