[2] Set beside Webb Lake and almost surrounded by mountains, Weld is noted for its scenery.

5 (or Webb's Pond Plantation), it was first settled in 1800 by Nathaniel Kittredge and his family from Chester, New Hampshire.

The town was part of an extensive tract purchased about 1790 from the state of Massachusetts by Jonathan Phillips of Boston.

Phillips was an investor whose agent, Jacob Abbott of Wilton, New Hampshire, resold parcels of the land to settlers.

Together with Benjamin Weld of Boston, Abbott and his brother-in-law Thomas Russell Jr. in 1815 bought what remained of the Phillips tract.

[4] Inauspiciously, 1816 was the Year Without a Summer, when unusually cold weather threatened northeastern communities with famine.

The only extant record is a church baptism for Pompey, “servant to Thomas Russel” in Andover, MA.

Another son, Daniel, was born a few months after their move to Wilton, N.H. Pomp Russell served at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775 and was later caught spying behind British lines.

About 1781 at age 21, Pomp was awarded his freedom by Thomas, his father and adoptive parent.

In the 1790 U.S. census of Packersfield, N.H., the entry for Pompey Russell shows three free colored people: Pomp, Peggy, and their first-born, Peter.

Pomp was a farmer, owning one or two cows between 1789 and 1804 and also fencing was mentioned in the handwritten tax records.

The brothers had built Pomp's family a home on Center Hill in Weld.

Weld is located on a fairly level area of gravelly loam almost surrounded by mountains, some of which are beyond the town's limits.

6 to the north, Avon and Temple to the east, and Carthage and Perkins Plantation to the south.