shire from 1881 to 1883.

Samuel Bell was a Dartmouth graduate and a lawyer, and came to Chester in 1812. His political career had already taken him into both branches of the legislature, and he had been presiding officer of both. He was a Justice of the Superior Court from 1816 to 1819, Governor of New Hampshire from 1819 to 1823, United States Senator from

Another son of Governor Samuel Bell was John, a professor of anatomy at the University of Vermont. Still another, James, was a lawyer and United States Senator. A fourth, Luther V., was superintendent of the McLean Asylum and a surgeon in the Civil War, during which he died. A fifth, George, was a lawyer and served in the Civil War. John Bell and Charles Bell were the sixth and

(We are indebted to Mr. Libby, lawyer and antiquarian, of Portland, Maine, for permission to publish his address, as President of the Society of Piscataqua Pioneers, at the observance on August 10, 1922, at Portsmouth, of the three hundredth anniversary of the patent to Gorges and Mason. Mr. Libby writes that this paper includes the results of his investigations of the Hilton family in England, and also sums up the conclusions of all former investigators, making this paper, in his belief, "the most up-to-date summary of this much abused subject." We welcome so valuable an addition to the discussion of New Hampshire's beginnings which the magazine has recently been featuring, and invite further contributions on the subject. The obscurity of the early days from 1623 to 1630 calls for untiring and critical investigation.-Editor.)

In behalf of the members of the Society of Piscataqua Pioneers, it gives me pleasure to return thanks for the welcome so kindly accorded us by the mayor of Strawberry Bank. If Sir Ferdinando, at some moment of his long life of struggle and disappointment, could have looked forward and seen the Honorable Ferdinando doing his part in a three-hundredth anniversary as mayor of this fine city, his face must have brightened with the happy thought that his labors had not been in vain.

Portsmouth has always been an interesting place to visit, ever since the new comers at Little Harbor first found the strawberries up the river; and for us, whose forefathers, living on one or another of the branches of this river, had to come to "the Bank" in order to know they were living, once in so often, it is doubly pleasant.

It has been said that the patent of the Province of Maine, Aug. 10, 1622, granting all between the Merrimac and the Kennebec, was of minor consequence because nothing was done under it. Rather may we regard it as the foundation, both in legal operation and in actual carryings on, of all that came after.

By the terms of this grant, which we celebrate today, Sir Ferdinando. and Captain Mason bound themselves. under £100 penalty to settle one colony with a competent guard and at least ten families within three years. We must believe they did it. They two were the efficient colonizers of New England. They squandered both their own wealth and the wealth of others, but they achieved. Having agreed to settle ten families, they did it. Here was the founding of this State, and of Maine this side of the Kennebec.

It is true that the Plymouth Company in 1622 deeded this land where we now are to Gorges and Mason, and in 1623 deeded it to Mr. David Thomson, and in 1629 deeded it to Captain Mason, and in 1631 deeded it to the Laconia Company, and in 1635 gave a 999 years' lease of it to Sir John Wollaston, all covering the same land. But in dealing with these old patents we must bear three things constantly in mind, or we shall trip ourselves up. For one thing, the corporation called "the Council established at Plymouth in the County of Devon for the planting and ordering of New England," was only another name for Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Capt. John Mason. Second, when Sir Ferdinando and Capt. Mason gave deeds of parts of their land, they did it in the name of the corporation. Third, the deeds they gave were really only options, conditioned on making actual settlements. When the conditions were not performed, the lands reverted to Gorges & Mason.

Wollaston's deed back to Capt. Mason openly explains the lease, "which said indenture was made unto the said John Wollaston by and with the consent of the said Captain John Mason." Instead of Capt. Mason giving the lease himself, he gave it in the name of the Council. The grant

to Mason in 1629 is explained by the lawyers of Mr. Mason's grandson, "being a division of the lands formerly granted unto Sir Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason." Instead of Sir Ferdinando and Capt. Mason giving deeds to each other to divide their lands, they issued new grants to themselves in the name of the Council.

Mr. David Thomson, the first planter of New Hampshire, was not what the historian, Hubbard, said he was "the agent of Georges and Mason." Nor did he receive a conflicting grant of lands already granted to them. His deed, although in the name of the Council, was really from them. Some historians have failed to understand how he received a grant of 6,000 acres already granted to them, or why he did not hold it afterwards. These two questions answer each other if permitted to do so. Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Capt. John Mason in effect deeded to Mr. David Thomson six thousand acres of the best of their lands on conditions which he failed to fulfill; and so the lands reverted to them.

As the patent to Mr. Thomson is lost, we cannot know exactly what the conditions they put into it were, but we may be sure that they covered the undertaking for which they themselves were under bond, to settle in this wilderness a sufficient guard and ten families. We have from Mr. Samuel Maverick, who came to Massachusetts in 1624, some years before the Boston colony started the Year One of New England, as they reckoned it. and who soon married Thomson's young widow, a graphic account of what was done: Strawberry Bank, the Great House

Mr.

and Isle of Shoals. Within 2 myles of the mouth is Strawberry Bank where are many families, and a minister

and

and a meeting house, and to
the meeting houses of Dover
and Exeter most of the peo-
ple resort. This Strawberry
Bank is part of 6,000 acres
granted by patent about the
year 1620 or 1621 to Mr.
David Thompson, who with
the assistance of Mr. Nicholas
Sherwill, Mr. Leonard Pomery
and Mr. Abraham Colmer of
Plymouth, merchants, went
over with a considerable com-
pany of servants, and built a
strong and large house, enclosed
it with a large and high Pali-
zado and mounted gunns,
being stored extraordinarily
with shot and ammunition, was
a terror to the Indians, who
at that time were insulting
over the poor, weak and un-
furnished planters of Plymouth.
This house and fort he built on
a point of land at the very en-
trance of Piscataqua River and
having granted by patent all
the islands bordering on this
land to the middle of the river,
he took possession of an island
commonly called the Great
Island, and for the bounds of
this land he went up the river
to a point called Bloody Point,
and by the seaside about four
miles. He also had power of
government within his own
bounds. Notwithstanding all
this, all is at this day in the
power and at the disposal of
the Massachusetts.

So here we see what method Sir Ferdinando and Capt. Mason took to fulfill their bond to the Council. Mr. Thomson, a cultured and traveled gentleman, whom Sir Ferdinando had employed in difficult negotiations with high officials, was to do it for them, and for this service to have 6,000 acres on one side of the river. To get the necessary capital, he contracted with three Plymouth merchants to