.[10] In October, 1639, after the
manner of the Rhode Island towns, the inhabitants, thirty-five in
number, entered a civil contract to "submit themselves to such godly
and Christian lawes as are established in the realm of England to our
best knowledge, and to all other such lawes which shall, upon good
ground, be made and enacted among us according to God." This action
was followed in 1641 by their neighbors at Cocheco, where the contract
was subscribed by forty-one settlers; and about the same time, it is
supposed, Piscataqua adopted the same system.[11]

This change of fishing and trading stations into regular townships was
a marked political advance, but as yet each town was separate and
independent. The next great step was their union under one government,
which was hastened by the action of Massachusetts. In the assertion of
her claim that her northern boundary was a due east and west line
three miles north of the most northerly part of the Merrimac,
Massachusetts as early as 1636 built a house upon certain salt marshes
midway between the Merrimac and Piscataqua. Subsequently, when Mr.
Wheelwright, in 1638, proposed to extend the township of Exeter in
that direction, he was warned off by Governor Winthrop, and in 1641
Massachusetts settled at the place a colony of emigrants from Norfolk,
in England, and called the town Hampton.

Massachusetts in a few years took an even more decided step. At
Cocheco, or Dover, as it was now called, where the majority of the
people were Nonconformists, the desire of support from Massachusetts
caused the policy of submission to receive the approval of both
contending parties in town; and in 1639 the settlers made overtures to
Massachusetts for incorporation.[12] The settlers at Piscataqua, or
Strawberry Bank (Portsmouth), being Anglicans, were opposed to
incorporation, but submitted from stress of circumstances. After the
death of Captain Mason, in 1635, his widow declined to keep up the
industries established by him, and sent word to his servants at
Strawberry Bank to shift for themselves.[13]

Several years later Lord Say and Sele and Lord Brooke, who were the
chief owners of Dover, obtained from Mason's merchant partners in
England the title to Strawberry Bank, and being in sympathy with
Massachusetts they offered, in 1641, to resign to her the jurisdiction
of both places. The proposal was promptly accepted, and two
commissioners, Symonds and Bradstreet, went from Massachuset