# Hillsborough County, New Hampshire in the 1730s

> This was disputed border country: river farms, fresh town grants, scattered English and Irish settlers, and older Pennacook ground.

- Place: Hillsborough County, New Hampshire (42.912, -71.723)
- Years: 1730 to 1739
- Known then as: the Merrimack and Souhegan frontier
- Page: https://yorehistory.com/place/hillsborough-county-new-hampshire/1730s
- Step into it (interactive): https://yorehistory.com/?step=Hillsborough%20County%2C%20New%20Hampshire%2C%20United%20States&at=42.9120,-71.7230&year=1735

## Looking around

You stand in a broad county-sized country that does not yet have a county name: Hillsborough County will not exist until later, and the 1730s map is made of grants, rivers, and claims. To the east runs the Merrimack River[1], with Naticook land near the Souhegan and islands at Reeds Ferry. Inland, the path of settlement thins toward Number Seven on the Contoocook[3], where lots are marked by stakes, stones, hemlock, and beech. Some places are already farms; others are only paper townships. Near the river are freeholders choosing town officers[2], and farther west are house lots, a meeting-house site, a sawmill, a dam, a house, and a barn[3]. The land is being measured, sold, mortgaged, and argued over, while older Pennacook names and rights remain under the new English deeds.

## Work: Farms, timber, millwork

The most visible work is land-making: measured house lots and common rights[3] are being turned into farms. In the interior, a sawmill and dam on the Contoocook River[3] show timber being cut into usable boards.

## Who lived here: English, Irish, Pennacook

The place is not empty: Naticook is Penacook ground[1] before it is a Massachusetts township. Among new settlers, most families came from Massachusetts and were of English origin[2], 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 house[3], 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 £550[3] in 1739. Smaller parcels could be dear too, with fifty-acre house lots and common rights selling for £100[3].

## 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 lot[3] 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 officers[2], 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

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

## 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 sources)[4]
- 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 sources)[1]
- Merrimack Historical Society identifies Naticook as Penacook ground and says the name was used for the area near the Merrimack and Souhegan. (from the sources)[1]
- 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 sources)[2]
- The 1734 Naticook township included what later became Litchfield and the southern part of Merrimack. (from the sources)[1]
- Most Naticook settler families came from Massachusetts and were of English origin, while a few Irish emigrants became permanent settlers. (from the sources)[2]
- 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 sources)[3]
- 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 sources)[3]
- 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 sources)[3]
- In 1739 one thousand acres in Number Seven were bought for £500 provincial currency and soon resold for £550. (from the sources)[3]
- In 1739 several Number Seven conveyances sold fifty-acre house lots with one hundred acres of common-right land for £100. (from the sources)[3]
- One 1739 deed sold a two-hundred-acre farm in Number Seven for £50 to a Boston shoemaker. (from the sources)[3]
- 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 sources)[2]
- 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 sources)[2]
- 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. https://ldsgenealogy.com/NH/books/History-of-Hillsborough-County-New-Hampshire-part-117.htm
2. The History of Hillsborough, New Hampshire, 1735–1921, Volume 1, Part 4. LDS Genealogy, 1921. https://ldsgenealogy.com/NH/books/The-history-of-Hillsborough-New-Hampshire-1735-1921-Volume-1-part-4.htm
3. The History of Hillsborough, New Hampshire, 1735–1921, Volume 1, Part 6. LDS Genealogy, 1921. https://ldsgenealogy.com/NH/books/The-history-of-Hillsborough-New-Hampshire-1735-1921-Volume-1-part-6.htm
4. NH: Consolidated Chronology. Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries. https://publications.newberry.org/ahcb/documents/NH_Consolidated_Chronology.htm
5. Building a Colony. New Hampshire Historical Society. https://moose.nhhistory.org/units/building-a-colony/building-a-colony

## Nearby, about the same time

- [Goffstown, New Hampshire in the 1760s](https://yorehistory.com/place/goffstown-new-hampshire/1760s/md) (16 km)
- [Londonderry, Rockingham County, New Hampshire in the 1730s](https://yorehistory.com/place/londonderry-rockingham-county-new-hampshire/1730s/md) (29 km)
- [Duxbury, Plymouth County, Massachusetts in the 1730s](https://yorehistory.com/place/duxbury-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1730s/md) (130 km)
- [Plympton, Plymouth County, Massachusetts in the 1710s](https://yorehistory.com/place/plympton-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1710s/md) (130 km)
- [Middleborough, Plymouth County, Massachusetts in the 1730s](https://yorehistory.com/place/middleborough-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1730s/md) (131 km)
- [Plymouth in the 1750s](https://yorehistory.com/place/plymouth-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1750s/md) (137 km)

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Researched by Yore's AI historian (gpt-5.5) on 2026-10-12 from the sources listed. It is about the place and the time, not about any person. Statements marked "inferred" are conclusions, not records. Cite as: Yore, "Hillsborough County, New Hampshire in the 1730s", https://yorehistory.com/place/hillsborough-county-new-hampshire/1730s