New Hampshire Yankee

New Hampshire Gazette
Thursday October 21 1756

To maturate the juices it is necessary to collect the apples into heaps, in an open airy part of the orchard, unsheltered from the rain and dews, which instead of doing harm, will dilute the juices and promote a fresher fermentation. Apples of various kinds which have dropped from the tree, are to be gathered up and laid in a heap by themselves, and may be made into cyder after having lain about 10 days. Apples which have acquired some degree of maturity, and are gathered from the trees are to be laid in a heap by themselves for about a fortnight. The later hard fruits, which are to be left on the trees till the approach of frost is apprehended, are to be laid in a heap for a month or five weeks, by which they will receive such a maturation as they could not have attained on the trees. The riper and mellower the fruits are at time of laying them in heaps, the shorter be their continuance there, and the harsher immature and harder they are, the longer they should be left. In some counties the method is to make these heaps of apples in a house, or under some covering enclosed on every side; but this occasions a great lots of juices, a general rottenness rancid smell, and disagreeable taste. *

Various presses are in use, but none are compared to the great wring, or cyder press with two screws. The mechanism is so obvious that it needs no explanation. As the cyder runs from the press it is to be received into a vessel fixed within the ground, from whence as it fills it is to be ladled out and put into a cask with its head struck out, and a course hair sieve over it that the cyder may be strained and the grosser part of the pulp intercepted.

From this vessel it is transferred into a large open vat which will contain a whole pounding or making of cyder, or as much as can be pressed in one day. When the cyder has remained in this vat a day, or sometimes less, according to the ripeness of the fruit and state of the weather, the grosser parts of the pulp will rise to the top and in a day or two more grow very thick; and when little white bubbles of the size of the top of your finger break through, it is then , presently to be drawn off through a cork or faucet hole within 3 inches of the bottom, if large, but not nearer than four inches, if small, that the less may be left behind

If the cyder be not immediately drawn off on the first appearance of these white bubbles, all the head which is then thick crust, will sink to the bottom, and the making of sweet cyder will be lost.

On drawing off the cyder from the vat, it must be turned into close casks well scented. Upon letting it remain a longer or shorter time in these casks with the lees and impurities, the hardening of it depends.

To have cyder perfectly sweet, it is to be carefully watched after it is turned into close casks, and when the white bubbles arise at the bung hole, it is to be immediately racked off again into another clean and well scented cask, which operation is to be continued till the cyder ceases hissing, and is as sweet as you desire. Weaker cyders will only bear one or two rackings: But to make the bolder and stronger cyders soft, mellow and perfectly sweet, the rackings must be repeated till the fermentation ceases.

The manner of making rough cyder differs from that of the sweet, in this that the first appearance of the while bubbles may be disregarded, and the liquor not drawn off till the next separation. After the fermentation is over every hogshead must be filled up to the bung, once a month; if this be neglected the cyder will grow flat and heavy, and contract an ill taste and smell from the rancid air lodged in the vacuity. Vent should be sometimes given at a spile-hole for three months. Until it has done hissing, the bung hole would be best covered with a tile or flat stone, after that it should be closely bunged.

*Note, Grinding the apples too small produces acidity and bitterness.

WITCHCRAFT

Jewett, Jeremiah Peabody, d. 1870

The first instance of a trial for witchcraft in Massachusetts occurred in 1648, when Margaret Jones, of Charlestown, who being indicted as a witch, was found guilty, and under the laws of England against such supposed crime, was executed. ” She was charged of having such a malignancy that if she laid her hands on man, woman or child in anger, they were seized presently with deafness, vomiting or other sickness, or other violent pains.”

In 1692 a great excitement was again revived on account of its supposed prevalence. It commenced at this time in the town of Danvers, then a part of Salem, about the last of February. Several children at first began to act in a curious, unaccountable manner. Their strange conduct continuing for several days, their friends betook themselves to fasting and prayer. During religious services the children were still, but after the service they would renew their former unaccountable conduct. This was deemed sufficient evidence that they were
moved by an evil hand, and every exhibition of the sort was then regarded as witchcraft. After a while these children began to bring accusations against divers individuals in that vicinity, being severally charged of bewitching them. Unfortunately the children were credited, and the suspected persons were arrested and imprisoned. From that time the contagion spread rapidly over the neighboring towns, and soon appeared in several parts of Essex county as well as cases now and then in Middlesex and Suffolk. Individuals at Andover, Ipswich, Gloucester, Boston and other places, were accused and held for trial.

For some time those who were accused were persons of the lower class. But at length accusations were extended even to persons of high rank and distinction. This delusion had now become fearful. Before the close of September of that year nineteen persons bad been executed for witchcraft. Among the victims was one Giles Gory, who was pressed to death for refusing to put himself on trial before the Jury. Most, if not all of these persons died declaring themselves innocent of the crime laid to their charge. At length the courts began to be convinced that their proceedings had been rash, and their judgments without any just foundation. A special session of the court was then holden on this subject, and fifty persons then being held for trial, were acquitted. Others wrere reprieved by the Governor. These proceedings were followed by a release of all who were then in prison.

It ought to be said, perhaps, that if human testimony, coming from credible witnesses, is to be credited, many things happened at that time inducing a belief in witchcraft, which even to many people of our day have never been satisfactorily explained.

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EARLY SETTLERS OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

BY PROF. E. D. SANBORN — 1877

No bells, bonfires nor cannon announced the arrival of the little barque which sailed up the “deep waters” of the Piscataqua in 1623, and landed on Odiorne’s Point, the founders of a new State. Tradition does not repeat nor history record the name of the ship nor of the captain who commanded it. The Mayflower and the men who landed on Plymouth Rock, in 1620, are as famous in history as Jason and his associates, who sought the Golden Fleece, are in ancient mythology. New England men never weary of eulogies of forefathers’ day; and they will, probably, never cease to commemorate the heroism and piety of those forty two god-fearing men, who signed the first written constitution known to human history. Still, the Plymouth Colony,  by itself,  wrought no nobler or better work for mankind than the unnoticed, almost unnamed colonists who founded New Hampshire. Massachusetts Bay settlers, the Puritans, eclipsed the humbler efforts of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. The Pilgrims bore the sufferings of exile, privation and toil ;  but the Puritans at a later date appropriated the fame and the honor which rose from the laws, government and institutions of Massachusetts. Capt. John Mason, the Proprietor of New Hampshire, sent over fifty Englishmen and twenty-two women, besides eight Danes who were employed in sawing lumber and making potash. This number exceeded that of the Mayflower. It is not probable that all these men and women came in the first ship. Many of them arrived several years after the first company of planters occupied Odiorne’s Point. There is no reason to suppose that many women, possibly not one, came in 1623. Some writers suppose that the Hiltons and a few other leading men brought their wives with them. For, ten years after the first settlement, the letters of the proprietor and his agents in Loudon, speak of sending the wives of some, of the colonists or of supporting them, at the company’s expense, at home. The very slow progress of the settlements at Cocheco and Strawberry Bank show that the laborers were few; for only three houses had been built, on the Bank in seven years, and only three in ten years, at the upper plantation. If families were united in these labors, six houses would scarcely suffice for eighty persons. Why were these colonists less renowned than the Pilgrims of Plymouth? The previous history of the Pilgrims, their persecutions at home, and their residence in Holland made them famous. Religion occupied the thoughts of all Englishmen. The Pilgrims were exiles for conscience’ sake; they suffered for the common liberties and rights of the whole people.

The first settlers at Portsmouth and Dover were adventurers, bold, hardy, and resolute, like all pioneers who go into the wilderness to better their condition. Such is generally the character of emigrants who found new states. Philosophers tell us that from the race, the epoch and the surroundings of a people, their future history may be accurately predicted. Here then is a problem for the prophet’s solution. The race is Saxon; the epoch is one of progress, enterprise, discovery and controversy, both with the pen and the sword. The surroundings are the wilderness before them and the ocean behind them. The soil is rugged; the climate is severe. Tell me, then, thou boasting seer, what will be the fate of this handful of men, as destitute and helpless as though they had dropped upon the earth from some distant planet. Will they die of starvation, be devoured by wild beasts or be massacred by savages? By occupation, they were fishmongers, farmers and mechanics. “Their several businesses” assigned by their employers, were to fell the trees, till the soil, fish, hunt and mine. Incessant labor in these occupations failed to support them; and the proprietors were obliged to sink their fortunes in the abyss of debt which these plantations opened. John Mason, who was a man of mark, and would have been distinguished in any age, was financially ruined; but like Phaeton, guiding the chariot of the sun, he fell from great undertakings. Instead of securing coronets and mitres for his posterity he died the victim of disappointed hopes:  ”No son of his succeeding.”  The men he hired to plant his colony had not sufficient education, religion nor integrity to make them true to their trust. That they were illiterate,  appears from the fact that many of them could not write their names. So little is said of their religion that, it may be presumed they had none to speak of. They did not attempt to gather a church, at Dover, till 1638. Then, they were broken up by quarrels, and some of their early clergymen were fitter for the penitentiary than the pulpit. At Portsmouth, no provision was made for preaching till 1640, when a Glebe of fifty acres was granted for the support of an Episcopal chapel;  and Richard Gibson was the first incumbent. The first Congregational church was formed much later. The founders of Exeter and Hampton were led by clergymen, and churches sprang up with the towns themselves. That the servants of Mr. Mason were dishonest appears from the fact that, after his death, they plundered his estate, drove away his cattle that he had imported at great expense, and sold them in Boston for twenty-five pounds sterling a head, and appropriated his goods. There was no local government sufficiently powerful to punish great crimes; while the proprietor ruled through agents, factors and superintendents, there was little restraint over servants but the personal influence of the so called governors. The laborers were the “hired men” of the proprietor who lived three thousand miles away. They were neither masters of their time, their labor, nor of its rewards. If the value of plantations and mills was enhanced, the profit was not for them. They neither owned the premises where they worked, nor shared the gains nor losses that resulted from their labors. When they became free-holders, and made compacts or “combinations” for the better government of the plantations, and the more certain punishment of crimes, the stimulus of property, liberty and suffrage elevated the laborers, and fitted them to do, dare and suffer more than any other New England Colony. The people of Portsmouth formed a political compact as early as 1633, but it gained from the crown no authority to make laws or punish offenders. Dr. Belknap says, that, till 1640, the people of Dover and Portsmouth had no power of government delegated from the King. At that time, they formed themselves into a body politic as the people of Exeter had done the year before. The next year, 1641, all the four plantations formed a union with Massachusetts, and voluntarily submitted to her jurisdiction. They were allowed peculiar privileges, for in 1642, the following decree was passed by the General Court of Massachusetts: “It is ordered that all the present inhabitants of Piscataquack, who formerly were free there, shall have liberty of freemen in their several towns to manage all their town affairs, and each town [shall] send a deputy to the General Court, though they be not church members.  From this date the laws, usages and customs of the larger colony became the inheritance of the smaller; and the union which continued for thirty-nine years, was ” a consummation devoutly to be wished,” by both the high contracting parties.

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Taken from The History Penacook, N.H. by David Arthur Brown

Concord was first settled in 1726, being at first called Penny Cook; one of the original proprietors of the town, Henry Rolfe, acquired land on the south side of the Contoocook extending from the Merrimack river to the Borough, but when the first of the Rolfe family settled on this land can not be determined. Probably some of the sons of the first Henry were the first settlers of this land, as it is recorded in the history of Concord that Benjamin Rolfe came to live on the Rolfe farm in 1758; being then but sixteen years of age, it seems probable that he came to live with some of the older generation who had settled there before that date.

The first settlers of Boscawen (first called Contoocook) came up from Newbury, Mass., in the spring of 1734. One of the first party was Stephen Gerrish, who secured land on the intervale on the east side of the Merrimack river and settled there, as in 1737 the proprietors voted” that Stephen Gerrish shall have six pounds paid him by the proprietors for his building a ferry boat and keeping said boat in good repair, and giving due and constant attendance to ye proprietors to ferry themselves and their creatures over Merrimack” . The ferry was located at the bend of the Merrimack, just above the mouth of the Contoocook river, that being the same location as the present bridge. Another of the first party of Boscawen settlers was William Dagodan, and tradition affirms that he built a cabin at the foot of what is now called Dagody or Dickeatty hill. John Chandler was one of the proprietors of Boscawen, though not one of the first party of settlers. He was grandfather of the John Chandler who built the old tavern, and secured the land on the Boscawen side of the river from the Merrimack back to the vicinity of Hardy’s brook. His son John was probably a settler on this land soon after 1734.

At the Borough end of the village the first white settler was Joseph Walker, who built a log hut near the present residence of  George E. Flanders about 1750. He remained but a short time, as the Indians were not desirable neighbors. The next settler in that part of the village was Richard Elliott, who arrived about 1760, and came to stay. Two of his brothers, Jonathan and Benjamin, came in 1768, and Joseph Elliott came in 1778. These families all came from Newton, and their descendants were the principal families at the Borough for three generations. Mrs. Lydia Elliott, wife of Joseph Elliott who came to settle at the Borough in 1778, had the distinction of being the oldest person that ever lived in this vicinity. She was born January 30, 1753, and died June 24, 1856. For many years the family lived in a log house. On the hundredth anniversary of her birth a religious service was held at the house of her son, David Elliott, with whom she resided. The exercises were conducted by Rev. Asa Tenney of West Concord, and Rev. Dr. Bouton of Concord ; many of the prominent citizens of Concord were present, as well as many neighbors. Mrs. Elliott was in good health at the date of this meeting. On the morning of that day she rose in season to breakfast with the family, dressed herself without assistance, and made the bed in which she slept. She was at that time quite deaf, yet possessed her bodily and mental faculties in a remarkable degree. In earlier years she often walked to church at Concord, many times carrying an infant in her arms. She said that she never had a physician in her life except at confinement with her children ; never took physic, or an emetic, or had a tooth drawn, or was bled. Mrs. Elliott had eleven children, all of whom reached mature years, and ten were married. Her grandchildren, at the hundredth anniversary, numbered seventy ; her great-grandchildren one hundred, and of the fifth generation there were at least eight at that date. She was truly a very remarkable woman.

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