From Settlement to Revolution

Journal Opinion May 6, 2026 

This is the first of several articles describing the local area just before and during the American Revolution. It describes the initial European settlement of the area, the early developments, and the issues that arose.

About 1770, Col. Jacob Bayley of Newbury wrote: “The whole country is rapidly filling up with a very desirable class of settlers, and what was ten years since, a howling wilderness is now fast becoming fruitful farms.”

The first Europeans to visit the area were explorers, hunters, land speculators, and soldiers, just passing through or seeking to satisfy their curiosity. There were only a few native people still living nearby.  

After a century of warfare during which the local area was on the frontlines, the defeat of the French and their native allies in 1759 and the Treaty of Paris in 1763 made the area safe for settlers and their families.

Royal Governor Benning Wentworth of New Hampshire chartered towns in what is now New Hampshire and Vermont.  “These grants transferred ownership of approximately one-third of the area from the Crown to private ownership.”

The grants were approximately 30-36 square miles in size and granted to groups of proprietors, many of whom were connected to the colonial establishment. While many of these grantees never actually lived in the towns they created, they had to agree to several conditions.

One of the conditions was to encourage settlers and improvements to the land.  This was to the proprietors’ advantage as it increased the value of their land in the newly-created towns.

All of the river towns in our area and some of the second-layer towns were chartered by 1764. Bradford was a noteable exception as it remained unchartered. Despite that, 30 families moved to what they call Waitstown as squatters, with no claim to their holdings.

In 1770, they send Quaker Samuel Sleeper to New York to acquire a charter. When the royal government granted one, they changed the town’s name to Mooretown in honor of the late governor Sir. Henry Moore. The town was renamed Bradford in 1788.

These early farmer-settlers came from established towns elsewhere in New England such as Hebron, Connecticut and Londonderry, New Hampshire.  They were drawn by the availability of cheap land and the promise of a new lease on life. Most of the men had fought in the recent war, and former officers played a primary role in town government. 

They came overland by ox sled or cart without the benefit of roads or on the river by canoe or on the ice.

They were young families. In 1767, there were 172 residents in Haverhill, with only one over 60. The 1770 census of Bradford listed 30 head of families with an average age of 30. 

One exception to these migration patterns was that of the Scots American Company who moved directly from Scotland to Ryegate in 1773.

Some settlers were drawn to the open valley area. Others had what one historian called “a hillside mentality.” They preferred to locate on higher ground. This made sense as these locations were better drained, free from flooding and mosquitos, and receiving more sunshine and less morning fog and early frosts.

The average holding was about 100 acres. Often, the men came first, leaving wives and children behind until the plot was established and a cabin built. With their ox teams and plenty of back-breaking labor, these farmers cleared portions of the land.  Trees were chopped down or burned, stumps were removed, and fieldstones were hauled to build walls. Some worked with only a crude hoe, ax, and fire. Crops were planted as quickly as possible.

“A farmer could increase the value of 100 acres eight to ten times with the crop he raised in a few years of diligent labor.” This often allowed him to pay off the land debt in just a few years. The land was fertile, in stark contrast to the exhausted soil of areas of earlier settlements.

In his Yankee Kingdom, Ralph Nading Hill wrote of the era, “Everything they ate, they grew, almost everything they used, they made; almost everything they wore came from the factory of the hearthside.”

As soon as there was open space, crops were planted on fertile ground.  Some trees were retained for fuel and lumber, and then later cleared for crops.

 Indian corn, which grew rapidly and abundantly, was planted between stumps of trees. Buckwheat and rye were among the first crops. Wheat, oats, and barley came later.

Settlers often brought apple tree seedlings with them and planted orchards. Vegetables such as potatoes and squash were planted in open areas. A good wife kept a kitchen garden with small vegetables and herbs.  

Life was never easy for these subsistence farmers.  They faced the normal threats to their crops from rocky soil, blight, pests, wild animals, and weeds. Early or late frosts shortened the growing season.

 Bears were a constant threat to corn crops, and wolves to livestock. In the late summer of 1770, an army of worms descended on the area.  One Thetford observer reported that the pastures were totally covered with worms. In 1771, there was major flooding in the valley, and some had to relocate their homes to higher ground.

Winters often “reigned with great severity.” Families used several techniques, such as drying and salting, to store food for the long winters.

The settlers transplanted the culture of southern New England to the area, changing it as needed to meet the demands of the frontier.

Following the tradition of earlier New England, local town meetings were held, often in the largest home in the community. Because proprietors still held some authority, some proprietor meetings were held in Portsmouth and Bennington.

Local men met frequently to elect local officers, levy taxes, and deal with the problems of the new towns. They created pounds to deal with stray animals and established rules for dealing with both common lands and boundary disputes.

As needed, they dealt with lawbreakers. Sheriffs were elected. A courthouse and jail were created in North Haverhill in 1773,

Gradually, the new settlements took on the trappings of civilized permanency. Farmers with skills as blacksmiths, carpenters, coopers, and tanners met the needs of their neighbors.

Taverns and stores were among the early businesses, often operating out of the owner’s private home.  Uriah Morse’s “ordinary” opened in 1762 in North Haverhill, a year before the town was chartered.

The first tavern in Orange County was opened in Newbury in 1769 by Robert Johnston, who sold spirits brought by horseback from Concord.

Primary education was important, and soon after the towns were organized, money was set aside to hire a schoolmaster. Schools were held in private houses or the meeting house.

Midwives and doctors supplemented family-based treatments for illness and injuries. Dr. Samuel White of Newbury and Haverhill began his practice in 1773 in a practice extending from Newbury to the Canadian border.

Lydia Peter Baldwin, moved to Orford in 1766 and then to Bradford, and delivered hundreds of area babies with remarkable success.

Using water power from nearby brooks and small rivers, sawmills and grist mills were established. These mills provide the inhabitants with boards and a place to grind the crops they raised. The high cost of framed structures left many with log structures for decades.

In 1763, John Hazen arrived in Haverhill with the equipment to establish a sawmill and grist mill on Poole Brook in North Haverhill. In 1764, Newbury’s proprietors “voted to give eighty acres to the man or men who should build a sawmill on Hall’s Brook.” In Piermont, money, land, and water privileges were promised as rewards.

In 1762, John Hazen built the first sawmill in North Haverhill and, by 1765, used sawed lumber to build a house on the Little Oxbow. Newbury’s first sawmill was built in 1764 on the lower falls of Hall’s brook in South Newbury and, a year later, a grist mill was built west of Newbury village.

 Orford’s Israel Morey built the town’s first sawmill and a grist mill on Jacob’s Brook in 1766. In 1772, John Peters built Bradford’s first grist mill on the south side of the Waits River. Two years later, Benjamin Baldwin built Bradford’s first sawmill nearby.

From the very beginning, many settlers felt the need for worship services. The lack of church buildings did not stand in the way, with services held in barns, private homes, taverns, or in the case of Fairlee, in a field next to the river.

One of the earliest projects undertaken by town resi dents was the building of a meeting or town house for both worship and town meetings.

As there was a shortage of ministers, towns yoked with neighboring towns to worship together or share a minister. One of the earliest religious leaders in the area was the Rev. Peter Powers of Newbury. He helped establish the Newbury church in 1764.

His parish at first included all the settlements from Hanover to Lancaster. He played a leading role in creating town churches in Fairlee, Orford, Haverhill, Ryegate, and Thetford.

“He was often called to go on long and lonely journeys to solemnize marriages, bury the dead, and break the bread of life to the people, and he did not shrink from any labor, however great.”

With the exception of the Presbyterians of Ryegate, the Congregational denomination was dominant in the early years. Local control over church affairs was a characteristic of Congregationalists and as they controlled town affairs, local town tax revenues were used to support church activities.    

The Connecticut River was, for many years, the major road into the area. By water in the summer and on the ice in the winter, new settlers and supplies arrived, and products were sent to market.

 The first overland roads were “merely passages through the forest,” laid out by traveling indigenous people over the centuries and used by the early settlers. Not able to use wheeled vehicles, locals used horseback or their own shoulders to carry items.

It was in the best interest of the original proprietors to have somewhat improved bridal paths connecting the parts of towns and markets to the south.

In both Newbury and Bradford, it was at least 20 years before any wheeled vehicle other than an oxcart could traverse these improved paths.  Observers described these earliest roads as “very much like winter logging roads” or having “the consistency of porridge.”

Among the earliest roads were the river roads on each side of the Connecticut.  In Newbury, this road was begun in 1773 and later extended to connect Bradford. In Haverhill, the West Side Road connected the town with Bath and Piermont.

 In 1774, Orford residents agreed to support constructing a road to Wentworth. At about the same time, a road was built from Portsmouth to North Haverhill. 

 Since the earliest years of settlement, residents frequently crossed the Connecticut River. While canoes and boats served first, commercial ferry operations soon followed.

 By 1773, at least two ferries linked Newbury and Haverhill, one at Wells River and the other near Newbury village. In 1775, a ferry operated between Orford and Fairlee, with the charter granted in the name of King George III. 

Increasingly, there was a controversy between New Hampshire and New York over control of Vermont territory sewed uncertainty among the early residents.

Vermonters rejected the New York system of landownership in which aristocratic ownership left the lower classes as tenants. While the outbreaks of violence between Yorkers and locals were primarily in southwestern Vermont, there was violence in Westminster, Vermont in March, 1775.

This area tried to remain neutral. Residents of several towns, including Corinth and Newbury, sought duplicate chapters from New York to protect themselves.

This provincial dispute soon became overshadowed by outbreaks in Massachusetts against the power of British rule.  By 1774, pro-rebellion Councils of Safety and Correspondence were being formed. Local residents began to take sides for and against the coming revolution.

A later column will describe the role of local residents in the American Revolution. Actually, the May column will be the second to deal with student activities in local high schools.