Town of Salisbury Resources   On September 6, 1638, Secretary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony Simon Bradstreet received an agreement from Governor Winthrop and the General Court giving him and eleven other men the right to begin a plantation north of the Merrimack River. This land grant included the towns of Amesbury and Merrimack, Massachusetts as well as the New Hampshire towns of Seabrook, South Hampton, Newton, Hampstead, Plaistow and Kingston. This town, bordered by the Merrimack River and the Atlantic Ocean, originally named Colchester, was incorporated as Salisbury in 1640. The modern Salisbury encompasses sixteen miles of farms, beach, marshlands and both residential and commercial space. Narrative supplied by community.