In June of 1733 these grantees met on Boston Common for the purpose of making a division of the lands thus appropriated, but twenty veterans of the Narragansett War being then living. They organized into seven societies, each representing one hundred and twenty persons, and each represented by an executive committee of three. These committees convened in Boston on the 17th of October, 1733, and, by drawing numbers from a hat, apportioned to their societies the following seven townships set apart from the public domain under the grant: No. 1, in Maine, now called Buxton; No. 2, Westminster, Mass.; No. 3, Souhegan-West, now Amherst, N. H.; No. 4, originally at the Falls of the Amoskeag, where Goffstown now is (subsequently exchanged for lands in Hampden county, Mass.); No. 5, Souhegan-East, N. H.; No. 6, Templeton, Mass.; No. 7, Gorham, Me. Thomas Tileston, of Dorchester, drew "Number 5, Souhegan-East;" of the one hundred and twenty grantees whom he represented, fifty-seven belonged to Boston, fifteen to Roxbury, seven to Dorchester, two to Milton, five to Braintree, four to Weymouth, thirteen to Hingham, four to Dedham, two to Hull, one to Medfield, five to Scituate, and one to Newport, R. I. In the fifteen Roxbury grantees was Zechariah Chandler, who was one of the few who personally took up land under the grant and settled upon it one of his own family. As a rule the grantees sold their claims to others. On the town records Zechariah Chandler's name is signed in the right of his wife's father, Thomas Bishop, who served against King Philip. His son, Thomas Chandler, took possession of the land and was among the pioneers of the town. To-day the Chandler family is believed to be the only representative in Bedford of the original grantees. It was in 1737, 1738, and 1739 that systematic settlement practically began in this part of the Merrimack valley. In 1741 New Hampshire became a separate province, and in 1748 the farmers of Souhegan-East, finding themselves without any township organization and without the power to legally transact corporate business, called upon the government for relief. As a result, it is recorded that on the 11th of April in that year Gov. Benning Wentworth informed the Council of New Hampshire "of the situation of a number of persons inhabiting a place called Souhegan-East, within this Province, that were without any township or District, and had not the privilege of a town in choosing officers for regulating their affairs, such as raising money for the ministry," etc. Thereupon a provisional township organization was authorized, under which the municipality was managed until 1750, when, on the 10th of May, the following petition was sent to the Governor, signed by thirty-eight citizens, among them Thomas Chandler: