USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Lancaster > The early records of Lancaster, Massachusetts. 1643-1725 > Part 1
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Gc 974.402 L22r 1625437
M. L.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01065 8158
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/earlyrecordsofla1643lanc
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THIE
EARLY RECORDS OF LANCASTER
MASSACHUSETTS.
1043-1725
EDITED BY
IIENRY S. NOURSE, A. M.
The Comisiones apuntes by the gearall Court to order and sette the afaits of Lancaster *eing assembled at Joun Presents' house September ye eight ifny . . . fire judge rest to order and Comme' as followeth . . . . . . Alsoe that the Select event tak special care for the presentup and sie keeping the townes Records. And If they se it need fill, that they procure the same to be wilton are fairly into a new booke, to be keept for the good of posterity .-- Lancaster Records.
LANCASTER: 1884.
1625437
CLINTON: PRINTED BY W. J. COULTER, COURANT OFFICE. 1884.
MAPS DRAWN BY HAROLD PARKER.
NOTE BY THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION.
AT the adjourned March meeting of the town of Lancaster. 1863, it was voted " to appropriate five hundred dollars for publishing some of our earliest town records under the direction of the Library Committee ; to be prepared by Henry S. Nourse."
The committee thus authorized to oversee the publication now pre- sented to the town, must not omit to testify here to their conviction of the eminent ability and fidelity with which their associate has completed his task, and of the greatness of the debt under which the town has been brought to him by this, as well as by other labors in the same field. They have found that their duty, as aside from his, has devolved upon them little more than a careful reading of his manuscript; while the toil, the care, and the zeal which the matter in hand demanded, and that have been spent upon it, have been expended by him :
"And all for love, and nothing for reward."
It may not be useless for them to remind the town of some of the reasons that gave rise to the resolution under which they were appointed. Among these were the risk of destruction by fire ; the wasting material of the originals; the desirableness of supplying imperfections, as far as possible, from other sources ; clearing up obscurities by intelligent annota- tion ; and such a multiplication of copies as it may reasonably be hoped and expected will be called for.
They have understood, however, that the work was to be undertaken primarily, not in the interest of the historiographer, but for the use of the town; for its more familiar acquaintance with, and its surer preservation ot, its own annals. It is from this consideration that the editor has added some notes which he would otherwise have withheld. Nevertheless they are well aware that these " Early Records " are not confined for edification to their own townsmen; and that any intelligent person of New England birth may not only behold, as with " ancestral eyes," therein " the doings " that are described, but, more or less, the causes also which, from without or within, gave the current of events this or that direction ; and see, as in a mirror, the operation of the forces that in this country " developed local self government, and furnish the basis of our political history."
It gives the committee pleasure, as well for the name as the conven- ience of so doing, to consign the printing of this book to a local press.
LANCASTER, March, 1884.
LIBRARY COMMITTEE.
GEORGE M. BARTOL.
CHARLES T. FLETCHER.
ANNA H. WHITNEY.
WILLIAM H. MCNEIL. NATHANIEL THAYER. HERBERT PARKER.
HENRY S. NOURSE.
INTRODUCTION.
CROM the year 1726 the records of Lancaster become continuous, are complete, and in good condition. All before that date is fragmentary. The earliest existing vol- ume opens with A. D. 1653, in which year the Nashaway Plantation was formally given the classic name it now bears. The earlier pages of that book, however, are a copy, made about 1657, of the first records. Of "the old book," often referred to therein, no leaf remains, and many pages of the transcript have disappeared, while others are badly worn and almost illegible. During the first seventy- five years of the town's life, the inhabitants nearly all held proprietary rights in the common lands ; and we find the clerks recording indiscriminately, often upon the same pages, action of the freemen as electors, of the proprietors dividing their landed estate, and of the people directing local improvement and church administration. After the settlement of Rev. John Prentice in 1708, special church records begin, and a register of births, marriages and deaths dates from about 1718, in which a few earlier dates have been casually inserted. This register is exceedingly imperfect. The earliest recorded meeting of the proprie- tors, as distinct from the town-meeting proper, was Feb. 4, 1716, statute provision having been made for such meet- ings March 25. 1713. The doings of regular town-meet- ings continued, however, to be recorded with proprietary action until 1726, when a new book was opened for the former. The proprietors used the old volume until 1810, about which time the proprietors' clerk made a careless copy of the whole, by which we know that the records
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INTRODUCTION.
were then in the same imperfect condition as at present. The common land was all divided before 1836, and their last recorded meeting was held April 6, 1846.
The Book of Lands, dated probably from the days of the commission in 1657. The original volume has been long missing, but a transcript of it was made in 1763, by Caleb Wilder, then proprietors' clerk. This is the only town book that contains records made between the massa- cre of 1676 and 1716. Three large volumes continue the registry of lands therein begun. The Book of Roads dates from 1729, and the Book of Estrays was begun in 1755.
Not only are the earliest notes of the town's action, as set down by the clerks, always curt, and many of them not to be found, but during a long and eventful period of our colonial history. all town records entirely fail us. A woful gap of forty-six years yawns between the last entry of Ralph Houghton and the first of Joseph Wilder ; from the sixth of February, 1671, to the fourth of February, 1717. How or by whom the records of the town-meetings were kept during this period we have no direct information. and the time and manner of their loss is unknown. Of the years since 1708 we glean a few meagre facts from Rev. John Prentice's records of baptisms and church member- ship; but for the nine years previous to 1653, and the forty-six succeeding 1670, we must seek the town's annals in documents scattered here and there through the Massa- chusetts Archives and the records of the Middlesex County Courts. With such of these documents as have, by dili- gent search, been discovered, throwing light upon the history of Lancaster, our imperfect records are herein sup- plemented. Many of these have never been before in print, and others are now for the first time copied verbatim. To preserve so far as is possible the savor of the olden time, the spelling, punctuation and capitalization of all original manuscripts have been faithfully retained. To those who
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INTRODUCTION.
will charge - and justly -- that the editor has magnified his office by multiplying comments of his own, he would state that, in what he has intruded, he is honestly striving only to bring into light something heretofore obscured, or to adduce evidence respecting matters in doubt, or to com- bat those false impressions about men, localities, and events which his experience has found unwarrantably rampant among us.
Even though considered -- as by too many it will be - merely a list of the Nashaway pioneers, and a schedule of their landed possessions, this transcript of our forefathers' records is of especial value ; but it has a deeper import. It is Lancaster's modest contribution to the story of the growth of human freedom. The planters of Massachu- setts brought with them dogmas of spiritual tyranny, and old world political formulas, which proved too inelastic when framed into social and civic institutions, for the gov- ernment of a restless community facing the deprivation, toil, and dangers of the colorist. Struggles with savage men and savage nature compelled self dependence, and soil and climate favored liberty of thought and conscience. As novel external conditions modified daily life and indi- vidual character, political life progressed, and ever towards freedom. The process of this progression - so painful and slow that the actors were perhaps unconscious of advance - is nowhere more plainly depicted, and nowhere offers more of interest to the student of history, than in the records of our older towns. In the "orderly agitations" of the New England town-meeting was cradled the germ of our na- tion's constitutional life.
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MAP ofLANCASTER 1653 - 1883 SCALE ~ 1/4= 1"
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16 55.
ANNALS
OF THE NASHAWAY PLANTATION.
1643-1653.
NASHAWAY, or Nashawog, in the Indian tongue, means the place between, or land in the angle made by two rivers, and is descriptive of the locality. The pion- eers soon attached the name exclusively to the south branch of the river, the other branch being known as the North River, and the main stream being called the Pene- cook.
THE SYMONDS AND KING TRUCKING HOUSE.
Like many another American town, Lancaster finds its origin in an Indian trading post. Although no contem- porary mention appears of this, the first mercantile enter- prise on Lancaster soil, it must have been founded before the autumn of 1643. Whether it preceded, or was subse- quent to, the purchase of eighty square miles of land from Sholan, cannot be told. Both Symonds and King so soon disappear from the scene that they have been commonly treated in our history as mere real estate dealers, who sold their bargain at the first advantageous offer. Is there not in the scanty facts which follow, heretofore ignored, some- thing that suggests rather trouble, sickness and disappoint- ment, than the harvesting of profit?
Henry Symonds, the senior partner and capitalist of the
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ANNALS OF LANCASTER,
Nashaway trading house, planted on the southeast slope of George hill, was an energetic citizen of Boston, and a free- man. His name heads the list of the associates who in 1643 contracted to convert the useless marshes of the cove into a valuable tidal mill power. Before any of his well laid plans bore fruit, Symonds died. This was in Septem- ber, 1643. His widow, Susannah, in 1644 married Isaac Walker, which perhaps explains the presence of Walker's name among the Nashaway proprietors for a few years thereafter. The junior partner, Thomas King, outlived Symonds little more than a year, dying December 3, 1644. He was a young man, probably under thirty years of age, with a wife Mary and two young children, Mary and Thomas, and lived in Watertown. His inventory, found in the Suffolk Registry, sums but 1584 35. including a dwelling-house, barn, and four acres of land in Watertown, and 744. 7s. of debts due him. He was therefore a poor man at his decease, and nothing in the brief list of his assets gives evidence of commercial gain at Nashaway, save the item among the debts due, "184 of the Indyans." Rever- end Timothy Harrington asserts that King sold all his interest here to the company. John Cowdall was soon after in possession of the trucking house lot, which he sold to John Prescott, October 5, 1647. King's widow, if we may trust the record, on March 9, 1645, married James Cutler, whose name the same year appeared among the Nashaway proprietors.
1643. Others of the same town [Watertown] began also a plantation at Nashaway some fifteen miles N. W. from Sudbury. . . . [John Winthrop's History of New England, II, 152.]
7th of Ist month 1643 /4 . . . . At this Court Cutshamequin and Squaw Sachem, Mascononoco, Nashacowam and Wassamagoin two sachems near the great hill to the west called Warehasset, came into the court and ac- cording to their former tender to the Governour desired to be received under our protection and government upon the same terms that Pumham and Sacononoc were : So we causing them to understand the articles, and all the ten Commandments of God, and they freely assenting to all,
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MASSACHUSETTS. 1643-1725.
they were solemnly received and then presented the court 26 fathom more of wampom, and the Court gave each of them a coat of two yards of cloth, and their dinner, and to them and their men every of them a cup of sack at their departure So they took leave and went away very joyful.
[John Winthrop's History of New England, II, 189.]
1644 Wassamequin, Nashoonon, Kutchamaquin, Massaconomet and Squaw Sachem did voluntarily submit themselves to us: as appears by their covenant subscribed with their own hands ..
[Daniel Gookin's History of the Christian Indians.]
Nashacowam and Nashoonon are aliases of the Nashaway sachem usually called Sholan or Showanon. Wasamegin was sachem at Quaboag [Brookfield]. Warehasset is John Winthrop's orthography of Wachusett, which in the Indian tongue was Wad- chu-sett, "the great hill."
May 1644. Many of Watertown and other towns joined in the planta- tion at Nashaway, and having called a young man, an university scholar, one Mr Norcross to be their Minister, seven of them who were no members of any churches were desirous to gather into a church estate: but the magistrates and elders advised them first to go and build them habitations &c (for there was yet no house there) and then to take some that were members of other churches, with the consent of such churches, as for- merly had been done and so proceed orderly. But the persons interested in the plantation being most of them poor men, and some of them corrupt in judgment. and others profane, it went on very slowly, so that in two years they had not three houses built there and he whom they had called to be their minister left them for their delays.
[John Winthrop's History of New England, II, 161.]
29th May 1644. The petition of Mr. Natha : Norcrosse, Robert Childe, Stephen Day, John Fisher &c. for a plantation at Nashawake, is granted : pvided that there shall not be more land allotted to the towne or pticular men (notwthstanding their purchase of land of the Indians) then the Gen'all Cort shall alowe .
[Massachusetts Records.]
Robert Child's prominence in the company was perhaps Nashaway's first misfortune. He was of Watertown, com- ing thither from Northfleet, Kent County, England. He had received the degree of A. M., in 1635, at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and the degree of M. D. at Padua. Gifted with great mental force, he held ideas of man and nature in advance of the age, and was ambitious to become a leader among the people. We shall probably
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ANNALS OF LANCASTER,
not be far wrong in ascribing the inspiration of this west- ward movement from Watertown, not alone to the prover- bia! Saxon greed of land, but partly to Doctor Child's sanguine expectation of mineral wealth to be discovered in the western hills, and the acceptance of his liberal theories by congenial spirits. It is noteworthy that of the chief men in the enterprise more than half, namely : Pres- cott, Day, Garret, Hill and Jenkes, were workers in iron. Little aid or sympathy could be hoped for by the company from magistrates or ecclesiastics, while it remained under the influence of one who was esteemed by them a factious schismatic. A few months later Doctor Child's petition for the enlargement of political and religious privilege, just and moderate as it now seems, so roused the ire of the Massachusetts theocracy that he was compelled to seek safety from his intolerant persecutors by flight across the seas.
Nathaniel Norcross received the degree of A. B. at Catherine Hall College, Cambridge. 1636-7. He very soon abandoned the company of which he was only the available clerical figurehead. The cause assigned for his defection by John Winthrop, quoted on the preceding page, differs radically from that set down by Reverend Timothy Harrington one hundred years later. The former may record the excuse of the deserter; the latter, the tradition of a belief that had justified itself to the deserted. M ... Norcross neither here, nor afterwards in England appar- ently, gave sign that he had in him the stuff of which apostles or martyrs are made, and even vexatious delays were not an unalloyed misfortune that put Joseph Rowland- son in his place.
1645. The humble petito of the Company Intended to plat at Nasha- way 12 June 1645.
To the right Worp" Tho. Dudiey Esqr Gou'nour and the rest of the Magistrates and deputyes now Assembled in the Generall Court at Boston. Yor petitioners, whose names are Vnderwritten Humbly Sheweth vnto yor
13
MASSACHUSETTS. 1643-1725.
Worps yt wheras wee haue formerly received favour from this Court in haueing Liberty granted vs to plant att a place called Nashaway some 16 myles beyond Sudbery. Wee the sayd petitioners doe find itt an vtter Impossibilitye to proceede forwards to plante at the place aboue sayd ex- cept wee haue a convenient way made for the transportation of our Cattell and goods ouer Sudbery River and Marsh. Now although Sudbery men haue begun to sett vpp a Bridge ouer the Riuer yett the worke is now decist- ed, And the bridge left altogether vnusefull, and the marsh now way mended, soe that wee caunot passe to the plantation abouesd without exposing our persons to perill and our cattell and goods to losse and spoyle : as yor petitioners are able to make prooffe of by sad experience of what wee suf- fered there within these few dayes. Yo' petitioners haue beene & are much damnifyed by the badnesse of the way at this place : for many of vs hane beene dependant on this worke aboue these two yeares past, much tyme and meanes haue beene spent in discouering the plantation and prouiding for our setlinge there. And now the Lord by his prouidence hath gone on thus farre with the worke that divers of us have covenanted to sitt downe together And to Improve ourselues there this summer that wee may liue there the wynter next Insueing if God permitt. But vnlesse some speedy course bee taken yt wee haue a way made for the transplant- ing ourselues, cattell and goods we may perish there for want of Reliefe, not being able to provide for our subsistance there this wynter. Vnlesse wee expose ourselues and goods to the perill and spoyle as abouesayd. Yo" petitioners doe therefore humbly Beseech yor Worships that as you haue beene pleased to Countenance our beginnings, soe you would please to order that a conueniant way bee made at the place aforsd for trans- portinge our persones cattell & goods, that the worke of God there begun may further proceede and wee haue Incouragement to carry on the worke else our tyme, meanes and labour hitherto expended will be lost. But if yor worps please to further our proceedings herein yor petitioners shall euer pray &c.
NATHANIEL NORCROSSE JOHN PRESCOT STEPHEN DAYE HARMAN GARRETT
THOMAS SCIDMORE
JOHN HILL ISAACK WAKER
JOHN COWDALL JOSEPH JENKES
The above petition is in Massachusetts Archives cxxI, 5. The names were signed by the same hand that wrote the rest of the document, probably that of the minister, Nathan-
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ANNALS OF LANCASTER,
iel Norcross. Endorsed upon it is this action of General Court :
The magistrats think fitt that 20" should be allowed to the towne of Sudburye towarde the finishing of their bridge & waye at the ende of it to be payd them when they shall haue made the way passable for loaden horse -, & desire the concurrence of the deputyes herein.
Jo. WINTHROP D : Go :
The house of Deptyes doe concurr with or honnored magist herein so it be doune wthin a twelue monthe.
EDWARD RAWSON
The mention of "sad experience " in the petition, is ex- plained by the following " special providence" narrated by Winthrop in his "History of New England," II, 306 :
Prescott another favourer of the petitioners lost a horse & his lading in Sudbury River, and a week after his wife and children being upon another horse were hardly saved from drowning.
That the dangers and difficulties of this crossing were not overrated by these pioneers, is proven not only by the above stated facts, but because one hundred years later the bridge and causeway -" half a mile long "- were com- plained of as dangerous, and in floods impassable. Trav- ellers were obliged to make long detours to avoid it, and in 1759 and 1761. lotteries were granted for its improve- ment, the proceeds of which, amounting to 12274, were expended upon it. It is not surprising that the twenty pounds allowed in 1645 proved an insufficient inducement to the Sudbury men for the completion of the bridge. The deputy governor and magistrates had no sympathy to ex- pend upon the troubles of a company wherein Robert Child, or any of his favorers, had an interest. Therefore they permitted the Sudbury marsh to remain a lion in the path to the Nashaway Plantation, and this was one cause of the delays which not only, as John Winthrop records in the passage quoted, drove the first minister from the enter- prise, but also disheartened every member of the copart-
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MASSACHUSETTS. 1643-1725.
nership, save their stalwart leader, John Prescott. whom neither Sudbury marsh nor deputy governor could daunt.
The 3d of Sth month 45. To the honored Gournor wth the Rest of the Magistrates and Deputes now Asembled at Boston _ the Humble petition of the undertakers for the plantation of Nashawaye :
Whereas wee perceive there is some of the men excepted Agaynst yt weere presented to this honoured Court in our petition yesterday : we humbly desire to present these men whose names are underwritten for the worke mentioned in that petition, in they' Roomes that are Excepted Against, humbly Intreating this honored Court that you will please to depute all or pt of these men for the worke there mentioned: and the whole company shall ever pray.
John Hill Isaac Waker Samuel Bitfield Sernt John Davis James Cutler Mathew Barnes
John Chandler Thomas Skidmore
The petition of the day before, above referred to, has not been found. As John Prescott's and Stephen Day's names are omitted in this list, they. were probably " excepted agaynst." This petition is from Massachusetts Archives, CXII, 16, and is endorsed thus :
The magistrates are willing that Jo : Hill, Serient Jo : Davis Jo : Chand- ler Isaake Walker, Sam" Bitfield, and Mathew Barnes or any 3 of them shall haue power to sett out Lotts to all the Planters belonging to the sd Plantation - Prouided they sett not their houses too far asunder & the greater Lotts to be proportionable to mens estate & charges, and that no man shall haue his Lott confirmed to him before he hath taken the Oath of Fidelity before some magistrate -- and desire the consent of the Depu- ties herein. Jo : WITHROP D : Go :
Consented to by ye deputies EDW. RAWSON.
Capt. Pellam, Left Willard & Segnt. Wheeler are appointed Commis- sioners for this Courte to lay out ye planters of Nashaway such propor- tions of land as they shall judge fitting for their present occasions & not prejudiciall to them yt hereafter may desire to sitt downe there. Ye Dep- utys desire ye magiste consent hereto. EDWARD RAWSON
"Samil Bitfield " is crossed out - also the paragraph added by the deputies appoint- ing three commissioners -- also this clause, which had been inserted at first after the word provided : "They shall not lay out aboue six acres to any first Lott.",
IIth Nov. 1647. Whereas ye Corte hath form'ly granted a plantation at Nashaway vnto Jno. Chanlr, Isa .. Walk", Jno. Davies, Jno Hill, & Math :
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ANNALS OF LANCASTER,
Barnes & yt Jno. Hill is dead, Jno. Chanlr. Isaac Walkr & Jno. Davies have signified unto ye Corte yt since ye said graunt they have acted nothing as und takes yr nor lajd out any lands, & furthr, have made request to ye Corte to take in ye said graunt, manifesting their uttr unwill- ingness to be engaged yrin, ye Corte doth not thinke fit to destroy ye said plantation, but rathr to incurage it. onely in regard ye psons now upon it are so few & unmeete for such a worke care to be taken to pcure othr, & in ye meane time to remaine in ye Corts powr to dispose of ye planting & ord'ing of it.
[ Massachusetts Records.]
TIth Nov. 1647. Towne Marks agreed by ye General Corte for horses &c. . ordered to be set upon one of ye nere q'rs. X Nashaway [ Massachusetts Records.]
1648. Showanon the great sachym of Nashaway doth embrace the Gos- pel & pray unto God, I have been foure times there this Summer, and there be more people by far then be amongst us, and sundry of them do gladly hear the word of God, but it is neer 40 miles off and I can but sel- dom goe to them: whereat they are troubled and desire I should come oftener, and stay longer when I come.
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