Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/133

 FIRST SETTLEMENT IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.

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��no settlement could have been made there in 1623 as has been generally believed.

To establish this position he quotes the early historians to show that no such place was known to or once spoken of by any of the visitors of Thom- son, of whom there were several, during the years 1623 and 1624 ; that it is absurd to suppose that Edward Hilton, without any colony to assist hmi, should have gone so far from the succor of his friends into the wilderness in the midst of treacherous and cruel savages when the whole country practically lay open before him to go in and occupy where he would ; that the " stages " which it is alleged were set up at the Point were "large and expensive structures " in- tended for use in the fishing business, and that " no experienced fisherman would have selected such a site for a fishing establishment, five or six miles above the mouth of the Piscataqua, a stream of such rapidity that it is often impossible for a boat to contend against it, while the great cod fisheries are several miles out at sea, which a fisherman leaving Hilton's Point at the very turn of the ebb tide could not reach and return from the same day, if he stopped to cast his hook."

As to the fact of priority of settlement, if a mere fishing and trading post is to be regarded as such, we may as well admit that at Little Harbor (now in the town of Rye) the first planting of New Hampshire was commenced. There is no doubt that Thomson and his men first disembarked, at or near that place, and pitched their tents or erected such huts as were requisite for shelter, — The question is, who came with him? We only know that seven men were to be furnished to assist him. Four were to come over in the Jonathan, and three more were to be provided the same year.

It is admitted, and it is reasonable to conclude, that Edward Hilton may have come over from England in one of the vessels which brought David Thomson and his men to the Piscataqua, on his own account, if not as an assistant of Thomson, as Hubbard asserts. The Hiltons had been fishmon- gers in London, and were acquainted with at least one branch of the business in which Thomson was to engage. They were just the men who would be selected to assist in the enterprise. William Hilton had previously been in America. He came to Plymouth in 1621, and his wife and two children came over in 1623. He may have gone back and returned with them, or they may have come over to join him here. Hubbard, who wrote in 1680, is supposed to have been personally acquainted with the Hiltons, and must have had some knowledge of their history and movements. William Hilton had a grant of land in Plymouth in 1623, but he left that place soon after, apparently on ac- count of some disagreement in relation to church matters, and is found next at Piscataqua with his brother.

As the business of Thomson and his assistants was to be fishing, and trading with the Indians, it is not probable that they would all remain permanently in the same place. The Hiltons, with one or more ot the party, after seeing the others safely established at the mouth of the river, may have come up to the Point, as Hubbard records. Or, as the party is said to have come over in son and the four men who came in the Jonathan had established themselves at Little Harbor. Of the other three who were to be provided and sent over in the Providence, the Hiltons may have been two. The tradition has always been that Thomas Roberts was one of the original emigrants with them. If he was, this would complete the number which was to be provided.
 * ' two divisions," it is more probable that they did not arrive until after Thom-

The distance between Little Harbor and the Point was but six or seven miles, and the location at the Point was doubtless at first selected for the con- venience of trading with the Indians about the falls of the Cochecho, a favorite

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