Hillsborough County, New Hampshire in the 1730s

Work

Farms, timber, millwork

The most visible work is land-making: measured house lots and common rights³ are being turned into farms. In the interior, a sawmill and dam on the Contoocook River³ show timber being cut into usable boards.

Who lived here

English, Irish, Pennacook

The place is not empty: Naticook is Penacook ground¹ before it is a Massachusetts township. Among new settlers, most families came from Massachusetts and were of English origin², with some Irish permanent settlers.

Law & power

Boundary and proprietors

Power is unsettled because Massachusetts and New Hampshire both claim the ground^4,5. Locally, power comes through town meetings, elected officers, proprietors, land grants, and charters^2,3.

Faith

Meeting house as center

In Number Seven, deeds already locate property by the meeting house³, even in a raw township. As across New England settlements, the meeting house normally joined worship and civic business.

Money

Land is the price

The clearest prices are land prices: one thousand acres sold for £500 and then £550³ in 1739. Smaller parcels could be dear too, with fifty-acre house lots and common rights selling for £100³.

What people feared

Frontier uncertainty

The danger most documented here is political and military uncertainty: the area is inside a boundary dispute^4,5 until the Crown's 1740 decision. Later petitions from nearby frontier settlements show how quickly war fears could empty outlying townships, but that belongs mainly to the 1740s.

Home & table

Scattered first houses

A household might stand on a fifty- to seventy-acre house lot³ with rights in common land. But no street-by-street description of ordinary houses from the 1730s has been found online here.

Roads & news

Rivers, roads, petitions

News moves through official acts as much as newspapers: freeholders are summoned to choose town officers², and settlers petition legislatures and governors. Inland people would hear news by travelers, meetings, petitions, letters, and roads toward older Massachusetts towns.

Year by year

1. 1731Benjamin Smith petitioned for land on the Merrimack near Naticook, including an island where he had built a house. here¹
2. 1734Naticook was organized under Massachusetts authority, with Aquila Underwood empowered to call qualified inhabitants together to choose town officers. here²
3. 1735Township Number Seven, later Hillsborough, was granted in the line of inland townships between the Merrimack and Connecticut Rivers. here³
4. 1737Royal commissioners were drawn into the Massachusetts-New Hampshire boundary dispute, making local land titles a matter argued beyond the province. the country^4,5
5. 1739Number Seven land changed hands in surveyed lots, including house lots, common rights, and a Contoocook sawmill interest. here³
6. 1739War between Britain and Spain began, the conflict later called the War of Jenkins' Ear, and imperial war news would have reached provincial New England. the world
7. 1740King George II settled the Massachusetts-New Hampshire boundary, changing the legal frame for towns and titles in this area. the country⁴

Pictures from the time

What the sources say

• Hillsborough County did not yet exist in the 1730s; the county was later formed in 1769, so this description is at the scale of the future county area. inferred
• In the 1730s the future Hillsborough County lay inside a live Massachusetts-New Hampshire boundary dispute, not within a settled county government. from the sources^4,5
• The Crown settled the Massachusetts-New Hampshire boundary on 5 August 1740, effectively after most of the decade had already been lived under uncertainty. from the sources⁴
• The eastern part of the area was organized around the Merrimack River and the mouth of the Souhegan River, including Naticook and Reeds Ferry. from the sources¹
• Merrimack Historical Society identifies Naticook as Penacook ground and says the name was used for the area near the Merrimack and Souhegan. from the sources¹
• In 1734 the Massachusetts legislature authorized Aquila Underwood of the new township at Naticook to assemble qualified freeholders and inhabitants to choose town officers. from the sources²
• The 1734 Naticook township included what later became Litchfield and the southern part of Merrimack. from the sources¹
• Most Naticook settler families came from Massachusetts and were of English origin, while a few Irish emigrants became permanent settlers. from the sources²
• The western interior included Township Number Seven, later Hillsborough, granted in 1735 as part of a line of towns running between the Merrimack and Connecticut Rivers. from the sources³
• A 1739 mortgage in Number Seven named a fifty-acre house lot by the meeting house, a house and barn, and a sawmill and dam on the Contoocook River. from the sources³
• Land in Number Seven was divided into measured house lots of about fifty to seventy acres, often paired with rights in undivided common land. from the sources³
• In 1739 one thousand acres in Number Seven were bought for £500 provincial currency and soon resold for £550. from the sources³
• In 1739 several Number Seven conveyances sold fifty-acre house lots with one hundred acres of common-right land for £100. from the sources³
• One 1739 deed sold a two-hundred-acre farm in Number Seven for £50 to a Boston shoemaker. from the sources³
• The Naticook settlers sought incorporation partly because the fertility of the Naticook lands had drawn enough families to make 'quite a colony' within four years. from the sources²
• Colonial authority here was expressed through town meetings, elected town officers, proprietors, land grants, and royal or provincial charters. from the sources^2,3
• White pine trees in later New Hampshire town charters were reserved for the Royal Navy, showing that imperial timber claims reached into local land law. from the sources²
• No online source opened here gives a surviving street-by-street description of ordinary houses in the future Hillsborough County during the 1730s. not known
• No opened source gives local 1730s wages, store prices, or crop prices for this exact area, apart from land-sale figures. not known
• As across rural New England, most ordinary households in this newly settled area would have combined farming, woodcutting, stock keeping, home production, and seasonal road or mill work. inferred
• As across Massachusetts and New Hampshire town settlements, the meeting house was normally both a religious and civic center, even where a settled minister had not yet been secured. inferred
• The future county lay inland from the seacoast press; news would have moved chiefly by travelers, town meetings, court business, petitions, letters, and roads toward older Massachusetts towns. inferred

Sources

1. History of Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, Part 117. LDS Genealogy, 1885
2. The History of Hillsborough, New Hampshire, 1735–1921, Volume 1, Part 4. LDS Genealogy, 1921
3. The History of Hillsborough, New Hampshire, 1735–1921, Volume 1, Part 6. LDS Genealogy, 1921
4. NH: Consolidated Chronology. Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries
5. Building a Colony. New Hampshire Historical Society

Nearby, about the same time