26. The Seizure of Northern New England

By the 1650s, then, five colonies were established in New England, as virtually self-governing entities: Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth in central New England, and Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Haven in the south. The estimated total population of these colonies in 1650 was: Plymouth, 1,500; Rhode Island, 800;* Connecticut and New Haven combined, 4,100; Massachusetts Bay, with twice as much as the others combined, 14,000.

What, however, of northern New England—the region north of Massachusetts Bay? The first settlements there had been made by “unauthorized” private groups of fishermen. In 1621 a group settled at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, near the site of what is now Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on the Maine border. Two years later, another fishing group settled at Dover, up the bay from Portsmouth. More formal colonizing came later when, in August 1622, the Council for New England jointly granted to John Mason (a friend of the Duke of Buckingham, a favorite of King Charles I) and Sir Ferdinando Gorges all the land between the Merrimack and the Kennebec rivers (the former is now approximately at the New Hampshire—Massachusetts border, the latter is in western Maine). Small special subgrants of land were now made. In 1622 to David Thompson, who the following year founded the settlement of Rye (south of Portsmouth on the coast). In 1623 Christopher Levett received a small grant and founded a settlement at the mouth of the Casco River (west of the Kennebec in Maine). And the following year John Oldham and Richard Vines settled Biddeford, on the south side of the Saco River, in what is now southern Maine. In 1629 Mason and Gorges agreed to divide their granted territory, Gorges obtaining all the land north of the Piscataqua, which he called Maine, and Mason all the land to the south, now called New Hampshire. In the early 1630s, Walter Neale founded two settlements on the Piscataqua, expanding Portsmouth further to the south, and adding the Rye settlement, and South Berwick on the north side. Gorges concentrated his colonizing in the area of York, a bit north of the border.

By the mid-1630s, then, northern New England was split in two, with small settlements along the coast: Casco, Biddeford, South Berwick, and especially York in Maine; Portsmouth and Dover in New Hampshire. John Mason had every intention of becoming lord proprietor of New Hampshire. Asserting that all the land was his own, he gave orders to arrest or shoot any persons daring to hunt animals on “his” territory. Mason also intended to establish the Anglican church in New Hampshire and to outlaw Dissenters. Stern resistance by the populace thwarted his designs, and when Mason died at the end of 1635, the colonists rebelled and announced the vacating of Mason’s claims. They declared Mason’s lands appropriated, and from then on they refused to recognize the sovereignty of his heirs. New Hampshire territory was now, like Rhode Island, a vacuum for free and unhampered settlement. Two years later, Rev. John Wheelwright, the first Hutchinsonian to be expelled from Massachusetts, walked northward through the snows to found the town of Exeter, New Hampshire. Wheelwright and his followers drew up the Exeter Compact in founding the town; it was modeled after the original Mayflower Compact. More orthodox Puritans, sent from Massachusetts Bay shortly afterward, founded Hampton, in New Hampshire.

Maine, however, was not that lucky with its proprietary feudal overlord. In 1639 Gorges obtained a royal charter that confirmed his position as proprietor and governor of Maine. Gorges sent his cousin Thomas Gorges to Maine to rule the colony, and he established a provincial court at York.

But if New Hampshire territory was a vacuum, it was, again, a vacuum that invited seizure by the ambitious, expansionist Massachusetts power. Massachusetts not only was impelled by the territorial drive endemic to all states, but also was attracted by the rich prospect of timber, fur, and fishing resources in the north. Unlike Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine had no influential Puritan friends in England; indeed, Mason and Gorges had been royal favorites and the settlers were largely Anglican. Hence, when the Puritans came to power in England, northern New England was looked upon as a ripe plum for Massachusetts’ designs.

The New Hampshire towns were the first to go. Hampton, founded as an outpost of Massachusetts Bay, had always been under its jurisdiction, and had been sending a representative to the Massachusetts General Court. The other towns, beginning with Dover, were appropriated by Massachusetts during 1641–43, a circumstance forcing Reverend Mr. Wheelwright to flee once more, this time to Maine. Also appropriated were scattered New Hampshire towns far to the west of the Piscataqua towns: Merrimack and Salisbury on the Merrimack River, and Haverhill far to the northwest.

Fortunately, Massachusetts’ rule over the New Hampshire towns was relatively enlightened—due partly to the religious diversity of the towns and the numerous Anglicans living there. A large measure of home rule was allowed; the towns governed their local affairs in town meetings and elected deputies to the General Court at Boston. Significantly, the New Hampshiremen were exempt from the church-membership qualification for voting, a qualification strictly enforced in Massachusetts proper.

Massachusetts’ grab of Maine came a decade later and encountered stiffer resistance. Gorges’ death in 1647, coupled with the rise of Puritanism in England, left a vacuum in Maine. The three towns at the southern tip of Maine—York, Wells, and Kittery—attempted to form a free and independent union like that in Rhode Island, but Massachusetts did not permit it to come to fruition. Ignoring an appeal by Maine to Parliament, Massachusetts seized the towns in 1652 and then proceeded to annex the Saco and Casco settlements as well. Fortunately, the Maine towns received the same home-rule privileges as the towns of New Hampshire. Thus, both New Hampshire and Maine had by the 1650s been swallowed up by Massachusetts Bay.

*Of the distribution of population in the Rhode Island settlements, the breakdown in 1655 was approximately: Newport, 38 percent; Portsmouth, 29 percent; Providence, 17 percent; Warwick, 16 percent. In short, two-thirds of the Rhode Islanders lived in Aquidneck and one-third on the mainland.