ys later the same grantors gave to a company of whom Mason and
Gorges were the most prominent merchants, a patent for the province of
Laconia, describing it as "bordering on the great lake or lakes or
rivers called Iroquois, a nation of savage people inhabiting into the
landward between the rivers Merrimac and Sagadahoc, lying near about
forty-four or forty-five degrees." And in 1631 Gorges, Mason, and
others obtained another grant for twenty thousand acres, which
included the settlement at the mouth of the Piscataqua.

Under these grants Gorges and Mason spent upward of L3000[6] in making
discoveries and establishing factories for salting fish and fur
trading; but as very little attention was paid to husbandry at either
of the settlements on the Piscataqua, they dragged out for years a
feeble and precarious existence. At Piscataqua, Walter Neal was
governor from 1630 to 1633 and Francis Williams from 1634 to 1642, and
the people were distinctly favorable to the Anglican church. At
Cocheco, Captain Thomas Wiggin was governor in 1631; and when, in
1633, the British merchants sold their share in the plantation to Lord
Say and Sele, Lord Brooke, and two other partners, Wiggin remained
governor, and the transfer was followed by the influx of Puritan
settlers.[7]

After the Antinomian persecution in Massachusetts some of Mrs.
Hutchinson's followers took refuge at Cocheco, and prominent among
them were Captain John Underhill and Rev. John Wheelwright. Underhill
became governor of the town in 1638, and his year of rule is noted for
dissensions occasioned by the ambitious actions of several
contentious, immoral ministers. Underhill was the central figure in
the disturbances, but at the next election, in 1639, he was defeated
and Roberts was elected governor of Cocheco. Dissensions continued,
however, till in 1640 Francis Williams, governor of Piscataqua,
interfered with an armed force. Underhill returned to Boston, and by
humbly professing repentance for his conduct he was again received
into the church there.[8] He then joined the Dutch, but when
Connecticut and New Haven were clamorous for war with the Dutch in
1653 he plotted against his new master, was imprisoned, and escaped to
Rhode Island,[9] where he received a commission to prey on Dutch
commerce.

Meanwhile, Mr. Wheelwright left Cocheco, and in 1638 established
southeast of it, at Squamscott Falls, a small settlement which he and
his fellow-colonists called Exeter