USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Princeton > Celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Princeton, Mass., October 20th, 1859 : including the address of Hon. Charles Theodore Russell, the poem of Prof. Erastus Everett, and other exercises of the occasion > Part 2
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derness was never traversed by civilized man, until the expedition toward Connecticut, in 1635.
In 1643, Governor Winthrop again says, " At this court, Nashacowam and Wassamagoin, two sachems near the great hill to the west, called (Warehasset,) Wachusett, came into the court, and, according to their former tender to the Governor, desired to be received under our protec- tion and government, upon the same terms that Pomhom and Saconoco were ; so we, causing them to understand the articles, and all the ten commandments of God, and they, freely assenting to all, they were solemnly received, and ' then presented the court with twenty-six fathom more of wampum, and the court gave each of them a coat of two yards of cloth and their dinner; and to them and their men, every one of them a cup of sack at their departure ; so they took leave and went away very joyful."
At this time the Nipmucks owned and occupied most of the region now making the south part of Worcester County. How far their domain extended, and what were the precise relations between them and the Nashaways, who held the territory along the Nashua and about the Wachusett, is uncertain. The sachem of the latter was Sholan, or Shawman, who had his royal residence, if that term may be applied to a wigwam and corn patch, on the neck of land between the Washacums, in our sight to-day. To his barbaric dominion our territory was subject. During this year, upon his invitation, King and others of Watertown, purchased of him a tract ten miles by eight on the Nashua, and began the settlement of Lancaster. This preceded by many years any other town in Worcester County, and was for a half century the nearest settlement to Wachusett.
In February, 1676, the Indians of this region, among whom were those who had received the pious instruction of Eliot and Gookin, instigated by Philip, joined in the Narragansett war. Assembling in large numbers, they made the disastrous attack upon Lancaster, so familiar to
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us from the simple and touching narrative of Mrs. Row- landson. "After many weary steps," says this trusting Christian woman, returning from sufferings and wanderings in the wilderness, " we came to Wachusett." It would seem that she remained here with a body of Indians during the attack upon Sudbury, and she describes the pow-wow preliminary to that assault. After this, she says, three or four miles distant from the mountain, "they built a great wigwam, big enough to hold an hundred Indians, which they did in preparation to a great day of dancing." " They began now to come from all quarters against the merry dancing day." This is the first public celebration within the limits or vicinage of our town of which we have any history. For a curious account of the services, I must refer you to the lady's narrative.
Meantime, Mr. Hoar had come to secure her ransom, and we have a statement of some diplomatic social intercourse, which rather unfavorably reflects upon our Indian prede- cessors. "In the morning," says Mrs. Rowlandson, " Mr. Hoar invited the Sagamores to dinner; but when we went to get it ready, we found they had stolen the greater part of the provisions Mr. Hoar had brought, and we may see the wonderful power of God, in that one passage, in that when there was such a number of them together, and so greedy of a little good food, and no English there, but Mr. Hoar and myself, that it was a wonder they did not knock us on the head, and take what we had."
Here the Indians called their General Court which finally consented to release Mrs. Rowlandson.
Shortly after, the General Court of the Province, sent Seth Perry as a special messenger to them, and by him a letter addressed to "The Sagamore about Wachusetts, Phillip, John, Sam, Washaken, old Queen and Pomhom." It would seem from this that Mr. Hoar brought letters from them, suing for peace, for it speaks of receiving their · letters, and adds, " In your letter to us you say you desire not to be hindered by our men in your planting, promising
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not to do damage to our towns. If you will send us home all the English prisoners, it will be a great testimony of a true heart in you to peace."
The same year, in a letter to the Council at Hartford, the General Court say, that it was their intention to have left a sufficient garrison at Sudbury and Marlboro', and " have drawn their forces to visit, had it been feasible, the head- quarters of the enemy at Wachusetts ;" but divine Provi- dence ordered it that their forces " by weakness and wants could not attayne that end." They add, we " hope by the first of June to be out with five hundred horse and foot and Indians, on the visiting of the ennemye's headquarters at Wachusetts, taking it in the march to Hadley."
At this time, beyond doubt, our town was the head- quarters of the hostile Indians.
In 1681, Mr. Stoughton and Joseph Dudley were ap- pointed by the Court to negotiate with the Nipmucks for their territory. In February of the next year they report that they have purchased of black James, one tract for thirty pounds and a coat, and for fifty pounds, another tract fifty miles long and twenty wide. "The northern part towards Wachusett " they say "is still unpurchased, and persons yet scarcely to be found meet to be treated with thereabouts."
Four years later, Henry Willard, Joseph Rowlandson, Joseph Foster, Benjamin Willard and Cyprian Stevens made the purchase of Puagastion, Pompamamey, Wananapan, Sassawannow and Qualipunit of " a certain tract of lands, Medows, Swamps, Timbers, Etervils, containing twelve miles square," and known as Naquag. For this they paid twenty-three pounds-which is much higher than the Prov- ince paid for the Nipmuck territory, four years before. Although the price is but eighty cents a square mile, it seems to have been quite up to the market, as fixed by the sale of " adjoining lots." How the grantees discovered the title of these Indian grantors, which escaped the vigilance . of the Provincial Commissioners, or what the title was
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does not appear. The savages backed their title with very ample covenants of seizin, and set their marks to warranties of the strongest form.
This purchase included what is now Rutland, Hubbard- ston, Barre, Oakham, a part of Paxton, and the larger half of Princeton. Its northerly line ran nearly a mile north of where we are now assembled, across the whole of the town, to " Greate Wachusett," excluding, however, that mountain. The Indian deed was probably worthless till confirmed by the General Court, and it seems to have been so regarded. We hear nothing of it from its date till 1713. During the intervening period, the Indians possessed or frequented the territory. As late as 1704, an attack was made upon Lancaster, and the Church burnt, and in 1707 ' the Indian fight, as it is called, occurred in Sterling. Occasional ruptures and murders continued up to 1710.
As late as 1725, Capt. Brintnall was ordered to surround and protect with his company, the meadows in Rutland, while the farmers gathered their hay.
In 1714, the General Court, upon the application of the sons and grandsons of Maj. Simon Willard, and others, con- firmed to them the land described in the Indian deed, pro- vided there should be sixty families settled thereon in seven years, and " sufficient lands reserved for the use of a gospel minister and school." On the 14th of April of that year, the proprietors held their first meeting, and the Indian deed was put upon record. In 1716, six miles square, constitu- ting the present town of Rutland, was set off for the settlers required by the condition of the confirmation, and meas- ures taken to secure them. The other portions of the ter- ritory were soon after divided into wings or quarters. Of these the east wing constitutes the southerly and larger part of Princeton.
There are three plans of this Naquag or Rutland pur- chase, on file in the archives of the Commonwealth, at the State House. The last is a very accurate one, presented by Rev. Thomas Prince and others, a committee of the propri-
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etors, on the occasion of asking the grant of a land tax in 1749. Upon this the several wings or quarters are all laid down. The east wing is a parallelogram nearly, all its lines being perfectly straight, the east and west each eleven hun- dred and fifty rods, the south sixteen hundred and ninety rods, and the north sixteen hundred rods. Its area varies somewhat on these and the later plans, a fact not surprising in those days of liberal allowance " for sags of the chain." It contained about eleven thousand and seven hundred acres, and the north line separating it from the Province lands, then unsurveyed and extending far beyond, ran straight from the south-east corner of what was subsequently known as the letter M lot, to the extreme south-west edge of Wa- chusett. The Meeting-House Hill was then called Turkey Hill, and this line ran along the depression between the two , Wachusetts, where the road now passes.
This tract remained in common, neither surveyed nor explored, until 1718, when it was divided by the proprietors into forty-eight farms, of two hundred and thirty-seven acres each. At this time there were thirty-three propri- etors, and at a meeting in Boston, November 5, of that year, one of these farms was assigned to each by lot. The three meadow lots, Pout Water, Wachusett, and Dead Meadow, were reserved for common use. Twelve lots, marked by letters from A to M, were also reserved, eleven for the proprietors, the other "for the first ordained minister of Rutland." The full list of the proprietors, with the lot of each, is recorded in their records.
The lettered lots were owned in common until September 24th, 1734, when, at a meeting. of the proprietors at the Royal Exchange Tavern, Boston, these lots, together with the "gores and gussets," as the records have it, were divided. At the same meeting, it was voted that sixty-three acres "in lot No. A, (this included the Meeting-House Hill,) not having been set off to any of the proprietors, by reason of the brokenness of it, be granted to Rev. Mr. Thomas Prince, in consideration of the great care and labor he has
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taken in calculating and computing the divisions above mentioned, and other good services performed to the proprietors."
In November, 1736, the Wachusett, Pout Water and Dead Meadow lots were divided, in the division, one acre of meadow being "valued as three acres of upland." Thus, the whole territory became subdivided and passed to indi- viduals. Of these the Rev. Mr. Prince, as the proprietor of five shares, was the largest owner, although he does not appear to have been a proprietor at the division in 1718. Probably still further purchases were made by him before 1759.
The northerly and remaining portion of the town, comprising at its incorporation, seven thousand two hun- dred and eighty-three acres, is composed of several dis- tinct grants, the history of which time does not permit me to give in detail. The largest and most important was made to the towns of Weston and Watertown. Its circumstances and date have been inaccurately stated heretofore, as I find by the original documents, to which I have recently had access.
In 1651, Watertown, then embracing Weston, was involved in a controversy with Sudbury, as to boundaries, which the General Court settled in favor of Sudbury. At the same time it passed an order that " Water Toune shall have two thousand ackers of land laid out nere Assabeth River, in respect of such land as was wanting to them, which was granted them formerly by this Court to be the bounds of their toune."
For some reason, this grant never took effect, or was never located. In 1728, Watertown and Weston, which had then been incorporated, petitioned to have it revived; and in June of that year, the General Court granted to those towns two thousand acres, to be located in any unappropriated lands of the Province. In November it was selected, sur- veyed, and a plan returned to the General Court. In this it is described as "in the unappropriated land, joining to the
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Great Watchusett Hill, bounded south.westerly by Rutland line of their township, every other way by Province land." This tract ran on Rutland line eight hundred and forty rods, or a little more than two and a half miles. Its lines are all strait except the west, which is very daintily deflected to exclude the mountain, and at the same, include all the valuable land at its base. Wachusett was no favorite with the land seekers, who alike closed their inhospitable lines against it, thrusting it into cold exclusion, till some enter- prising surveyor should bring it in, by a gigantic sag of the chain, or some masterly deduction.
This tract, commencing at a point on the line of Rutland East Wing, a little south-easterly of the Whitney Hill, ex- tended to East Princeton, including a part of that village, and thence over, or to the north of Pine Hill, to the base of Wachusett, and thence along this to the Rutland line. It was known as the Watertown Farm, and is usually so' called in public documents of the time. It was sold by the towns to proprietors, and by them divided into farms of equal value.
Another large grant of fifteen hundred acres was made to Thomas Plaisted. This tract is usually called the Pot- ash Farm, in the public records. When granted, or for what purpose, I have been unable to ascertain as yet. It seems that Plaisted did not fulfill the conditions of the grant, for in 1760, the General Court directed William Richardson to demand of Timothy Mosman possession of the "fifteen hundred acres granted Plaisted on certain condi- tions which were not fulfilled by him." In 1761, they sent a committee to prevent and prosecute the encroachments of Lancaster upon this farm-that town, then including Ster- ling, claiming some part of it to be within her bounds. In 1762, an attempt was made to sell this, a farm of eighty acres west of it, and the Wachusett, at auction, putting them up at a limited minimum price. The same year, Ezra Taylor, as a committee, came up and run the lines of the Potash Farm, and reported that he found the most valuable
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part of the timber cut, and adds, " I can't find out any person who has done it, except one Timothy Mosman, who was then in possession."
In 1764, the General Court, on the last day of its session, granted the farm to Gen. Timothy Ruggles, the speaker, " in testimony of their grateful sense of the important ser- vices he rendered his country during the late war."
Besides these larger, there were various grants to indi-
. viduals. In 1729, three hundred acres to Rev. Joseph Willard, of Rutland, and two hundred to Benjamin Muzzy. In 1732, four hundred to Rev. Benjamin Allen, and two hundred, in 1733, to Joseph Stevens, and one hundred and twenty to Joshua Wilder, Jr., in 1743. There were also the Blagrow and the Mayhew farms, and there was included in the town at the incorporation, a considerable area of Province land, of which the mountain was part.
As early as 1734, some votes were passed by the Rutland proprietors, in reference to " bringing forward settlements in the East Wing," but none were made. The first settle- ment in Princeton was not upon this territory, nor upon the Watertown farm, but by an enterprising pioneer upon a grant he obtained from the Province. This settlement, I think, from evidence in my possession, must have been made three or four years later than has been supposed. Joshua Wilder, Jr., has been generally understood to have been the first settler. He was the grandson of Capt. Nathaniel Wilder, of Lancaster, a man of some celebrity in his time, and grandson of the elder Nathaniel, who was killed in one of the Indian attacks upon that town. He commenced, and for many years occupied, the farm more recently owned by the late Peabody Houghton, and has been generally stated to have settled there as early as 1739. But I find on the files at the State House, a petition from him to the General Court at the May session in 1742, wherein he sets forth, " That the distance between Lan- caster and a new town called Nichewaug is about twenty- five miles. That about ten miles west of Lancaster Meet-
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ing-House there is a track of Province land, which contains about one hundred and twenty acres, lying between land formerly granted to Mr. Plaisted and Allen, and a farm called Blagrows farm, which lys out of the bounds of any Town."
" That your petitioner, though a poor man, yet he humbly apprehends he hath the character of an Honest and Laborious man, and is minded to settle himself and family thereon."
" That, therefore, he is very desirous of obtaining a grant of said land on such conditions as may be consistent with your Excellency's and Honorable wisdom, on as easy terms as may be, and should he obtain it, he apprehends it would be of great service to people travelling from Lancaster to the new towns now settling westward, to have a house to depart to in their travelling."
Upon this petition, the General Court, April 7th, 1743, ordered that the land be granted, provided the petitioner " does within one year have a good and convenient house built thereon for the accommodation of Travellers, and . have ten acres thereof cleared and brought to English grass or plowing within four years, and that he dwell thereon with his family, or have one other good family dwell thereon."
This grant must have been the farm on which Wilder set- tled. If so, he came here in 1743, and not 1739. I presume this was the first settlement in town, and such would be the natural inference from the statements of Wilder's peti- tion, and the reasons and conditions upon which the grant was made. Nishewaug, Petersham, was being settled at this time, and from its frontier and exposed situation, was an object of interest to the government, and it is stated by the historian of Worcester County, that "there were no settled towns nearer than Lancaster on the east, and Rut. land to the south-east, and Brookfield to the south, except a few new settlers in Hardwick." The first settlement of our town had thus something of public interest about it,
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and was in aid of the pioneer emigrants to the then nearest West.
Mr. Wilder occupied his farm till after the incorporation, when, having lost his property by a speculation in cattle for the supply of the army in Canada, he sold out and removed to Cold Spring, now Belchertown, where he died in 1762.
The next settler, and the first in the Rutland part, was Abijah Moore, who began the farm, now occupied by Major Joseph A. Read, in 1750. Here Mr. Moore, who subsequently became a leading man in town and church, shortly after opened a tavern, the first in the place, unless Mr. Wilder's wilderness station had that character. Prob- ably both had reference to the same wants of settlers beyond.
The third inhabitant was Mr. Cheever, who occupied the Cobb Farm, in the southerly part of the East Wing. The next settlement was in the extreme north-west, between Wachusett and the pond, on the farm more recently occupied by Luther Goodnow. This was made by Robert Keyes, who came there from Shrewsbury. I think it quite probable Mr. Keyes was connected with the first settler by marriage, as Mr. Wilder's wife was the daughter of Major John Keyes of Shrewsbury.
These early settlements were in opposite extremes of the town. Each was distant from its nearest neighbor " some two miles, and two double that. Two were in Rut- land, and two upon Province land, not in any town or district.
Mr. Keyes was somewhat noted as a hunter, and this character may have guided his choice of a locality in the woods, under the Wachusett. His settlement became more notorious than the others, by the fact that, shortly after, he lost a daughter, who strayed into the woods, following her older sisters who had gone to the neighboring pond. The country, for many miles round, was rallied to search the forest for her, and the pond was dragged; but no traces
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or tidings of her were ever had. It was generally believed then and since that she was carried off by Indians.
I have recently found upon the files of the General Court, a petition from Mr. Keyes, presented in 1765, in which he says, that "in ye year of 1755 he lost one of his children, and was supposed to be taken by the Indians and carried to Canada. When it was first lost, it was appre- hended to be in the woods, wandering about, and your petitioner was at great cost and trouble in searching the woods for it, but to no good purpose ; after this, he hears that it was at Canada, and that he could get further infor- mation thereof at Porch Mouth, in New Hampshire ; on hearing that he went there, and also sent to Canada after- wards. He advertised said child in the New York papers ; upon that he had an account of such child being among the Mohawks, and determined to go after his child last Fall, but has hitherto been prevented by reason of sickness and deaths in his family. And the loss he hath been at in searching for said child hath been so great, being about one hundred pounds lawful money, that he is not able to bear it, being in a new plantation; and as there is within sixty rods of his door some Province land lying on ye Watchusetts hill, which would be some advantage to him, providing he could have it; therefore, your petitioner humbly prays this Honorable Court to take his case in your compassionate consideration, and make him a grant of ye easterly half of said Wachusett hill."
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The only record I find in regard to this petition is the indorsement "negatived," in the handwriting of the Sec- retary. It is interesting, however, as the father's account of the searches for his lost daughter. The probabilities are this child perished in the woods or pond.
The settlements subsequent to 1751, must have been rapid. The next in time was that of Oliver Davis, upon Clark Hill, near the present line of Hubbardston. Mr. Davis was a man of enterprise, as well as mechanical skill, and having purchased a tract of one thousand acres, partly
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in this town and partly in Hubbardston, he built the first saw and grist mill in this immediate region, near where the Valley Village Mills now stand.
In June, 1758, there were thirty families in town, as appears by the petition of Benjamin Houghton and others, -then presented for an act of incorporation. In addi- tion, there must have been some score or two of hard- handed yeomen, hewing away with might and main at the primeval forest, to get a clearing and a log house, for the blushing helpmeet they instantly thereupon, every one of them, intended to bring behind him, on a pillion, to these sylvan shades and this mountain home. Why, the dullest ear in the woods could have detected every man chop- ping under these tender circumstances, by the quicker stroke and merrier ring of his axe, or the smarter or more fantastic whistle following each crash that took one from the obstacles between him and his happiness, while in the distant towns below, hearts watched as anxiously for tidings of " the men about the Watchusetts," as did ever Governor Leverett and his General Court, in the days of , " Sagamore Philip, John, Sam, Washaken, Old Queen and Pomhom."
Excellent notions had the sons as well as the fathers, in those days : First freedom; then an axe ; then a clearing ; then a house ; then a wife to make it home; a bible to make it Christian; honest loving labor to give it comfort, and thenceforth every thing went as regular as clock- work, from the care of the dairy to the christening of the children.
That a goodly number of these single men were here, is indicated by the fact that seventy-four names of persons, who represent themselves as "proprietors and inhabitants," appear upon the papers connected with the incorporation, while there were but thirty families.
Many of you may be surprised to learn, that the incor- poration was not obtained until after a severe and pro- tracted struggle of more than a year, between the North
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and South, or in modern language, of quite a sectional character. I have recently found most of the documents which this struggle originated, and they furnish much valuable information in regard to the town at that period.
June 8, 1758, Benjamin Houghton and others, residents of the Farms, and the northerly part of the Wing, presented a petition, praying that "certain farms near the great Watchusetts Hill, and contiguous to Rutland East Wing, containing a track of about six miles by three, together with the East Wing of Rutland, containing about a like quantity, upon which there are about thirty families already settled, be erected into a township." Upon this petition leave was granted to bring in a bill; but nothing more was done until the next session, in January 1759. A petition was then presented by Eliphalet Howe and others, inhabi- · tants of the East Wing, praying that the Wing alone, might be made a town. Upon this petition the Council ordered notice, but the House summarily dismissed it, and with it the previous one of Houghton.
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