his braves fell before
the unerring fire of the frontiersmen, and the tribe of Pigwacket, which
had so long menaced the borders, withdrew to Canada.
The ambitious young men of the older settlements had seen with jealousy
a band of strangers, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, granted a beautiful
and fruitful tract, which already blossomed under the industrious
work of the newcomers. They clamored for grants which they, too, could
cultivate. Every pretext was advanced to secure a claim. No petitioners
were better entitled to consideration than the representatives of those
who had rendered so large a section habitable.
Massachusetts Bay Colony had long claimed as a northern boundary a line
three miles north of the Merrimack and parallel thereto, from its mouth
to its source, thence westward to the bounds of New York. Under the
pressure brought to bear by interested parties, the General Court of
Massachusetts granted, January 17, 1725-6, the township of Penacook,
embracing the city of Concord, New Hampshire.
In May, 1727, a petition from the survivors of Lovewell's command was
favorably received by the General Court, and soon afterward Suncook, or
Lovewell's township, was granted. Only two of the company are known to
have settled in the town--Francis Doyen, who was with Lovewell on his
second expedition, and Noah Johnson. The latter was the last survivor of
the company. He was a deacon of the church in Suncook for many years,
received a pension from Massachusetts, and died in Plymouth, New
Hampshire, in 1798, in the one hundredth year of his age.
Captain John Lovewell was represented in the township of Suncook by his
daughter Hannah, who married Joseph Baker, settled on her father's
right, raised a large family, and died at a good old age. A great
multitude of her descendants are scattered throughout the United States.
The original grantees of the township, for the most part, assigned their
rights to persons who became actual settlers.
In the year 1740, the King in council decided the present line as the
boundary between New Hampshire and Massachusetts, thus leaving Suncook,
and many other of the townships granted by the latter Province, within
the former. For a score of years following, the settlers were harassed
by the proprietors of the soil under the Masonian Claim, until, in 1759,
a compromise was effected, and Pembroke was incorporated.
In 1774, a new township in the District of Maine, was granted, by the
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