Capt. Goffe's Letter to Governor Benning Wentworth. Communicated by Mr. JAMES H. PEACOCK.

May it please your Excellency,

5 May, 1746.

I got to Pennycook on Saturday early in the morning, and notwithstanding I sent the Monday after I left the Bank, yet my bread was not baked, but there was about two hundred and fifty weight baken, which supply[ed] 20 men, which I sent to Canterbury as soon as I got here, and I kept the Baker and several soldiers to baking all Sabbath day, and purposed to march on Monday, as soon as possible; but about midnight, two men came down from Contoocook, and brought the unhappy news of two men being killed, and the two men that came down told me that they saw the two men lye in their blood, and one man more that was missing, and hearing I was here, desired me to assist in making search; so that I am with all expedition going up to Contoocook, and will do what I can to see the Enemy. I shall take all possible care for the protection of the frontiers and destruction of the Enemy. The Indians are all about our frontiers. I think there was never more need of soldiers than now. It is enough to make one's blood cold in one's veins to see our fellow creatures killed and taken upon every quarter, and if we cannot catch them here, I hope the General Court will give encouragement to go and give them the same play at home. The white man that is killed is one Thomas Cook, and the other is Mr. Stevens, the minister's negro. These

are found, and one Jones,* a soldier, is not found. Thoy having but few soldiers in the fort, have not as yet sought much for him. I am going with all possible expedition, and am

Your Excellency's

most humble and most dutiful

subject and servant, JOHN GOFFE.

PENNY COOK, about 2 of the clock, in the morning, May 5th, 1746.

Brief Notices of the Town of Antrim. By Rev. JOHN M. WHITON.

In 1746, several gentlemen of Portsmouthf purchased of the heir of Capt. John Mason, the original grantee of New-Hampshire, his claims on the soil of the Province. To quiet the apprehensions of the people and prevent opposition to their views, they immediately quitclaimed the towns previously granted on the east of the Merrimack by New-Hampshire, and in a few years after, the towns granted by Massachusetts, chiefly on the west of the river. Prior to this purchase, the towns of Hillsborough, Peterborough, Lyndeborough and New Boston, had been granted by Massachusetts. Between Hills, borough on the North, Peterborough on the

[*His name was Elisha Jones, not Thomus, as in Belknap. He was carried to Concord, and there died. See Rev. Mr. Price's Hist. of Boscawen. p. 112.] [Theodore Atkinson, Mark Hunking Wentworth, father of Gov. John Wentworth, Richard Wibird, John Wentworth, son of Gov. Benning Wentworth, George Jaffrey, Nathaniel Meserve, Thomas Packer, Thomas Wallingford, Jotham Odiorne, Joshua Peirce, Samuel Moore and John Moffatt. The whole purchase was divided into fifteen shares, of which each proprietor owned one share excepting Atkinson, who owned three shares, and M. H. Wentworth, two shares.]

South, and Lyndeborough and New Boston on the East, lay a large tract of ungranted land divided into two almost equal parts by Contoocook river, including the present towns of Antrim, Hancock, Deering, and portions of Francestown and Greenfield. This tract belonged of course to the Masonian proprietors; and being for a time undivided, the whole was called Society Land. The north-western portion of it forms the present township of Antrim.

The first settler was Philip Really, who established himself on the farm now owned by the Hon. Jacob Whittemore, then supposed to be within the limits of Hillsborough, about the year 1746. The Cape Breton war immediately followed. An incursion of the Indians into Hopkinton in 1746, alarmed the few inhabitants of Hillsborough and led them to abandon their inhabitants. Really went with them, and did not return till after the lapse of 15 years, when the capture of Quebec had broken the French power and restrained the hostilities of the northern Indians. On his arival at his little "clearing," the young poplars and wild cherry trees had attained a considerable size, and so effectually concealed the log hut he had formerly erected, that not till after a diligent search was he able to find it.

The Masonian proprietors published an Advertisment in 1766, stating that they had fine lands for sale on the west side of the Contoocook and inviting enterpriseing young men to examine them. Several young men of Londonderry were induced by this notice to visit the place.— They were pleased with the lands, and some of them began to fell the trees. The next year, 1767, James Aiken removed his family here, haveing on his first visit prepared for their accom

modation a little log cabin in the south east part of the town, near the tavern and store of the late Mark Woodbury, Esq Of his associates whom he expected to follow him, some never came; and of those who did come, the first did not arrive till four years afterwards. All this time, he braved the perils of the wilderness without a neighbor within several miles. Hancock had then but two settlers, Deering three, and Francestown five. His nearest neighbor on the west was John Bellows of Walpole, at the distance of 25 miles. The Moose then an inhabitant of our forests, often furnished to his family welcome supplies of meat, when none was to be obtained from other sources.

John Duncan, afterwards Esquire, removed his family here in 1773, making the sixth in the place. The cart on which his goods were transported was the first that passed from Francestown to Antrim, and the oxen that drew it, were driven by the Hon. John Bell of Londonderry, the father of the late Governors Samuel and John Bell. In 1777, when about twenty families had planted themselves here, the town was incorporated. At the request of Mr. Duncan, the agent by whom the act of incorporation was obtained, it was called Antrim from the County of that name in the north of Ireland, whence the ancestors of many of the inhabitants had emigrated, half a century before, to Londonderry. Their remoter ancestors went originally from the west of Scotland to the north of Ireland more than two centuries ago.

In the course of the year, several of the inhabitants joined the forces which under the command of Stark achieved the important victory of

Bennington, and were afterwards present at the surrender of Burgoyne.

There is sufficient evidence that the lands on the Contoocook were once the resort of Indians, probably of the Penacook tribe. One of the first settlers found near the river two Indian graves and the vestige of an Indian encampment, adjacent to which was a field exhibiting the little hills formed by the cultivation of cultivation of maize.The occasional exhumation of their domestic implements by the place is all that is now left to remind us of our ill-fated predecessors.

A few years after the incorporation of the town, the Legislature imposed a tax of a penny on the acre of all the lands owned by non-residents, for the purpose of aiding in the erection of an House for public worship. Encouraged by this aid, the inhabitants built a commodious Meeting House in 1785, though it was not entirely finished till some few years after. It may be deemed by many as a fact' somewhat singular, that the first measures toward the organization of a Church were adopted by the town in their corporate capacity. At the annual March meeting in 1788, the town, on consideration of their destitution of religious instruction and ordinances, appointed two commissioners to make application to the Presbytery of Londonderry to appoint one of their Ministers to visit the place and organize a Church. The Rev. William Morrison, of Londonderry, was accordingly appointed by that body. He came here in August of that year, and organized a Church of about 70 members, who elected James Aiken, Isaac Cochran, and Jonathan Nesmith as ruling Elders. As the people of Antrim were chiefly the descendants of Scottish Presbyterians and