The Early Years (thru 1800)

Centuries ago, Indigenous Peoples walked on the trail nearby that went North from Merrimack, MA, up “Old Plaistow Road” (today’s East Road), past Wash Pond to Phillips Pond in Sandown. Most of their villages in the area were abandoned by the year 1685.

The first Europeans started settling in Hampstead in the 1720s and included the Ford, Heath, Emerson, and Morse families. The earliest center of population in town was near the eastern shore of Sunset Lake. However, that location was later abandoned and all that remained a century later were stone cellars and ½ filled wells from that period.

Peter Eastman (born 1710) came to Hampstead around 1732 and owned extensive lands on the western shores of Wash Pond. He built a home for his wife Elizabeth (Harriman) where they raised 10 children. He was the first deacon of the Hampstead Congregational Church in 1753, was a Hampstead town selectman in 1760 and 1770, and was the town clerk of Hampstead for all but 2 years from 1749-1776.

Benjamin Kimball (born 1722) owned land near the Eastman’s and stretching between Wash Pond and Island Pond. He married Mary Eaton and they had 8 children. After Mary passed away in 1757, he married Mary Hoyt and they also had 8 children. He was deacon of the Hampstead Congregational Church from 1754-1774. His gravestone and that of his second wife are in the Hampstead Old Cemetery.

Hannah Tucker married David Copp in 1725 and settled in Hampstead in 1732 on the eastern shores of Wash Pond. Other family members in town lived mostly around Copp’s Corner (the intersection of Routes 111 and 121).