LOCALITIES IN ANCIENT DOVER —Part I.
By John R. Ham, M.D.
The town of Dover, N. H., originally embraced within its limits the present towns of Somersworth, Rollinsford, Newington, Madbury, Durham, and Lee. The land in the town was voted to the settlers from time to time in public town-meeting, held in the old meeting-house on Dover Neck. These grants of land were from ten to four hundred acres each, and were laid out by the lot-layers, chosen in annual town-meeting. The record of the surveys and bounds of these grants made by the lot-layers, now a part of Dover town records, furnishes the names by which some of the localities were called in the infancy of the settlement. The common lands of the town were divided among the inhabitants in 1732, and the land grants by the town ceased.
Ash Swamp (The). There was an ash swamp, so called as early as 1694, between Nock's marsh and Barbadoes pond, and another between Salmon Falls and Cochecho.
Back River. This name is found in these land grants as early as 1649, and was given to the stream which flows into the Pascataqua river on the west side of Dover Neck. The settlers gave the name to the stream from its mouth up to the head of tide-water, where Sawyer's Woollen Mills now stand; above tide-water at the first falls it became Belleman's Bank river, and now called Bellamy river.
Barbadoes Pond. On the Littleworth road, four miles from the city hall, and lying in the present town of Madbury. It was so called as early as 1693, and "commonly so called" in 1701. Is it not the same as "Turtle" pond, which is mentioned in a land grant in 1719? The name is retained to this day.
Barbadoes Spring. The spring lying south of the pond, and which supplies the south side of Dover with water, was thus called as early as 1701.
Barbadoes Swamp. So called in 1693, and also called the ash swamp. It lay south of the pond of the same name.
Beach Hill. It was "commonly so called" in 1652, and is the long hill, partly in Madbury and partly in Durham, which lies near and to the south-west of Hicks's hill, and just south of the road leading from Hicks's hill to Lee. At the west end was an Indian burial-ground, and in 1652 it was spoken of as "att yᵉ Indian graves, att Beach Hill."
Beard's Creek. So called as early as 1672. It is the brook which flows into Oyster river on the north side, next below the falls of the same.
Beaver Dam (The Great). In 1659 Capt. Thomas Wiggin had a grant of land "neare yᵉ Great Beaver Dam, on yᵉ south branch of Bellomans Bank river," and the name is retained in land grants down to 1720. The "Beaver Pond Meaddow" was mentioned in 1693. It was one quarter of a mile above the confluence of the Mallego and Belloman's Bank rivers.
Where was the Little Beaver Dam, whose existence is implied in the above title?
