Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/407

 IN THE FOOTPRINTS OF THE PIONEERS.

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��of King James, but were afterward forced to rlee from the selfish and per- secuting policy of King William, and of the Anglican church. From their na- tive Argyleshire these hardy Scotch tillers of the soil were transplanted to the north of Ireland, where they built up and populated their city and coun- ty of Londonderry.

One hundred years of bitter disap- pointments and persecutions by church and state drove these enterprising lovers of liberty to leave once and for- ever their homes and country and seek refuge in the wilds of America. They landed in Boston in 171 8, and having heard favorable reports of wild lands upon the Merrimack, then known as the " chestnut country," or Nutfield, they determined to obtain a grant, if possible, where they might perpetuate the memories, the customs, and the in- stitutions of their loved Londonderry. Under the leadership of their pastoi, James McGregore, some of whose blood is coursing in the veins of respected citizens of Whitefield at the present day, the}- obtained what they asked, and. in 1722, secured and settled Lon- donderry, in New Hampshire. From here the fortunes and changes of time have spread them abroad until in many a town and hamlet of the state are found descendants of the "Scotch Irish Presbyterians."

John McMaster was the first justice of the peace appointed in the town of Whitefield. He also served as collec- tor for several years, and it was during one of these years that Samuel Minot came to town for the purpose of ad- justing his tax claims, and settling with the collector, and found himself short of funds. But taxes must be paid, so he offered McMaster the title to a cer- tain lot of land in town if he would accompany him to Littleton, where he could raise the necessary gold, and would pay the collector the price of the redemption of his lands. John agreed to the proposition, and received for his time and trouble a deed of lot number fifteen in the nineteenth range, overlooking " Martin Meadow pond,"

��in Lancaster, and since known as the David Lang place, and here, after a few years, he commenced another " life in the wilderness," and here he died, at the age of 73, in March, 1848. His wife lived to the advanced age of 92, dying in 1866. She was born in Haverhill, Mass, in 1773. Her maid- en name was Lydia Whittier, or, as some of the descendants of the family write it, Whicher, a descendant from that Thomas who came in the " good ship, Confidence," in 1638, and died in Haverhill, Mass., November, 1606.

There are many of this name in New Hampshire, and all may trace their lineage to this common ancestor. John G. Whittier, our famous Quaker poet, is of the same family descent.

John M. Gove succeeded to the McMaster homestead in 1821, also purchasing the adjoining lot upon the north, known now as the " Ebenezer Carleton place," around the junction of " Little River " and " Pond Brook."

John M. Gove came hither from Acworth, where for the previous eleven years he had been a resident. He was born in Weare, April 7, 1787.

The first cis-Atlantic Gove is said, in the early annals, to have come to Charlestown, Mass., just previous to 1648, where he started as a merchant, but soon thereafter removed to Cam- bridge with his sons John and Ed- ward, and there he died in 1682.

Edward removed to Hampton, and was the first representative from that town, in 1680. There were then but four towns in the province of New Hampshire, and this was the date of the first assembly.

The Goves were from spirited, in- dependent stock, fearing God, but lovers of liberty and justice. In 1683 the people revolted against the high- handed tyrannizing of Gov. Cranfield, and, headed by Gove and his son, cried out by sound of drum and trum- pet for " liberty and reformation." They went from town to town declar- ing the governor " a traitor." It was a rash act, and they found but few open supporters, although man}' of

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