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FIRST DIVISION APPORTIONED

It has already been mentioned that the town allowed a fence to be built straight from Deacon Tuck's mill to the mouth of Little river, where it formerly flowed into the sea, to protect the beach against cattle feeding upon it. When the Five Divisions were established, in 1722, this portion of the common land came into the First Division. At a meeting of the proprietors of that Division, November 29, 1733, it was proposed to dispose of a tract of muddy ground or flats, sometimes called "The Huckleberry Flats," lying on the south side of the line of the fence between the fresh meadow and the beach, for the purpose of building and maintaining a fence, agreeably to the order of the town. It was planned to divide the whole tract into twelve lots to be assigned and secured to any who would engage to build and keep in repair a fence on this line. Eighteen men pledged themselves, and in 1738, gave bonds to do this, six of them to build one-twelfth of the fence each, and the other twelve to build one twenty-fourth part each.

"Great bodies move slowly." This tract, since known as The Plantation, was laid out July 13, 1747, by a committee consisting of Christopher Page, Sen., Dea. Josiah Moulton and Simon Dow, with Samuel Palmer as surveyor; and their return was accepted by the proprietors. The same day, these lots were drawn for by the men who had nine years before given bonds to keep up the fence. The result was as follows, where the numbers of the lots are followed by the names of those to whom they fell:

No. 1 Samuel Palmer, Junr. No. 2 Heirs of Amos Knowles, deceased. No. 3 Christopher Page & James Hobbs. No. 4 Thomas Brown. No. 5 William Moulton. No. 6 Simon Dow & Stephen Batchelder.

No. 7 Joseph Rollins & Joseph Redman. No. 8 John Batchelder. No. 9 Jeremiah & Elisha Marston. No.10 Dea. Josiah Moulton & Morris Hobbs. No.11 Joseph Batchelder. No.12 Benjamin Lamprey.

This tract of land is described by the committee in their return, as lying southward of the line from Deacon Tuck's mill and the mouth of Little river, between said line and the northerly line of John Dearborn's grant in the old fresh meadow near the beach, and between the pon or river in said fresh meadow and Philbrick's Island and the beach. In laying out the land, they proceeded in the following manner: Beginning at the northwest corner of Dearborn's grant at the side of the pond, t hey measured eastwardly on the northerly side of said grant, thirty-one rods to a stake standing at the northeast corner of the grant, "and from said stake [on] a straight line, running north fifty-six degrees east, over a large rock on the westerly side, on the upland on the island sometimes called Nut Island, in the range of John Batchelder's house at Little Boar's Head, until it comes to the aforesaid line from Tuck's mill to Little River's mouth."

Before the lots were drawn for, it was voted, that "no person should, on any account whatsoever, cut any grass or anything growing between the line forming the eastern abutments of the lots, and the beach," without the consent of the majority of the proprietors.

Although Huckleberry Flats was a small tract of land, and not of great value, yet nearly fourteen years elapsed from the time when the first movement was made for laying it out, before the business was finished. In the meantime, however, the proprietors of the First Division had caused all the rest of their common land to be surveyed and laid out, and assigned by lot to the proprietors.

In the spring of 1748, William Moulton, Philip Towle and Moses Perkins were chosen a committee, to take charge of the town's stock of snow-shoes and moccasins, and dispose of them as advantageously as possible for the town, giving one pair of the snow-shoes, however, to Elisha Johnson.

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