Sophia Newell (or possibly an imposter) in front of the Gad Newell home, on Cemetery Road.

Editors note:  This is the third and final article in a series relating the founding of the first ministry in Packersfield.  The first detailed the many efforts to acquire a minister for a small, remote community. Several ministers came for trial periods and several offers of employment were made before Jacob Foster accepted the call. The second discussed Foster’s contentious dismissal for reasons the records do not make clear.  What is clear is that the parting was difficult.  This final article deals with the start of Packersfield/Nelsons longest ministry, that of Gad Newell.  Sensitive to the situation in the aftermath of the Foster mess, the young Newell took a healing approach.

In the aftermath of the Reverend Jacob Foster’s dismissal, Packersfield moved on.

A much more established community now, the town seemed to have little trouble finding a replacement.  The process took two years, but there is no record of repeated trials of new ministers and rejected offers of employment. The town provided a settlement of 170 pounds (a sort of signing bonus) and offered the new preacher a salary of 70 pounds per year.  The new minister was a twenty-nine-year-old Yale graduate named Gad Newell.  The Reverend Newell was installed on June 11, 1794 and retired 43 years later.  His letter to the people of Packersfield bespoke his faith in God and of the healing needed in the aftermath of Jacob Foster’s dismissal reproduced here in its full late eighteenth century eloquence:

“To the Church of Christ and the people of God in Packersfield in the State of New Hampshire – grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord be multiplied –

“It has pleased the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the father of glory with whom are the hearts of all men to unite this church and congregation in making choice of me for your Gospel Minister.  Accordingly you presented your proposals to me for my consideration (bearing date October 22 A.D. 1793). As it is one of the greatest events of my life and unspeakably important consequences depend it has become me and I do endeavor to feel myself under the all seeing eye of God and I trust I am not actuated from motives of personal private interest or reward but with a view to the glory of God. And have endeavored humbly to look unto God for His direction in a serious consideration and enquiry respecting my duty in this important affair — Considering the extraordinary and singular unanimity of the church and congregation and how undesirable it is for a people to be scattered upon the hills without a spiritual instructor and guide. These things lead me to conclude and afford a prospect that my compliance will be for the glory of God the honor and interest of the cause of Christ and the God of the immortal Souls.  From this view that it is for the Glory of God the interest of the Redeemer’s Kingdom and for the salvation of souls. I am as I trust induced cheerfully to comply with your invitations relying on the grace of God and the gracious promises of the Lord Jesus Christ made to his faithful ministers.

“And may I obtain mercy and grace of God to be a faithful minister on the new covenant to come unto you in the fullness of blessing of the Gospel of Christ seeking not yours but you and willing to spend and be spent in the cause of Christ and for the spiritual good of your immortal souls.  How great arduous and important the work. How solemn that I must give account of the souls committed to my charge. Should I consult flesh and blood and look to my own ability and sufficiency in undertaking and performing this great work I might well shrink back from it.

“Who is sufficient for these things is the expresion [sic] even of the great apostle through Christ strengthening even the weak may be made strong and small means blessed for great good. And without His especial gracious assistance no one can be properly sufficient leaning not to our own understandings but heartily to the allisufficiancy [sic] and faithfulness of the Great Head of the Church we may go forward finding consolation and support.

“It becomes a minister of Christ to give himself wholly to the work in which he engages not for filthy lucres [sic] sake but have a ready mind. And as I expect and engage this to do to spend the principal part of my time to study and labor continually for the upholding of Christ’s cause and church among you and for the spiritual interest of your immortal souls.  It is but proper as long as I thus do I should reap your carnal things receive from you a comfortable subsistence and this I trust I shall so long as the unanimity and friendship continues and there is a prospect of my being useful and doing good among you and when this is at an end it is best we should part. But may God of His mercy grant that no unhappy separation may take place, but that each of us may know what is proper for our several stations and to conduct as that we may further one another’s salvation.

“I shall stand in a near relation to this Church and in a very important one to you all both the aged the middle aged and the youth and even the children and all who attend on my ministry I am to watch for your souls as one that must give an account. Many will be the souls committed to my charge.  The work is difficult arduous and unspeakably important. I need therefore to be much in prayer meditation and study and to be diligent and faithful, and need and do desire your prayers your watchfulness your friendly correction and council as well as that you will need mine.   And the same forbearance being but a man shall I need from you that you will from me.

“As the upbuilding of Redeemer’s Kingdom and is infinitely important and the most glorious object and the welfare of your immortal souls of unspeakable concernment to you and as you invited me to labor among you in these things to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ it is my duty to be plain and faithful not to seek to please men but God. And it is important how you hear if may obtain mercy of God to be a faithful minister of the new covenant. What I deliver will be a savor of life unto life or a savor of death unto death to you all. But I would charge you not to hearken to what I deliver now follow my example any further than they shall be according to the word of God in your best judgment which you are to study daily to know what is the truth and practice according to it. For all men are fallible and imperfect.

“May God grant I so speak live and that you may so hear and practice that I and you may have occation [sic] to rejoice in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ that I have not run in vain nor labored in vain. And therefore let us keep near the throne of grace and continually bear each other and zion’s cause on our hearts in our addresses to the God of all mercies that we may finally rejoice together united by  – forever with Christ in his Kingdom and glory. Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus that great shepard [sic] of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant make you perfect in every good work to do His will working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever. Amen.

“I subscribe myself your affectionate friend and brother in the faith and fellowship of the gospel. Gad Newell

Dated Packersfield April 5^th 1794”

The young Reverend Newell was mindful of the fate of his predecessor when he wrote that he would remain in Packersfield’s service “so long as the unanimity and friendship continues and there is a prospect of my being useful.” He even contemplated the end of his service: For when “doing good among you… is at an end it is best we should part. But may God of His mercy grant that no unhappy separation may take place, but that each of us may know what is proper for our several stations and to conduct as that we may further one another’s salvation.”

It had been a little over two years since Jacob Foster’s difficult dismissal.

Gad Newell served long and well. His life and service saw the financial separation of church and town and the building of the third place of worship, Nelson’s current Congregational Church. He died in 1859 at age 95 and was buried in the very spot where once his pulpit stood high on the hill.

Click here to see more history articles by Rick Church.

Some kind of dispute ended the service of Packersfield’s first minister.  Town records do not tell us the nature of the trouble, but do record a difficult process by which the Reverend Jacob Foster was “dismissed” from service and a settlement made between him and the town.  We can guess, from the content of the proceedings, that money was a central issue in the dispute.

The first evidence of a problem is found in the minutes of the town meeting of June 30, 1791 with the following entry:

“Voted not to accept the Rev Jacob Foster’s answer as satisfactory. Voted to agree with the Church in a mutual council with the Reverend Jacob Foster.”

The town meeting appointed to a committee of five to draw articles of charge against Reverend Jacob Foster and arrange the evidence. The members were Deacon William Barker, Solomon Wardwell, Joseph Abbott, David Beard and Abraham Goodenow

We can read several facts into the situation by reading the entry carefully. A complaint had been made against the Reverend Foster that had not been answered to the satisfaction of the town. There were two bodies involved: the church and the town. Later documents refer to a third body: The Venerable Council. The town appointed a committee to manage this process and that committee represented both the town and the church.

Somewhat over a month later the committee presented its report to the town. We do not have a copy of the committee’s report. At some point the Venerable Council entered the dispute and rendered its own report, apparently in support of the minister. The town members met on August 9^th, but failed to agree on a way to resolve the issue. The meeting was adjourned to August 17^th when the town met four days in a row to try to resolve the issue. The meeting got testy at times as reflected in a vote to appoint Captain Ezra Smith and Lieutenant Peletiah Day “to keep order while the committee acts.”

Finally, after five days of meetings to discuss the issue, the town reached some kind of resolution and on the 20^th “Voted not to accept the report of the Venerable Council 72 to 0. Voted that Deacon William Barker, Joseph Abbott and Solomon Wardwell be a committee to give the thanks of this town to the Venerable Council.  “Voted to choose a committee to tell the Reverend Jacob Foster the result.”

The town paid Council expenses in the amount of 25 pounds and Josiah Melvin was paid for boarding the Council.

A few weeks later the town met again and chose the same five-member committee to meet with Mr. Foster and “make enquiry into the difficulty relative to the Rev. Jacob Foster and make a report. Also that the committee be empowered to make the Rev. Jacob Foster proposals after taking advice abroad.” They were to sound out their neighbors.

Whatever issue the congregation had with its minister, it had reached crisis proportions by the time it made the official town records. At that point virtually the entire congregation wanted their minister gone; one of the Church’s deacons, William Barker, was on the committee to draw up the charges. The other deacon, Solomon Ingalls, was the meeting’s moderator.  Finding himself isolated within his own community, Foster had turned to a council of fellow ministers for support.  His peers were encouraging, perhaps supporting the institution of the Church more than the man, but they were not proof against a congregation that was clearly of one mind regarding the man’s failings as their minister.

In early October the town received a proposal from Foster for a mediated end to the dispute:

“To the Town of Packersfield,

Gentlemen: Although in some former proposals I observed that the clergy were not to be excepted [accepted] in settling our difficulties [The advice of the Venerable Council had been rejected unanimously.] yet sensible that it is of great importance that these difficulties should be healed, I hereby propose to the people in this place that I will refer the final settlement of everything of a pecuniary nature to the judgment of five indifferent men of the laity the chairman to be chosen by mutual consent of the other four; two to be chosen by the town and two by myself, the choice to be overruled if any reasonable objection shall be made. And said referees when together may take into view as the ground of their judgment my present situation and that of the town, the late result of the council in this place and all the civil transactions between the town and myself. These proposals are so reasonable that I think they cannot fail of giving satisfaction. From your affectionate minister.

Jacob Foster”

Foster's Proposal

Whatever the other issues between the parties, this letter appeals for a settlement of the “pecuniary” and of “civil transactions”. The latter probably refers to the terms by which the contractual relationship between the town and the minister could be ended. The town seems to have accepted this negotiation process, but on August 27^th the town asked for assurance that Mr. Foster would agree “not to charge the town any pay for three Sabbaths to come if the town will call a meeting before the fourth Sabbath Day and comply with the award of the late differences between said Foster and the Town.”

On November 15^th Packersfield held another town meeting entirely devoted to the Foster matter. The Committee reported verbally that Rev. Foster had agreed.  The meeting took action accepting “the award of the late reference [mediation] between Jacob Foster and the Town.” The town voted not to raise the 135 pound settlement, but authorized Amos Child to borrow money on behalf of the town. Three days later the town met again and appointed a committee to ask the Reverend Jacob Foster to agree to ask for a “dismission” from his duties. The meeting was adjourned and  John White, Peletiah Day and Samuel Skinner waited  on Mr. Foster’s response. They received his written answer immediately after the meeting:

“To the Church and Congregation in Packersfield: As I am informed that the town has accepted the award of the late arbitrators and have appointed a committee who have given security in behalf of the town for payment of money, so I am now ready and willing to join with the Church and the Town in calling a council to dissolve the relationship between me and the Church and Congregation agreeably to the award and desire this may be done as soon as may be convenient. Packersfield, November 18^th 1791 thirty-nine minutes after six o’clock.”

Foster's Acceptance

That evening the reconvened meeting voted to “concur with the Church in calling a Council to dissolve the relationship between the Reverend Jacob Foster and the Church and Congregation.” And voted “to desire the Venerable Council in this place to dissolve the relation between the Rev. Jacob Foster and said town as minister and people.”

The town had devoted nine meetings covering the period from June to November 1791 including one marathon, four-day, virtually continuous meeting.  The committee of five that was first appointed to specify the town’s complaints saw the process through from beginning to end. The town must have been emotionally drained from a public contest with its minister. Though we do not know what complaints the town had against Mr. Foster, it apparently owed the minister a great deal of back salary.  Perhaps they had tried to get him to resign and had held his pay as leverage. It may have been a scarcity of ready cash. These were days of a largely barter economy when cash was scarce and people worked off their taxes on the roads.  Goods and services were exchanged or notes given in anticipation of a future payment in money or other things of value. Perhaps the town had tried to pay Foster in commodities it had received in payment of taxes or in notes given by taxpayers in debt to the town. We do not know. We can say that his seventy-pound salary was competitive; his successor, the Reverend Gad Newell was paid a similar amount.

Mr. Foster was finally paid in March of 1792 and left Packersfield.  He returned at the end of his life. He died in 1798 and was buried near the new meetinghouse.  The final chapter in the story was the reacquisition by the Town of the land Foster had been granted for his parsonage. His epitaph reads:

“Surviving friends come view the place

Prepared for Adam’s guilty race

No age exempted you may see

Death had a summons fixed for me”

We probably think that using commodities as a hedge against inflation and mediation panels consisting of mediators selected by each side are twentieth century inventions; they were practiced in Packersfield in the eighteenth.

Nelson Town Records Volume 3; A History of Nelson New Hampshire 1767-1967, Parke H. Struthers, editor

The author is grateful to Sue Kingsbury for her skillful editing.

Click here to see more of Rick’s articles on Nelson History

The Reverend George Whitefield did not (as far as we know) ever preach in Nelson, but he was a contemporary of Treadway and Foster, of whom no portrait is known to exist .

The original charter of Monadnock Number Six stipulated founding a successful town in accordance with the king’s requirements. The charter contained requirements to establish and support of religion and education. Three of the grantors’ shares in the town, a total of six one hundred acre lots, were reserved  “free from charge, one for the first settled minister one for the ministry and one for the school forever.”  One lot from each of these shares was to be in the center of the new town where a “convenient meeting house” would be built.  The meetinghouse was to serve as a place of worship and for public meetings. Breed Batchellor laid out ten acres of common land for this purpose in the original layout of the town.

In support of the requirement to establish religion, the town hired and paid for the minister and erected a meetinghouse to serve as the site of both civic and religious life of the town.  While not all town residents were church members, the minister’s salary was paid by the town, leaving both church membership and town residents with a joint responsibility for choosing or dismissing ministers.  The Congregational Church in the form of a Venerable Council of local ministers played a role as well, approving ministers as suitable or not.  Town financial support began to change when other denominations began to hold services in Nelson and ceased shortly after the Toleration Act (1819) passed by New Hampshire required that churches be privately supported.

The process of finding a minister for Monadnock Number Six began in a proprietors’ meeting held March 29, 1773 at the home of Nathaniel Breed, where it was voted to raise money to hire a preacher.  The hiring process was interesting. A committee was chosen to offer a trial preaching period to prospective preachers after which an offer of full employment could be made and accepted.

In the meantime a minister was necessary for the vital social functioning of the new community. Early on, the Reverend Joseph Farrar from the church in Dublin filled in. The Reverend Farrar presided over the marriage of Deliverance, daughter of Dr. Nathaniel and Ann Breed, to Lieutenant Abijah Brown in Packersfield on October 28, 1772.  Reverend Farrar returned to baptize another Breed daughter, Anne, in the new meetinghouse in July 1773. This was also the occasion of the preaching of the first sermon in Monadnock Number Six, and probably served as the building’s dedication as well.

A committee composed of Eleazur Twitchell, Amos Skinner and James Bancroft was charged with finding a Gospel Minister. In 1774 James Treadway was induced to come for a trial in which he was to “supply the desk” five Sabbaths after which he was asked to serve an additional five. He must have done well for on August 16, 1774 the town voted to “call James Treadway.”  Their proposal included land and a salary of 30 pounds per year increasing by 5 pounds per year until it reached 60 pounds. Twelve acres of the land would be cleared at town expense. There must have been a bit of negotiating as a subsequent meeting voted to give Treadway four Sabbaths off every year. Treadway turned them down.

The Treadway Offer (Nelson Town Archives)

The town returned to hiring preachers on a temporary basis. One of those hired was undoubtedly Solomon Reed.  In the Spring of 1779, Dr. Nathaniel Breed was paid 27 pounds 19 shillings and 6 pence to board the minister 12 weeks and 6 days and the town voted to raise 200 pounds to support the ministry that year.  These numbers make it seem as though poor Mr. Treadway had been offered too little, but this was a time of raging inflation caused by the financing for the Revolutionary War.  In 1779 it required 2400 pounds in continental money to buy 100 pounds in gold. A year and a half later 12,000 pounds Continental was the equal of 100 in gold. In any case Mr. Reed declined the full time position.

These must have been very difficult years. Men were away in the Continental Army. The fledgling United States was battling economic hard times.  The absence of a minister could have been an even more important rent in the social fabric.  Babies not promptly baptized might be liable to hell; illegitimacy was not a realistic social option so the availability of marriage was vital to young couples. Who could face death without the services of an ordained man of God?

Poor Packersfield finally brought the process to a successful conclusion. A town meeting in October 1780 “voted to give the Rev Mr. Jacob Foster a call to settle in this town in the work of the ministry by twenty-seven votes only two in the negative.”  Foster agreed to “supply the desk.”

According to Robert F. Lawrence in his The New Hampshire Churches; Comprising the Histories of the Congregational and Presbyterian Churches of the State, Foster was a 1754 graduate of Harvard and had been settled as a minister before. “He is said to have been in sentiment a moderate Calvinist, and a man of good natural and acquired abilities, and to have sustained honorably his ministerial office. During his ministry twenty-seven were added to the church.”

Again there were negotiations.  Jacob Foster was to get one of the ministerial lots providing he gave up any right to the other lot. The town would  “clear up and seed eighteen acres of land”, six acres in each of his first three years. They went so far as to specify that the land would be seeded with two pounds of “hard grass” and one pound of clover per acre. He was to get a salary based on the number of families in town and free firewood.  Subsequently the town was to supply their minister with 25 cords of firewood per year. The following is from the official town records:

“Voted to give Mr. Foster 55 pounds and 20 cords of wood delivered to his door yearly until the town has 70 families. Then to give him 60 pounds and 20 cords of wood per year until the town has 90 families. Then to give him 65 pounds and 20 cords of wood per year until the town has 100 families. Then to give him 70 pounds and 0 cords of wood per year.

“That the above salary be equal to money in the year 1774

“That he has liberty to be absent three Sabbaths per year. That the salary be stated in Indian Corn at 2 shillings per bushel, rye at 3 shillings and 8 pence per bushel and grass fed beef at 2 pence half penny per pound and other articles in like proportion.”

The Foster Offer

In these inflationary times, the Reverend Foster’s salary was carefully protected from inflation by stating that he be paid an amount specified in pre-war currency.  The mechanism of preserving that value was specified by equating a 1774-pound in terms of common commodities it could purchase, just as commodities are used today as an inflation hedge.

Jacob Foster’s installation was held on the last day of January 1781 and must have been a grand ceremony.  Packersfield assembled an “Eclesiastical Councell” [sic] composed of the ministers of nine churches: The Church of Hollis, The Church of New Ipswich, the South Church in Portsmouth, the North Church in Berwick, the Church in Greenland, the Church in Washington, the Church in Dublin, the Church in Keene, the Church in Wilton.  The town raised three hundred pounds for the expenses and paid “Dr. Breed four hundred pounds for entertaining said Councell” The small, unheated Packersfield meeting house at twenty-five by thirty feet must have been warm that January day with so many people in attendance.

Two months later Foster added to the 18 acres the town had provided and cleared by acquiring land between the old town common, Center Pond and Center Pond Road.  Later he would acquire 150 additional acres south of the Merriconn Farm.

Nelson Town Records; Deeds of land: Cheshire County Registry of Deeds; A History of Nelson New Hampshire 1767-1967, Parke H. Struthers, editor; Robert F. Lawrence; The New Hampshire Churches; Comprising the Histories of the Congregational and Presbyterian Churches of the State;   The Old Village on the Hill-top ,Rev. Edwin Noah Hardy, Ph.D. unpublished; no date

The author is grateful to Sue Kingsbury for her skillful editing.

Click here to see more history articles by Rick Church.

Nelson’s first pound was built at the same time as the meetinghouse (1773) and almost directly across the road from it. This suggests they were of similar importance in the early function of the community.  It was a twenty-foot-square stonewall six feet high with a door and an iron lock.  By 1783 this first pound proved to be too small, and a larger replacement, thirty by thirty, was built. The walls were also stone, six feet high, three feet thick on the bottom and one and a half feet thick at the top with another foot of boards extending above the stone.  This pound had a four-foot wide gate and a door with iron hinges with a lock and key. David Beard, the lowest bidder, built it for 11 pounds. It still stands today in the woods on the east side of Lead Mine road across from the Coughlin’s pergola.

Many animals kept in the pound had broken out of their home enclosures, but hogs were routinely left to run wild. Pork was the principal meat for Packersfield families in the early days. Left to roam free, hogs could grow and fatten on nuts that accumulated on the forest floor (mast.) In March 1788 Packersfield voted “to let the hogs run wild with being yoked and ringed according to law.”  A Pennsylvania statute from 1705 spells out the purpose and design of these rings and yokes: “rings in their noses sufficient to prevent their turning up the ground and triangular or three cornered yokes or bows about their necks and to extend at least six inches from the angular point or corner sufficient to keep them from breaking through fences.” The ordinance was renewed year after year in the early days of the town.

Apparently the newly enlarged pound wasn’t large enough or, perhaps, although convenient, it was just a little too close to the meetinghouse. At the March town meeting in 1795 the town appointed a committee to “build a pound of stone 35’ square the committee to recommend the height of the walls. Voted to set the pound in Capt. Ezra Smith’s pasture on the northerly side of the road.”

This pound has been difficult to locate. Ezra Smith had land in several parts of Packersfield — in Munsonville and on the Old Stoddard Road, Brickyard Road and Tolman

Pond roads.  To find where things were two hundred years ago, it is often helpful to talk to someone with roots in a place. Barry Tolman remembered his grandfather referring to a “hog pound” on Tolman Pond Road.  It is there today just off the north side of the road and down hill from the road to Barry’s shop. It seems likely that the 1783 pound was abandoned when this, the third, pound was built.

Pound Keeper and Hog Reeves

To help bring order to the animal world, the town elected officers to protect the animals and crops. They elected a pound keeper and a number of hog reeves. The pound keeper was in charge of all stray animals. Strays were brought to the town pound where the pound keeper locked them up. Here the pound keeper collected fines from their owners when they came to get them. Ezra Smith held the office of pound keeper almost continuously from 1786 until he moved from Nelson in 1823 at age 68.  He lived just up the hill from the third pound at the “Dixon Place.”

The office of hog reeve is more interesting. The hog reeve rounded up all stray pigs. If the owner of a hog had not ‘rung’ and ‘yoked’ their hogs, and the hogs got loose and became a nuisance in the community, one or more of the men assigned as hog reeve would be responsible for capturing the animal and performing the necessary chore for the owner; who could legally be charged a small fee for the service. Hog reeves were also responsible for determining any damages and levying that assessment on the animal’s owner.

Some historians write that the office, a serious community responsibility in the early days, became a joke. The voters would often elect the prissiest man in town or all the newly wed men as hog reeves. In the 1850s Charlestown elected their minister, Dr. Whittaker, to this office. No Nelson minister was so honored. What we can say from Nelson records is that almost no one held the office more than once. In the early days there were usually three hog reeves; after 1785 the number elected each year varied from two to seven.  Was this a joke played on the men of Packersfield/Nelson or a timely reaction to the fertility of that years’ sows? Not all those elected were young, married men; some were middle aged and “prominent,” but the high “turnover” in the position and the fact that two were “needed” some years and seven in the following year suggests voters were having some fun.

Most records of election are a simple line in the minutes of a town meeting.  In 1856 Noah W. Hardy, a substantial farmer, was appointed as pound keeper to fill a vacancy until someone could be properly elected.  The document (left)  appears in the Ethan Tolman Papers.

Not all strays ended up in the pound. The following notices were posted regarding loose horses and cows:

.

Packersfield May 21, 1789

Taken up by Capt. James Bancroft on the 20^th of this instant a large chestnut or brown horse about 4 or 5 years old with a white star on his face.

May 5,1796

Broke into the enclosure of the subscriber on the 4^th day of May two colts one mare two years old dark brown with a little star in her face, the other a horse one year old light bay with a white star in his face. The owner or owners may have said colts with paying damages.  Richard Farwell

Notice: (January 2,1803]

Came into the enclosure of the subscriber on this the 7^th day of November a large red and white cow supposed to be 9 or 10 years old and intended for beef. The owner may have her again by applying to the subscriber and proving property and paying charges. Jonathan Wyman.

Owners marked cattle and sheep. Those marks were recorded in the town records. From the records of 1824: Ebenezer Harris marked his cattle and sheep by slitting both ears and cutting off the “under half” of each ear; Nathan Griffin marked his sheep with two slits in the right ear.

Nelson maintained its pound until 1878 when the town meeting voted to discontinue its use and sell the property.

Sources: Pennsylvania Statutes courtesy of Google Books; Nelson Town Records; Deeds of land: Cheshire County Registry of Deeds; A History of Nelson New Hampshire 1767-1967, Parke H. Struthers, editor; Ethan Tolman Papers

The author is grateful to Sue Kingsbury for her skillful editing.

Click here to see more history articles by Rick Church.

A proprietors meeting held in February 1772  “voted to clear four acres on the ten acres reserved for public use and voted to build a duty meetinghouse.” In April the town moved to put a plan into action by voting 25 pounds to build a meetinghouse 25’ X 30’ with posts 8 ½ feet long. It seems to have been built almost immediately. But, as we shall see, rebuilding was required in a mere ten years. Anne Breed, daughter of Nathaniel and Ann Breed, born January 30, 1773, was the first person baptized in Monadnock Number Six meetinghouse in July 1773.   The Reverend Joseph Farrar of Dublin presided and preached the first sermon in Packersfield. The first proprietors meeting was held there in October 1773.

All we can tell about that first building was that it was a frame structure, probably cape style and 8 ½ feet high at the eaves. It held fifty or sixty people for a meeting.  That is an ample size for town meetings attended by only adult men, but must have felt crowded when early church services were held with women and children adding to the numbers. Church attendance was virtually required in those days, but Packersfield did not have a settled minister until 1780, though not for lack of effort. The building was repaired in time for that first minister with a pew added for the Reverend Jacob Foster and his family.

From a description of repairs that were made in 1783, we get a few more hints about its appearance and construction. In only ten years of weathering and use, the building had fallen into disrepair. Town meeting voted repairs costing 73 shillings as follows:

“Voted to find one thousand boards and use the same in rough ceiling the meetinghouse and three windows twelve panes each seven by nine and hang the door. 1000 white pine boards brought to the Meetinghouse at 30s [shillings], 3 window frames of 12 squares each with sashes 12 [shillings] 36 panes of glass 18 [shillings].

One half thousand ten penny nails bid off by Lt. [Aaron] Beel at 7s. [Beel was the town’s first blacksmith.] Bid off by Mr. Beamis [Henry Bemis] to nail up 1000 of boards set 36 panes of glass with 8 tins each, hang the door and put one piece of timber the woman’s side and nail up the boards that are sprung off.”

Critical readers of this description will doubt that the ceiling of a building of that size would require 1000 boards.  Town records are transcriptions made near the time and are subject to transcription error.  The use of half a thousand nails suggests the number of boards might have been one hundred not one thousand.

The extent of work needed presents a picture of disrepair and provides more details of the building itself.  It had had no ceiling, but now would have one of boards. Three windows needed repair and that was probably all the building had. They weren’t very large as window glass was quite expensive. They were double hung sash with twelve panes of glass each. The common configuration was six over six. There were two common pane sizes in those days. The ones used, seven by nine inches, were the most common and least expensive. It was a dimly lit 25’ x 30’ room.

There is no reference to a chimney and there probably wasn’t one. Indeed preaching in the winter of 1780 was divided on a rotational basis between the houses of Nathaniel Breed, John Adams and Samuel Griffin. Breed’s house was selected to serve the northern part of town; Adams and Griffin for the southwestern and southeastern parts respectively. The arrangement could have been motivated by difficult winter travel as well as warmth within the houses. Town meetings held during the winter months were usually adjourned to the home of Uriah Wheeler next door.

The door needed rehanging and the siding, probably clapboards, needed nailing where they had sprung off.  The roof was undoubtedly shingled. It is a picture of a plain but serviceable structure. All we know of the interior is that the seating was in pews; that it was divided with men and women separated, and that it had a pulpit. It was called a “duty” meetinghouse both because it was required by the town charter and because it was basic and utilitarian.

The remainder of the burying ground was cleared and a stone wall 4 ½ feet high surrounded it. The wall was built by Joseph Felt and Abijah Brown.

The repaired meetinghouse was too small so in 1785 the Town of Packersfield voted to build a new meetinghouse beside the old one with gallery and two porches one on either end for 125 pounds.  The second meetinghouse took seven years to complete, but it was finished enough so that the old one could be sold and moved off the site in 1788.

Nathaniel Breed’s son, Thomas, bought the old one (without the pulpit) for 12 pounds. He moved it to a place just south of the cemetery where, according to an unpublished tract by the Reverend Edwin Noah Hardy, it was used as a store and tavern for a number of years. We are not sure of this location. Parke Struthers in his History of Nelson reports that it was located just south of the cemetery and became a home occupied by a succession of cobblers.  It was painted red. David and James Beard bought the property south of the cemetery from the town in 1797.  The former meetinghouse seems to have been moved, again, to that site; there is a cellar hole there today that could accommodate a building of that size.

According to Parke Struthers, Barnard Warren may have been the first cobbler there, plying his trade in Packersfield as early as 1797, but he was never the owner. Oliver Stone bought it from the Beards in 1822 and continued the shoe business; he and his wife raised nine children in the old meetinghouse. The Stone family was followed by Henry H. Flint, who carried on his shoemaker’s trade there. Probably in the late 1830’s when the current village was built, the old meetinghouse was moved again to become part of the home where the Quigleys lived on the northeast corner of the new common.  The Quigley house with the remnants of the 1773 meetinghouse was taken down in the 1980’s and the site used for the new library.
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Artist’s concept of 1^st meetinghouse. Credit: Andrew Weglinski/Scully-Architects

Sources: Nelson Town Records, New Hampshire State Papers: Town Charters; Deeds of land: Cheshire County Registry of Deeds; A History of Nelson New Hampshire 1767-1967, Parke H. Struthers, editor; Packersfield-Nelson

The Old Village on the Hill-top ,Rev. Edwin Noah Hardy, Ph.D. unpublished; no date; Garvin, James L, A Building History of Northern New England

The author is grateful to Sue Kingsbury for her skillful editing.

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The town kept its roads open in the winter with men hired to “break” the roads in their neighborhoods. In 1858 the town “voted $113 for the year for breaking roads. Men to be hired for $.08 per hour; oxen for $.10 per hour; horses for the same rate as oxen and cows for less.” They did this by packing the roads with rollers like the one shown in the photograph, from Sutton, VT. Rolled snow made a good surface for sleighs and sleds.

The first record of a town purchase of equipment specifically for road maintenance came in the form of a vote in the March town meeting of 1882 instructing the selectmen to purchase a road scraper: “Voted to instruct the selectmen to purchase a road scraper.” The treasurer’s report shows it cost $60. It was likely similar to the ones illustrated in this advertisement from the late 19^th century:

Six years later, the selectmen recommended a serious upgrade in town equipment.

Article 7 on the March 31, 1888 warrant read: “To see if the own will vote to purchase one American Champion Road Machine.”  As the name suggests, this was quite a machine.  The picture of the American Champion below shows it to be a horse- or ox-drawn grading machine with a blade that can be angled and leveled. It had two operators; one who drove the team and the other who adjusted the blade.

Voters of the town passed over article 7. Chastened, the selectmen waited five years before trying again. From the records of the March 1893 town meeting:

“Article #5 To see if the town will buy a road machine or pass any vote in relation thereto.”

“Voted to instruct the selectmen to purchase a road machine. “

The treasurer’s report for 1893 reflects the purchase of a “John Hadlock road machine” for $250.  John Hadlock was the Milford, New Hampshire agent for American Champion Road Machine.

Early in the twentieth century automobiles began to travel Nelson roads made smoother, no doubt, by the new road machine. The first “resident” automobile came to town as the property of William L. Story.  The Story Farm cellar hole can still be seen at the foot of Jonathan Smith’s driveway on the aptly named Story Road. A year later Wayland Tolman, Wilmer C. Tolman, Albertis Wilder and Willie L. Guillow all owned the machines. That same year Fred A. Fisher brought the first motorcycle to town. But in 1915 Nelson was still hiring ox teams and their owners to maintain its highways. Though the town may have moved on to the use of motorized equipment earlier, the first record of such a purchase occurs in 1927.

The selectmen placed a tractor on the March 8, 1927 warrant:

“Article 5 Voted to buy a tractor.” The voters approved.

“Voted that $500 of the purchase price of the tractor be raised by taxation and the balance borrowed. “  The meeting recessed until 2PM on March 26^th when voters met to decide what kind of tractor to purchase.  One can imagine tractor dealers bringing their machines to show off to Nelson voters.

The record of the meeting reads as follows:

“Motion made and passed that vote be taken by ballot to see what kind of tractor to buy.

Result of vote.  Whole number of ballots cast 28

Fordson had 3

Cleveland had 25”

The Cleveland was considerably more expensive than the Fordson and was a tracked vehicle, not a wheeled machine like its competitor. The meeting voted to raise $500 in the current year and issue notes for three years; tractor payments totaled $3,233.

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Sources: Nelson Town Records, Google Books

The author is grateful to Sue Kingsbury for her skillful editing.

To see additional articles that Rick Church has written about Nelson history, click here.

Nelson’s earliest roads were made and maintained by hand, using men and teams of oxen — the same methods that cleared farms. Road layouts reflected that labor intensity. They tended to be built straight up and down hills rather than be bench cut, and they were likely to follow property lines and avoid using already cleared and productive farmland. However, early property deeds made it clear that all property was “subject to all necessary highways.” Between its founding and today, Nelson has laid out, built, relocated and improved several hundred roads.

In May 1834 the selectmen received a petition from a number of residents to layout a new road. A public meeting was held and the town approved the following road: “Beginning at the Stoddard line near the brook in said Nelson thence south 34 degrees west through land of James Clark 12 rods to a stake and stones. Thence south 12 degrees west 16 rods 9 links. Thence south 5 degrees west 20 rods 12 links to the bank of the brook. Thence south 40 degrees west across the brook to the old road near James Clark’s cider mill 6 rods. The above line is to be the center of the highway which is to be 3 rods wide.”

This road is part of the current Old Stoddard Road from the Stoddard town line to the big culvert that carries Bailey Brook.  The stone foundation visible on the north side of the road today is probably James Clark’s cider mill.

For construction purposes, road layouts were divided into lots. The town set up contracts for different lots of the new road, and they were put out to bid.

The following is lot number 1: November 6, 1834:

“Conditions of sale [contract to build] of a piece of road in Nelson near James Clark’s.  Lot number 1 is 12 rods to be made 20 feet wide from the center of ditches and 20 inches crowning and all the stone and roots to be taken out that will come within 15 inches of the top of the road and all necessary sluiceways to be put in where needed and covered with hemlock plank or stone the whole to be done in a thorough and workmanlike manner.”

Another road contract, in1836, read:

“Lot number 4 of a road near the Widow Stiles.  Said road to be made 20 feet wide from the center of the ditches and 20 inches crowning and all the stone and roots to be taken out that will come within 15 inches of the top of the road and all necessary sluiceways to be made and covered with good sound hemlock plank 2 ½ inches thick or good covered stone, the plank to be 18 feet long the whole to be done in a thorough and workmanlike manner and to be completed by the 20^th of September, 1836.  Bid off to Joseph Osgood at $1.97 [per rod].  19 ½ rods.”

Old stone culvert off Nubanusit Pond Road

These records are the earliest records of formal road specifications. Twenty feet of width would allow the careful passage of two carriages. Provision was made for water management with crowning of 20” — particularly good for the steep hill sections and the specification of “sluiceways” [culverts] made of stone or thick hemlock planks.  At the prevailing, town-set rates for roadwork ($0.08 for a man and $0.06 for a team of oxen) we can estimate that Mr. Osgood needed about 12 hours to construct each rod (16.5 feet) of road.

Roads were mostly built and maintained by the people who lived nearby. The earliest records show the town meeting setting daily rates for work on the roads. A proprietor’s meeting in 1772 decided as follows: “Shareholders may work off their taxes on the roads.  Rates as follows: 2 shillings 6 pence per man per day; 2 shillings for a yoke of oxen; 1 shilling 6 pence for a plow; 1 shilling for a cart.” With cash to pay taxes scarce, and a need for roads, it was the only workable system.  Workdays were set at 9 hours. A pair of oxen was soon worth as much as a man. In fact as late as 1915 a man with a pair of oxen was paid twice what a man alone was paid for roadwork.

The town was divided into “highway districts” (as many as seventeen at one point) and a highway surveyor elected for each one.  Property taxes were levied separately to pay for town services like roads, schools and the minister’s salary. Highway taxes were turned over to the Highway Surveyors for collection. With the money collected or work done in lieu of highway taxes, the highway surveyor kept the roads in his district in repair. The following is a transcript of highway surveyor, Thaddeus Barker’s, warrant to collect the highway taxes and maintain the roads in his district:

5/29/1815

To Thaddeus Barker Surveyor of Highways in the Town of Nelson: In the name of the State of New Hampshire, you are required to warn the several persons in the above list [listed below] of Taxes, to work out the several sums annexed on the Road in Nelson aforesaid; beginning at the post guide by Doctor Goodell’s thence by Henry Wheeler’s, by Esek Phillips’ to the Roxbury line; thence by your own house to the Roxbury Line…. And you are to allow each man eight cents for each hour’s faithful labor and six cents for each hour’s work of a yoke of oxen and the common price for utensils…. J. Robbins, S. Griffin, N. Osgood, Selectmen

Highway taxes owed [in dollars and cents]:

This district included Lead Mine Road and old roads leading south from “5 B Farm” to Roxbury near Woodward pond.

Barker was authorized to get the work or collect the taxes. Nelson records contain numerous small paper receipts taxpayers received for work done in lieu of taxes. A typical example:

Nelson June 9, 1871 $0.40 received of Lydia Robbins. Forty cents in labor on the highway. Jewett Morse Agent

Sources: Nelson Town Records, The Ethan Tolman Papers

The author is grateful to Sue Kingsbury for her skillful editing.

Breed Batchellor was the town’s first resident, settling as early as 1766.  He moved into an early structure built by Josiah Billings just over the east line of Keene in Monadnock Number Six, comfortably in Roxbury today.  That part of Keene was settled sparsely, but Batchellor’s home had access to Keene over Keene roads.  Dr. Nathaniel Breed followed Batchellor, building a large log cabin on the Old Stoddard Road followed shortly thereafter by Joseph Stanhope who built on the north slope of Osgood Hill on today’s Homestead Lane. Aaron Beel, James Bancroft, Phineas Stanford, Thomas Upham and Eleazer Twitchell are mentioned in the first road records as living in town. Certainly they created trails to serve their farms and these probably became the first roads.

In 1768 Breed Batchellor and Nathaniel Breed were appointed to layout roads.
Their layout is lost but we know there were at least five early roads that predate the first recorded layout in 1773:

• From the site of the future Packersfield meetinghouse to Keene
• From the meetinghouse site to Joseph Stanhope’s and on to Limerick (Stoddard)
• From the meetinghouse site to the outlet of Pleasant Pond (Silver Lake)
• From the meetinghouse site to the outlet of Center Pond
• From the outlet of Pleasant Pond to Eleazer Twitchell’s

The first of these connected our town with the region’s most established town: Keene. It went from the old meetinghouse site west along the current Lead Mine Road as far as the house currently owned by Dorothy Iselin, where it turned south through the woods.  Then as now, it shortly crosses a brook and turns west south west and runs north of Woodward Pond. It comes out at the old Roxbury Center and passes Breed Batchellor’s cellar hole in present-day Roxbury. Roxbury calls its end “Middle Town Road” today.

The second early road connected Nathaniel Breed and Joseph Stanhope to the center and led to the neighboring town of Limerick. The third and fourth connected the two earliest mills to the center and the last connected another early resident and may have gone on to connect to Dublin.

Our early roads connected the people who lived here, the early mill sites and the common where the meetinghouse was and the Nelson Cemetery is today.  It was also important to connect to the surrounding towns of Keene, Dublin, Marlborough, Hancock and Stoddard.  Modern cartographers may be surprised by this list, but there was no Sullivan, Roxbury or Harrisville when Nelson built its early roads.  Other inter-town roads were established to Hancock and Marlborough.

A map or roads in 1774, the year of incorporation, probably looked like this:

Monadnock Number Six Roads at Incorporation (click on this image to see a larger version)

First recorded road layout:
Records of Proprietors’ Meetings Monadnock #6
July 1773 Extract from Records:

“From the Dublin Line near Mr. Wood’s mill to the meetinghouse. Beginning on the town line (Nelson/ Dublin) near the SE corner of Joseph’s Mason’s land and then runs northerly to a red oak then to a stake and stones a little north of the Corn Mill [at the outlet of Pleasant Pond] and the NW corner mark of the road leading from said mill to Twitchell’s to a large red oak tree near Pratt’s barn … Then between Aaron Beel’s house and barn and John Adams’ land then to a small beech at the line on the north side of John Adams’ land to a large rock with stones on top on the line between Thomas Morse’s and Ensign Batchellor’s land to a white ash on the southeast side of a Great Hill then under the east side of said hill to a stake and stones then crossing the centerline into the northeast quarter then 3 rods west of the southeast corner of the ten acres on common land. All marks are three chops facing the road.”

The above road layout is a good example of early road descriptions. It states the road’s purpose: connecting Dublin and Mr. Wood’s Mill to the meetinghouse. It described landmarks that would have been known to Monadnock Number Six inhabitants at the time, both man-made and natural terrain features. It made reference to the map of 1768 showing the division of the town into quarters with a centerline dividing the town east to west.

Those early residents probably called the road: “ The Road from Daniel Wood’s Mill to the Meetinghouse.” The road connected the meetinghouse to Dublin starting at the Dublin line at the outlet of Pleasant Pond, swung just east of the pond on what is now Breed Pond Road in Harrisville, then headed north on Crickett Hill Road, past the Pratt barn and Aaron Beel’s house and barn (still in Harrisville). Today it goes through the woods east of the Silver Lake until it joins the Hardy Hill Road eventually joining the road to Keene (Lead Mine Road today) at the site of the original meetinghouse.  It passes cellar holes and early houses. They are not in the road description as they all came later.

Unlike the Hardy Hill Road today it did not follow the contour line, but left the current Hardy Hill Road and went over the shoulder of Hardy Hill (the Great Hill) behind what is now Betsy Street’s house. The description reads, in part: “to a white ash on the southeast side of a Great Hill then under the east side of said hill to a stake and stones then crossing the centerline into the northeast quarter then 3 rods west of the southeast corner of the ten acres on common land.” Having come over the hill, the road probably turned east and passed the Street house (built about 20 years after the road by the Reverend Gad Newell). That house had doors facing the road to the south and east.  The road was moved to its current location in 1912.

Terrain was a big factor in early road building. Roads tended to follow original lot lines perhaps because they formed property boundaries and laying them out on those lines did less damage to early mowings, pastures and orchards. Roads tended to be built right over hills rather than following contour lines. In our hilly town contour lines meant bench cuts in hillsides made by hand. Horses and horse-drawn wagons fared much better straight up or down rather than having to negotiate a side hill.

The Road from Daniel Wood’s Mill to the Meetinghouse

In the years between 1773 and 1820 the town grew rapidly toward its population peak. The original pattern of a few roads radiating out from the center to other towns pausing to connect settlers on the way grew to include other “spokes” as well as a network of connector roads. The network looked a bit like a spider’s web heavily modified by the limitations of our local terrain.

Road Network 1820

There are 174 records of road layouts, road abandonments and changes in the path of old roads from the Corn Mill Road through the year 1820 near Nelson’s population peak.  Each was laid out by the selectmen and approved by town meeting. The process of laying out roads was so hectic at one point that a committee was appointed to determine which of the three roads to Hancock would be the official one.

The foundation of the saw mill on Center Pond Brook

Settlement in Monadnock Number Six came quickly once it got started. A list of settlers in the Masonian Papers in 1770 showed 5 settlers. In the three reports on settlement produced in 1773 and 1774 there were fifty-four different family names identified as moving into Monadnock Number Six. The final pre-incorporation survey of settlement detailed thirty-three houses and four camps in Nelson. The houses were almost all log cabins (24) but the nine frame houses were testament to the existence of a sawmill at the outlet of Center Pond. There was a gristmill at the outlet of Silver Lake as early as 1771.

The settlement pattern could best be described as uneven. The town had been divided into four quarters named for compass quadrants and after their principal landowners: The Northeast Quarter was called Batchellor’s Quarter. The Northwest — Packer’s Quarter. The Southeast Quarter was called Blanchard’s Quarter and the Southwest Quarter was named the Proprietor’s Quarter. There was no settlement at all in Packer’s Quarter until after the Revolution. The area we know today as Munsonville was entirely undeveloped.

The quarters were further divided into rectangles of approximately 100 acres and the early land sales were made in these units so no clearing was very near another. Most cleared plots were small. Sixteen were less than five acres; eleven more between six and ten acres and thirteen farms had cleared more than ten acres. From the earliest days crude roads, often only bridal paths connected the emerging farms.

Breed Batchellor had arrived first and seems to have purchased a farm already being developed by a mysterious early settler named Josiah Billings. By 1774 Batchellor had a frame house and barn with one hundred acres cleared. That one farm accounted for 25% of the cleared land. The next farm in size belonged to the town’s second settler, Nathaniel Breed. Dr. Breed had built a double pole house and had 45 acres cleared. His son-in-law and near neighbor, Abijah Brown, built a board house and cleared 25 acres. John Adams, Aaron Beel, Joseph Stanhope and James Bancroft had cleared 20 acres each. At more than a mile apart, none of these early clearings abutted each other.

Whether a settler lived in a log cabin or a board house depended on when that settler arrived and when the sawmill at the outlet of Center Pond went into operation. We could possibly date that to around 1771 or 1772 based on the arrival of James Bancroft and Abijah Brown in 1771, the first residents after Breed Batchellor to build frame houses. John Farwell bought his land in 1772 and built a frame house. Elihu Higbe, the first housewright, bought his property in October of 1770.

Information from early deeds tells us much about the early settlers. In addition to the names of the buyer and seller, the price date and property description, early deeds tell us where the parties lived and what their primary occupation was. Most came from Massachusetts while some came from Connecticut and others from nearby towns: Swanzey, Keene and Dublin.

Most were farmers by trade. Deeds for forty-nine early settlers exist at the Cheshire County Registry of Deeds detail twenty-nine yeomen, ten husbandmen, two gentlemen, two doctors, and one miller, housewright, cordwainer, blacksmith, cooper and laborer. Yeomen were substantial farmers who owned their own farms. Husbandmen were smaller farmers who either worked on the farms of others or owned small farms themselves. The great majority of lots in early Nelson were purchased using mortgage financing. All undoubtedly raised much of their own food, but the early population of Nelson could get barrels for storing food from Amos Skinner, the local cooper; get their harnesses repaired by a cordwainer named Joshua Lawrence, their nails from Aaron Beel, the blacksmith; proper frame houses built by housewright, Elihu Higbe, their grain milled by Daniel Wood and have their medical needs looked after by Dr. Nathaniel Breed or Dr. Thomas Frink.

One wonders how all these people came to settle here. The farmers were probably looking for cheaper, bigger farms. The skilled people probably saw a market with houses to build and equipment to repair as the land was cleared. With the rough work and plenty of births there was work for doctors and midwives, too. Did these people find Packersfield on their own or were they recruited? The fact of one only one each of several critical tradesmen suggests recruitment. The new town needed the variety of skills these settlers represented.

A number of them came from the same towns in Massachusetts. There were five families from Mansfield, four from the Rutland/Princeton area and three from Hubbardston. We can be fairly certain the first two mills were not an accident. Breed Batchellor built the sawmill at the outlet of Center Pond and it is virtually certain Daniel Wood was recruited to build the gristmill at Silver Lake. Early proprietor’s records for Keene reveal that the proprietors paid a very handsome subsidy to a miller to set up and run a gristmill for the town. Gristmills undoubtedly were expensive to build and the miller often took his pay in the form of a portion of the grain produced by grinding a farmer’s wheat, rye, Indian corn or barley. Establishing a mill for a settling town would be both costly and speculative. At the same time the proprietors could not attract settlers without both a gristmill and a sawmill.

We know our first miller, Daniel Wood, did make some money for his effort. He bought the six-acre site of the future mill for 1 pound 16 schillings in June of 1771 and sold it, with building and a gristmill on the property, for a 55 pound profit in February 1774. That was enough money to buy a 100 acres farm with some land cleared and a log cabin. No record of him residing in Monadnock Six after the sale exists. William Beal became the next miller at Silver Lake.

As Monadnock Number Six became Packersfield it would need roads, a meetinghouse, a minister of the gospel, schools and a full, working town government. It was on the cusp of becoming a real town.

Sources: Nelson Town Records, New Hampshire State Papers: Town Charters; Deeds of land: Cheshire County Registry of Deeds; Samuel Wadsworth, in his Historical Notes with Keyed Map of Keene and Roxbury 1932, and New Hampshire State Papers Volume VIII

Severing the Last Colonial Ties

The close of the Revolution saw a much-changed Packersfield.  Breed Batchellor, the man who was ultimately the agent of His Majesty’s Royal Governor, had fled the town in 1777 to join the British Army and he eventually drowned in Nova Scotia. Thomas Packer, for whom the town had been named, had died in 1771, but after the Revolution his son, Thomas, began to sell the family holdings which included the land from the French’s Farm and the Warners all the way north and west to the Stoddard and Sullivan town lines including all we know today as Munsonville.

Parke Struthers and Samuel Wadsworth wrote that the original naming right had come with Packer’s promise to deed 500 acres to the town. His failure to fulfill that promise is said to be the reason the town began the effort to change its name, shedding any outward evidence of the early association. There is little direct evidence of Packer’s original promise. Book 3 page 249 at the Cheshire County Registry records that Thomas Packer sold Josiah Willard and Breed Batchellor 104 acres of land in the Northeast Quarter of Packersfield for five schillings on September 3, 1768 “ for the common public use of the inhabitants of said quarter.”  Five schillings was almost a gift, as the land was worth something in the neighborhood of ten times that. When he fled in 1777, Batchellor still owned the 104 acres; it passed out of his family in 1824 never having been put to public use.

Two other factors are possible motives for the push to re-name Packersfield. Packer’s agent in town, Breed Batchellor, had fled in disgrace. When Batchellor fled political support probably disappeared. Packer’s reputation for high handedness may have offended people. In 1768 Packer had pushed ahead the execution of a young school teacher, Ruth Blay of South Hampton, who was accused of killing her illegitimate child.  He is said to have rushed the hanging so he could have his supper. The governor’s stay of execution arrived too late.

For whatever reason the town wanted no more of Packer and at town meeting held January 29, 1778 voted to have the name of the town changed to Sullivan.  They were to try three times during the next thirty-six years.

The documentable record, of this process is not entirely clear. The effort in 1778 to name the town after General John Sullivan, New Hampshire’s highest-ranking soldier, was unsuccessful.  The current Town of Sullivan was ultimately formed from parts of Packersfield, Keene, Stoddard and Gilsum in 1787. But that was nine years later.

In 1783 Packersfield tried again. At a Town meeting held on March 31st the town “Voted to have the town of Packersfield called Groton.” The vote was 35-0.  There is a town named Groton in New Hampshire, but it wasn’t Groton at the time.  It had been chartered in 1761 as Cockermouth after Charles Wyndham, Baron Cockermouth. Cockermouth’s efforts to change its name began in 1788 when it tried to become Danbury. It had no luck, but did successfully petition for Groton in 1796 naming the town after Groton, Massachusetts home of one of its original proprietors.  There is no record of why the name Groton was chosen by Packersfield residents or why it got nowhere in the Legislature.

The final chapter is odd to say the least. Packersfield voters met in town meeting on the second Tuesday of March 1814 and “voted to instruct the selectmen to petition the General Court to change the name of Packersfield to Troy.” There is a flowery document in the Nelson Archives dated in June 1814 signed by legislative officials and the governor changing the name to Nelson effective in November 1814. The act signed June 13, 1814 said in part: ”Whereas the Selectmen of said Packersfield have petitioned the Legislature to have the name of said town altered to that of Nelson…..” The town of Troy was formed and incorporated in 1815, named after Troy, New York.

What happened between the March vote of the town meeting and state action in June?  There is no record of the Packersfield voters changing their minds. The Sentinel published in Keene at that time is silent except to record the fact of the state action.  The records of the New Hampshire General Court only record that they changed the name to Nelson on petition of the residents. The timing of the Packersfield petition and the 1815 incorporation of Troy is close enough to suggest the name “Troy” was already spoken for.

Nelson was probably named in honor of Admiral Lord Nelson, hero of the battle of Trafalgar (1805.) Trafalgar was a resounding naval victory by England over the combined fleets of France and Spain. Nelson died at the height of the fight. Parke Struthers explains naming our town after a British naval hero during a war with that country, by pointing to the Anglophile sympathies prevalent in New England at the time and the return to power in the statehouse in Concord of the anti-war, anti-embargo Federalist Party. Voters in New Hampshire had thrown out the pro-war and Francophile Republican Party.

Hardy family lore records another possible connection: Admiral Nelson died in the arms of his most trusted aid and flag captain, Captain Thomas Hardy. Nelson and Hardy had served together since Hardy served as First Lieutenant on Nelson’s ship Captain in 1797. Hardy was present at his wounding and death aboard the HMS Victory. Among the Admiral’s dying words were: “Kiss me Hardy.” The American branch of the Hardy family was an early settler of Packersfield, Noah Hardy arriving in 1779.  The family is still resident in Nelson in the person of Al Struthers.

There was strong feeling in Packersfield against the foreign policy of the United States at the time. The Embargo Act of 1807 outlawed trade with England and France. It was an attempt to forestall war and was ardently opposed by the trade-dependent New England states and keenly felt in Packersfield. There was much sentiment in New England to leave the union. On January 16, 1809 Packersfield voters approved a lengthy petition to the Congress of the United States that read in part:

“We are generally cultivators of the soil earning our bread by the sweat of the brow.  Many of us are in debt for our land or buildings; we have no means of paying our contracts or taxes, or purchasing necessaries for our families but by selling our surplus produce.  Of this modest payment we are deprived by the embargo restrictions. Impressed with the truth of those considerations we exercise the privilege granted us by our excellent constitution and earnestly pray that your honors would repeal the embargo laws and relieve your petitioners from its calamities.”

The resolution had passed 117 – 1. Clearly the townspeople were severely affected by the national policy.

One wonders what was the ultimate process that let to Packersfield being re-named Nelson . Perhaps a poke in the federal eye was just fine with a farming community so adversely affected by the hated trade embargo. With its early, difficult years behind them, settlers thus began the difficult job of building their town.

Sources: Nelson Town Records, New Hampshire State Papers: Town Charters; Deeds of land: Cheshire County Registry of Deeds; Samuel Wadsworth, Historical Notes with Keyed Map of Keene and Roxbury 1932, A History of Nelson New Hampshire 1767-1967, Parke H. Struthers, editor; Nelson a Personal History, Christopher Hibbert, 1994; and New Hampshire Town Names and Where They Came From, Elmer Munson Hunt, 1970; Harpers Monthly Magazine June-November 1921: The Town that was Strawberry Banke