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��THE GRANITE MONTHLY.
��we are uninformed ; but his monument is located, and is as lasting as the crys- tal hills.
Another of Whitefield's early land- holders, one of the original ninety- four, was the Rev. Jeremy Belknap, the early and renowned historian of New Hampshire. He was then a settled minister over the first church in Dover, where he labored kotu 1767 to 1787. It was during this period that he prepared the first volume of his History of New Hampshire, it being published in 1784. The same year he, in company with Dr. Cutler, of Ipswich, Mass., and some others, made a tour of observation and scientific ex- ploration around the White Mountains, at which time it is more than probable Mount Washington received its name. This is said to be Prof. Tuckerman's view of the origin of the name. In his third volume, which appeared in 1792, the historian speaks of it as being " lately distinguished by the name of Mount Washington."
Belknap was the author of several other important works, particularly his "American Biography." It was dur- ing the first year of his residence in Dover that he formed the acquaintance of Rev. George Whitefield, then itine- rating through the older towns of New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Who, among the early petitoners for this grant, admirers of that zealous old pioneer of Methodism in this prov- ince, first suggested his name to be attached to the embryo town, or whether it was the governor himself, whom Whitefield also claimed as a friend and encourager, it would be a satisfaction to know. Belknap died in Boston in 179S. His share in the town was number eighty-three, which the later division made to be numbers
��four in the sixth and one in the tenth ranges ; — the first afterward known as the " Holt Kimball farm," and the other — the extreme south-west corner of the town — where Henry Gerrish first marked the boundary line, and carved his " H. G." on the hemlock corner. Samuel Minot secured the Belknap title by payment of taxes, and in 1805 Col. Kimball became the owner of number four.
One of the wounded soldiers at the initiatory fight of the Revolution at Concord, was Capt. Nathan Barrett, who led a company on that memora- ble day, and afterward did the patriot cause valiant service.
At the meeting of the proprietors of Whitefield, in 1794, held at Dun- stable, he was chosen one of the as- sessors of the township, along with David Page, also of Concord, Mass., and Nathaniel Peabody, of Atkinson, N. H. How he came possessed of the Sam- uel Harris title number three, in the eleventh range, we are unadvised, but many of the older residents of the town still remember the familiar title of the "old Barrett lot" as once at- tached to the wild hill, the summit of the late John M. Gove farm, south of the village. And the memory of the early proprietor, the doughty "Colonel," still lingers among the surviving an- cients of the town. Mrs. Col. Joseph Colby well remembers him in the days of 181 2, at Concord, Mass., where he was living, still an old soldier. She was then a girl of eight years, and resided with her father, Ezra New- hall, in that historic old town. Many of our earlier citizens still cherish recollections of Col. Barrett in White- field as late as 1825. Let the " old Barrett hill " still perpetuate his mem- ory among us.
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