Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 7.djvu/67

 SKETCH OF WENTVVORTH, N. H.— No. i

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��lo be cut without permission ; upon the division of the lands, a tract of land as near the center of the town as may be, to be marked off as town lots •of the contents of one acre, one of which lots shall be assigned to each I)roprietor. The rent to be paid for •the same is one ear of English corn per annum, and in 1777, on the 25th •day of December, one shilling, procla- mation money, for ever)- hundred acres ■of land owned by him, was to be paid by ever}- pro{)rietor and owner to the king, and in the same ratio for a larger or smaller tract, which was to be in full of all future rents and services.

Dated November i, 1766.

There was a reser\'ation of five hun- •dred acres in the north-west corner ■of the plan of the town, marked "■'B. JV." and known as the Governor's reservation.

This charter was granted to John Paige, Esq., and fifty-nine others. There were five sons of said John Paige, Esq., who were, with him, .grantees and proprietors of the town, namely, Samuel, Aloses, John, Ephraim, and Enoch. They all lived in Salis- bury, Mass., and so far as we know, only two of them ever came to Wentworth. The two younger sons, Ephraim and Enoch, afterward settled in Wentworth and died there. Prob- ably but few of those original proprie- tors ever saw any part of the township thus granted to them. We can not learn that any others of the whole •sixty original proprietors ever settled in Wentworth except Ephraim and Enoch Paige.

John Paige, Esq., the first grantee, was the son of one Onesiphorus Paige, •of Salisbury, Mass., and was born Feb- ruary 21, 1696. He married Mary Winsley, of said Salisbury, April 16, 1720. They had five sons and sev- eral daughters, none of whom, so far as we know, ever came to Wentworth, except the two younger sons as before mentioned. Biit they were not among the first settlers of the town.

During the year 1770 the first set- tlement was made in town bv Da\id

��Maxfield, Abel Davis, and Ephraim Lund, and in the order above named, though all in the same season. David Maxfield settled on the White farm, as it was formerly called, on the interval since occupied by Richard Pillsbury and Col. Joseph Savage. He lived in town but about two years. Abel Davis cleared a small piece of land and built a log-house on the Jon- athan Fames place, so-called, and since occupied by Daniel Fames, and now by Amos Rollins. This house was west of the present buildings toward the river. He remained in town but a short time, removing to Vermont. His daughter, Mary Davis, afterward came into town and lived with Enoch Paige's family, and became the second wife of Ebenezer Gove, one of the early settlers, about 1780. Ephraim Lund erected a log-house on the east side of the river, near where the red school-house now stands in District No. i. He resided in town five or six years, and then removed to \\^arren, where he afterward lived and died at an advanced age.

Ephraim Paige, son of John Paige, Esq., and Mary Paige, of Salisbury, Mass., was born at said Salisbury, March 16, 1731. He married Hannah Currier there and had ten children, born in Salisbury, and then in the sum- mer of 1773 he moved his family to Wentworth, where he had three more children, making thirteen in all — ten daughters and three sons. John Paige, the eldest son, was born at Salisbury in 1 769. Samuel, the second son, was born in Wentworth in October, 1773, and is said to have been the first male child born in the town of Wentworth. His third son. Currier Paige, was born in Wentworth, March 29, 1781, and was the youngest of the family. Ephraim first settled in a log-house on the lower end of the interval, since owned by James K. Paige, and after- ward occupied as a town-farm, near the brook. The road that then passed up the west side of the river went east of the village, round the hill and back of it, to the interval above. He lived

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