First Families of Hanover
AS COMPILED FROM DATA GATHERED BY DR. FROST '86, ANDWRITTEN DOWN BY ERIC P. KELLY '06
No. I—The Freemans
Pioneers
THAT TIDE of Anglo-Saxon blood which flowed proudly through the veins of English yeomanry surged through no stouter hearts than those of the Freemans. A name is but a title, a mark to separate man from man, but sometimes a name becomes a symbol, and this family had not only the significant symbol of the AngloSaxon in the surname, its origin undetermined, but bore also in the male Christian names the designation of kings. For the first Freeman who set sail for the new land, and settled at Sandwich on the Cape long before 1682, the year of his death, was called Edmond.
Edmond the First he becomes, a pioneer and settler, and likewise his son, Edmond the Second, born also in England, and living in Sandwich until his death. With Edmond the Third, the first to be born upon American soil, the name moves in late life to Yarmouth, and his son, Edmond the Fourth carries the Freeman family into Connecticut, where his death is recorded in 1766. Mansfield was the town of residence, where he, with his son Edmond the Fifth and his grandson Edmond the Sixth became grantees of land bestowed by Governor Wentworth in the newly opened Hampshire grants. And though the Fourth Edmond was a grantee, and although the Fifth Edmond was one of the surveying party to lay out the town of Hanover, it remained for the Sixth Edmond to move to the town, to build its first house and become its first settler.
It was in May, 1765, that Edmond the Sixth with his wife Sarah Porter set out from Mansfield for the Wilderness. Since Edmond had already surveyed the site, together with his father and others, it is quite likely that some preparations had been made, possibly a clearing of brush. How they came through the Wilderness no one knows, possibly by boat, possibly by bridle trail; the picture is given however of the pioneer going ahead on foot, removing branches or logs that blocked the way, the wife on the horse. Possibly they came by the route which was known as the first road in Hanover, the Half-mile road.
That first year in Hanover must have been a trying one, fit to test the nerves of pioneers. There were still Indians about, though peaceful now and friendly since the fall of Quebec and the slaughter at St. Francis, yet no less alarming to the sight of those who had been brought up to regard them as enemies. Wolves howled in the forests, bears would sometimes come to the log house door, owls hooted in the trees and the unbroken forest was full of terror and mystery. To the wife left alone at the cabin, particularly in winter, the solitude must have been depressing and awesome, and homesickness in its most distressing forms were often reported by these early settlers. To be sure there were distant neighbors, at the Lower Coos up the river and at Old No. 4 (Charlestown) far below, and a few sprinkling of hardy souls like themselves in between. But the great antidote against all this was the severe and grim necessity of work, the pressing duties of the home and the obligation to make the place as pleasant as possible for the husband and perhaps men folk who were with him from time to time. A mental fortitude and a spiritual outlook bred of Puritanism were the possessions of the wife of Edmond Sixth, and these played their part in the conquering of the Wilder ness.
What families these pioneers had! Race suicide was unknown in those days, and had the progeny of descendants been as great as the forefathers in number, the Anglo-Saxon race in America would in no wise today find itself outnumbered by those who came into the country later from different racial strains. To go back to Edmond the Fourth, a first grantee of the town, who died in Mansfield in 1766, husband of Keziah Presbury of Mansfield, who died there in 1764, aged 77 years, there is also the record of the son Edmond Fifth, a first surveyor, born in 1711 and dying in Mansfield in 1800, he the husband of Martha Otis, 1717-1790, and father of the first settler.
THE GRANT OF HANOVER
This Edmond Fifth had ten children: of these the first three were born at Yarmouth on the Cape, Edmond, 1737-1813; Nathaniel 1738-1740 ("died young") and a second Nathaniel 1741-1827. Then came the children born in Mansfield, seven of them: Abigail, born in 1743, and later married to Aaron Hovey; Jonathan, 1745-1808; Otis 1748-1832; Russell, 1750-1805; Moody, 1753-I828; Frederick, 1755-1818; Martha, 1759-1841, the wife of Roger Hovey.
Enough then of the family of Edmond Fifth. It is of the first of these, Edmond Sixth that we would tell. In 1761 Governor Wentworth granted the charter of Hanover to a large group of Connecticut men, living in Mansfield and thereabouts, and to a group of political friends in Portsmouth and vicinity; likewise was he himself included. Provisions were made for equal shares of land for certain individuals, a slice for the first minister, portions for the Church of England, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel—68 shares in all, or rights as they were called. That people would leave settled portions of the country and strike out into the unsettled may be wondered at, yet there were economic reasons, the desire for fresh land, indeed the ownership of such land; families were large, fields were well tilled, and there was a pressure for expansion, and they all wanted lands along the river. Speculators too, with Connecticut shrewdness, were as active then as now, and there are many records of such men who applied for lands in a number of grants, hoping for sales or increase of price. The interest of the Freeman family in Hanover was quite marked, as in addition to the Sixth Edmond, four other Freemans subsequently settled there.
In the surveying process, a plan for the laying out of the land was drawn up, after the governor's 500 acres were taken out, and the plans called for three distinct groups. The first group included the river lots, one half mile in length, parallel to the north line of the town. The second was the town lot, laid out at the center of the town, where there was planned a church, a parade ground, and other matters. The third group was made up of 100 acre lots, with north and south sides parallel to the north side of the town, and the other sides roughly parallel to the course of the river. A drawing was then made from a hat for each one of the grantees for a river lot, a town lot, and a 100 acre lot. This was called the First Division of the township. Later divisions were made, making four in all, but the Last Division found the lot dimensions smaller, as for example the 100 acre lots became 50 acre lots. Provision was made for roads between lots, which ran roughly parallel to the river, and were known as the Half-Mile, the One Mile, and the Three Mile roads. They ran between lots, and necessarily parallel to the river, as is shown in the records.
FIRST HOUSE IN HANOVER
Thus after the committee so chosen had surveyed the country Edmond Sixth came up to live on the now-called State Road, about half a mile south of the Lyme line. The log house was probably on the east side of the road, then called the Half Mile road. To Edmond Sixth and his wife, there was born on May 25, 1767 a child Otis, the third of the family, and first white child born in Hanover. Later two other children were born to them, Nathaniel and John Porter.
After the death of Sarah the wife in 1777, Edmond married in the next year a widow Theoda Porter Estabrook whose husband Joseph had died in the Revolution, and to them were born three children, Theoda, Joseph and Luther, not recorded in Hanover. As Edmond Sixth removed to Lebanon in 1779, these three children of the second wife belong to the records of that town, but cannot now be found. It might be of interest to note that this second wife had already had six children by her first husband (before she was 34), which madenine in all. Theoda who was born in 1779, died in Lebanon in 1793, unmarried: Joseph born in Lebanon in 1781 died at Alden, N. Y. in 1867. Luther who was born in 1784 went south during his lifetime and died there.
A TRUE PIONEER
In the Dartmouth Gazette of Sept. 1813 is an obituary notice of Edmond (VI) Freeman. This date is to be found also in the Freeman Genealogy. The life of this man was perhaps typical of the hardy race that pioneered America. He made his own way in the wilderness, built his own homes, brought up a family of boys and girls, and later took part in the affairs of the colony and the state. He was a Captain in the militia in Hanover, commanded a company during the Revolution, and was present at the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga. In 1779 he was a member of the committee of Safety in Lebanon. It is not known where he is buried, but probably not in the .cemetery which stands on the land he settled, though many of his old neighbors rest there.
HANOVER'S FIRST BURYING GROUND, RECENTLY RESTORED BY THE TOWN Looking toward the Vermont hills from the cemetery above the old Freeman home, first,settler in Hanover. Many of the stones are nameless.
SITE OF THE FREEMAN PLACE, FIRST SETTLERSThe new house in the picture stands near the first log cabin in Hanover. The location ishalf way to Lyme, east of the state road (which may be seen at right of picture).
