Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/110

 90 THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

as an officer are extolled by Belknap. He was massacred while working upon a tree in the forest, that had been felled for a mast.

Captain John Gerrish became sole owner, in i 701, by purchasing his brother's moiety. The property at his death fell to his sons, Captains Timothy and Paul Gerrish, who continued 'at this pouit the business in which their father and grandfather had engaged. Perhaps the growth of the town demanded the erection of other mills at some point farther up the river ; at all events, it appears that in the spring of 1719 several persons joined in an enterprise to build a dam across Bellamy river, about six miles above the Gerrish mill, with a view of erecting new saw-mills at that point. The Gerrishes went there in company with the town-clerk of Dover for the purpose of cautioning the parties to desist from their undertaking Armed with documentary proof that no one but themselves were entitled to set up mills there, they were prepared to show that the proposed dam would seriously affect the supply of water which belonged to them as of right. They found two men, named Demerett and Jackson, actively engaged with others in laying out large pieces of timber for the construction of the dam. Protest was in vain, and the Gerrishes appealed to the law. They at once, as plaintiffs, brought an action of trespass against " Ely Demerett, Junior, planter, defendant," in the inferior court of common pleas. The defendant's estate was attached to the value of one hundred pounds, and he was summoned to appear at the September term of the court. The writ, dated 16 August, 1719, bore test Richard VValdron, chief justice (a son of Major VValdron), and was issued by Theodore Atkinson, clerk of the court. The return of the officer was as follows : " Pursuant to ye within writ, I have left a sumons at ye house of ye within mentioned Ely Demerett Jun'r his abode Pr Benjamin Peirce Deputy Sheriff."

It is this suit which forms the subject of the present article. Not that it is claimed to have been in any sense a " famous case" in its day, nor was there anything remarkable in the point involved, or in the character of the parties engaged, which entitles it to be brought up from the annals of the past. Doubtless at that period the question was one of transcendent interest to all the good people of Dover, whether or not they were likely to enjoy additional and probably more convenient facilities for sawing out their logs or grinding their corn. We may well imagine that the dispute waxed warm between the friends of the newly projected enterprise and the Gerrish party. But this contest was not the small beginning of what has grown to be a great struggle against monopoly, for our ancestors had not yet learned to sink the public good in their greed for gain. I frankly admit that Gerrish v. Demeritt is not a cause celebre. Yet it happens, strangely enough, that the Gerrish family have preserved to this day numerous papers (originals and transcripts of record), that were used at the trial of this suit, so that one may gather the story of the grievance complained of, and the proceedings of the court thereon, without the need of resorting to the files of the court itself* The lapse of a hundred and sixty-two years lends a certain interest to these documents quite apart from their original value. It can hardly fail to serve a useful purpose to print some of them, illustrating as they do the forms of legal procedure in our early Province courts, as well as the terms in which conveyances were then executed.

gtill earlier dates. To lier conrtesy and kindness I am inSS1,) advanced in her eighty-fourth year, ishe tells me that a trunk tilled with tliese valuable old papers stood in the attic of her house for forty years before anv (^ne was asvare of their existence. Among others are instruments signed and sealed by Francis Champernoune, by Nathaniel Fryer, and by IMuard Uisliwortli, and letters, etc., of Sir VVilliam I'epperell. 'I'lie kite (Charles VV. Tattle, of Hoston, a descendant of Lieutenam John Tuttle, mentioned in this artic'le, made extensive copies of these papers for ins " Life of Cham- pernoune," a work which it is hoped is so far completed that it will see the liglit, notwithstanding tlie death of its amiable and lameuted author.
 * The widow of Timothy Gt'nish, of Kittoi-y Point, Maine, owns these jjapers and many others of

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