Thomas Chamberlain was born in Billerica, Massachusetts, August 9, 1703. He was the son of Daniel Chamberlain and Mary Swain. Daniel was the thirteenth and youngest child of William Chamberlain and Rebecca (Addington) Chamberlain.¹

Spencer Chamberlain told his his grandson, Alonzo Chamberlain Phillips that his family “located on the east coast of Maine” (Chapter 9).  I believe that Daniel and his brother William and their families moved to Rye, Rockingham, NH about 1704. William’s son, William, 3rd., was born there that year. Daniel and Mary’s son, Jonathan, also was born there. Jonathan, Thomas’ younger brother, was born in Rye, NH on February 21, 1708. Daniel and Mary and their family apparently moved back to Billerica by 1713.

25 December 1713 Thomas’ sister Dorothy was born in Billerica. The mother, Mary Swain died that year, apparently from complications of child birth.¹

22 November 1725 Thomas’ father Daniel Chamberlain died in Billerica, Massachusetts.

About 1730 Thomas Chamberlain, age 27, married Abigail Pierce, she was about 24 years old.¹

1731 through 1748 Thomas and Abigail had seven sons and finally, one daughter.  Their birth location and approximate birth year were: Josiah (1731) and Isaac (1732) were born in Billerica, Joshua (1734) in Lynnfield, Job (1736) location unknown, Jedediah (1737) in Stoneham, John (1739) in Newton, Increase (1741) and Abigail (1748) in Westmoreland.¹  (For more details about their births see Chapter 10)

Settling Westmoreland

On November 30, 1736, the land survey committee accepted and chartered a township east of the Connecticut River called “No. 2”. They named it Great Meadow. Thomas Chamberlain was one of the grantees under the Massachusetts charter. A few Abenaki Indians remained for a brief time in the north part of town by a small brook known as Wigwam Brook.²

In the spring of 1741, a few families canoeing up the Connecticut River from Northfield made the first settlement. Stories of the fertility of the “Great Meadows” got their attention. Thomas and Abigail were among the first to come here. The Sentinel of Sept 15, 1813 reported that their son, Increase Chamberlain, born there in 1741, was “supposed to have been the first male (white) child born in (the settlement now known as) Westmoreland.”³

Fort Hill or Putney

1744-48 King George’s War widened in Europe with the out break of the War of Austrian succession, in which Spain and France were allied against Britain. This again spilled into the colonies as the (1744-48) segment of the French and Indian Wars. Settlers of Town No.2, Putney, and Westminster came together to build a stockade fort on the Great Meadow named Fort Hill, also called Fort Putney.

The Indians, in their travels up the river occasionally surprised individuals or small groups of men working outside the fort. In these skirmishes, they killed or captured several settlers, and took them as prisoners to Canada.²

Thomas and sons signed the Westmoreland Charter

On January 30, 1750, officials determined that the area of Town No. 2 was under New Hampshire Jurisdiction. Adult male citizens* of the town signed a petition and sent it to the New Hampshire Governor et al. Forty-one men including five Chamberlains, Thomas, Isaac, Joshua, Jedidiah and Job signed this document.²

February 12, 1752 The new charter named sixty grantees of Westmoreland including Thomas Chamberlain, Isaac Chamberlain, Josiah Chamberlain, Jedediah Chamberlain and John Chamberlain.²  “John Chamberlain, one of the original grantees of this town was born in Newton, Mass.”⁴  This John Chamberlain is the son of Thomas who came from Newton Mass.

*Adult male citizens- It appears that all who signed the charter or were grantees were males, 12 years old or older at the time.

March 31, 1752 Thomas Chamberlain held the first meeting of the proprietors of the township of Westmoreland at his house. The proprietors chose a committee to lay out the the house lots.² They also voted to give anyone who would build a gristmill the sum of 150 pounds and 50 acres of land on Mill Brook. Thomas Chamberlain and Samuel Minot accepted the offer and built the first Mill in town⁵

The final French and Indian War

1754-60 The French and Indian War, (aka the seven year war), was heating up again. Residents built a second fort at the Great Meadows made of yellow pine. It was rectangular (120′ by 80′) with the backs of fifteen dwellings forming the outside walls with a square open court yard at their front.  There were two watch towers at the northeast and southwest corners and a large gate on the south side and small gate on the west. The residents included thirteen individuals/families including Thomas and his son Isaac Chamberlain. The danger from the French and their hostile Indian allies remained high until about 1760.^6,7

“In 1755 another horrible Indian war was in progress where people were killed, scalped and carried away prisoners from all the towns in all this region around about. These two forts were private property, but were garrisoned in times of peril so that these posts were kept through the wars, but could not accommodate all the settlers with their families and a great many left N.H. and went back to Mass. to await better times. It would not be safe to try to live in Westmoreland before 1760. After that settlement progressed rapidly.” – June 17, 1927⁸

February 10, 1763 A peace treaty formally ended the French and Indian War. It ceded Canada and the American mid-west to the English and tightened the control of Great Britain’s colonial administration of North America.

Thomas Chamberlain transferred his church membership from Newton, Massachusetts

September 26, 1764 Thomas Chamberlain signed the covenant of the new Westmoreland Congregational Church. “Thos Chamberlain Chh at Newtown.”⁹

April 7, 1765 Thomas Chamberlain officially transferred his membership to the new church. “Thos Chamberlain April 7, 1765 from Newtown.”⁹

October 7, 1765 Nine American colonies held a Stamp Act Congress in New York where they adopted a Declaration of Rights against taxation without representation. This was in response to the British Government requiring a revenue stamp tax to pay for British troops.

November 20, 1767  British Government’s Townshend Acts placed additional levies on goods in the American colonies. This included levies on such things as glass, painter’s lead, paper, and tea. The American colonies greatly opposed these taxes.

May 18, 1769 Thomas Chamberlain’s wife Abigail died at Westmoreland at age 63.⁵

March 5, 1770 In Boston, about fifty patriots demonstrated against the British troops at the customs office. The troops opened fire into the mob killing five. The Boston Massacre incident furthered the colonists cause of rebellion.

April 12, 1770 The British parliament repealed the Townshend Acts, except for the one on tea. British Prime Minister Lord North and the parliament maintained the tea tax to show their supremacy.

A plague of army worms swarm down the valley

In July through September, 1770, an army of worms invaded the Connecticut River Valley. They called them the Northern Army because they appeared in Lancaster, NH in July, and continued their ravage, advancing south-west to Northfield, MA.

Some whole pastures were so covered with worms that that, “no single spot could be touched with a finger without placing it upon a worm”.

They had brown bodies with a black, velvet like stripe on their back and yellow stripes on each side.  Sometimes they were no larger that a pin, but quickly grew to be as long as a man’s finger. They filled the houses, marching up the side and over a house in such a compact column that one could not see the boards or shingles.

They spared pumpkin-vines, peas, potatoes, and flax, but wheat and corn vanished before them. There were fields of corn standing thick, large and tall. However, ten days from the first appearing of the Northern Army, nothing remained but the bare stalks!

The battle of man against the worm

The inhabitants tried everything to protect their fields of corn, but all in vain. They dug trenches around their fields a foot and a half deep, but the worms soon filled the ditch until millions in the rear went over the worms in the trench and took possession of the field.

Some farmers took round, smooth sapling sticks, six or eight inches in diameter, and six or eight feet in length, sharpened them to a point, and with these made holes in the bottom of their trenches. In these meadow bottom lands, they were able to extend these holes three feet deep below the bottom of the ditch.

The sides of these holes were smooth, and when the worms fell from the precipice, they landed at the bottom. Their fellow worms soon buried them alive. Now, the farmers went around their fields and plunged the pointed levers into the holes filled with the crawling invaders and destroyed everyone of them in a single thrust. In this way, some farmers reserved for themselves corn enough for seed the next year.

Pigeons, pumpkins and potatoes

The worms destroyed the principal grains of that year and all the settlements severely felt the loss. Their bread and feed for growing their pork was lost, and fodder for their cattle decimated.

On the bright side, there was an extraordinary crop of pumpkins. The untouched pumpkins grew astonishingly in the fields, overtaking the land where the corn once stood.

Swarms of pigeons flew in to feed on the army worms. They were too late to save the grain crops. However, thousands of pigeons were dressed, dried, and preserved for the winter. They were very palatable and nutritious, and proved a good substitute for other meats.

Pigeons, pumpkins and potatoes saved the inhabitants from starvation. The inhabitants recognized “the Divine Goodness in this providential supply, when the ordinary means of subsistence were cut off”.^2,10

This must have been a devastating time for Thomas Chamberlain who was a miller, as the grain crops were completely wiped out.

Chamberlain brothers occupations before the War

In 1775 three of Thomas’s sons held an office in the town of Westmoreland. Isaac Chamberlain (44) was one of seven highway surveyors, Job Chamberlain (40) was one of two town constables, he also served as a sealer of weights and measures, Jedediah Chamberlain (39) was a hog-reeve.¹¹

A hog-reeve was an 18th century animal control officer with the responsibility of preventing damage to the town by stray swine. Wandering domestic pigs rooting in farms and gardens could do great damage.

Owners were responsible for yoking their pigs by placing rings in their noses. If they got loose and became a nuisance, one or more hog-reeves would capture and impound the animals.

If a nose ring was absent, the hog-reeve performed the chore. The owner was then legally responsible for a small service fee. Other fines including a four shilling fee per head would be charged to reclaim their animals.  If unclaimed, the live stock could be sold at public auction after the owner was given 48 hours written notice.

The noble occupation of the hog-reeve originated in Saxon England where there was a need to station men at the doors of the cathedral to prevent swine from entering church during services.¹²

To be continued…. Chapter 12- The Chamberlains During the Revolutionary War

© Copyright Dennis D. Chamberlain, The Chamberlain Story, 2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the written content of this site without express and written permission from the author and owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that credit is given to Dennis D. Chamberlain and direction to  www.thechamberlainstory.com.

References:

1- Familysearch.org, Thomas/ Chamberlain/
2- History of Westmoreland, Cheshire County, New Hampshire, www.nh.searchroots.com
3- Hamilton Child, Gazetteer of Cheshire County, N. H. 1736-1885 Syracuse, N. Y. August 1885, p.371.
4- Abid., p.519.
5- Thomas Chamberlain (3) Daniel (2), William (1), Born at Billerica, Mass. Aug. 1703; died in Vermont. (Type writer document, undated and unknown author) from The Historical Society of Cheshire County

6- Roberts, Robert B., Encyclopedia of Military Forts, The Military, Pioneer, and Trading Posts of the United States, Macmillan, New York, 1988, 10th printing, page 799.
7- Childs Gazetter of Windham Co. VT, 1724-1884 p. 275
8- Ella E. Abbott, Letters to Mrs. Chamberlain, provided by Alan Rumrill director of the Historical Society of Cheshire County.
9- Westmoreland Congregational Church (Park Hill) records. Email from Alan Rumrill, Historical Society of Cheshire County.
10- Grant Powers, Historical Sketches of the Discovery, Settlement, and Progress of Events in the Coos County and Vicinity Principally Included Between the Years 1754 and 1785 (Haverhill: Henry Merrill, 1880), 103-109. www.dartmouth.edu

11- History of Westmoreland, Cheshire County, New Hampshire, www.nh.searchroots.com
12- Hog-reeves, https://en.wikipedia.org