First Settlers of Manchester

The first known list of settlers is a 1636 document from Salem, showing that land was granted to the following:

This land constitutes 380 of the 400 acres shown as part of the Town on a Water Works Plan map from 1830. The land was subsequently divided and other land granted to additional settlers. More land was also added to the town.

Among the earliest settlers shown in Salem records, mentioned as being granted land at Jeffrey's Creek, are the following names:

The following, some being residents of Beverly, were a committee assigned by Salem in 1646 to lay out a way between the ferry at Salem to the head of Jeffrey's Creek:

It is hard to trace the earliest residents because the earliest Book of Town Records, which would have covered the period from 1645 to 1658, was lost long before anyone started writing histories of the town. In this book must have been recorded not only the records of town meetings, but the early vital records, not just until 1658, but until some time close to 1700, as the "Tan Book" of Manchester's births, deaths, and marriages lists few events before that time.

Until Manchester was given leave to establish a church most residents were members of the Church in Beverly, so baptismal and other records there can fill in some of the gaps. Some also had their children baptized in Salem. In later years it is not unusual to see marriages occurring in the bride's nearby home town, and the first child was also sometimes baptized in her home church.

The history of Manchester's first church is one of starts and stops, with some periods being without a minister. The earliest recorded was Ralph Smith, prior to 1667. John Winborn was pastor from 1667 to 1686, when the town voted "that he forthwith provide for himself and his family some other place." During his tenure some of Manchester's few inhabitants continued to be members of the Church at Beverly.