Rambles about Portsmouth. Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents. By Charles W. Brewster.

284 RAMBLES ABOUT PORTSMOUTH.
first settler, came over, a brother who had not seen him
from childhood, emigrated, having no knowledge that his
brother was living. The new comer landed at Kittery
Point. Taking his gun one day he struck up through the
woods on the shore of the river in pursuit of game. He
came to a small house and asked for refreshments. They
were provided, and it was not until after some general
conversation, in which the stranger said he came from the
same town in England in which the host was born, that the
name was given and they discovered themselves to be
brothers.
As Thomas Spinney had a grant of 200 acres of land
and lived on Eliot Neck, in 1657, it is probable that he was
a son of the first settler; and as the residence of the family is still on the same spot, it has probably never been
alienated from the name.
About the year 1690 there appears to have been James,
Samuel and John Spinney living in Kittery. They were
probably sons of Thomas.
Samuel had eight children, Samuel, James, John, Thomas,
Nathan, David, Jeremiah, and Jonathan. His son John
married Mary Waterhouse in 1727, and their son John was
the father of the family of hardy fishermen, the death of
the last of whom is mentioned at the beginning of this
Ramble.
Thomas Spinney, who died in 1850, at the age of 83, and
Joseph Spinney, who died in 1852, at the age of 83, were
the sons of Thomas Spinney, and grandsons of (probably)
John Spinney of 1690. We cannot make out the line distinctly from the records.
The location of the small cottages of the Piscataqua tribe
of Zebulon was at Eliot Neck, near the site of the old Saltworks. Their cottages which, a few years since made a
small village, are now either enlarged and modernized or
torn down, so that the appearance of former days, like the
inhabitants, has passed away.