Nathan and Nathaniel Messenger were in Norwich at an early day, the former as early as 1765, at which date he built his cabin in the meadow a little south and west of the Norwich terminus of the bridge leading to Hanover, New Hampshire.
It was from this primitive home that Mrs. Messenger heard the welcome cry of the baby member of the Hutchinson family as they were about to cross the river to enter the land of promise on the Norwich side of the stream.
Soon after 1766 (in which year he was a voter in town) Mr. Messenger disappeared, having been drowned in the river, it is thought.
Nathaniel Messenger was a soldier in the Revolutionary War, serving in a New Hampshire organization, and thereafter resided in Norwich until about 1805, when he deserted his family and went to the State of New York, where he again married. His home in Norwich was in the Pompanoosuc section of the town, where, so we are informed by one of his great-grandsons, he was in trade, and built a large frame house on the road to Thetford.
What the relationship was, if any existed, between Nathan and Nathaniel Messenger, is not known to us.
Oliver Messenger, a son of Nathaniel, married, in 1803, Charlotte Smith, and they had two sons, Erastus and Nelson. Erastus lived for many years in the Hatch house, built in 1773, and there raised a large family of children, of whom are Norwich’s present town clerk and treasurer, George Messenger, and Charles and Nelson, residing in New Hampshire.