Mr. Murray, in his paper on “The Irish Bacons,” noted that the family has reflected honor on both Dedham and Needham, as it has on other towns where representatives of it have resided.
Hon. John C. Linehan read the following paper:
John Sullivan and the Capture of the Powder at Newcastle.
The province of New Hampshire was among the first to resist the unjust exactions of the British government, and, on the authority of one of the Royal Councillors, her sons were the very first to commit an overt act against it. From the time of its early settlement, under the proprietorship of Capt. John Mason, her sturdy colonists were bound to appropriate to their own use the first fruits of their labors, and, regardless of act of parliament or magisterial edict, they were able to accomplish their purpose. Owing to the civil dissensions in England between 1640 and 1700, the little band of adventurers who had established themselves at “Old Strawberry Bank,” as well as their descendants who came after them, were practically, so far as the home government was concerned, left to their own resources, and obliged to defend themselves as best they could against the French and Indians, who were ever on the alert to harass and annoy them. The establishment of William of Orange on the English throne, and the complete subjugation of those who supported the unfortunate James, changed matters, however, and gave the new ruler an opportunity to bestow a little of his paternal care on the colonists who had so long prospered greatly without it.
One of his very first acts was to appoint, as governor of New York, the Earl of Bellmont, who was a native of Ireland, and a son of Sir Charles Coote, who earned an Irish estate fighting for Cromwell.
Under his administration the heirs of Captain Mason, fortified by a proclamation from the king and parliament, endeavored to establish their ownership to the property left them in New Hampshire, and, although not authorized by the act mentioned to collect arrearages of rent from the descendants of the original settlers, little progress was made in the collection of any. The men, and the children of the men who had for half a century contested every inch of New Hampshire soil with the elements, the wild beasts, the Indians, and their white allies from Quebec, did not propose to pay tribute to the grandchildren of the man whose name was but a tradition. The result was the creation of a period in the records of New Hampshire, whose history reads strangely like a page from Ireland’s annals describing landlord rule.
For in all parts of the province, and among all classes of people, the most determined efforts were made to prevent the impositions of the new proprietors. The sheriff and his officers, while engaged in the performance of their duties, were often confronted with the axe and the musket, and when opportunity offered, the women took a hand and tested the efficacy of hot water. The sacred person of the governor even was not exempt from insult and assault, for on at least one occasion, while endeavoring to shield Captain Mason, the grandson of the original proprietor, from one of his irate tenants, he was thrown into the fireplace on the burning coals, sat upon, three of his ribs broken, two teeth knocked out, and his body severely burned.
William Vaughan, one of the Royal Councillors, and among the most influential men in the colony, for an assault upon one of the officers of the king, was arrested, and for several years kept in confinement.
The records of the province during this period, as printed in the state papers, make very interesting reading. The little rock-ribbed province was the northern picket line of New England, and in consequence her sons were equally expert with the musket, the axe, and the spade.
That these traits had been transmitted to their descendants is very clear, for the construction of the grapevine bridge across the Chickahominy in 1862, by the boys of the 5th New Hampshire, as well as the record made by the same regiment during the Civil War, is the evidence; the axe, the spade, and the rifle figuring in both, as they had in the hands of their ancestors at Bunker Hill and Bennington nearly a century before. But the demands of Captain Mason were not the only grievances. The government was bound to suppress any industry in the colonies which would in any way interfere with those already in operation at home. An elaborate project had been already planned by the Earl of Bellmont, for the production of tar and pitch in New Hampshire.