Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/403

 ALONG THE JOHN STARK RIVER. 367

inflowing from the east, and these but thirty miles apart. J.ieut. McMullen, who was sent to Crown Point with the major's desires for rehef at the desig- nated point, doubtless gave to the general his proper errand ; but the ofhcer who was dispatched from No. 4, with provisions, &c., for the suffering rangers, stopped at the mouth of the lower Anu-nonoosuc, and when the poor fellows who had reached the upper Cohos by the shortest route from Memphremagog, that of the old Nulhegan Indian trail, they found neither friends nor relief. Some were able to proceed, and after another toilsome march reached the tarrying-place of the party sent up for their assistance, only to fmd the still burning brands of their late camp-fire. The officer in charge of the party of rehef, after ha\ing waited two days only, gave orders to return, and in two hours thereafter the half-starved rangers came into the abandoned camp. They fired guns to call them back, but that nor their feeble hallooings could effect a return, for they were fast fleeing from what they supposed to be the pursuing enemy, whose firing they heard.

It is impossible, says Rogers in his narrative, to describe the dejected and miserable condition of the party on arriving at the Coos intervales after so long a march, over rocky barren mountains and through deep swamps, worn with hunger and fatigue. It was ten days before assistance again reached them.

The just claims for services of some of these "men of mark," among those hardy rangers, we find recognized by Gov. Wentworth among the original proprietors of Whitefield. There were Capt. Gerrish, and Lieut. Waite, and Ensign White, and the Farringtons, all of Rogers's company. Then there were the Cloughs, five of them, all from Canterbury, and under Stark, and there was Col. Jonathan Bailey, whose possessions were also increased in this region by purchases with Col. Moses Little. This latter once owned nearly all of what was known as Apthorp, extending for fifteen miles or more along the Connecti- cut river, and embracing the present towns of Littleton and Dalton. The name of the territory was changed from its first English title of "Chiswick," so named from the celebrated country seat of the duke of Devonshire, to Apthorp, in memory of a distinguished divine who came to this country in 1 759, as a missionary of the " Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts." After its purchase by Col. Little, who was then the "Surveyor of the King's Woods" in this section, it was divided, one part taking the name of Littleton, from its owner, and the other Dalton, from an old townsman of the colonel's, Hon. Tristram Dalton, who was also one of the original grantees. Col. Little was a native of the old town of Newbury, Massachusetts, and was greatly distinguished throughout the war of the Revolution.

The town of Whitefield, until July 4th, 1774, formed a part of the "un- granted lands," and lays claim to being the last tovv'nship granted within the State under royal favor, and by its last royal governor. Penning Wentworth. At that date it only required an organization and a name, for its metes and bounds were already established by surveys of surrounding townships ; therefore this was literally "what was left," and they called it Whitefield when organized, from the celebrated IMelhodist divine of that name, who a few years previously in an itinerating tour in southern New Hampshire and in Massachusetts, stirred the religious thoughts of the people into intense activity, so that, says a writer of that day, " his name was a household word." IPis last sermon was at Exeter, where, on his journey from Portsmouth to Boston, he had stopped by the importunities of friends to preach one of his unicjue discourses. It was de- livered in the open air, for the doors of the established churches were closed against him, and only God's great temple was open, and for two long hours he interested the crov/d which had flocked to see, and to hear his wonderful doctrines. Greatly fatigued he continued his journey to Newburyport, where,

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