Caleb Moody // Nutfield
Hi
Came across this info on Caleb Moody, of Nutfield.
may help people on his Moody side of the family.
Not shore if this has been posted before?
Taken from The Scotch-Irish in America: Proceedings and Addresses of the Second Congress at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 29 to June 1, 1890.
Nutfield.
"The humble petition of the people late from Ireland, now settled at Nutfield, to His Excellency the Governour and General Court assembled at Portsmouth, Sept. 23, 1719,--Humbly sheweth: That your petitioners having made application to the General Court met at Boston in October last, and having obtained a grant for a township in any part of their unappropriated lands, took encouragement thereupon to settle at Nutfield about the Eleventh of April last, which is situated by estimation about fourteen miles from Haverel meetinghouse to the North-west, and about fifteen miles from Dracut meetinghouse on the River Merrimack north and by east. That your petitioners since their settlement have found that the said Nutfield is claimed by three or four different parties by virtue of Indian deeds, yet none of them offered any disturbance to your petitioners except one party from Newbury and Salem. Their deed from one John, Indian, bears date March 13, Anno Dom. 1701, and imparts that they had made a purchase of said land for five pounds. By virtue of this deed they claim ten miles square westward from Heverel line; and one
of Newbury, in their name, discharged our people from clearing or any way improving the said land, unless we agreed that 20 or 25 families at most should dwell there, and that all the rest of the land should be reserved for them. That your petitioners by reading the grant of the Crown of Great Britain to the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which determineth their northern line three miles from the River Merrimack from any and every part of the River, and by advice from such as were more capable to judge of this affair are satisfied that the said Nutfield is within his majesties province of New Hampshire, which we are further confirmed in, because the General Court met at Boston in May last upon our renewed application, did not think fit any way to intermeddle with the said land. That your petitioners, therefore, embrace this opportunity of addressing this Honorable Court, praying that their township may consist of ten miles square, or in a figure equivalent to it, they being in number about seventy families and inhabitants, and more of their friends arrived from Ireland to settle with them, and many of the people of New England settling with them; and that they being so numerous, may be erected into a township with its usual privileges, and have a power ot making town officers and laws. That, being a frontier place, they may the better subsist by government amongst them, and may be more strong and full of inhabitants. That your petitioners being descended from, and professing the faith and principles of, the established Church of North Britain, and loyal subjects of the British Crown in the family of his majesty King George, and encouraged by the happy administration of his majesties chief governour in these provinces [Gov. Shute], and the favorable inclination of the good people of New England to their brethren, adventuring to come over and plant in this vast wilderness, humbly expect a favorable answer from this Honourable Court, and your petitioners as in duty bound shall ever pray, etc. Subscribed at Nutfield in the name of our people, Sept. 21, 1719."
Debbie
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Re: Caleb Moody // Nutfield
Debbie Moody 8/06/09