Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Lubberland Creek Preserve and the World of Joseph Chesley: 52 Ancestors 2021 Prompt “Preservation”

 

Lubberland Creek Preserve: A Nature Conservancy Property That Gives a Glimpse into the World of Joseph Chesley

Joseph Chesley: 1673-1731

            My seventh great-grandfather Joseph Chesley had extensive land holdings in New Hampshire in the early 18th century. These holdings included some marshlands along the Great Bay, and two small islands known as Chesley’s Islands. Today, the Nature Conservancy apparently owns some of that land. The property is called the Lubberland Creek Preserve and is near the New Hampshire city of Newmarket.




            The land my ancestor owned, including the islands, were originally owned by Richard York, who conveyed it to his son John York in 1676. The tract was described as follows:

“all that tract or point of land lying and being in Lubberland, bounded by the Great Bay on the Southeast side, by the lands of Nicholas Doe on the North West side, by the lands of the said John York on the North east side, and by the creek called Goddards Creek on the South west side…with a parcel of marsh on the South side and two little Islands containing by estimation six acres be it more or less.”

            John York sold the property to Roger Rose in 1680. Rose sold it to John Rawlins of Newbury, and Rawlins sold it to Joseph Chesley’s brother-in-law, John Smith, in July 1705. Improvements had been made to the property by this point, which was now described as “a tract of land and salt marsh, houses, fields and orchards scituate, lying and being in Lubberland.”




The land then went to a neighbor, Nicholas Doe, and his son Sampson sold the land and islands to Joseph Chesley on March 27, 1707. According to the History of the Town of Durham cited below, Joseph Chesley “is said to have had a garrison house here and the islands were called Chesley’s Islands.”

A list of Piscataqua area historic place names prepared by the Piscataqua Pioneers (cited below) provides additional information about the locations of Lubberland, Goddard’s Creek, and Chesley’s Islands. The descriptions below come from the Piscataqua Pioneers’ list:

Lubberland: District on upper shore of Great Bay. Except for Goddard’s neck (in Newmarket) the area was early part of Oyster River District of Dover. Since 1870 mostly in Newmarket.

Chesley’s Islands. Two small islands in Great Bay off Lubberland Shore of Newmarket. Joseph Chesley Garrison was near here. Later known as Channel’s Islands.

Goddard’s Creek (Lubberland Creek). John Goddard, one of Mason’s carpenters of 1634 settled on theneck between the Creek and the mouth of Lamprey River. Goddard’s Creek until 1870 was a boundbetween Newmarket and Durham, the neck being part of Newmarket. In 1870 a large adjacent slice ofLubberland (Smith lands) was annexed to Newmarket.

            So what has happened to Joseph Chesley’s land? Amazingly, we can still visit this property, which has been lovingly preserved and restored by the Nature Conservancy and is known as the Lubberland Creek Preserve. So how do we know this is Chesley’s former property? First, the preserve is located along Lubberland Creek, which, as we learned above, used to be called Goddard’s Creek, which was the border of Chesley’s property.

 


            Secondly, the Preserve’s brochure notes that the “Davis-Smith Garrison, which was built somewhere on the present-day preserve, is remembered by a nearby stone marker on Bay Road.” This may be the garrison mentioned in the Durham History property description, which was called Chesley’s Garrison while he owned the property. If not, the Chesley garrison was near Davis-Smith’s, as both were mentioned in the same passage of the Durham History.

 


            Lastly, the Preserve brochure states that “Robert Channell purchased this land around 1817 and passed it down through generations of the Channell family.” Chesley’s Islands were renamed Channell’s Islands, presumably when the property changed hands. We can assume the Channell family question was the Robert Channell family.

            The preserve is described as a “mosaic of estuarine, grassland, forest, and freshwater wetland habitats, as well as relics of its agricultural past.” There are miles of hiking paths through the various habitats. The restored marshes and estuaries are close to the way the land would have appeared in Joseph Chesley’s time. Someday I hope to visit the Preserve and look out over the same landscape that my seventh-great-grandfather would have gazed upon.  

 


Sources:

http://www.piscataquapioneers.org/pdf/piscataqua-area-place-names-and-history.pdf

 Stackpole, Everett Schermerhorn,. History of the town of Durham, New Hampshire (Oyster River Plantation) : with genealogical notes. Durham, N.H.: Published by vote of the town, 1913. Pg. 33-34. Accessed through Ancestry.  https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/24139/images/dvm_LocHist009223-00025-0?pId=40

 https://www.nature.org/content/dam/tnc/nature/en/documents/lubberland-creek-brochureweb.pdf

 List of garrisons. http://www.ancestoryarchives.com/2013/09/1713-treaty-of-portsmouth.html

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