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HISTORY
OF
ATHOL, MASSACHUSETTS
WILLIAM G. LORD
Gc 974.402 At462 1132019
M. L.
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
C
(worcester G.)
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01104 4317
HISTORY
OF
ATHOL, MASSACHUSETTS
SETTLED
DIAG
U
PE
1735.
ATHO
COL JOHN MURRAY
ING. 1762.
COMPILED and PUBLISHED by WILLIAM G. LORD ATHOL, MASSACHUSETTS
COPYRIGHT 1953 BY WILLIAM G. LORD ATHOL, MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED BY SOMERVILLE PRINTING COMPANY SOMERVILLE, MASSACHUSETTS
1132019 HISTORY OF ATHOL, MASSACHUSETTS
WILLIAM G. LORD
PREFACE
In preparing this Athol History I have had at my disposal the results of researches covering more than sixty-five years.
Beginning in 1887 as researcher and leg man for my old time friend Rev. John F. Norton in his preparation of the Athol story in Lewis' History of Worcester County I have prepared and published a history of Athol Baptist Church; have in ob- servance of the 150th anniversary of the incorporation of Athol prepared and delivered an illustrated historical lecture; have gathered much data used by E. H. Phillips Post A. L. in its history of World War I; have prepared the list of names inscribed in the rotunda of our Memorial Building honoring all the soldiers etc. known to have served to the credit of our town in time of war from Colonial times to November 11, 1918.
I have also written two serials for Athol Daily News, one "Athol Almanac" giving for each of the 366 days of the year some event that occurred on that day during our long existence, the other "Highways and By-ways" telling the story of all our travelled ways and sub-divisions and lastly as Chairman of our War Historical Committee | published in 195! "Athol in World War II" telling the story of our town's participation in that war.
In addition to all these I have delivered uncounted historical lectures and written many items for the local press regarding local history.
Thus I present (anticipating public approval) an exhaustive local history drawn from earlier writers and my over six dec- ades of research.
I acknowledge great obligation to Rev. Samuel F. Clark who in his address at the Centennial of our First Church in 1850 rescued from oblivion and perpetuated for us a wonderful story of Athol's early days. I also acknowledge deep obligation to my old time friend Rev. John F. Norton (who like Rev. Mr. Clark rests in our Highland Cemetery) for his address "The Home of the Ancient Dead Restored" delivered July 4, 1859 at the re-consecration of the First Settler's Cemetery, Hapgood Road and also for his "Athol in Suppressing the Great Rebel- lion" telling of our participation in the War Between the States, and finally for his last local contribution (in which |
7
HISTORY OF ATHOL
assisted in a small way) in the Athol Chapters in Lewis' County History above referred to.
The Athol Chapter in Jewett's County History (1879) written by George W. Horr, Esq. has also been helpful.
Mr. L. B. Caswell's "Athol Past and Present" published in the late nineties is still on our Library shelves and I have en- deavored to avoid rewriting much of local interest published therein anticipating that this book will serve as a continuation of that work rather than superseding it.
In the Library of Congress, the U. S. Pension Office, the Massachusetts State Library and the State archives I have re- ceived valuable assistance as is also true of the New England Historic Genealogical Society and the Boston Public Library.
To Athol's efficient Town Clerk, Walter E. Farnum and his. assistant Mrs. William E. Routier I express my thanks for the great assistance I have received from that office.
The story of Athol Bands (pages 513-516) was written by Sumner L. Morse for Athol Daily News and is incorporated here as he wrote it.
To Audrey F. Bartington of Hanover who so ably assisted me in the World War II History, I am deeply indebted. After we finished the war history she did much in co-ordinating notes and preparing copy for this book.
My (of recent times) part time Secretary, Ann M. Murphy has been most helpful in final preparation of copy.
I realize that I have transgressed often in the use of the first person singular in telling the stories but my excuse is that in each case the incident is so clearly told from my own personal experience and mine alone that I felt justified in the trans- gression.
As noted in the genealogical pages I feel that portion of this work to be far from ideal but if my critics can realize the time and effort put into even what is given herein I hope what is given here will be received as a perhaps feeble attempt to tell something of some of our old families.
If every volume of this edition finds ready sale the proceeds will still come far short of covering the cash expense which this work has entailed but if I have written an acceptable and lasting story of this town where I and my ancestors have labored and prospered for almost eleven score years then I shall feel amply repaid.
WILLIAM G. LORD,
Athol, Massachusetts, October 12th, 1953.
8
CHAPTER I "THAT NEW TOWNSHIP"
I CE, some four or five thousand feet thick, covered this area of the White Mountains of New England many thousands of years ago. Slow in its advance and as slow in its disappearance, this ice cap left drift which produced in some places a fertile soil, while in others great boulders and pebbles hindered our early white settlers in their clearing of this acreage. Scientific beliefs vary as to the cause of these prodigious ice sheets which shaped our hills and valleys, but true it is that the copper- skinned Amerind(1) who roamed this forest found good hunt- ing ground and soil rich for all that he needed in his hunting stage of culture.
How long the Indians had been here before the Pilgrims first came face to face with them in Plymouth, Massachusetts, we know no more than they.
Covering this entire region, the virgin forest was marked mainly by an Indian trail from southeastern New England to Canada, passing from the Payquage River a half mile below Athol village to North Orange, thence skirting the foothills of yonder mountain and extending on to the north, where it joined a similar trail leading to Connecticut.
Like all the adjacent territory, the land embraced within the limits of this township was to the settlers on Massachusetts and Plymouth Bays simply a part of that great unbounded wilder- ness which they could not visualize as ever being inhabited. Soon after the early settlements at Plymouth, Dover, and Boston, a survey was made as far west as Newton and Water- town. Then the work was discontinued because all the territory had been covered that in the opinion of the officials would ever be used.
For long ages the Red Man held undisputed control of these lands, migrating here when the shad and salmon came up from
(1) The word Amerind was first used by Major John Wesley Powell, the explorer of the Grand Canyon, to define the difference between the autochthonous inhabitants of the Americas and the people of India. For the sake of the sentiments surrounding the American colloquialism, the name "Indian" will be used hereafter.
9
HISTORY OF ATHOL
the sea in the springtime, but going to the fertile meadows of the Payquage and the Connecticut to plant their maize. This Payquage River, later known as Millers River, was robbed of its rather euphonious Indian-given name at the time when any- thing Indian was an anathema. Legend has it that the name Miller seemed more suitable to the early settlers when a man by the name of Miller was drowned in it over two hundred years ago in attempting to cross the river on his way to Northfield.
Yet the progressive and aggressive spirit of the Anglo-Saxon race that had gained foothold on this continent saw the pos- sibilities concealed in these dense forests.
Within a few years of the coming of the Pilgrims, travellers began to journey through this wilderness to far away New Amsterdam (New York City) and brought back glowing reports of the fertile valley of the Great River, the Connecticut. Plung- ing into the vast wilderness, a few hardy souls took up their abode at Hartford in 1635. To Springfield in 1636, North- ampton in 1654, Deerfield in 1669, and Northfield in 1672, came these pioneers. Then followed settlements along the connecting link called the Bay Path, at Lancaster in 1663, Worcester in 1674, and Brookfield in 1673.
These newly settled places along the Connecticut River fol- lowing those on the coast, and those along the Bay Path - which eventually became the Boston Post Road - left con- siderable territory in this vicinity still a wilderness. From the north the Indians swooped down on Lancaster and even aug- mented the little marauding band that all but annihilated Deerfield.
John Smeed, later to become one of the first five settlers in Athol, took part in the defense of Deerfield, killing two Indians in the meadow fight. To his death in October, 1747, he carried a bullet in his thigh. (2)
It became evident that if the established settlements were to exist in any degree of security, there must be more settle- ments begun here.
A full century elapsed before any attempt was made to sub- due this vast area of wilderness lying between the seaboard and the river towns - a vast area entirely unsubdued and in un- disputed control of the aborigines and the wild beasts.
The Bearsden at North New Salem was a rendezvous for the braves when on the warpath. There the great King Philip held
(2) Thompson's History of Greenfield, p. 89.
10
THAT NEW TOWNSHIP
his war council before descending upon Hadley, Deerfield, and Northampton in September, 1675.
It is February, 1675. A silent band of Red Men stealthily makes its way southward, allies of the King of France, fired by a religious zeal to harass the subjects of King George. It passes on with deadly intent towards Lancaster and all is silence for days. Then this same band heads northward again but lo! it has many pale faces within its ranks. A young white woman is
THE ROWLANDSON FORD-MILLERS RIVER
carrying the form of an infant in her arms. It is Mary Rowland- son and her daughter, Grace, who have been captured in the Lancaster massacre and are being taken captives to Canada. They approach the river bank and there is much excitement for the "Baquaug" River is swollen. The Indians fall to making a raft for those who cannot ford the icy waters.
Crossing safely, the party pushes northward. The young woman exhibits great distress as she is silently prodded on by the Red Man. At length she slips to the earth with her burden; her baby has died in her arms. She knows it is futile to carry the cherished burden further into the wilderness. A kindly Indian assists her in digging a rude grave, and as she reluc- tantly leaves this spot, she gazes at yonder hilltop and humbly
11
HISTORY OF ATHOL
prays to God that it may hereafter bear the name Mount Grace, in memory of the beautiful child who now sleeps at its feet.
Thus, the second historical mention we have of this region is in this narrative of Mary Rowlandson, wife of the Lancaster pastor. The death and burial of her infant daughter at the base of the mountain north of Warwick is commemorated by the name the mountain still bears.
Some six years previous, before the turn of the century, a committee of the General Court of Boston had tramped this territory looking for good locations for new homes. As did Mary Rowlandson's group, they too crossed the Baquaug, climbed the easy slopes, and looked back over the fertile val- ley. Undecided, they pushed northward with the thought that they might return here. Some slim chance that summer day in 1669 might have hastened the laying out of our township some sixty-four years sooner - but "leaving it," they went on to Northfield.
In all the long ages before the Caucasian race descended upon this land to lay claim to and subjugate it, there had de- veloped here a multiplicity of land subdivisions each ruled over and claimed as his own by some Indian chieftain who by superior ability or physical prowess had come to be recognized as dominant. Much like our laws of inheritance, except that primogeniture prevailed, this title passed from father to son.
The area which is now northwestern Worcester County as well as much of the eastern half of Franklin County was at the opening of the eighteenth century the domain of the Sachem Wawalet. (Parsons in his excellent story of Northfield gives it Nawelet). His headquarters seem to have been around the fertile meadows of the Great River at Northfield. But that val- ley was susceptible to attack, sometimes by the Massachusetts' tribes on the east and again by the Mohawks on the west. Consequently, the meadows of the Millers, being much more unlikely to be raided, were utilized for the raising of much maize.
Seeing he must abandon the land and the bones of his ancestors, the Indian began to bargain with his oppressors, seeking some slight recompense for what he considered his rightful holdings.
Wawalet went to Northampton on August 13, 1686 and effected the sale for forty-five pounds hard money of some seventy-two square miles of his domain, comprising the present
12
THAT NEW TOWNSHIP
area of Northfield and much land in southwestern New Hamp- shire and southeastern Vermont. Our information about this man is decidedly sketchy but we do know that he and his tribe continued to live along the banks of the Payquage and thrived quite extensively by barter with the strange pale faces. At length Wawalet passed to the Happy Hunting Ground and his son, Pompanoot, reigned in his stead over a tribe depleted in numbers and constantly crowded by the coming of more and more white men.
One of the outstanding men of this section in those early days was Capt. Zachariah Field of Northfield, a valiant soldier of the King, who had joined in the pursuit of the perpetrators of the Deerfield massacre. These invaders were truly alien hosts and not in favor with the local tribes. Taking advantage of a time when Pompanoot was in low spirits, perhaps because of financial stringency, Capt. Field made no inconsiderable purchase of this Sachem's territory. He bought some 30,000 acres along the Millers River, paying therefor twelve pounds of the coin of the realm - perhaps sixty dollars in today's values.
Purchased in 1720, this area was bounded on the east by the large falls in the river and extended seven miles down stream, running four miles southerly and two miles northerly from the river. Today this tract may be defined as bounded on the east by the falls at the Starrett Factory, extending down stream to perhaps Wendell Depot, southerly well towards South Athol and North New Salem, and northerly to Red Stock Farm in Orange, and Pinedale in Athol. .
Complying with a Colonial law, Capt. Field turned over his purchase to the provincial government. Thus the land both by conquest and by purchase became the property of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. This territory is said to have been the last land of any value within the limits of the Province to be held by the Indians as original proprietors.
Twelve years elapsed after this purchase before any attempt was made at development of the land.
The administration of Governor Jonathan Belcher, 1730- 1741, was a period of prosperity and comparative tranquility in Massachusetts. With most of the population depending upon agriculture for a livelihood, Governor Belcher felt there was a need for expansion, and was continually urging that new ter- ritory be opened up. Probably a hundred towns in what was then recognized as Massachusetts territory date their beginnings from his administration.
13
1
HISTORY OF ATHOL
Settlers were easy to find in 1730. There were living in Massachusetts, this "place of great hills," many veterans of the Indian Wars who were claiming what in this day we know as a "bonus" for their military services. Their claim was not without justification, for Army officers in their zeal to mobi- lize an army had made many promises of special gratuities.
When the soldiers were mobilized on Dedham Plain in 1675, they were told that "if they played the man, took the fort, and drove the enemy from the Narragansett country they should have a gratuity of land besides their wages." Although the soldiers did their full part, it was more than fifty years before the promise was fulfilled.
Early in the eighteenth century the General Court made large grants of land to these soldiers and their heirs. Six town- ships were granted to the veterans of the war against the Narragansetts. Westminster was Narragansett No. 2, and Templeton, Narragansett No. 6.
Winchendon was granted to the soldiers from Ipswich who served in the expedition to Canada in 1690, and was known as Ipswich Canada. Warwick was allotted to the heirs of the resi- dents of Roxbury who under Capt. Gardner lost their lives in the same expedition and was known as Roxbury Canada, or Gardner's Canada. In at least one official document, however, it is named Mount Grace Township.
Most of Royalston was sold by auction to complete the dis- position of territory in Worcester County, but 200 acres had previously been donated to Thomas Hapgood for his services against the Eastern Indians. This Hapgood grant lies west of the present village of Tully. Following a public vendue held by a committee of the Legislature, a grant was made to Capt. John Erving of Boston. This land was roughly the westerly portion of the town of Orange and the present town of Erving.
Neither Athol nor New Salem appear to have been a "'soldiers' township," but rather were granted to enhance col- onization in this section. Thus in various ways did this territory pass from the public domain to private ownership.
June 1, 1732, and Governor Belcher is addressing the Gen- eral Court assembled in Boston. "I think it would be wise in this Assembly to take a proper care for settling the ungranted lands in such an equitable way as might give no just cause of complaint to any of the Towns or Inhabitants of the province, and I wish we could find ways to encourage a better cultivation
14
THAT NEW TOWNSHIP
of the lands, in general to make them more productive of naval stores and of the necessaries of Life and thereby render us the more capable of subsisting without the help of Our neighbor- ing Colonies.
"I also think it would be prudent to employ a good number of Hunters to traverse the woods, thereby to gain a knowledge of Our Frontiers," which, "may greatly tend to the Safety and Quiet of this Country in Time to Come."
On that June morning Governor Belcher recommends that seven townships be opened for settlement. Besides making room for the expansion of the colony, he hopes to break up the haunts of the Indians, thus promoting the safety of the settle- ments in the Connecticut Valley and those to the East. The law makers are doubtful, yet they do agree to some extension.
Within a year the General Court authorized on April 20, 1733 the laying out of four new townships - Lebanon, Maine; Keene, New Hampshire; Swanzey, New Hampshire, and our town of Pequage(3) in Massachusetts.
Admission of settlers to this new township of Pequage or Poquaig was soon to follow, but not before a small band of men with chain and compass carefully survey the tract. On No- vember 8, 1733 "Capt. William Chandler and Nathel Dwight being Appointed Surveyors, Thomas Chapin, Joseph Day, Ezra Leonard and Ezekiel Smith, Chainmen for the Laying out of this Township All Personally Appearing made Oath that in performing their Several and respective Services they would Act Truly and Indifferently According to their Best Skill and Judgment."
Signed by the Surveyors is the plan, the birth certificate of our town. "We began at a Pitch Pine Tree Standing on a knowl or Hillock about twenty perch west of a Large brook Called the Great brook on the West Side of Poquaig Hills, Marked South thus ... and North with three cuts with an ax, East with the letters WC and West ND, and from the Sd. Tree we ran as de- scribed in this Plot, Surveyed by the needle of the Surveying Instrument and Protracted by a Scale of two Hundred and forty perch in an Inch."
Remarkable is the fact that they began at the center tree, or "pitch pine tree," located the lines south, east, north, west, and again south, and encompassed thirty-six square miles, or in other words, they were back where they had started.
(3) See Appendix 1.
15
HISTORY OF ATHOL
The plan of Poquaig showed the township a perfect square, six miles on each of its four sides. Its only natural features represented are White's Pond, a short section of Millers River, of Tully East, of Tully West, and of four brooks crossing the boundary lines. There is nothing to indicate that it adjoins any other township except that it shows a "beach tree supposed to be a corner of Capt. White's Township" (Petersham).
Thus, "that new township on Millers River in the County of Hampshear" was carved entirely out of unappropriated lands of the Colony. Bounded on all sides by Province land except some two miles along its south line, the township was taken largely from the Field purchase. Today, only about six and one- half miles of Athol's original twenty-four miles of boundary remain unchanged.
Instructions to the Committee of Survey appointed by the General Court were rigid. It must lay out sixty-three house lots - one to be held for the support of schools, one for the first settled minister as an inducement to establish here, and one to be held forever for the support of the ministry. There must be one for each of the required sixty proprietors who should settle thereon in his own person or by one of his chil- dren. He must actually live on his land within three years of his admission, build a house at least eighteen feet square and seven feet stud, and within the same length of time fence in sufficiently and till or fit for mowing eight acres of land.
If he should fail in whole or in part of these stipulations, he should forfeit his land. He was also required to give a bond of twenty pounds binding him to fulfill the above conditions. And lastly, the Proprietors were required to build a suitable meeting house and settle a learned Orthodox minister within a space of five years from their admission.
A parchment plan, filed with the oaths of the Surveying Party, showed sixty-three house or first division lots surveyed and marked as directed by the Act of the General Court. But a week after the survey plan was accepted by the Council, the required number of sixty men met at Concord on June 26, 1734 "to draw House Lotts in the Township of Pequoiage on Miller's River as Settlers of said Pequoiage.'
Honorable William Dudley, Chairman of the Committee, had the following list of names and locations when the drawing procedure had finished:
Edward Goddard East East 13 John Wood
East East 1
West Benjamin Townsend East 10 Daniel Epps, Jr. East West 11
16
THAT NEW TOWNSHIP
Daniel Epps, Sr.
East East 9 Jonathan Morton
West West 2
Ebenezer Goddard
East West 4 Joseph Smith
East East 6
Zachariah Field
East West 18 William Oliver East East 10
Nehemiah Wright
West West 7 Moses Dickenson
West East 9
Richard Wheeler Richard Morton
West West 12
Joshua Dickenson
West East
7
Samuel Morton
West West 1 Richard Crouch
East West 12
Ephraim Smith
West West 3 Ezekiel Wallingford
West West
10
Nathan Waite
East West 15 James Jones
West East
12
Gad Waite
West East 3 Daniel Adams
West West
5
Joseph Lord
East East
3 John Cutting
East West 17
Benoni Twichel
East West 10
Samuel Kendall
West East
6
John Wallis
East East
7
Samuel Kendall
East East 2
Samuel Willard
East West
7
Jonathan Page
East West 14
John Smeed
West East
5
John Longley
East
East 4
William Chandler
East West
6
Joseph Brown
East West 5
Jonathan Marble
West West 11
John Child
East East 11
William Higgins
East
East
8
Nathaniel Graves
East East 12
James Kenney
West West
9
George Danforth
West East
14 8
Abner Lee
East West
1
James Fay
West West
4
John Headley
East West
2
Francis Bowman
East We 13
Isaac Fisk
East
East
5
Stephen Fay
West East
16
Daniel Fisk
West East
1 Israel Hammond
West East
15
Thomas Hapgood
East West
16 Benjamin Bancroft
West West 14
Richard Ward
West West 6 Joseph Harrington
East West
3
Samuel Tenney
West East 8 James Holden
West East 11
If the original list of Proprietors with the designations of the lots acquired by them under this lottery was ever filed in the Colonial archives it was soon lost, for less than thirty years later a substitute list was procured from local officials and filed in the archives. This substitute (?) list bears this certificate: "I transcribed the above from a list under the Hand of Joseph Lord who has made Oath to the Truth of it and adds the follow- ing N. B. Viz. - 'This above mentioned List is what the Clerk of Pequoiag has always made use of for want of an Attested Copy; and also entered on their Book of Records without At- test' - The above entered pr A. Hill, Prop. Clerk." Dated August 24, 1761.
Not drawn were the lots East West 8 for the First Minister, East West 19 for a school, and East West 20 for the Church.
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