104 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE 



desire to go to a great fishing place, Namaske, upon the Merri- 

 mack river." In the same letter he adds, " But in the spring 

 when I should have gone, I was not well, so that I saw the Lord 

 prevented me of that journey." There is no direct evidence that 

 Eliot ever carried out his intention, or that he came farther in 

 this direction than Nashua. But it is important to note this 

 cumulative evidence that Amoskeag was not oidy thus early 

 known, but that it had been long familiarly known as a great 

 fishing place. 



Let us now briefly trace the course of advancing settlements 

 in this direction from Massachusetts. Many towns contiguous 

 to Boston were early settled, several of which, like Rehoboth, 

 embraced extensive tracts afterwards formed into three or more 

 townships. The date of settlement is given for Beverly, 1630; 

 Andover, 1634; Newburyport, 1633; Salisbury, 1639; Haver- 

 hill, 1640, and Dunstable in 1659. A considerable number of 

 other towns in Massachusetts were settled between the latter 

 date and 1700, but few in southern New Hampshire. This was 

 mainly owing to the fact that comparatively few emigrants came 

 to New England during the period following 1640, and it is said 

 that for a century and a quarter thereafter more people went 

 back to England than came hither. These facts have been too 

 often overlooked by historical students, who found it difficult to 

 account for the delay in making settlements in this part of New 

 England. The rigor of the climate, the fear of wild beasts and 

 Indians, even necessary hardship and privation, had less effect 

 in checking the tide of immigration than the disillusion of the 

 dream of wealth in which many of the earlier adventurers had 

 indulged. The golden bubble had been pricked, no longer com- 

 pelling by its false and glittering allurements. 



Old Dunstable, a portion of which was settled as early as 1659, 

 embraced more than two hundred square miles, and out of this 

 seven entire townships and parts of several others were subse- 

 quently carved. Litchfield was one of these, where a claim of 

 settlement is made as early as 1656. 



