Volume 1, Chapter 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 1500, Rhode Island 800,
Connecticut and New Haven combined 4100, Massachusetts Bay with twice as much as the others combined
14,000.
Of the distribution of population in the Rhode Island settlements, the breakdown in 1655
was approximately Newport 38%, Portsmouth 29%, Providence 17%, Warwick 16%. In short,
two-thirds of the Rhode Islanders lived in Equidneck and one-third on the mainland.
What, however, of northern New England, the region north of Massachusetts Bay? The first
The 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 main 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 Gorgias 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 sub-grants 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
Levitt 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
In 1629, Mason and Gorgias agreed to divide their granted territory, Gorgias 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 Neal founded two settlements
on the Piscataqua expanding Portsmouth further to the south and adding the Rye Settlement
and South Berwick on the north side. Gorgias 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, Bidford, South Berwick and especially
New York, Maine, Portsmouth, Dover, 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
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, Gorgias obtained a royal charter that confirmed his position as proprietor and governor of Maine.
Gorgias sent his cousin Thomas Gorgias 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 Gorgeous 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 Hampshire men
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.
Gorgias's 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 Sacco 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.