1796. A road was laid out from Buckfield through the whole length of the township north and south, and so to New Pennacook (Rumford) before 1788.

By the opening of the year 1784, twenty one settlers had taken up land and made permanent improvements within the limits of the old plantation. Many of them had brought their families with them, and all of them spent the remainder of their lives here. We honor these as the true founders of this town, and here record their names:

Elisha Bisbee,

Simeon Barrett, Charles Bisbee, Isaac Bonney, Noah Bosworth, John Briggs, Moses Buck, John Crockett, Oliver Cummings, Jr., Charles Ford, Joshua Ford, Benjamin Heald, John Keen, Meshac Keen, Daniel Oldham, Simeon Parlin, Increase Robinson, Joseph Robinson, Hezekiah Stetson, Isaac Sturtevant, William Tucker.

Of these founders three, viz: Benjamin Heald, Oliver Cummings and Increase Robinson, were also Proprietors. Each of these twenty one founders received a deed from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts of one hundred acres of land laid out so as to best include his improvements.

A plantation government was soon formed, assessors and collectors were elected, and plantation meetings were usually held at the dwelling house of Dea. Increase Robinson, or the barn of Hezekiah Stetson, or later in the school houses; here the early inhabitants discussed matters of common interest, cast their votes for State and plantation officers, taxed

themselves to build school houses and establish schools.

In 1794 the plantation chose Dea. Increase Robinson to superintend a survey of the township and make a plan of the same to be sent to the office of the Secretary of State in Boston; with the help of Noah Bosworth, Jr. such a survey was made, a map drawn, which is still preserved at the State House in Boston. *

Among the first officers of the old plantation we find the names of John 'Briggs, Benjamin Heald, Enoch Hall, Timothy Cobb, Freeman Ellis, William Hayford, John Elwell, Seth Sturtevant and others.

Settlers fast poured in and bought the most available lots, and before the date of incorporation the number of inhabitants in the two plantations was about four hundred, of which nearly one half were within the present limits of the town of Sumner. And what of the character of these early inhabitants?

'Tis said "the first settlers of a town are not only the physical parents of the future generations of that town, but give to their moral qualities a shape and character as distinctly marked as the complexion or personal habits which distinguish families from each other."

These early settlers of our town came of the hardy Puritan, Pilgrim Stock which has made the name of

* A copy of it was on exhibition at the Centennial.

New England famous throughout the world. A variety of circumstances tended to cultivate in them habits of thought and self-restraint. Social equality and individual freedom prevailed everywhere among them; they had imbibed strong relig-` ious principles in their old Massachusetts homes, they possessed a sturdy independence, owning and tilling their own farms, and were servants to no man.

"The sterile soil became productive under their sagacious culture, and the barren rock, astonished, found itself covered with luxurient and unaccustomed verdure."

These owners and founders and early settlers were filled with the spirit of patriotism.

On the nineteenth of April 1775, when Paul Revere set out on that famous ride to spread the alarm through every "Middlesex village and farm," there started from one single Parish in Pembroke, ten Bonneys and a lesser number of Bisbees, Briggses, Coles, Hollises, Hayfords, Robinsons, Stetsons and Tillsons; while at the same time in this north-east' corner of the old Commonwealth about the town of Dunstable, the Cummingses, Chandlers, Abbotts, Butterfields, Fletchers, Barretts, Healds and others, were getting out flint-locks and buckling on their swords.

No wonder, when less than a hundred years later there came another call to arms to defend the Union, that the decendants of these sturdy old Continental

heroes were among the first to respond and give their lives in defence of that freedom which their ancestors had established. Sumner found no difficulty in filling her quota from her own sons,

"Whose faith and truth

On war's red touch-stone rang true metal,
Who ventured life and love and youth,

For the great prize of death in battle."

Such were the men that gave the stamp of their strong character to this town a hundred years ago. "We could not, if we would, forget

Their matchless service or their worth;

No sun of hope shall ever set

While such remain to bless the earth."
*

Just ten years after the first comers, there were enough people in the plantation to warrant them in applying for a corporation. It then became a

question, whether the two plantations should be incorporated separately or into two distinct towns. The original intention when the land was sold to the Proprietors, was that it should be eventually incorporated as two towns, as there was sufficient land to make two of the usual size of six miles square; but as a plantation, the two parts had acted together, and a few thought they ought to be united in one town. The majority, however, were decidedly in favor of two, and voted to act independently of each other.

In May 1793, a petition was signed by the inhabitants of West Butterfield, setting forth the great difficulties and disadvantages under which they were

laboring, for lack of proper roads, schools and religious instruction, and asking for incorporation. This petition had seventeen signatures, representing the names Hall, Bisbee, Allen, Crockett, Bosworth, Ford, Fletcher, Parlin, Robinson, Keen, Buck and Tucker. *

In the following August, a similar action was taken in East Butterfield by a committee appointed by the town, headed by Dea. Increase Robinson. † These

petitions were refered to the proper committee by the General Court, and were there killed; probably'. through the influence of the majority of the Proprietors, who naturally opposed the incorporation as increasing their taxes.

In December 1793, the West plantation chose a committee headed by John Briggs to prepare another petition, which they did, and asked to be incorporated under the name of New Hancock. ‡ (Hancock was then Governer of Massachusetts.) This petition received the same treatment as the preceding one.

It was not till December 1795, that the inhabitants of the East plantation drew up their second petition, which set forth in detail the facts concerning the purchase of the plantations and their division, and asked for incorporation by bounds as fixed by the Proprietors. With this petition was sent a map showing the boundary line.

In the same month a third petition from the dwellers in the western part was sent to the General

* See Appendix, C. † Appendix, D. ‡ Appendix, E. See Appendix, F.