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M. L.
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01101 2272
WORCESTER COUNTY A Narrative History
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019
https://archive.org/details/worcestercountyn01nels
PHOTO BY BUSHONG
WORCESTER COUNTY
Mail. A NARRATIVE HISTORY
By JOHN NELSON
AUTHOR, JOURNALIST AND MEMBER EDITORIAL STAFF THE WORCESTER TELEGRAM AND THE EVENING GAZETTE
VOLUME I
- -
THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, INC. NEW YORK 1934
Copyright THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, INC.
1934
THE AMERICAN
HISTO
INC.
SOCIETY
Printed in the United States of America
1134243
This Book is Dedicated to GENEVIEVE BURKE NELSON, My Wife, Whose Sympathetic Cooperation Has Made a Difficult Task a Pleasant One
Limeche Book 5:00- 15.00 (Grea)
INTRODUCTION
HIS narrative History of Worcester County was prepared with the purpose of confining its pages to matters which, in some manner of greater or lesser importance, have affected Worcester County as a whole. The individual histories of the sixty-one cities and towns are excluded, excepting in a broad way and as events or persons have entered into the general picture. The detailed records are already available to the antiquarian and genealogist and others seeking infor- mation, in excellent county histories already published, and more minutely in voluminous local histories which have been written of most of the towns.
In this new book the towns as individual communities have not been wholly neglected, of course. The reader will find the essential facts concerning each, such as its physical characteristics, area, period of settlement, incorporation, naming, fluctuations in population and records in war. Then, too, each town finds its natural place in the narrative at more or less frequent intervals, as it contributes to the general story. Generally speaking, the scene is cleared for the moving pen picture of what has transpired in the three centuries which have passed since the first explorers from Massachusetts Bay Colony entered the Nipmuck Wilderness of Central Massachusetts, which we know now as Worcester County.
A great deal of the material included in this book never before has been available to anyone not engaged in historic research. Advantage has been taken of writings contemporaneous with and describing dramatic and some- times tragic episodes, particularly in the early Indian fighting and its conse- quences. Old diaries have been most helpful, yielding hitherto unsuspected material. The proceedings of the various historical societies have been drawn upon liberally in the antiquarian contributions of their members. All in all, the subject lends itself admirably to the modern style of historical writing, in which the characteristics of the region and of the successive generations of its people are woven into the story of political, economic, social and cultural evolution.
viii
INTRODUCTION
Believing that no better measure of Worcester County's importance to the world can be had than in the men and women it has produced, we have given space to the lives of its sons and daughters whose accomplishments have given them enduring fame.
We wish to express our appreciation of the many helpful courtesies extended by Clarence S. Brigham, director, and Robert W. G. Vail, librarian of the American Antiquarian Society, Professor U. Waldo Cutler, director of the Worcester Historical Society, and Robert Kendall Shaw, librarian of the Worcester Free Public Library; and our thanks to the gentlemen who, as an advisory board, have sponsored this book, and to others who have assisted in various ways in bringing together historical material.
JOHN NELSON.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Chapter I-Geography of Worcester County. 3
Chapter II-The Nipmuck Country and Its People. 20
Chapter III-The Early Settlement. 32
Chapter IV-Apostle Eliot and His Praying Indians
44
Chapter V-Outbreak of King Philip's War . 55
Chapter VI-The War in Worcester County
64
Chapter VII-Ambush at Wenimesset and Siege of Brookfield-Cap- tain Wheeler's Narrative. . 7I
Chapter VIII-Dark Days in the Nipmuck Country-Lancaster At- tacked-English Victory in Great Swamp Fight. 79
Chapter IX-Mary Rowlandson's Narrative. 86
Chapter X-Mary Rowlandson's Narrative (Continued) 96
Chapter XI-Second Period of Settlement-The Tragic Romance of the Huguenot Village at Oxford. I06
Chapter XII-Northern Indians Make Repeated Raids on Lancaster .. II3
Chapter XIII-Settlement of Worcester Again Attempted.
I20
Chapter XIV-Lovewell's or Father Rasle's War. I27
Chapter XV-Nipmuck Country Becomes Worcester County I33
Chapter XVI-The Naming of the Towns. . I5I
Chapter XVII-Negro Slavery in Worcester County 163
Chapter XVIII-The Colonial Wars. 175
Chapter XIX-The Approach of the Revolution. I9I
Chapter XX-The Mounting Flame of Revolution 203
Chapter XXI-Opening Guns of Revolution. 222
Chapter XXII-County Twice Threatened With Invasion.
239
Chapter XXIII-Shays' Rebellion 254
Chapter XXIV-The Marietta Settlement. 277
Chapter XXV-Our Critical Quarter Century-1787-1812 287
Chapter XXVI-Our Critical Quarter Century-1787-1812 (Con-
tinued ) 308
Chapter XXVII-Christopher Columbus Baldwin's Diary. 324
Chapter XXVIII-The County's Treasure Hunts 344
Chapter XXIX-Farm and Home Life a Century Ago 354
Chapter XXX-The Old Worcester County Gardens. 369
Chapter XXXI-French Traveler Attends First Cattle Show 380
X
CONTENTS
PAGE
Chapter XXXII-Taverns and Tavern Life in the County . 390
Chapter XXXIII-History of Worcester County Stores. 407
Chapter XXXIV-Worcester County Farms and Their Allies 422
Chapter XXXV-The Dark Days Before the Civil War. 429
Chapter XXXVI-Civil War
446
Chapter XXXVII-Churches
456
Chapter XXXVIII-The Story of Worcester Transport.
482
Chapter XXXIX-The Story of Worcester County Transport (Con- tinued)
502
Chapter XL-The Story of Worcester County Transport (Continued) 522
Chapter XLI-The Conservation Movement in Worcester County. .
543
Chapter XLII-Courts and Lawyers
557
Chapter XLIII-Newspapers
578
Chapter XLIV-The Banks of Worcester County.
593
Chapter XLV-Industries
606
Chapter XLVI-The Era of Electric Power 640
Chapter XLVII-Medical Annals 650
Chapter XLVIII-The Woman's Movement. 672
Chapter XLIX-Education and Educational Institutions 684
Chapter L-Fraternal Orders 704
Chapter LI-The War With Spain. 719
Chapter LII-World War 725
Chapter LIII-Great Men and Women of Worcester County. 756
History of Worcester County
Wor .- 1
CHAPTER I.
Geography of Worcester County
Worcester County has within its borders an almost infinite variety of country. Its 1,577 square miles of surface is broken bewilderingly. There are plains and expansive intervales, great sweeps of rolling farm land, line after line of ledgy ridges, league upon league of a high pla- teau, which breaks here and there with gentle slope or quick descent into broad or narrow valleys. From it rise high hills and commanding moun- tains. The shire is dotted with ponds and lakes, and the rivers, with their hundred of headwater and tributary brooks, give running water everywhere.
The county is the largest in Massachusetts. It is situated midway of the State east and west, filling a great block of territory which extends north and south from the New Hampshire to the Connecticut line. Its eastern neighbors are the counties of Middlesex and Norfolk. On the west are the counties of Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden. It would be a complete quadrangle, symmetrical but for the jagged lines of its eastern and western borders, were it not for a group of Middlesex towns which project into the northeastern corner, and a smaller group of Hampden towns which intrude similarly on the southwest. The length of the county north and south is about forty-seven miles, the extreme distance east and west forty miles.
The intricacy of the contour of Worcester County is no cause for wonder. The geological history of the region would permit of no other result. We have no intention of entering upon a scientific discussion of its evolution, but a brief outline of what had taken place through the ages may be interesting and helpful by disclosing cause and effect. In remote time, all of New England had been worn down by the action of water and weather to a plain, the level of which was little above the sea. From it ascended huge mountain masses which alone had survived
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WORCESTER COUNTY
erosive action. Geologists formerly believed that the mountains of New England were once like the present Alps of Europe, rising as high as 15,000 feet above the sea. The modern theory is that while they were immeasurably more massive than they are today, they were not very much higher.
There followed an uplifting of the earth's surface, not quickly as by a titanic convulsion, but unbelievably slowly, and continuing through tens of thousands of years. Scientists tell us that had man been living here then, the increasing elevation might never have been perceptible to him. Mountain ranges as well as plains were raised, the contour of the land changing little, excepting that erosion continued as torrents from the Arctic ice-cap poured down the North American continent.
Only such peaks remained as had best been able to resist the slow but irresistible action of water and climate. Most strictly typical of all of these is Mt. Monadnock, 3,166 feet above the sea, just over the line in New Hampshire, whose noble, naked summit is a landmark so familiar in the county as to make it almost a possession. Other "Monad- nocks," to use the word in its adoption as a geological term, are Mt. Watatic in Ashburnham, Mt. Wachusett in Princeton, and Mt. Asnebum- skit in Paxton and Holden, on the border of the city of Worcester. Such was the region of Worcester County at the beginning of the Ice Age.
The Polar cap spread down the continent until New England was buried under ice hundreds of feet thick. Nothing could be slower than the action of glaciers, but nothing could be surer in the immensity of their forces. With boulders great and small as their abrasive agents, they ground along the surface of the earth, continuing the work which the waters of previous ages had already carried far. They scraped and crumbled the mountains, widened and deepened the valleys and wore away the plains.
Then came the melting, the century-long withdrawal of the ice front. It left behind it immense deposits of sand and gravel and boulders. Masses of debris were dropped as moraines, which sometimes served as dykes to form lakes and even to change the courses of the ancient streams. A thin sheet of boulder clay was deposited upon the plateau, and here and there were left rocky areas. Sand deposits were formed in the valleys and filled some of them to a considerable depth. But, according to Keith, the form of the Great Central Plateau of the county was only slightly modified. The topographic lines of the region as a whole were not obscured. Some of our lakes and ponds owe their exis- tence to basins fashioned by the glaciers.
5
GEOGRAPHY OF WORCESTER COUNTY
By far the most picturesque and characteristic of all the reminders of the Ice Age are the drumlins, those lovely, swelling hills, the profile lines of which are as symmetrically curved as the arc of a strung bow. The immense mounds of glacial rubbish, some of them relatively small like Newton Hill in Worcester, some of them lofty, wide-spreading hills like Mugget Hill in Charlton, were formed under the ice. Down the county they march, row on row, lending a great beauty in themselves and in their contrasts with the rugged outlines of hills and ridges of granite and schist.
When, before the Ice Age, the plain was lifted, it was left uptilted from south to north, and this remains a characteristic feature of the county's surface today. The eastern region is comparatively low-lying, the western and larger portion is occupied by the Great Plateau, other- wise known as the Highlands of Central Massachusetts, which are the southern continuation of the New Hampshire Highlands. The average elevation of the shire lying east of a line running north and south through Lake Quinsigamond on the easterly border of Worcester, is considerably less than 500 feet above the sea. West of that line the average elevation approaches 1,000 feet.
From Worcester the land rises quickly to the edge of the plateau. The water level of Lake Quinsigamond is 356 feet. The crest of Mt. Asnebumskit, only eight miles distant to the westward, is 1,408 feet. The slope from lake to summit is almost continuous. A few miles south of Asnebumskit is the village of Leicester with an altitude of 1,000 feet, two miles west lies Paxton village, 1,130 feet above the sea, and a few miles to the northward is Rutland town, rising 1,200 feet. We mention this particular country only to illustrate the wide and sudden variation between the eastern and western regions of the county. The uptilt of the highlands gives an average greater height of 100 feet in the north. The extremes of elevation of the shire are significant. Blackstone, in the southeastern corner, is 200 feet above the sea. The city of Gardner, near the northwestern corner, is over 1,000 feet, Mt. Wachusett, top of the shire, is 2,108 feet above the sea.
The Highlands are dominated by Mt. Wachusett. It is a landmark seen from most of the towns of Massachusetts and from far beyond its borders. Its domed outline is the first land to greet the mariner as his ship approaches the southern New England coast. Fifteen miles to the northward is Mt. Watatic, almost on the New Hampshire line, 1,847 feet above the sea. Asnebumskit lies twelve miles to the southward. Though much lower than its sister "Monadnock," it is nevertheless a notable eminence, for it is the highest point of land between Wachusett
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WORCESTER COUNTY
and Long Island Sound, and, south of the Princeton Mountain, in the hundred miles between the Connecticut River and the Atlantic Ocean.
The Watersheds-The central region of the Highlands controls the watersheds of the entire county, with the exceptions of those which drain the towns along the eastern boundary. It comprises the hill and mountain country extending twenty-five miles from the northerly base of Mt. Wachusett to the southerly slopes of Asnebumskit. It lies almost exactly in the center of the county. From it waters flow in every direc- tion. In the township of Leicester are three brooks whose sources are hardly more than two miles apart. The waters of one of them reach the ocean through the Blackstone River at Narragansett Bay. Those of another finally enter Long Island Sound at the mouth of the Connecticut River, a hundred miles distant from where its sister stream mingles its freshness with the salt sea. The third Leicester brook runs away to the southward into French River, and on through the Quinebaug and the Thames to the open ocean midway between the destinations of the neighbor brooklets in the Highlands.
The largest of the watersheds is that of the north and south branches of the Nashua River, which occupies the northern and northeastern county. The North Branch rises on the northern slopes and foothills of Mt. Wachusett, the South Branch on its eastern and southern slopes and nearby hills. The two unite at Lancaster, and the river flows north- ward to join the Merrimac at Nashua, in New Hampshire.
The northwestern area is drained by Millers River, which rises in the westerly vicinity of Wachusett and flows to the Connecticut River. Its southerly neighbor in the west county is the watershed of the Swift River, south of which is the Ware River country, and south of that the watershed of the Quabaug River. These three streams have their headwaters in the central Highlands and unite as the Chicopee River, which enters the Connecticut at the city of Chicopee.
The westerly and central portions of the south county constitute the watershed of the Quinebaug and French rivers, which come together in Connecticut as the Thames. The Blackstone River system drains a large area of the southeasterly territory of the county, its sources being in Lake Quinsigamond, and in the Asnebumskit country. The Charles River basin extends only into the one township of Milford. The other towns of the eastern border have the Sudbury River at the south and the Assabet River at the north, the two forming the Concord River which enters the Merrimac at Lowell.
7
GEOGRAPHY OF WORCESTER COUNTY
The Man-Made Lakes-Could an early settler of the Nipmuck Coun- try return to earth and stand on Mt. Wachusett or other eminence, he would demand: "Whence came all the water?" The county has many natural ponds, and a few of them were large in the beginning. Notable in this respect is Lake Chaubungungamaug in Webster and Dudley, whose name nowadays is often simplified to Webster Lake. Some of the original ponds remain as they always were. Others have been enlarged by the building of dams at their outlets, one such being Lake Quinsiga- mond in Worcester and Shrewsbury. But the greater number of ponds and lakes which dot the landscape are man-made. There are scores of mill ponds and reservoirs which supply the cities and towns with water.
Much the greatest of these is the Wachusett Reservoir, whose gigan- tic masonry dam at Clinton impounds the waters of the South Branch of the Nashua River. A lake is formed, more than eight miles in length, and covering six and a half square miles in the towns of Clinton, Boyl- ston and West Boylston. When full it stores sixty-five billion gallons, the run-off of a watershed of 105 square miles. Its waters enter a tun- nel sixteen feet in diameter, generate, in passing, four thousand horse- power of electric energy, emerge into an open aqueduct, and finally reach distributing reservoirs which supply the needs of the people and industries of the Metropolitan District of Boston. The Wachusett Dam closes a rocky gorge, and is 944 feet long and rises 114 feet above the ground level.
The irregular shore line of the reservoir measures thirty-seven miles. In all but a small part of this distance the adjacent land is covered with thick forest in which are tens of millions of trees, most of which were planted by the foresters of the Metropolitan District Water Supply Com- mission. During the twenty-five years since the basin was completed, the woodlands of much of the ten square miles of protective border land have grown to maturity. They form an impressive part of landscapes in which Mt. Wachusett and other summits of the Highlands are mirrored in the spreading reaches of the lake.
Here was an instance of the welfare of the many demanding the sacrifice of the interests of the relatively few. At the same time it brought about important geographic changes. Where now is the Wachusett Reservoir, there were, previous to the taking of the lands in the early 1890s, fertile farms and the thriving town of West Boylston. The old village still remains, but the business center of the town is now eighty feet under water. A granite-walled church, now a storehouse for tools and materials, stands at the water's edge, lifting its Gothic
8
WORCESTER COUNTY
tower as a reminder of the days when clustered about it were many comfortable homes.
The Metropolitan District has grown very rapidly in population, and still more rapidly in its demand for water. Its big reservoir no longer gave complete assurance of adequate supply in years of drought. Means had to be found for augmenting its sources. The next move was the taking of the flood waters of the Ware River, which flows in the valley beyond the high hills to the westward, and drains a watershed of ninety- eight square miles. A tunnel nearly thirteen feet in diameter was bored under the townships of Holden and Rutland-in the latter town a thousand feet below the surface-to Coldbrook, a little village in Barre, on the Oakham line. For twelve miles straight as an arrow the tunnel leads from its outlet in Oakdale to a shaft at Coldbrook, into which the Ware River waters pour from intake works, 205 feet down, to start on their way to Boston. Only flood waters may be taken, and these only from autumn to spring, but normally in that period, including the melt- ing of the snows, an immense quantity passes to the Wachusett Reser- voir. This supply became available in 1931. Coldbrook is another deserted village.
Swift River, an Inland Sea-These undertakings were on a scale sufficiently impressive. Many millions of dollars were spent on them. But they sink into insignificance when compared with the proposed Swift River Reservoir, which will extend for many miles along the western boundary of the county, and upon which preliminary work is already under way. It will be another unit in the chain of metropolitan water sources, and a tremendously bigger one.
Two dams of titanic proportions and lofty dykes will hold back the waters flowing from a watershed of 186 square miles. A lake will be created covering thirty-nine and a half square miles, and having a capac- ity of 410,000,000,000 gallons. It will be nearly seven times the size of Wachusett Reservoir. The recently completed tunnel to Coldbrook will be extended another twelve miles. The water level of the Swift River Reservoir will be 135 feet above that of Wachusett Reservoir. Therefore its waters will flow by gravity through the twenty-four miles of tunnel. At the outlet, a short distance up the Quinapoxet River from the Wachusett basin, a power station will convert this huge flow and 135-foot drop into electric energy.
A lake so vast, created artificially to cover a region which, though sparsely populated, has been nevertheless the abode of many people, is not easy to visualize. It will be as large as Narragansett Bay in Rhode
9
GEOGRAPHY OF WORCESTER COUNTY
Island, or as Lake Winnepesaukee in New Hampshire. It will inundate much of the township of Dana, and will encroach upon Petersham and Hardwick. The neighboring Hampshire township of Greenwich will be almost completely under water, and so will large areas of Enfield, Prescott and New Salem. Land will be taken not alone for the reser- voir itself. Surrounding territory of close to one hundred square miles will become the property of the Commonwealth. It will afford absolute protection against pollution. A large portion of these takings of land is not regarded as a necessity. But extensive areas will be worthless for any other purpose, and therefore will be included in the magnificently comprehensive plan of development.
The main body of Swift River Reservoir will lie on the county border. It will extend north and south for nearly twenty miles, from the north boundary of Ware Township to the southern border of Orange. Its maximum width will be about five miles. Its surface will be broken by islands, several of which will be of considerable size. Connected with this larger lake at the southern end and parallel to it, a narrow arm will stretch twelve miles to the northward. Between the two will be left a peninsula ten miles long and about three miles wide, which will be included in the protected lands.
In the Swift River country another exodus was demanded. Fortu- nately, very few manufacturing plants were involved, and there were great tracts of wild country. But also there were many farms, and these and several villages, including North Dana, had to disappear. Their business blocks, houses, churches, and cemeteries had to go. In the country the farm buildings were razed. On the nearly forty miles of land which is to be flowed, not even a blade of grass will remain, for the surface will be stripped down to bed rock and hard pan. Forest trees will be planted everywhere on surrounding lands. Years hence people will seek the western hills of Worcester County and gaze upon a mag- nificent panorama of water set in forests among the hills extending as far as the eye can reach.
Great Work of Conservation-In this age of intelligent conservation, the Swift River Reservoir and the preserved lands about it will have a very important influence upon the preservation of wild life. The ani- mals and birds will find a sanctuary the like of which in southern New England had never been dreamed of. The Wachusett Reservoir has already proved its great value in this respect, not only for the creatures which remain with us all the year round and the nesting birds, but as a stopping-off place in the spring and autumn bird migrations. This is
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WORCESTER COUNTY
particularly true of the waterfowl. Many thousands of geese and ducks and other aquatic birds in their long flights regularly seek its surface and shores, their instinct and experience teaching them that they are safe. Infinitely more valuable in this respect will be the Swift River Reservoir, for not only will it be very large, and always under the watchful eyes of wardens and forest guards, but it will be far removed from all large centers of population.
In other ways than in the creation of water supplies has the geog- raphy of Massachusetts been changed since the twentieth century came in. The work of reforestration alone has accomplished highly important results. The Commonwealth has established fourteen State forests in the county, with a total area of 10,000 acres. The Mt. Wachusett Res- ervation in Princeton, and the Purgatory Chasm Reservation in Sutton, maintained by the State, and the Doane's Falls Reservation in Royalston, maintained by the county, are similarly conserving and extending the woodlands, and so are the State Wild Life Sanctuaries of Little Wachusett Mountain and Mt. Watatic. The Forestry Department of Harvard University has a demonstration forest of 2,100 acres in Peter- sham. The movement has spread to the towns, many of which have their town forests, and particularly to private owners of land. Hundreds of thousands of saplings, chiefly white pine, are planted each season. These, coupled with a decreased cutting of the county woodlands for lumber and firewood, are tending to increase the proportion of forest- covered country.
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