USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Grafton > History of Grafton, Worcester county, Massachusetts, from its early settlement by the Indians in 1647 to the present time, 1879. Including the genealogies of seventy-nine of the older families > Part 5
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December 25, 1733 .- Charles Brigham, David Herring- ton, Ebenezer Wheeler, were chosen collectors.
January 16, 1734 .- Voted, to raise forty pounds to defray the necessary charge which effects the farmers as well as the proprietors. Col. John Chandler, of Worcester, Samuel Chandler, of Concord, and Jonathan Rice, of Sudbury, were chosen a committee to make Hassanamisco a town,
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RECORDS.
their expenses to be paid out of the public treasury. At this time the treasurer's account was rendered, and the amount raised was £1,043.
June 16, 1734 .- Nehemiah How, John Sherman, Phincas Rice, were chosen a committee to discourse with Mr. Pren- tice respecting his salary.
September 12, 1734 .- Voted, to give Mr. Prentice twenty pounds as a consideration of the value of bills of credit sinking. Voted, to raise one hundred and twenty pounds of bills of credit, as they now pass from man to man, to pay Mr. Prentice's salary.
November 26, 1734 .- Thomas Pratt, John Sherman, John Hunt, were chosen collectors. Nathaniel Sherman, Joseph Willard, Thomas Pratt, were chosen a committee to stake out a burying-place or field. Isaac Temple, Richard Tay- lor, Samuel Stow, were chosen to examine the school-house and see if it was built according to the order of the General Conrt. The two first collectors chosen refused to serve, and John Warring and Samuel Hall were chosen in their place to fill vacancies.
January 28, 1735 .- The committee chosen to set out the land for the burying-place, were directed to stake out three acres, if to be found, and report.
" In the House of Representatives, April ye 17, 1735 :
ORDERED, that Mr. Thomas Pratt, one of ye prisable in- habitants of the new town lately made, at the plantation called Hassanamisco, in ye County of Worcester, be, and hereby is, fully authorized and empowered to assemble the freeholders and other qualified voters to make choice of town officers, to stand until the anniversary meeting in March next.
Sent up for concurrence.
J. QUINCY, Speaker.
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HISTORY OF GRAFTON.
In Council, April ye 18, 1735 :
Read and concurred.
T. MASON, Dep. Sect'y.
A true copy. Consented to.
J. BELCHER.
Examined.
THAD. MASON, Dep. Sect'y."
January 11, 1736 .- The committee chosen to confer with Capt. Elisha Johnson in relation to the two bridges over the Blackstone River, reported they accepted the said bridges, and received one bond for fifty pounds in behalf of the said proprietors. The report was accepted.
December 28, 1736 .- Isaac Temple was chosen collector. John Sherman, Samuel Stow, Phineas Rice, were chosen a committee to take charge of the highways and lay out any that were necessary.
The following is a copy of a deed from the proprietors' committee, chosen to lay out the lands, to an individual proprietor :-
" MARCH 29, 1729.
Laid out for Samuel Brigham two acres and one hundred and twenty-six rods of land in Hassanamisco, for allowance for a highway through said Brigham land. It lies in the lower end of the swamp, which is next to Drury's farm. It bounds northeasterly by the river, southwesterly partly by the river, southeast and northeasterly by common. It begins at a stake at the river by the north side of a spring hole that runs into said river, and runs east thirty deg. north twenty rods to a stake, then north thirty deg. west
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RECORDS. 61
twenty rods, and then it runs by said river mostly to where it first began.
Surveyed by
JONAS HOUGHTON.
This part allowed for a highway.
THOMAS PRATT, JOSEPH WILLARD,
Committee.
A true copy from the Proprietors' Records.
Attest.
THADDEUS READ, Proprietor's Clerk."
We now come to the period when this place became a town under its present name. The act of incorporation put the inhabitants under the same obligations to support school- ing and preaching, free of charge for the Indians, which the original proprietors had been under, and when the property was conveyed to the town it was npon condition that the town should relieve the proprietors from their obligations to the trustees for the Indians .* But the bond for that pur- pose was not given until 1773,f or nearly thirty-five years after the property was conveyed to the town. There is too much reason to fear that this unaccountable and inexcusable neglect is indicative of the loose manner in which the busi- ness relating to the Indians was generally conducted. Unfortunately the record in relation to the Indians is not altogether such as we could desire, though perhaps the State authorities are more at fault than the officers of the town. The price paid for the land, £2,500, was held by trustees appointed by the State, in trust for the Indians. Of this sum, which the State received in gold and silver coin, $1,330.89 were lost by substituting therefor depreciated paper currency in 1745. Between the years 1772 and 1796, the trustees having permitted one of their number to become indebted to the fund, on his own personal obligation,
* Proprietors' Records, p. 91. t Ibid., p. 141.
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HISTORY OF GRAFTON.
to the amount of $1,327.493, this suni was lost. And then prior to July, 1841, the small remnant of the fund, together with some that had been added by sale of other land, was invested in " such securities that neither principal nor inter- est was ever paid." It certainly seems as if the descendants of these Indians have good ground of complaint against somebody.
There is a tradition in reference to the first white man who spent a winter in the town. I have not learned either the name of the man, or the time when he was here,* but he is said to have come from Marlborough for the purpose of wintering some cattle upon the hay which had been cut from the meadows in what is known as " The Farms."t His hut was built near the present residence of Mr. Seth J. Axtell, and under the shelter of a large rock, which is plainly visi- ble from the road. And now that I am speaking of the first white man owning land, and of the first white man spending a winter here, it will be of interest to know that the mother of the first white child born here lies in the old burying ground. A few years since Capt. Benjamin Kings- bury cleared off the old tombstone, and learned from the inscription upon it that Mrs. Martha Willard was the wife of Major Joseph Willard, and the mother of the first white child born in town; that she died June 3, 1794, in the 100th year of her age, leaving twelve children, ninety grandchildren, two hundred and twenty-six great-grand- children, and fifty-three of the fifth generation. Some of the latter, as well as of the sixth and seventh generations, and probably of the eighth, are still living in town, and more are scattered elsewhere. So far the command to "be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth," was fulfilled in her case.
The course pursued by the proprietors shows that they
* Rev. E. Frank Howe's Oration, pp. 11, 12.
t This district derives its name from the fact that it was originally the farm of a single proprietor.
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PETITION.
held their land, particularly the low swamp land, at a most extravagant estimate. They were continually haunted with fears that they should not have land enough; and that the time would soon come when no more could be obtained. It was, therefore, an object with all to get as much within their grasp as possible ; and he who had the most meadow or swamp land thought he had the best farm, and gloried in the idea that he should be able to leave so valuable an in- heritance to his children. Nor did they place a less value on their wood. The very first year of the settlement, when the place was comparatively a wilderness, a committee was appointed to prevent the cutting of wood and timber on the common lands, as though their value would thereby be diminished, or the interests of the proprietors injured !
In 1738, Samuel Chandler and others petitioned the Gen- eral Court, styling themselves " a committee for and in the behalf of the original proprietors of Hassanamisco," and asking that they be released from their bond to maintain preaching and schooling for the Indians. The following year, December, 1739, the town sent in a petition, through their attorney, William Brattle, Esq., of Boston, as fol- lows :-
" To His Excellency JONATHAN BELCHER, Esq., Captain Gen- eral and Governor-in-Chief, to the Honorable His Majesty's Council and House of Representatives, in General Court assembled, the 15th of December, 1739.
The petition of the proprietors and the town of Grafton sheweth that on the 30th of May last there was a petition preferred to this honorable court, signed by Samuel Chand- ler and others, as they styled themselves a committee for and in the behalf of the original proprietors of Hassa- namisco, complaining of said town for that they prefer to remove the Indians out of their seats, etc. Wherefore they
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HISTORY OF GRAFTON.
pray that they may be released from their bond to main- tain preaching and sehooling for the Indians. As to which petition the proprietors and town of Grafton beg leave to say: That said committee was chose a year and a half ago, not to complain of the town as they have done, but upon another affair, and therefore they had no right so to do, doing it of their own hands, and not 'probond' that they therein acted the minds of the proprietors of the town of Grafton. That as soon as the proprietors heard what the committee had done, they called a meeting and dismissed said committee, and on the 20th of last October voted that the petition should be withdrawn (by the court's leave), as by the report. By which the said proprietors and town do not by any means propose to hurt the Indians or original proprietors, but are sincerely desirous that both may be served, and that all the good ends and purposes designed by the General Court, relating to the Indians, might be fully answered.
Wherefore the town of Grafton, December 3d, voted that they would forever hereafter perform and accomplish all and singular, the obligations which the first proprietors were bound to, respecting the maintenance of preaching and schooling for the Indians, and that they would do both for them and their posterity forever, without their being put to the least cost or charge. The case being thus, it appears plain to a demonstration that your petitioners have no desire to evade the foree of any act or order, made in favor of the Indians, but are desirous that the town might have that bur- den laid upon them, which at present lays upon the original grantees, and that they may be under the severest penalties if they do not, in any punctilio, perform their duty to the Indians, both for their souls and bodies. As to the contro- versy between the old proprietors and the new, or between the proprietors and the town, respecting pews, this is a mat- ter respecting property, and therefore only cognizable in the common law courts. There are two questions arising :
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PETITION.
First .- Whether this honorable court will sustain the petition of Mr. Chandler and others any longer, or aet any- thing further upon it ? Your petitioners apprehend you will not, because they are dismissed from acting as a com- mittee, and that as soon as the proprietors knew of their petitioning in their names, and on their behalf, they legally met and voted that with the court's leave the petition should be withdrawn, though both old and new proprietors and town are desirous that the former may be discharged of their bonds as aforesaid.
The second question is, whether it will not answer every good, and as well, if not better for the town, to take all that upon themselves which were enjoined the first pro- prietors ? Your petitioners apprehend, in the first place, that it may prevent contention between the town proprie- tors and Indians, which ought always to be left off before it be meddled with. Secondly .- The town are as able to per- form said obligation as the proprietors, and it seems most natural that since they lived upon the spot and owned the lands themselves, that they should perform the obligations that were annexed to the land, or rather sprang from it, and should the town fail in their duty, it is more easy to oblige them to do it than it is a number of scattered proprietors, all over this province. Since, then, it is the united desire of the old proprietors, the new proprietors and the town of Grafton, that the burden laid npon the former might be taken off from their shoulders and put upon the latter, your petitioners pray that the bonds given by the old proprietors may be cancelled, and that the town might do and peform all that was enjoined said proprietors, and as in duty bound shall ever pray.
WM. BRATTLE, Attorney."
The following petition was presented to the General Conrt by Ebenezer Cutler, Obadiah Newton, Noah Brooks,
9
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HISTORY OF GRAFTON.
David Reed, inhabitants of Shrewsbury ; Amos Davis, Sut- ton ; Thomas Pratt, Joseph Willard, Charles Brigham, Abner Stow, selectmen of Grafton ; Joseph Willard, Aaron Hardy, Ebenezer Brooks, of Grafton, and owners of the land referred to below, and granted November 28, 1741 :-
" To His Excellency WILLIAM SHIRLEY, Esq., Captain Gen -. eral and Commander-in-Chief in and over His Majesty's Province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England.
To the Honorable His Majesty's Council and House of Representatives, in General Court assembled.
The petition of Ebenezer Cutler and sundry other inhab- itants of Shrewsbury, in Worcester County, in New Eng- land, Amos Davis, of Sutton, in conjunction with the town of Grafton, humbly sheweth. May it please your Excel- lency and Honorables : Whereas, upon consideration of the great distance some of your petitioners subscribed hereunto dwell from the place of publick worship in the respective towns they belong nnto, we, the inhabitants of Shrewsbury, made our application to said town praying that they would consider our case and vote us off from them, that we might be in a way to get annexed with the town of Grafton, nigh unto which we dwell, and with great conveniency can attend the public worship of God there, and accordingly do, and have done, almost ever since it has been maintained, there being nothing abated in our dues or taxes at Shrewsbury, which prayer the town was pleased to grant, as appears of record on the town records at Shrewsbury.
Your petitioners therefore humbly pray, together with the town of Grafton, that your petitioners, with their lands, ac- cording to the vote and procedure of the town of Shrews- bury, as also all that strip or point of Sutton lands that lay between said Shrewsbury and Grafton, which is about two miles and a half from Grafton meeting-house, and about
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SLAVERY IN TOWN.
eight miles from Sutton, on which only Amos Davis lives, the chief of which is now possessed by said Davis and the inhabitants of Grafton, who are also petitioners and sub- scribers hereunto, or as much thereof as this honorable court, in their great wisdom, shall see meet, may be taken off from Shrewsbury and Sutton and annexed to Grafton, which will exceedingly commodate us and lay us under the strongest obligations of gratitude and obedience. And your petitioners, with the greatest alacrity, as in duty bound, shall ever pray, etc."
Some will undoubtedly be surprised to learn that negro slavery ever existed in this town ; yet such is the fact. At what time slaves were first brought here is not known ; but in 1756, six of the eighty-eight slaves, of sixteen years of age and upwards, then belonging to the County of Worces- ter, were owned by persons resident here. As this was the period when slaves were the most numerous in Massachu- setts, it is probable that this number did not afterwards in- crease. Two or three of these slaves went into the service in the French war ; and one of them acted as trumpeter, in which art he is said to have excelled.
After the close of the French war, another period of prosperity followed. This town, like the rest of New Eng- land, gradually recovered from the shock it then received. Canada was conquered, and peace was established. The fears which had so long been entertained from that quarter ceased to be felt ; and the whole people appeared to enjoy a security that they had never before realized. Their atten- tion was again turned to the cultivation of the soil, and the development of their own resources. Agriculture in- creased; manufactures received a new impulse ; and com- merce again revived. But in this period of repose, they did not forget the art of war. The new race of soldiers, then growing up, imbibed the military spirit which constant war had so long cherished. This was but an armistice,
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HISTORY OF GRAFTON.
during which the people recovered from former losses and misfortunes, and made preparations for the emergency, soon to arrive, when they were to meet in deadly conflict with those whom, before, they had called upon for aid and pro- tection.
The course pursued by the British government towards the colonies, produced a strong and universal feeling of dis- content ; and the early and manly resistance of the people of Boston to aggression, met with the approbation of the people throughont the Province. In the great contest, which severed this country from the British dominions, the people of this town were not idle spectators, but felt in it a strong and deep interest. The losses and sufferings endured in the French war were still fresh in their memories; yet this did not serve to abate their spirit, but made them more tenacious of their rights, and caused them to place a higher value on their privileges.
In 1765, there were fourteen Indians in town. This num- ber gradually diminished ; but it was not till about 1825 that the " last of the Nipmucks " ceased to exist. They received their yearly income from their fund in the month of May,. at which time they usually had a joyous holiday. Blankets, psalters and psalm-books, were distributed among them, as well as money.
In 1830, there were fourteen of a mixed Indian and negro race, which still held some of the Indian lands and received the benefit of the small remaining fund.
From 1773 nothing of peculiar importance occurred in the civil history of the town for a number of years. It continued gradually to increase in wealth and population. The enterprising character of its inhabitants, united with an untiring industry, soon erected for them convenient dwel- lings, and brought into view, on every side, cultivated fields, and each one enjoyed to the fullest extent the benefit of his labors, and seeined almost to realize his fondest hope-that of being the owner of a large and well cultivated farm.
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GRAFTON ROAD.
The people were no longer contented merely with the neces- saries, but began to seek for the luxuries of life. The log hnt disappeared ; and the spacions fire-place, and the almost fathomless oven, were found in every man's habitation.
This state of prosperity continued till the beginning of the Revolutionary war, when again, as at the time of the French war, the population diminished, and a season of reverses followed.
The following is a copy of a petition relative to the lay- ing out of the "Grafton road," so called, from Grafton to Upton, August 25, 1764 :-
" WORCESTER, SS.
Anno Regni Regis Georgi Ye Secundus Magna Brit- tanne Framecae et Hiberniea Quarto.
At a Court of General Sessions of the Peace, held at Wor- cester, within and for the County of Worcester, on the third Tuesday of August, being the 25th day of said month, Anno Domini 1764.
The committee appointed at the last session, upon the petition of sundry persons, inhabitants of the town of Men- don, to lay out a county road from Grafton to Mr. Peter Holbrook's mill, in Upton, by the house of Samuel War- rins to Ebenezer Wheeler's, etc., made report to this court that pursuant to their orders they notified all persons inter- ested, and having met, and after a full hearing viewed, marked, and laid out said road, as follows: Beginning at Peter Holbrook's mill, at Upton, at a large rock the north - erly side of said road, then as the fence now stands to a causeway between the said mill and the house of John Hewzeltine, Esq .; thence as the fence now stands to a heap of stones near said Hewzeltine's; bourne thence to a heap of stones by a stone wall; and thence as the wall now stands to a maple tree marked in David Wood's land ; thence to a small poplar ; thence to a heap of stones on a rock to a
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HISTORY OF GRAFTON.
heap of stones to the northerly side of said Wood's house; thence to a walnut ; thence to an oak ; thence to a white oak ; thence to a wall in Grafton ; thence to an oak ; thence to an oak ; thence to an oak in Hezekiah Ward's land ; thence to a maple ; then to a walnut; then to a white oak; then to a black oak ; then to a heap of stones; then to a black oak, west side of said Ward's honse, to a large rock in the wall ; then turning out of the town road more westerly, to a heap of stones on a large rock; then to a red oak, near the line of said Ward's and Benjamin Thurston's land, to a walnut ; to a heap of stones; to a heap of stones; to stones on a rock ; to a heap of stones; to a black oak; to stones round a small white oak bush on the Indian burying-place ; then to a white oak; then to a small oak ; then to a small blaek oak; then to a white oak; then to an oak; then to a black oak in Joseph Goodale's land ; then to a black oak; then to a heap of stones between Joseph Goodale and Ebenezer Wheeler's land; then to a heap of stones on a rock ; then to a heap of stones by the corner of said Wheeler's stone wall; then to a heap of stones near said Wheeler's house ; then running by the south side of said Wheeler's corn-house into the town road, and from thence in the town road until it meets the county road, near the house of Josialı Rawson in the said road, to be three rods wide except from the causeway between Peter Holbrook's and John Hewzeltine, Esq.'s, barn-yard, to be but two rods wide ; and also one other piece of said road, between Ebenezer Wheeler's house and Hezekiah Taylor's house, to be as the fence now stands, and the above marks and bounds are all on the northerly side of said road, as by said report on file appears. Read and ac- cepted, and ordered that the road aforesaid, as laid out and described by said committee, be -- and after known for a publick highway.
The said committee further report, that having considered and estimated the damages the several persons sustain by
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GRAFTON ROAD.
having said road laid through their land, exeepting such as have freely given the same, as follows, viz. :-
To Benjamin Thurston, sixteen pounds.
" Joseph Goodale, three pounds.
" Ebenezer Wheeler, eight pounds.
Total, twenty-seven pounds.
It is therefore further ordered, that the town of Grafton pay the aforesaid sums to the said Benjamin Thurston, Joseph Goodale and Ebenezer Wheeler, in full for the dam- ages sustained by them, by means of said road being laid ont through their lands .*
TIMOTHY PAINE, Clerk.
Signed by
BENJA. THURSTON, JR."
1April 10, 1758 .- Ebenezer Wheeler, Jr., enlisted to go to Canada, and on the 23d he marched to Worcester, and returned home on the 5th of November.
April 2, 1759 .- Ebenezer and Jonathan Wheeler enlisted to go to Canada ; on the 10th they marched for the Lake; Jonathan returned November 27th, but poor Ebenezer went away with Rogers, September 13th, and never returned.
May 5, 1761 .- Then there was a terrible storm of snow, and the snow came of considerable depth, and it was a very extraordinary time, for the plum trees ware all in blow, and some apple trees and peach trees ware blowed. But the snow went all off the next day, and the water run like little rivers on the ground.
July 6, 1766 .- James Wheeler enlisted in Joseph Warrins' - company, and arrived in New York, Angust 1st. On the
* This road was known as Grafton road.
t These thirteen items were copied from the book now in possession of Hon. Jonathan D. Wheeler, which was kept by Col. Jonathan Wheeler.
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HISTORY OF GRAFTON.
20th of Angust he was drafted out to go to Bennington, and on the 22d he marched, and on the 25th arrived home with the other Grafton meu, for they were not wanted. He again enlisted September 27, 1777, and marched to Still- water.
September 2, 1774 .- Then Grafton was rallied, with other towns, to go to Boston on the account of the powder is being taken away by the Regulars; also September 6th, the people were all rallied again to go to Worcester, on ac- count of the Torrymen and of the court's setting.
April 19, 1775 .- This day James Wheeler marched, with many more from Grafton, to go to. Cambridge, for they were distressed there with an army of Regulars, and these men from Grafton marched all night, neither did they give sleep to their eyes nor slumber to their eyelids that night. It is a night much to. be remembered.
May 19, 1775 .- James Wheeler was in the Continental army just one month, being discharged on this date.
May 15, 1777 .- Then James Wheeler was drawed out or pressed to go into the war, and his father, Ebenezer Wheeler, paid a fine of ten pounds lawful money for him.
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