On August 4, 1718, five small ships came to anchor near
the little Wharf at the foot of State Street in Boston, then a town of about twelve
thousand people. On board these ships were about one hundred and twenty families of
Scotch-Irish. Based on the large average family size of that time, there were probably
nearly seven hundred and fifty passengers aboard. One old patriarch, John Young, was
ninety-five years old and there were "babes in arms, a plenty of them."
Earlier in the year, this band of settlers had prepared a written petition to Governor
Shute of Massachusetts seeking encouragement for their efforts to emigrate to New England.
The document was prepared on March 26th, 1718 and to which was attached three hundred and
eighteen names. Reverend Boyd who acted as the agent for the group received enough
encouragement from Governor Shute to recommend that preparations for their embarkment
begin, even though nothing definite was agreed to between the governor and the minister,
not even the location for settlement. It appears that Governor Shute's motive in allowing
the Scotch-Irish to immigrate into his jurisdiction "was to plant them on the
frontiers of Maine as a living bulwark against the restless and enterprising French of the
north, and their still more savage allies..." (the Indians). "The motive of the
Ulstermen in coming to America was to establish homes of their own in fee simple, taxable
only to support their own form of worship and their strictly local needs-to escape, in
short, the land lease and the church tithe."
In any case, on board ship were three Presbyterian ministers, Mr. McGregor, Mr. Corwell
and Mr. Holmes. "Those best off of all the passengers were the McKeens,
the Cargills, the Nesmiths, the Cochrans, the Dinsmores, the Mooars, and
some other families that were natives of Scotland, whose heads had passed over into Ulster
during the short reign of James 11. These were Covenanters. They had lived together in the
valley of the Bann Water for about thirty years, in or near the towns of Coleraine,
Balleymoney and Kilrea." Their pastor was James McGregor and they wished to settle
together in America, "to enjoy together in peace, in some sequestered spot the sweet
ministrations of the gospel according to their own sense of its rule and order..."
Having separated into three groups, the sixteen families that eventually settled
Londonderry in April of 1719, with approximately three hundred people in their company,
sailed from Boston in late autumn to explore Casco Bay. They wintered hungry and cold
aboard ship in Portland Harbor. In early spring they left some of their number in Portland
and Wiscasset, but the bulk of them decided to return to a milder climate and more
favorable location. They returned to the Merrimack River and Haverhill and having heard of
a fine tract of land about 15 miles to the northwest, called "Nutfield" on
account of the abundance of nut-bearing trees, set out to explore the area. After
examining the land, the settlers decided to accept a grant of land twelve miles square
from the state of Massachusetts. The land area included the present towns of Londonderry,
Derry, Windham, as well as portions of Salem and Manchester.
The men constructed a few temporary huts along "West Running Brook" and returned
to Haverhill for their families and worldly possessions. They arrived in Nutfield on April
11, 1719 and the following day Reverend McGregor preached his first sermon to his
partially reunited people under a large oak tree on the shore of Beaver Lake. He took his
sermon from the second verse and 32nd chapter of Isaiah. To protect themselves against
Indian attack, the settlers built their log homes on each side of West Running Brook on
lots that enclosed sixty acres, and which was known as the double range. Two stone
garrison houses were built during the first season to resist Indian attack.
The Nutfield settlement never suffered an Indian attack. One reason for this was because
of the friendship that existed between Reverend McGregor and the French Governor Vaudreuil
of Canada. These two men had attended college together in the Old World and maintained a
correspondence. It is said that the French governor urged the Catholic priests to tell the
Indians not to injure the settlers, as they were different from the English, and to assure
the Indians that no bounty would be paid for their scalps. In spite of the freedom from
Indian attacks, it is also said that Reverend McGregor always took his gun into the
pulpit, and the settlers generally carried guns. The only exception was the killing of a
fourteen year old boy near Golden Brook in 1721 by Indians.
As in other New England settlements, the Indians helped settlers to adapt to their new
surroundings. An Indian took Mr. McGregor to the top of a high hill and showed him the
direction of the Falls of Amoskeag, where the Indians caught quantities of fish. For a
long time, the settlers obtained from there salmon and shad. John Dinsmoor, who was one of
the settlers left in Maine, was taken captive by the Indians while building a house on the
coast and lived among them for a time. He eventually rejoined the settlers in Londonderry.
By September 1719, five months after the first settlement, there were seventy families; by
October there were one hundred and five families. So rapidly did the settlement grow that
they soon wanted town privileges and petitioned the General Court of New Hampshire for an
act of incorporation. It was not until June 21, 1722 that "Nutfield" was
incorporated as the town of Londonderry.
Not all was grim and austere among the early settlers. The first fair ever held in this
country took place in Londonderry about 1719 or a little later. The Scotch-Irish of
Londonderry knew how to hold a memorable event and the fair became widely attended by
Scotch-Irish, English and others. John Greenleaf Whittier, the poet from Haverhill, who
was familiar with the settlement and fair through his friendship with Robert Dinsmoor,
"the Rustic Bard," described it this way:
"In a few years they had cleared large fields, built substantial stone and frame
dwellings, and a large commodious meeting-house; wealth had accumulated around them, and
they had everywhere the reputation of a shrewd and thriving community ... Their moral
acclimation in Ireland had not been without its effect upon their character. Side by side
with a Presbyterianism as austere as that of John Knox had grown up something of the wild
Milesian humor, love of convivial excitement and merrymaking. Their long prayers and
fierce zeal in behalf of the orthodox tennants only served, in the eyes of their Puritan
neighbors, to make more glaring still the scandal of their marked social irregularities.
It became a common saying in the region round about that, 'the Derry Presbyterians would
never give up a pint of doctrine or a pint of rum.' ...Erelong the celebrated Derry fair
was established in imitation of those with which they had been familiar in Ireland.
Thither annually came all manner of horse-jockeys and peddlers, gentlemen and beggars,
fortune tellers, wrestlers, dancers and fiddlers, gay young farmers and buxom maidens.
Strong drink abounded. They who had good naturedly wrestled and joked together in the
morning not unfrequently closed the day with a fight, until like the revellers of
Donnybrook,Windham
The first grant of land in Windham was one of 500 acres, ordered by
the Legislature of Massachusetts, to Rev. Thos. Cobbett, of Ipswich. This farm was laid
out in 1662, or fifty-seven years before the Scotch made a settlement in Londonderry, of
which Windham was a part. It is doubtful that any permanent settlements were made until
the advent of the Scotch in 1719. The first settlement in Windham was southeast of
Cobbett's Pond, near the cemetery on the highest elevation of Copp's Hill. There the first
house stood, and the first occupant was John Waddell, and this was not far from 1720.
It was not all harmony in the town of Londonderry. The town thrived and the congregation
became very large. As the population increased, it began to diffuse itself into different
settlements within the town. As the town grew there were "many men of many
minds." The first disagreements arose over "the everlasting place-of-the
meeting-house question, which has wrought more plague and alienation in New England than
all theological dogmas put together." Other disagreements arose over land. The farms
along the Windham Range were laid out in 1728 and the land given to fourteen settlers as a
result of a dispute over the original distribution of land in Londonderry. The petition to
Governor Benning Wentworth, praying for the erection of a new parish, though not dated,
was drawn in 1740, and was signed by Thomas Morrison and forty-eight others. The reasons
for presenting the petition were narrated to be considerable difficulty, unknown to others
not in their circumstances, more especially with respect to their attendance of public
worship. It was stated that all of the petitioners with the exception of three, were
living upwards of seven miles from either of the meeting-houses in town. From this it will
be seen that the early settlers of Londonderry were church-going people, those asking for
a new town of Windham making their strongest claim on the grounds of living an
inconvenient distance from the earliest houses of worship. The familiar family names of
the men that signed the petition include: Morrison, Dinsmore, Cochran, Campbell, Emerson,
Armstrong, and Park. The charter for Windham was granted January 21, 1741 and "An act
for incorporating a new parish in the township of Londonderry in the Province of New
Hampshire," was passed by the General Court February 12, 1742. It was also enacted
that Robert Dinsmoor, Joseph Waugh and Robert Thompson be authorized and appointed to call
the first meeting of inhabitants of the said parish on the 8th day of March following. The
first town meeting was held on March 8, 1742, at which the initial measures were taken to
form the new town of Windham. The selectmen elected at the first town meeting were Robert
Dinsmoor, Joseph Waugh, Robert Thompson, Samuel Morrison and William Gregg. At the time of
its incorporation, Windham included about one third of the present town of Salem. Soon
after Windham became a town, the cemetery on the plain was laid out. It was the intention
of the Scotch settlers to follow the custom of their homeland and have the
"kirk" or church located as near as possible to the center of town. The plan to
locate the church on the plain was defeated and was erected instead on Copp's Hill
(Cemetery on the Hill). This was unsatisfactory to the citizens of town farthest away, and
there was continual agitation on the subject of finding the "town's centre."
Many residents of the part of town which is now part of Salem, were of different blood and
different faith, and even though they worshipped with the Scotch Presbyterians in the
church on the hill, there was little in common between the "English
Congregationals" and the Scotch people. And the English Congregationalists felt they
were being unfairly taxed to support the Presbyterian Church. Since Salem had been settled
by the English, many inhabitants in the southeast portion of Windham felt that it would be
to their advantage to be annexed to Salem. Many of the people of the northerly and
westerly sections of Windham thought they would benefit from having the English families
disannexed from Windham, since it would be more likely that the church would be put in the
center of town and more convenient to them. The two groups voting together brought about
the dismemberment of the town. On the ninth day of January 1752, "to quiet all
strife," the lines were changed.
According to E.E. Parker, in history of Londonderry, NH, the town took its name from
Windham, a place in Ireland, near Londonderry. |
