Alice and Dudley Chase of Cornish

The original incorporators did not settle in Cornish. They were land speculators who sold their land to families that wanted to build new communities in the wilderness. Two years after Governor Wentworth established the grant, the first family to live in Cornish traveled up the Connecticut River from Sutton, Massachusetts, a distance of 140 miles. Judge Samuel Chase had purchased extensive parcels of land from the incorporators of Cornish. In 1765, he and his son Dudley, son-in-law Daniel Putnam, and family friend Dyer Spaulding, brought Dudley's wife and children to New Hampshire to start a new town in the wilderness.

Coming up the Connecticut in a canoe, Judge Chase got as far as Walpole, which was the last real settlement. He was 60 years old, and decided to stay there while the rest of the group continued up the river. After they had cleared the land and built a house, he would join them, but for the time being, he would stay in Walpole. The rest of the band continued up the river.

Dudley and his wife Alice had seven children. Imagine them paddling up the river, into completely untamed wilderness. Canoes full of kids and provisions, along with their mother, father, and a couple of other men. Actually, the “History of Cornish” mentions that they had “workmen” with them, and you have to wonder if that means slaves. The “History of Cornish” also tells us that tradition says that it was in the earliest days of June, when the weather was at its nicest and the leaves were newly green.

Alice and the kids made it as far as Fort Number 4. Dudley left them at the fort while he and the other men continued up the river to begin work on their land. His priority was not to build a house, but to clear enough land to plant crops, and get the crops in the ground. After that, his plan was to start on a house and when all that was done, he would return for the kids and Alice. By that time, there was not much going on at Fort Number 4.

William Child, the author of “The History of Cornish”, writes that Alice's youngest son, Philander, writing as an adult, describes his mother as horribly lonely at the fort, with only her children for company. She spent most of her time down at the riverbank, looking for her husband coming down the river. Finally, one day at sunset, she saw a canoe in the distance. At first she thought it might be Indians, but as the canoe got closer she saw that it was not Indians, so it had to be her husband. Well, it wasn't. It was Dyer Spaulding, who was coming down to check on the family and get some provisions. Child says, “No sooner did the canoe reach the shore than the children were in it, and on his knee, telling him that their mother was resolved that they would all go upriver to join their father in the woods.

Dyer informed them that this was not the plan. The men were focused on clearing the land and getting the crops planted. They, themselves had no shelter, and there was certainly nowhere safe for a woman and seven children to stay. Apparently Alice was a woman who didn't take no for an answer, or Dyer was a man who couldn't resist a forceful woman, a woman who had spent day after day down by the river's edge waiting for word from her husband. He brought Alice and the kids up the river to their father, who had no idea they were coming.

 

The Connecticut River served as the only means of transportation for these early settlers. If you are

ever out on the river on a canoe, the river does remind you of the interstate. Once you were on the river, the banks were too steep to allow you to easily leave the river with your canoe. River travelers used the brooks and streams emptying into the river as a way to leave waterway, traveling up these small inlets and pulling their canoes up the less steep banks. The Chases “put in” by traveling up the brook that is now called “Blow Me Down Brook” in the northwest corner of town. They found a meadow near the mouth of the brook and began preparing the land there for cultivation. (Disregard the powerboat in the illustration.  Obviously it isn't historically correct.  But this is a good illustration of the steep banks on either side of the river)

Alice was 32 years old at the time. Mercy, her oldest child, was 10, Lois was 9, Simeon was 7, Abigail was 6, Salmon was 4, Ithamar was 3 and Baruch, the youngest, was 1 year old. This was the crowd that mobbed Dyer that day and demanded to be taken up the river to their father.

When they arrived at the campsite, their father could not believe they were there. He asked his wife, “Have you come here to die before your time? We have no shelter for either you and you will perish before we build one”.

The authors of these town histories often wax poetical when describing the intrepid early settlers in all their saintly heroic history. Alice is supposed to have replied, “Cheer up,my faithful. Let the smiles and rosy cheeks of your children make you joyful. If you have no shelter, you have the strength and hands to make one. The God we worship will bless us and help us obtain shelter.” This is a quote from her son Philander. Really? I think it's more likely that she said, “How dare you leave us all alone at that nasty old fort? You have strong arms and hands – build us a shelter! We will all help.”

Child's history says that it took three hours for them to build wigwams out of birch bark and branches for the family to spend the night in, and the next day they built a cabin. The first English family north of Fort Number 4 had a home. Four months later, Alice gave birth to a baby girl, the first English baby born north of Fort Number 4, and named her Alice. Eventually, the Chases moved three miles south, onto Cornish plain.