himself, who was then a prominent citizen of Haverhill, on the
Merrimac, and his son of the same name, then nineteen years old, the
party consisted of Caleb Swan, Benjamin Smith, Zachariah Hildrith,
Ebenezer Shaw and William Richardson. Under an imperative order from the
Privy Council in England, Governor Belcher, who at that time
administered government over both Massachusetts and New Hampshire,
commissioned Hazen to run the ultimate line between the two, beginning
at a point three miles north of Pawtucket Falls on the Merrimac (now
Lowell), and extending on a due west course till it should meet His
Majesty's other Governments. This arbitrary decision of the Privy
Council in selecting the very southernmost point in the whole course of
the Merrimac, as the place meant in in the old Charter of Massachusetts
in the phrase "Merrimack River," instead of taking, as Massachusetts
claimed, the northernmost point of the river in Franklin, N.H., or as
New Hampshire had claimed, the point at the _mouth_ of the river,
robbed Massachusetts of a strip of territory fourteen miles wide the
whole length of the Colony, which New Hampshire had never before
claimed, but which her shrewd and unscrupulous Agent now extorted trom
the ignorance of English Councillors.

Hazen began his survey March 21, 1741. The English instructions required
a course due west, and Governor Belcher and his Council ordered ten
degrees for the then variation of the needle, which was not quite
enough, so that the line actually ran slightly north of due west, and
saved to Massachusetts at the west end of the line (in Williamstown)
about 1 deg. and 50 min. After the party left the Connecticut river on
April 6, they slept on snow at a depth of two or three feet every night
till they crossed the Hoosac river in Williamstown on April 12. "It
clouded over before Night and rained sometime before day which caused us
to stretch Our blankets and lye under them on ye bare Ground, which was
the first bare ground we laid on after we left Northfield." It was on
April 9 that they measured the present north line of Heath. Let the
clear-eyed surveyor describe in his own words the general situation of
the future Fort Shirley.

"At the End of three miles we came to a large brook running
Southeasterly and at the End of this days measure to another large brook
running Southerly, by which we took Our lodging. Here we tract a Bear
and therefore named it Bear brook, both thes