HISTORY OF DERRYFIELD. IO9 



need apply. Many of the grants issued to soldiers who had en- 

 gaged in the old French and Indian wars were hastily made, the 

 bounds illy defined and the land hard to locate. Whole town- 

 ships were granted by guesswork. Of these the record remains 

 as to Bow, Todds-Town, Beverly-Canada and Bakerstown. Of 

 other early grants known to have been made one was of a part 

 of Derryfield, but the records are lost, and we are inclined to 

 believe this to have been the original Harrytown grant. The 

 charter for Derryfield was not issued till 175 1, and did not even 

 then include that part of old Harrytown near Martin's Ferry, 

 which was added later. The evidence as to Bow and Dunbar- 

 ton is conclusive and the lines stand.' Some grants were early 

 settled while others were not ; but the Derryfield grantees came 

 without delay, the fishery alone presenting the principal induce- 

 ment, much of the soil being very poor. 



Not a few towns changed names from three to six times in ten 

 years, were granted and regranted to differing parties, lines and 

 bounds over-ran, fell short or conflicted, and order only came 

 after the Revolution, when the original claimants, like Gridley, 

 had died out of court and chancery. The history of those old 

 claims and counter-claims, though full of stirring incidents, can 

 never be written ; many a settler defended his homestead gun 

 in hand against the emissaries of the Great and General Court 

 of Massachusetts, and his dogs were trained to discover in the 

 wind the smell of Boston. In the general absence of fences, cat- 

 tle and hogs ranged at long and at large, and we read of farmers 

 who turned out cows to graze in Haverhill and the next day 

 found them in Hooksett. Thus here and there are caught brief 

 glimpses projected upon the scene by the side-lights of history. 

 The most patient research and scholarship is in our day engaged 

 in unravelling the tangled threads of our early colonial annals, 

 and in this task any contribution, however slight, must be of 

 value, and to this end we have labored. 



The date of the settlement of Salisbury, for instance, is given 

 as 1748, and yet it is traditional that as many as eight families 



