It wasn’t an easy proposition to hack a settlement out of the wilderness, but the first families of Number 4 gave it their best shot. Adding to the difficulty of their great task were the Indians, who attacked off and on from the very outset. By 1744 there were nine or ten families living at No. 4. Indian attacks were on the increase, and the settlers in the Northern Connecticut River Valley heard rumors about an impending war between England and France.
The proprietors warned a meeting “to consider the present circumstances of affairs and the dangers we are in of being assaulted by an enemy in case their should be a war between the kingdoms of England and France, and to consider what is proper to be
done in respect of building and furnishing a fortification in the township for the defense and security thereof.” At the meeting, they decided to build a fort and since they were now within the boundaries of New Hampshire, they petitioned the New Hampshire Assembly for help, for funds, and for military protection.
The New Hampshire Assembly decided that there would be no help forthcoming from Portsmouth to the struggling outpost at No. 4. No. 4 was too far away, and the members of the assembly felt that it was ridiculous to think about sending aid when there was no hope of profit in a venture so far into the wilderness. Governor Wentworth was so displeased at this lack of sympathy to their struggling countrymen, dissolved that Assembly and called another one, which met with the same result. The Assembly believed that the settlers of the Upper Connecticut River had “no right to their lands in the first place, they were of no account, and it was unjust to burden their New Hampshire constituents with an expense that would yield them no profit and offer them no protection.” (History of Charlestown, New Hampshire, The Old No. 4 Reverend Henry Saunderson 1876 pg 21) Let them go to Massachusetts for help.
It was up to the settlers themselves to build the fort, and they finished it just in time. In June of 1744 Governor Shirley of Massachusetts announced from Boston that England had declared war on France. Massachusetts built many new forts at her borders, and repaired defenses in Greenfield, Northfield, and Deerfield. Governor Shirley and Governor Wentworth negotiated back and forth regarding Fort Dummer, just north of Northfield, then under New Hampshire’s domain. Governor Wentworth was all for taking possession of Fort Dummer, but again, his hands were tied by the New Hampshire Assembly, who didn’t want anything to do with it. Massachusetts did take responsibility for Fort Dummer, because it was situated so close to their border, but there was no way they were going to take over No. 4, too.
The settlers of No 4 had their fort, and they allotted space inside it to the families residing there at the time. You can see a layout of the inside of the fort and the spaces assigned to each family at http://www.fortat4.org/insidefort.php .
For two years, there was peace along the river at No. 4. People there became used to having a fort in their midst. Some families lived outside the fort, knowing that they could seek refuge there if they needed to. They heard stories about Indian attacks at other places, but they were mostly successfully repulsed. In 1745, English colonial forces captured Louisbourg, a French fort in Canada.
Although this was a victory for the English, it got the French all fired up. The St Francis, Missisquoi and Schagticoke Indians had always played both sides when it came to the English and the French, but they were angry at the new expansion of English settlements further up the Connecticut. When the French went looking for allies for a new offensive against the English, they found willing participants in the Indian settlements on the Canadian border. It was the end of peaceful times for the settlers of the Upper Connecticut River Valley, who now had their Fort at Number 4.
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