Settlements Established in the 1770s - Clinton, Maryland, Camden, Maine, Farmington, New Hampshire (Paperback)

Chapters: Clinton, Maryland, Camden, Maine, Farmington, New Hampshire. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 27. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Farmington, New Hampshire - Abenaki Indians once used the Cochecho River for transportation, and had a camping ground on Meetinghouse Hill, where they built birch bark canoes. Otherwise, the river valley was wilderness, through which Indians from the north traveled after crossing Lake Winnipesaukee on their way to raid settlements in and around Dover. To stop the raids, in 1721 the Colonial Assembly in Portsmouth approved construction of a fort at the foot of the lake, with a soldiers' road built from Dover to supply it. In 1722, Bay Road was surveyed and completed. Along its course the town of Farmington would grow. The settlement began as the Northwest Parish of Rochester, which was chartered in 1722. The last Indian attack in the general region occurred in 1748, but by 1749, Native Americans had disappeared from warfare and disease. Farmers cultivated the rocky soil, and gristmills used water power of streams to grind their grain. Sawmills cut the abundant timber, and the first frame house at the village was built in 1782. In 1790, Jonas March from Portsmouth established a store, behind which teamsters unloaded on his dock the lumber he traded. The area became known as March's Dock, Farmington Dock, and finally just The Dock. Inhabitants of the Northwest Parish were taxed to support both the meetinghouse and minister on Rochester Hill about 12 miles away, a distance which made attendance difficult. A movement began in the 1770s to establish a separate township, and in 1783 a petition for charter was submitted to the state legislature. It was denied, but another petition in 1798 was granted. With about 1,000 inhabitants, Farmington was inco...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=259615