Alexandersmap

    Tag: Captain John Mason

    • In Search of a Border Marker

      In 1622 Captain John Mason was granted the land between the Kennebec River and the Merrimack River and the territory was named New Hampshire. The border with Massachusetts wasn’t the middle of the river, but a distance three miles north of the river’s shore. This made for an interesting, zig-zagging border that meanders along as the Merrimack River has from long before settlement by the English. That’s 398 years of continuous service as the official border between two similar yet completely different states. Barring wholesale changes in the borders that virtual sharp point should remain forever.

      Today, instead of eating lunch like a normal person I drove over to find the sharpest point on the border between Massachusetts and New Hampshire at a spot that on a map looked to be accessible in two directions. Using Google I zoomed in on the satellite image and decided the easiest possible way to get to this point was to walk the maintenance “road” that ran under the power lines adjacent to Route 213 in Methuen, Massachusetts. This worked out well until I reached the place where I needed to head north to the border point and scanned a swampy mess overgrown with cattails and impenetrable brush. This hike turned into a dead end but a good education on the lay of the land.

      Next option was to drive to the town transfer station, which was the next closest public land, to see if I could get to the woods that the border ran through that way. I had a great conversation with the woman weighing trucks in at the entrance, and she was politely curious about the quest that I was on, but received a no-go from the decision-makers on the other end of the radio. Not to be on this day. And that leaves me two options. Find another way in, potentially across private land, or to simply wait for the heart of winter when the ground is frozen solid to attempt the power line route again. I suppose there’s a third option of just dropping this pursuit of a border marker that may not even be there, but tell me, what’s the fun in that?

    • What’s in a Name?

      I live in Southern New Hampshire in a town that used to be part of Massachusetts.  Borders changed a lot back in the day.  The area I’m likely saw many turf wars between the Pennacook and Abenaki over the centuries.  Both tribes were part of the Webanaki Confederacy.  Webanaki means “People of the Dawn Land” because, well you know, they lived along the Eastern coast.  I think we should adopt that name again, both to honor the native population we displaced and frankly because it’s way cooler than “Yankee”.

      The name “New Hampshire” didn’t come along until 1629, when Captain John Mason, previous Governor of Newfoundland, split Northern New England with another well-connected gent named Captain Gorges and named the region between the Merrimack River and the Piscatagua River – you guessed it – New Hampshire.  Back then explorers and settlers didn’t venture too far into the wilderness, so Mason wasn’t envisioning the shape of the Granite State back then.  In fact, he never set foot in New Hampshire.  He died before he could sail over to check out his new stomping grounds.  But plenty of other folks did.  And of course, this brought violent conflict and atrocities hard to imagine today.

      There are hints to the past if you look closely enough.  Massacre Marsh in Rye, NH marks the site of a raid that killed 13 settlers.  Worlds End Pond in Salem NH once marked the end of civilization and the edge of the vast northern wilderness.  The Dustin Garrison in Haverhill MA was built to defend the region from Indian Raids.  It was a harsh, unforgiving world.  The people who settled here had to be tough, resourceful and resilient, or they simply didn’t survive.

      The name New Hampshire wasn’t an accident.  Mason had lived in Hampshire, England and it probably seemed like a logical choice to tack on New.  And the New World was looking for settlers, and naming the region after places familiar to the population back in the Old World was a nice marketing trick designed to entice settlers to drop everything they knew, risk life and limb sailing across the North Atlantic and find a piece of land to clear and farm.  And hopefully grow some food, hunt some game and fend off raids, wars and the brutal cold of winter long enough to put down roots.  New Hampshire, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, New France, New England…  and on.  Most people never think about the names of the places they live, or the life and death struggles of the people who came before us.  The bones of the past are all around us, if we only open our eyes to see.