In 1866 New Hampshire Governor Frederick Smyth
began the seventy-seven year process that resulted in the publication of
the forty-volume set of the New Hampshire Provincial and State Papers.
It is highly doubtful that he was particularly interested in providing
future family historians with a wealth of genealogical information at
that time. But, if you had ancestors who lived in New Hampshire at any
time from its colonial beginnings to its years of early statehood,
chances are excellent that you will find information about one or more
of those individuals in this series.
The New
Hampshire Genealogical Research Guide (Heritage Books, Inc., 1983),
by Laird C. Towle and Ann N. Brown, lists the contents of each book in
the New Hampshire Provincial and State Papers with the exception of
volumes thirty-four to thirty-nine, which are devoted exclusively to
probate records. In their preface Towle and Brown note, “Each volume has
a detailed index which generally cites all persons mentioned as well as
all localities and topics. Browsing will disclose that many apparently
perfunctory records contain fascinating genealogical data.”
Volumes One to Ten
The first seven volumes
consist of provincial papers from 1623 to 1776; volume eight contains
state papers from 1776 to 1783; volume nine contains miscellaneous town
papers; and volume ten consists of provincial and state papers from 1749
to 1792. Collectively these volumes present a potpourri of information
more valuable to those who are interested in the early history of New
Hampshire than to researchers seeking genealogical facts about the
colony’s residents. However, in the first volume I discovered an entry
verifying my grandfather’s claim that our ancestor, David Thompson, was
in the Piscataqua area by 1623, and shortly thereafter moved to Boston
where he settled on a piece of water bound real estate known to this day
as Thompson Island. This revelation was significant to me because in
trying to validate the facts in the family history my grandfather
compiled, I decided early on that he relied as much on his own
imagination as he did on proven documentation.
In
another instance serendipity rescued me in my search for an answer to a
question a State Library patron had asked. Neither my colleagues nor I
were successful in our attempts to find the answer using tried and true
research procedures. The answer to the question “What was the census of
1786?” was found while casually leafing through volume ten. In 1786 the
General Court of New Hampshire passed a resolution providing for the “…
taking and reporting of the Number of Souls in the several Towns within
this State.” The town of Alstead replied to this demand very
succinctly, “We have numbered the people in this Town & find there
is 943 Encluding every age & sex.” New London reported in somewhat
more detail, “… forty-six males 21 and upord [upward], sixty-six males
under 21, thirty-nine feemales 18 and upord, sixty-one feemales under
18.” In contrast, Peterborough Slip supplied the names of each of the
town’s thirty-four family heads and the number of members in each
household.
Volumes Eleven to Thirteen
These
volumes contain town papers of New Hampshire, with the towns arranged
in alphabetical order. Each town’s opening entry reports information
about its original settlement. The chapter devoted to Deering begins by
noting that it was originally the northern section of an area called
Society Land. The first settler was Alexander Robinson who arrived in
1765, soon followed by William McKean, Francis Grimes, and others. In
response to the inhabitants’ petition in 1774 to charter their section
of Society Land, Governor John Wentworth officially named the town
Deering, in honor of his wife, Frances Deering. In 1772, when
Wentworth chartered the southern section of Society Land in response to a
petition of its inhabitants, he named it Francestown.
With a single exception, the nature of the
additional items of information in these volumes varies considerably.
That lone exception is the listing of facts about the townsmen who
served during the Revolutionary War, which state the units of which they
were members, whether or not they were injured or died in the service,
their dates of enlistment and discharge, and miscellaneous information.
For example, it was noted in the Weare town papers that Ebenezer
Sinclear was killed during the Battle of Saratoga, leaving a destitute
widow and three small children.
Volumes
Fourteen to Seventeen
The four volumes that receive the greatest
use, especially among patrons wishing to apply for Daughters of the
American Revolution (DAR) or Sons of the American Revolution (SAR)
membership, are volumes fourteen through seventeen, entitled
“Revolutionary War Rolls.” Within the series itself they are called
“War Rolls, Volumes 1” through “War Rolls, Volume 4.” New Hampshire
State Archivist Dr. Frank Mevers has compiled a very helpful every name
index to this four-volume set. The War Rolls are also available on
microfilm, microfiche, and CD-ROM. Isaac Hammond, who edited the War
Rolls, commented, “They will be of great value to town historians,
genealogists, and others tracing the history of their ancestors.”
Historians who are interested in campaigns that
occurred during the Revolutionary War period will find relevant
information in these volumes. Volume fourteen, for example, includes an
article by the editor entitled “New Hampshire Troops in the Québec
Expedition,” which describes the planning for the campaign, the
agonizing hardships encountered during the winter expedition from
Cambridge to Québec City, and the role New Hampshire men played in this
valiant but unsuccessful action.
Another
account of historical relevance in this series is a transcript entitled
“Diary of Lieutenant Jonathan Burton While in the Canada Expedition from
Aug. 1, 1776, to Nov. 29, 1776.” Burton’s account begins and ends at
his home in Wilton, New Hampshire. His company did not lose any lives in
armed combat, but by November, outbreaks of smallpox, pneumonia, and
other forms of illness killed or seriously impaired the health of more
than half of the sixty-seven men who embarked on the campaign as
soldiers in Lieutenant Burton’s company in August.
It appears that all of the hundreds of rosters that
comprise the bulk of these four volumes include soldiers’ names, the
officers under whom they served, and the dates of their service. Beyond
those three basic pieces of information the facts found from roster to
roster vary considerably. The list of Captain Henry Dearborn’s company
in Colonel Benedict Arnold’s detachment contains as much information as
the family historian can hope to find in any of these rosters. For
example, one entry in this company roster states that
twenty-one-year-old fifer Caleb Edson, from the town of Cockermouth, was
a joiner [carpenter or cabinet maker] in civilian life. On September
18, 1775, he received two months pay amounting to four pounds and eight
shillings. The same roster reveals that twenty-seven-year-old Thomas
Tolley of Dover was a seaman, and twenty-two-year-old Thomas Holmes of
Derry was a cordwainer [shoemaker]. As scarce as the information may be
in many of the lists in these four volumes, it is fortunate that the
vast majority of rosters do provide the name of the unit in which a
patriot served since this fact must be provided in order to obtain an
ancestor’s service record or pension record from the National Archives.
Volumes
Eighteen to Twenty-two
Volume eighteen, titled “Miscellaneous
Provincial and State Papers” (1725-1800); volume nineteen (provincial
papers from 1679 to 1764); and volumes twenty to twenty-two (state
papers from 1784 to 1793) are a continuation of volumes one to ten.
These papers contain an extensive collection of facts about early state
citizens such as the New Hampshire man for whom Bellows Falls, Vermont,
was named although he never lived in that state.
The appendix in volume twenty-one contains fifty-eight
brief biographies of leaders who have not received the full recognition
they deserve for their contributions to New Hampshire’s early history.
Benjamin Bellows of Walpole, for example, left an outstanding record of
service in many fields. As a result of his zealous support of the
American Revolution he eventually rose to the rank of major general. He
held many offices in Cheshire County including sheriff, registrar of
deeds, justice of the peace, representative to the State Legislature,
and judge of the court of common pleas. At the state level he was an
elector of the Vice President of the United States in 1789, 1792, 1796,
and 1800.
Bellows’ biography indicates that
his honesty and compassion cost him considerable sums of money early in
his career. As a merchant supplying provision to the town’s newest
settlers, he continued to accept payment in bills from newcomers to
Walpole and others across the Connecticut River in Vermont long after
the value of paper money had depreciated.
While
the vast majority of entries in volumes eighteen to twenty-two do not
contain as much detail about most individuals as the account of Benjamin
Bellows does, a search through the hundreds of names indexed in these
volumes may well reveal new information about an ancestor who lived in
New Hampshire prior to the nineteenth century.
Volume
Twenty-three
Volume twenty-three is titled “Documents in the
Public Record Office in London, England, Relating to the Province of New
Hampshire, 1606– 1771.” Despite this imposing title, few facts
of genealogical relevance will be found on its pages. Essentially it is a
catalog of documents in the Public Records Office relating to New
Hampshire with only a single line for each entry.
Volumes Twenty-four to Twenty-nine
Volumes
twenty-four and twenty-five make up “Town Charters,” which also has a
subset of volumes within the primary volumes. For example, both “Volume
XXIV” and “ Volume 1” are printed on the title page of the first book.
In the case of many towns these volumes include not only the listing of
the lot assigned to each settler, but a foldout map showing the location
of each of those lots. According to volume twenty-seven, my ancestor
Joshua Martin was assigned Lot 5 in Range 2 situated on the “so side”
of the Piscatquog River. His brother, Nathaniel, was assigned Lot 3 in
Range 9 on the “no side” of the “Piscataquog” River. By comparing the
map from volume twenty-seven with a current geodetic survey map, I have
been able to pinpoint my ancestor’s original property. The Martin
brothers had to meet certain regulations in order to attain permanent
ownership of these lots: “Within one year of May 31, 1749, each Owner
must have a house Sixteen Foot Square with a Chimney and Cellar and Four
Acres of land enclosed, cleared, & fitted for mowing or Tillage.”
Volume Thirty
Among the many features of
volume thirty, “Revolutionary War Documents,” is the town-by-town
roster of the 8,199 New Hampshire men who signed the Association Test
and the 773 who refused to sign. The signers, “… solemnly promised
that they would to the utmost of their power and at the risk of their
Lives and Fortunes with ARMS oppose the hostile British Fleets and
Armies, against the United American colonies.” Of the sixty-nine male
residents of the town of Dunbarton that were twenty-one years old or
over, ten refused to sign [the roster excluded “lunaticks or Negroes”].
At least three non-signers, William Stark and William and James
Stinson, joined the loyalist force as the war progressed.
Volumes Thirty-one to Thirty-nine
Volumes
thirty-one to thirty-nine are made up entirely of probate records from
1635 to 1771, and should be of particular interest to family historians
whose ancestors died in provincial New Hampshire. One of these records,
however, illustrates the fact that no entry in the entire forty volumes
is a primary source. This record is in the printed will of Scotsman
Archibald Stark, who died in 1758. The will lists a son of Archibald
named Henry. Since few if any Scottish children were named Henry in the
eighteenth century I suspected the will had been transcribed
incorrectly. My examination of Archibald Stark’s handwritten will at the
New Hampshire State Archives shows very clearly that between the
original document and the printed page Anna became Henry.
Volume Forty
Judging by the entries in this
volume, which includes court records from 1640 to 1692 and court papers
from 1632 to 1668, seventeenth-century society was just as litigious as
today’s society. In addition to citing scores of cases involving suits
that plaintiffs brought against relatives, neighbors, and others, and
cases the town brought against its residents, this volume also
illustrates the fact that colonial punishment could be very inhumane.
Being a Quaker was a crime. Thus, “The Court Lookes upon Edward Wharton
as a vagabond Quaker & Sentence him to be Conveighed from Constable
to Constable untill he Coms to Salem ye place of his habitacon &
that he be whipt through Dover hampton & Newbery by the Constables
Of said Townes at ye Carts tayle [tail] to ye Number Of 30 stripes, viz,
tenn stripes in each Towne. 4th July, 1663.”
Where to Find the New Hampshire Provincial and
State Papers
Every town and city in the state received a copy of
each volume of the New Hampshire Provincial and State Papers as soon as
they came off the presses. Over the years these sets disappeared from
smaller libraries for lack of shelf space. Currently the researcher will
find these volumes at the New Hampshire State Library, the Tuck Library
at the New Hampshire Historical Society, and the New Hampshire State
Archives. They are also available at the New England Historic and
Genealogical Society, academic libraries, and no doubt in many libraries
and other repositories housing large historical collections.