The Beginnings of Lnmbering in the New World 15 



I perceive diverse of the commodities and provisions which you 

 carried with you in the barke Warwicke, were not to your liking 

 for which I am sorry — I hope by the Pied Cowe you find it other- 

 wise. I pray you write me how you hke the hatchetts sent you 

 by that ship and how all goetli. I like it well that your governor 

 will have a stocke of boards at all times readie. I hope you will 

 find something to relade both the Pied Cowe and the Warwicke. 

 I will now put on the sending of you the moddell of a saw-mill 

 that you may have one going. — Your loving friend, Tho. Eyre. 

 " Kept until the 7th of June." 



Belknap in his History of new Hampshire,* (Vol. i, p. 10), 

 tells us that Gibbins had the care of a saw-mill and lived in a 

 palisaded house at Newichwannock where he carried on trade 

 with the Indians in 1631. 



The next mention of a saw-mill in the New World we find in 

 the ' ' Articles of Agreement ' ' between John Mason on the one 

 hand and James Wall, William Chadbourne and John Goddard 

 on the other. This document is preserved in the Archives of 

 Massachusetts. " It is written on parchment in a remarkably 

 legible, though peculiar hand- writing. f It is dated 14th March, 

 1633. It represents that John Mason owns certain lands in New 

 England and especially an estate called Newichwannock lying up- 

 on and near to the Ryver there called the Pascatawaye ; that he 

 intends by God's permission by the first and next convenyent 

 shipping to send to his said lands and there to place and settle 

 servants and others ; that he has agreed with the three indi- 

 viduals above named that they are to ' go over into the said 

 lands ' and to stay there for five years, in which time they are 

 to cut timber, build dwelling-houses, erect two mills ' and per- 

 form such other work ' as the said John wants done." 



A year or more passed after the making of this contract before 

 Capt. Mason found "shipping" in which to send the mills and 

 men to the ' ' Pascatawaye " , as can be learned from the corre- 

 spondence between Capt. Mason and Ambrose Gibbins. 



The location and character of these mills and the term of their 

 occupancy we learn from the deposition of Mr. James Wall, one 

 of the three carpenters, taken and sworn to before George Smyth 



*Fanner's edition of Belknap's Hist. N.H. 183 1, p. 422. 



fRev Dr. A. H. Quint, in his historical Memoranda of Dover, N.H., p. 

 369- 



