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BOUNDARY DISPUTE WITH EXETER

A few month before this time, the inhabitants and freeholders had chosen Maj. Joseph Smith, John Redman, Sen. and Lieut. Nathaniel Weare, a committee, to petition the governor to settle and survey the bounds of the town, and to grant a confirmation of them as they had been established more than seventy years before. This course was adopted for the purpose of terminating a dispute between this town and Exeter, concerning their boundary line. Without waiting for an answer to their petition, the freeholders and commoners resolved to make another effort for an amicable settlement of the dispute by the two towns. They accordingly, on the 28th of January 1715, voted that the town of Exeter should once more be notified through the selectmen to send a committee of three men to join with a committee of the same number from this town, "to renew and re-survey the ancient bounds of Hampton towards Exeter," and to meet at "Ass-Brook-Tree," on Tuesday, the first day of the following month. The committee on the part of this town consisted of Maj. Joseph Smith, Nathaniel Weare and Lieut. James Philbrick. In case of refusal on the part of Exeter, the committee that had been chosen to petition the governor, were now empowered to petition the council, or the Superior Court, to order disinterested persons to establish the line.

The town of Exeter seems not to have united with Hampton in the proposition "to renew and re-survey" the boundary line between the towns. A petition was therefore presented to the council, February 4, agreeably to the vote of the town just mentioned. This petition having been read at the council board, it was ordered that the selectmen of the two towns should be notified to appear before the board the next Monday, for a further hearing of the petition, a copy of which should be furnished to the selectmen of Exeter.

On the day appointed, the 7th, the petition was again read at the council board, the selectmen of both towns being present, and upon hearing the parties, it was ordered "that y^e lines between Hampton Exeter be seen and perambulated w^thin fourteen days, & y^t each town appoint a town meeting forthwith to choose a Committee to run the said lines, and that Capt. James Jeffrey be y^e survey^r to do y^t service & make his return to this board, y^e towns paying his charge."[Prov. Pap. II: 670]

A little more than a year afterward, the views of the town were expressed by the following vote: "Whereas there is a Committee appointed out of the respective towns in this province to state the bounds of towns and parishes within the province, we do declare, that we will not consent to the settling any other bounds to Hampton, but the ancient bounds settled and established by a Committee appointed for this purpose by the Honorable General Court at Boston, in the year 1642, or 1643, which have ever since been considered as the true bounds."

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