Samuel Allen (1635-1705) bought Mason's Patent in 1691 for the sum of £750. Mason's Patent was the right of ownership to all that is now present-day New Hampshire (first given to John Mason). He then wangled the King to make him Governor of New Hampshire, now a royal colony. He never succeeded in his ventures. I'm presently writing an article on the ancestry of his wife Elizabeth (Dowse) for the July issue of the New England Historical & Genealogical Register. Using the super web site: Measuring Worth, you can see that £750 in 1691 has the same purchasing power as roughly £100,000 today. That would be about $150,000.00. Not a bad little sum to plunk down for all of New Hampshire (which, of course, is tax-free). Unfortunately by the time 1691 rolled around, two or three generations of inhabitants had lived there and very much wanted to keep their land as their own. No surprise there. Also no surprise that Samuel Allen's descendants were still fighting over it into the 1770s. Litigiousness is a tradition in the U.S.
05/19/2008
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