MarlowHistoricalSociety.org

[Loisanne Foster]

These are the Proprietors from Lyme, Connecticut and the surrounding towns who were granted Marlow by New Hampshire’s governor, Benning Wentworth, when it was first chartered in 1761. The initial meetings of the Proprietors were held in the Lyme, Connecticut home of Benjamin Hyde, and the third and final Lyme meeting of the Proprietors was adjourned to the home of Marshfield Parsons.


from
Notes on History of Marlow, N. H.

by
Elgin Jones

Sentinel Printing Company
Keene, N. H.
1941

Index of Proprietors

Alger, Jonathan
Ayer, William
Beckwith, John
Beckwith, Phineas
Bettingham, John
Brockway, Ephriam
Brockway, Nathan
Brockway, William
Brockway, Wolston
Brown, Edward
Bull, John
Bushnell, Daniel
Bushnell, Lemuel
Buckingham, Samuel
Canfield, Joel
Canfield. Joseph
Chalker, Jabez
Chapman, Phineas
Clark, Joseph
Clark, Stephen
Clark, Thomas
Chittenden, Hopestill
Dewolf, Jabez
Ely, Elisha
Ely, Samuel
Gustine, Samuel, Jr.
Hudson, Elijah
Hyde, Benjamin
Jones, Gideon
Jones, Nathaniel
King, George
Kirkland, John
Lay, Edward
Lay, Willaim
Lee, Giles
Matson, William
Mather, Samuel, Jr.
McCordy, John
Nelson, John
Newmarch, Joseph
Nott, Josiah
Noyes, William
Parsons, Marshfield
Peck, Jasper
Peck, John
Peck, Nathaniel
Royce, Nehemiah
Rowland, Evy
Selden, Ezra
Selden, Samuel
Sill, John
Sill, Richard
Snow, Edmund
Spencer, Jared
Spencer, Israel
Waterhouse, Gideon
Wibird, Richard
Wilcox, Stephen
Williams, Daniel
White, Ebenezer
White, Joseph

Except that the Griswold name does not appear here (though relatives of the Griswold family do) this list reads like a Who’s Who of eighteenth century Lyme, Connecticut. Few of these original Proprietors came to live in Marlow. Among those who did were Nehemiah Royce who hosted in his home the first of the Proprietors’ meetings in Marlow and Samuel Gustine, Jr. who was later to save Marlow’s charter by riding from Marlow to Portsmouth in January of 1772 with a petition to Governor Wentworth requesting an extension of the charter and a promise to meet the conditions under which the charter was granted.

Many of these Proprietors were from families among the earliest settlers in the Saybrook/Lyme, Connecticut area. Many were from seafaring families, and most, if not all, were wealthy by any standard.

What was their purpose in seeking and accepting the grant? What was their original plan? We can only speculate. Please help solve this mystery!

[Loisanne Foster]

Robert Nichols of Keene, N.H. has volunteered to research Marlow's Original Proprietors. He hopes to have the project completed in the fall. It will be exciting to learn more about these men to whom Marlow was initially granted.


I have already come across a few interesting details. Edmund Snow's father, John, came from Marlboro, MA and settled in Chesterfield, NH about 1762 and with Moses Smith built the first saw mill in the town. John and his wife Abigail are buried in Clay Hill Cemetery in West Chesterfield. Wolston Brockway purchased land in Surry, NH on August 4, 1761 and settled at No. 34 in the following year. He was appointed tavern keeper in 1768. Elijah Hudson was the son of Nathanial Hudson and Lydia Tubbs. Elijah is buried in Old Chatham Union Cemetery in Chatham, NY. Josiah Nott was born in Saybrook, CT but his father was born in Long Island City, NY and his mother was born in Southampton, NY. Samuel Selden is listed as Col. Samuel Selden. He died Oct. 11. 1776 in New York Prison, Prison Camp, Manhatten Island, Battery. His death in Lyme CT Vital Records states "after languishing in prison about one month being taken the 17th day of Sept. 1776, and carried into New York and there kept close prisoner until he expired."

There seems to be much interesting information to be learned about these men.

........
Later:

Marshfield Parsons is going to be an interesting person to work on. He was married four times. A Colonel (Revolutionary War pensioner). A tavern keeper. A signer of the commission papers listing the men who marched from Lyme to Boston in 1775. A selectman.

John McCurdy was the grandfather of Connecticut Supreme Court judge Charles McCurdy. On April 10, 1776 George Washington spent the night at his home while traveling to New York City to take on the British. He was a slave owner.

That last sentence got your attention, didn't it. As late as 1800 members of the following families, with Marlow connections, had one or more slaves: Ely, Griswold, Lay, Lord, Mack, Mather, Noyes, Parsons and Peck.

The Lyme, Connecticut Vital Records has the following entry listed under the name McCurdy: "John had begone servant Jordon, b. Apr. 4, 1757; Ezelphie, begone maid, b. Oct. 1, 1759; C[h]lo[e], b. Apr. 15, 1761; Ceazer, b. Nov. 17, 1762; Shambow, b. Apr. 19, 1764."

Thus far I can not find Hopestill Chittenden (or Cruttenden as Jones has it spelled in his History of Marlow). The closest that I have come is the baptism, on May 24, 1811, of Hopestill Cruttenden, the son of Jeremiah and Mary. This is from the records of Father (Daniel) Nash in Central New York.

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