History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 87

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed. cn
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1226

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II > Part 87

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

An interesting incident in the life of Colonel Tyng is thus given by Mr. Nason: "Early in this year (1697), the celebrated heroine, Hannah Dustan, who, with her assistants, Mary Neff and the boy Leonardson, had taken the scalps of ten Indians at Contoocook, New Hampshire, was kindly entertained at the house of Col. Tyng, as she was on her way to her desolate home in Haverhill." Mr. Fox, however, relates that the first house reached by Mrs. Dustan was that of " old John Lovewell," which was on Salmon Brook. The two authors do not contradict each other, but Mr. Fox speaks only of "Old John Lovewell," and Mr. Nason only of Colonel Tyng. Lovewell lived several miles north of Tyng, and perhaps the brave woman, suffering from extreme weariness and weak- ness, sought rest at the homes of both. Joseplı Neff, son of Mary Neff, in a pctitiou to the General Court

--- --

367

TYNGSBOROUGH.

in 1738, forty-one years after the exploit of Mrs. Dustan, in speaking of the sufferings endured by his mother and the others on their return home, declares that "they suffered distressing want, being almost starved.'

It has been plausibly suggested that Colonel Tyng's motive in fixing his abode on the Merrimack was to take charge of his father's large estate in Dunstable (now Tyngsborough).

The first wife of Colonel Tyng was the daughter of Hezekiah Usher. She died in 1714. His second wife, Judith Fox, of Woburn, died in 1736, living, to the great age of ninety-nine years. His children who lived to mature age, were : 1, John, who graduated at Harvard College in 1691, and died in England. 2, William, whose birth is the first recorded in the records of the town, who was born in 1679, and was killed by the Indians in 1713 at the age of thirty- four years. 3, Eleazar, who graduated at Harvard College in 1712. 4, Mary, who became the wife of Rev. Nathaniel Prentice, minister of the town. Col- onel Tyng died in 1723, at the age of eighty-one years, leaving to his family a very large estate and an honored name. The very name of Tyngsborough attests the honor in which the family is held, and will remain a perpetual monument of ancestral bravery and worth. Of the descendants of Colonel Tyng we shall speak more fully. hereafter.

The death of King Philip, in August, 1676, put an end to the war, and the dispersed settlers returned to their deserted homes. While the towns of Lancaster, Groton and Chelmsford were destroyed during the war, the plantation of Dunstable suffered little loss. The fact is supposed to be due, in part at least, to the friendly offices of Wannalancet. Peace brought with it more extended settlements. The larger num- ber of settlers seem to have found homes on Salmon Brook, near its junction with the Merrimack. This is indicated by the location of the first meeting-house, which was begun before the war and completed soon after it, for, according to Mr. Fox, it was located near the site of the present village of Nashua, not far south of Salmon Brook, and probably about six miles north of the village of Tyngsborough. However, the opinion of Mr. Nason is, that the meeting-house was on the river road, between the villages of Nashua and Tyngsborough, not far north of the line which sep- arates the two towns. If this be the correct supposi- tion, it would indicate that there were about as many settlers in Tyngsborough as in Nashua.

A very large portion of the land of Dunstable plan- tation was purchased by men of wealth upon specu- lation. The cheapness of the land invited specu- lation. Such, doubtless, was the purchase of 3000 acres by the elder Tyng. Henry Kimball purchased a large tract of land in Pelham and Hudson, known since as " Henry Kimball's Farm." While as yet few settlements had been made, 14,000 acres on both sides of the Merrimack had become the property of indi-

viduals. In 1682, six years after King Philip's War, Hezekiah Usher, father of the first wife of Colonel Tyng, purchased "Mine Islands," a few miles north of Tyngsborough village, so named because there was a rumor that there were mines upon them which the Indians had worked. Usher was a man of wealth. He seems to have indulged the belief, once so prev- alent, that New England contained vast stores 'of mineral wealth. Lead in small quantities was found on Mine Islands, but so intermingled with rock spar that the working of the mine was not warranted. Though Usher failed in this enterprise, he still dreamed of treasures hidden among the hills of New England. In May, 1686, as we are told, " Mason, the proprietor of New Hampshire, farmed out to Heze- kiah Usher and his heirs, all the mines, minerals & ores within the limits of New Hampshire, for the term of 1000 years, reserving to himself one-fourth of the royal. ores and one-seventeentli of all the baser metals."

A very marked indication that the settlers upon the Dunstable plantation were not the principal own- ers of the soil is the fact that for thirty years after King Philip's War the town-meetings of the proprie- tors and settlers of the plantation were commonly, perhaps usually, held in the town of Woburn, which was doubtless conveniently situated between the wealthy owners residing in Boston and vicinity on the one hand, and the actual settlers on the other. The residence of the officers chosen at these meetings points in the same direction. At the earliest recorded town-meeting (which was held in Woburn), the selectmen chosen were Capt. Thomas Brattle, of Bos- ton ; Capt. Elisha Hutchinson, of Worcester ; Capt. James Parker and Abraham Parker, of Groton, and Jonathan Tyng, of Tyngsborough (then Dunstable). Col. Tyng was the only one belonging to the Dun- stable plantation.

Only three years after the close of the war the first minister of the plantation, the Rev. Thomas Weld, was settled. The early settlers were a devout and ortho- dox people, in full sympathy, probably, with the ex- isting laws of the Colony, which forbade " dancing at weddings, wearing long hair or periwigs or supersti- tious ribands, keeping Christmas, turning the back on the preacher profanely before he had pronounced the blessing, and courting a girl without the leave of her parents."

Not alone for fear of the Indians did the good people of the plantation suffer, for one reason as- signed by the Governor of the Colony for proclaim- ing a "general fast " was the appearance of the comet of 1680, "that awful, portentous, blazing star, usually foreboding some calamity to the beholders thereof."

The peace which reigned in the Dunstable planta- tion from 1676 to 1688 was attended with a rapid in- crease in the number of settlers. A church was formed, a pastor settled, new roads laid out, and there

368

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

were prospects of better days. But in 1688 another war-cloud cast its gloom over the infant colony. The English people, weary of the house of Stuart, and especially of the reigning prince, James the Second, had compelled his abdication of the Crown. He ap- pcaled to France. This nation, which, on account of both the birth and the religion of James, sympathized with his cause, took up arms in his defence. The war is known in history as " King William's War," be- cause William, of Orange, husband of Mary, the daughter of James, sat upon the British throne, shar- ing it with Mary, his wife. The war fell with terrible effect upon the New England colonies. The French, being in possession of Canada, found in the Indian a most efficient ally. It was their favorite method of warfare to instigate the Indians to lay waste the English colonies, in violation of all the rules of civi- lized war. The peaceful farmer was butchered in the field, his humble home was laid in ashes, his wife and children murdered or carried into captivity. This barbarous war was waged for ten weary years. But only four years of peace followed the treaty of Rys- wick in 1698. Upon the death of both William and Mary, Anne, the sister of Mary, came to the throne. Upon her accession the King of France renews the war, and ten more years of bloodshed and cruelty af- flict the New England colonies. The war is known as "Queen Anne's War." Of the twenty-five years following 1688 less than five were years of peace. At length the treaty of Utrecht closed the protracted struggle.

In this long period of twenty years of Indian war- fare the Dunstable plantation, being on the frontier, bore its full share of dangers and sufferings. In July, 1689, it petitioned the Governor and Council for "twenty foot-men for the space of a month to scout about the town, while we get our hay." In the homely language of this petition there is hidden a most painful suggestion of the terror which brooded over the humble cabins of the settlers. In regard to the actual sufferings of the plantation we have the following records: "Anno Domini, 1691, Joseph Hassell, Senior, Anna Hassell, his wife, Benjamin Hassell, their son, were slain by our Indian Enemies Sept. 2, in the evening. Mary Marks, the daughter of Peter Marks, was slain by the Indians also on Sept. 2ª day in the evening." "Obadiah Perry & Christopher Temple dyed by the hand of our Indian enemies on Sept. the 28th day in the morning." Eight years after the war began two-thirds of the settlers had left the plantation. But, as in King Philip's War, one man holds his position, the brave Col. Tyng, of Tyngsborough.

In 1702, the first year of Queen Anne's War, a new garrison was established having among its defenders Jonathan and Wm. Tyng. Robert Parris, who was denominated Col. Tyng's " vail," was slain by the Indians. His wife and oldest daughter shared the same fate. When the men sallied forth on expedi-

tions against the foc their wives took tlicir places in the garrisons. In the winter of 1703, "Capt. Wmn. Tyng, with a small company of snow-shoe men, made his way through the decp snows to Winncpiseogee Lakc. Near this lake the Indian known as 'Old Harry,' who lcd the attack upon Lancaster, had his headquarters. Capt. Tyng made an attack upon him, killing 'O:d Harry' himself and five of his men. For this act of bravery the General Court granted to the heirs of those composing this company a tract of land, at first called ' Old Harry's Town,' then Tyngs- town, and afterwards Manchester."

Capt. John Tyng, in 1704, on a like expedition to Pequawket, killed five of the enemy. Capt. Jona- than Tyng, the chosen commander of all the garri- sons of the plantation, went to Lancaster to aid the inhabitants in repulsing the Indians. And here he met with a misfortune, which is thus quaintly told : [His] " horse was, by the Indians, taken out of the said pasture & driven into the woods, where they killed and ate the sª horse."

In 1706 270 Indians attacked one of the garrisons commanded by Captain Pearson, and Mrs. John Cum- mings was killed and her husband taken captive. In the bloody fight which followed several were killed of both parties. Joe English, a friendly Indian, the grandson of Masconomo, Sagamore of Ipswich, was shot near Holden's Brook, in Tyngsborough. This faithful Indian was acting as a guard of Cap- tain Butterfield and his wife. Captain Butter- field escaped, while his wife was taken captive. Joe English, to avoid a death by torture, provok- ed the Indians to murder him upon the spot. In 1711 the plantation had seven garrisons, one of which was the house of Colonel Tyng and another the house of Henry Farwell, also in Tyngsborough. In these seven garrisons were thirteen families and nineteen soldiers.

Near the beginning of Queen Anne's War the first and beloved pastor of the plantation, Rev. Thomas Weld, died at the age of fifty years. He was a native of Roxbury and the grandson of Rev. Thomas Weld, first minister of Roxbury. He was a graduate of Harvard College and was esteemed as a man of ex- emplary piety. He had preached in the plantation about twenty-three years. His first wife was Eliza- beth, daughter of the Rev. John Wilson, of Medford, an eminent divine. She died at the age of thirty-one years, and was buried in the old burial-ground just north of the line which separates Tyngsborough from Nashua. Writers have heretofore asserted that the second wife of Mr. Weld was Hannah, the widow of Habijah Savage and sister of Coloncl Jonathan Tyng, but Mr. J. B. Hill, author of "Reminiscences of Old Dunstable," controverts the statement, and Judge William A. Richardson, who is very high authority, concedes the correctness of Mr. Hill's assertion. The graves of Mr. Weld and his first wife are side by side in the old cemetery, each covered by a granite slab.

369

TYNGSBOROUGH.

On that which lies above the grave of Mr. Weld there is no inscription.

During Queen Anne's War, which followed the death of Mr. Weld, the plantation was unable to support a minister. Indeed, from 1702 to 1720 there was no settled pastor. In 1720 Rev. Nathaniel Pren- tice, a graduate of Harvard College, was settled over the church, and remained in office until his death, a period of seventeen years. His wife was Mary, daugh- ter of Colonel Jonathan Tyng. He died at the age of fifty-nine years, and was succeeded in 1738 by Rev. Josiah Swan, who remained in office eight years.

The treaty of Utrecht was followed by about eleven years of peace, but both Frenchman and Indian thirsted for revenge. The Marquis de Vandrenil, Governor of Canada, and the celebrated Jesuit, Se- bastian Rale, instigated the Indians, whose head- quarters were in Norridgewock, on the Kennebec, in Maine, to begin anew the work of depredation and murder npon the frontier settlements. In August, 1724, the English made an attack npon Norridge- wock and a large number of Indians were slain. Among the slain also was Father Rale. This attack did much to alarm and weaken the Eastern Indians, but it seems to have inaugurated a new Indian war, during which a band of Mohawks, on September 4, 1724, made an attack on the Dunstable plantation. Nathan Cross and Thomas Blanchard were taken captives, and Lientenant Ebenezer French, Thomas Lund, Oliver Farwell and Ebenezer Cummings, of Dunstable, were slain, There were eight victims, and their burial-place is marked by a monument. A part of the inscription referring to Thomas Lund is in quaint language and reads as follows : "This man with seven more that lies in this grave, was slew all in a day by the Indians." This attack aronsed the people of Dunstable to efficient and aggressive action. John Lovewell, Josiah Farwell and Jonathan Rob- bins petitioned the General Assembly for leave to " raise a company and scout against the Indians." The petition was granted and a bonnty of 100 pounds was offered for every Indian's scalp. John Lovewell organized the expedition, and the enterprise is known in history as "Lovewell's War." Especially has the bloody battle which closed the campaign, and which is known as "Lovewell's Fight," been the theme of poetry and song-a sad thieme indeed, but one which has given to the brave actors immortal renown-

" With footsteps slow shall travelers go Where Lovewell's pond shines clear and bright, And mark the place where those are laid Who fell in Lovewell's bloody fight.

Old men shall shake their heads and say : "Sad was the hour and terrible, When Lovewell brave 'gainst Paugus went With fifty men from Dunstable.'"

The limits of this article will allow only the brief- est record of this expedition, so full of dramatic and tragic interest.

24-ii

John Lovewell was a man who delighted in adven- ture. He was born in 1691, and was now in the prime of manhood, being nearly thirty-four years of age. He was the son of Jolin Lovewell, whose house was on the north side of Salmon Brook, in Nashna, where its cellar is still to be seen. Tradition says that he, too, had been a soldier.

Late in the year 1724, Captain Lovewell, with his company of picked meu, at one time eighty-eight in number, started npon an excursion into the Indian country. Success and victory everywhere attended him. His third and last expedition was in the spring of 1725 against the headquarters of the Pequawketts, on the Saco River. It was in the town of Fryeburg, Me., near what is known as " Lovewell's Pond," that the final and historic battle occurred on May 8, 1725. The Indians were defeated and their chief, Paugus, slain, but at a fearful cost. Captain Lovewell and eight more were killed upon the spot. Subsequently, Colonel Eleazer Tyng, with his company, visited the scene, and found the bodies of twelve men, whom they buried, carving their names upon the trees where the battle was fought. They also found the body of the Indian chieftain, Paugus. This battle, following the destruction of Norridgewock, so terrified the In- dians, that they removed at a greater distance from the plantation, and from this time the inhabitants suffered very little from Indian depredations. Doubt- less it was the happy results of the " Lovewell Fight ". that made it, in subsequent years, the theme of so many ballads and sougs. Rejoicing in the safety of their homes, the people loved to sing of the valor of those whose blood had purchased the blessing. Fifty long years of war and massacre had ended.

We will not, however, dismiss onr notice of " Love- well's Fight " without a brief mention of one of the heroic band who fell in the eucounter. Jonathan Frye, of Andover, a young man of devout piety, the son of a clergyman and a graduate of Harvard Col- lege, was, though only twenty years of age, the chap- lain of the company. He seems to have joined the expedition as a solemn religious duty. When he saw. that death from the dangerous wound received in the battle was soon to come, hesent word to his father by his comrades, that he was not afraid to die. Hon. George B. Loring, who was a native of the same town with young Frye, thus gracefully speaks of him : " Many a time have I, when a boy, paused to rest be- neath the shade of a graceful, sturdy and imposing elm-tree, which crowns one of the finest hills in my native town of North Andover, and I have mused there upon the sad and tragic story of that young man, Jonathan Frye, who, when he left his home to join Captain Lovewell's expedition, planted that tree, that he might, as he said, leave his monument be- hind, should he fall in the service." The beautiful town of Fryeburg, in which the battle was fought, perpetuates his name.

Upon the return of peace, the plantation, " so well

370

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

stored with timber and so rich in pasturagc," invited new settlers from Chelmsford, Billerica, Woburn, Concord and other places. A settlement is begun on the east side of the Merrimack, which was first called Nottingham, and, in 1830, received the name of Hud- son.

In 1734 an extensive tract called Naticook was set off from the plantation. This tract embraced the towns of Litchfield and Merrimack, N. H .. Nissi- tissit, which now embraces the towns of Hollis and Brookline, was incorporated in 1739 as the "West Parish of Dunstable." The running of the divis- ional line, in 1741, between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, about which there had been a long and bitter dispute, still further curtails and subdivides the Dunstable plantation. The part which fell to New Hampshire became the towns of Nashua and Nashville, while Dunstable, including Tyngsborough, fell to Massachusetts. The easterly part of Dunsta- ble, lying on both sides of the Merrimack, was known as the First Parish of Dunstable until 1789, when it was incorporated as a district under the name of Tyngsborough, which became an incorporated town in 1809.

The principal cause of the disintegration of the Dunstable plantation was that the new settlements, which rapidly increased in numbers after the return of peace, desired the control of their own civil affairs " for greater convenience of public worship." The modern reader is surprised at the importance which the question of public worship assumed in that early day. The choice of the minister, the location of the meet- ing-house aroused passions, and created hostilities and personal animosities, and violent prejudices between different sections of the plantations, the heat of which still sleeps in the embers. The Rev. Joseph Emerson, at the dedication of the second meeting-house in Pep- perell, in referring to this bitter contention, declares that the devil was at the bottom of it, because he was a great enemy of settling ministers and buiiding meeting-houses. We can hardly believe that these animosities were the fruit of that piety which suffer- eth long and is kind. Even the clergymen were not always profoundly devout. It is told of the Rev. Mr. Swan, the second settled minister, that once, having forgotten the day of the week, he compelled his hired men, in spite of earnest protest, to go to work on his farm on Sabbath morning, and was only undeceived when he saw " Old John Lovewell " coming up the hill on his way to church. The location of the meet- ing-house was the cause of much bitter feeling and of the final separation of the present town of Dun- stable from Tyngsborough, and it is only a few years since a literary gentleman who proposed to write the history of Dunstable, was requested to say as little as possible about Tyngsborough.

In 1732, on the question whether the people " would build a decent mecting-house or rectify and mend the old one," it was decided not to rectify, but to build,

whercupon nineteen persons entercd their dissent, the new location being four rods westward of the old one. When upon the division of the plantation it became necessary for the town of Dunstable (including Tyngs- borough) to build a new church, no location proved satisfactory, and it was voted on June 20, 1746, " that the place of preaching the gospel this summer be at Ephraim Lund's barn."

The settlement in 1747 of Rev. Samuel Bird, who was a "New Light," was the occasion of great dis- satisfaction on the part of orthodox men, and the peo- ple of Dunstable and Tyngsborough, with others, formed a separate church, worshiping in the old meet- ing-house just north of the Tyngsborough line.

It was voted in 1749 "to hire a school for 8 months," but soon the French War intervened, and there is no further record of a school till 1761. After this date money for schools was voted almost every year, and in 1775 the township was divided into five school districts, and in that year school-houses were first erected.

After long contention, a meeting-house was at length erected by the people of Dunstable and Tyngs- borough on a rocky knoll upon the road leading from Dunstable to Tyngsborough, about one mile from the former place. The frame was raised on July 18, 1753. So dissatisfied were the people of the easterly part of the township (now Tyngsborough) with the location of the meeting-house, that in 1755 they formed themselves into a precinct called the First Parish of Dunstable. This was the initial act which resulted in the complete separation of the towns of Tyngsborough and Dunstable.

At a meeting of the First Parish in August, 1755, it was voted that " the Place for a Meeting House for the Publick worship of God in this precinct (Tyngs- borough) be on the west of Merrimack River, near Mr. James Gordon's mills, where a fraim is erected for that purpose. Also Voted to accept the Fraim that is Now on the spot. Messrs. John Tyng & Jona- than Tyng came to the meeting & gave the Precinct Glass for the meeting-house." Eleazer Tyng was moderator.

The meeting-house was erected near the site of the present Unitarian Church. The new church seems to have been extravagantly decorated, having two porches and a tall steeple. Hon. John Pitts is said to have written of it:

"A very small meeting house, A very tall steeple, A very proud parson, A queer sort of people."

The members of the First Parish (now Tyngs- borough) in 1762 werc : Eleazer Tyng, John Tyng, John A. Tyng, James Tyng, Wm. H. Prentice, Wm. Gordon, Robert Fletcher, Samvel Gould, Joseph Butterfield, Reuben Butterfield, John Perham, Joseph Perham, James Perham, Jacob Fletcher, Elijah Fletcher, Zaccheus Spaulding, Thomas Jewell, Benoni

371

TYNGSBOROUGH.

Jewell, John Ingles, Jonathan Perham, Samuel Fletcher, John Littlehale, Abraham Littlehale, Tim- othy Bancroft, Jonathan Butterfield, Jonathan Far- well, Joseph Winn, Eleazer Farwell, Benjamiu Far- well, Simon Thompson, Ezra Thompson, Silas Thomp- son, Asa Thompson, John Alls, Thomas Esterbrook, Thomas Esterbrook, Jr., Timothy Barron, Wm. Bar- ron, Robert Scott, Jacob Reed, John Scott, Willard Hale, John Lewis. Reuben Lewis, Archibald Robin- son, Joseph French, Esq., Lieutenant John Varnum, James Littlehale, Daniel Fletcher, John Didson, Samuel Howard, Oliver Colburn, Ezra Colburn, John Ayres, John Haddock, John Hamblet. Seven of the above lived on the east side of the Merrimack. The town owned a ferry-boat which plied upon the river. " The mill of Wm. Gordon, on Bridge Meadow Brook and the tavern were the general places of resort. Several slaves were held in easy bondage and some person was anuually chosen to protect the deer, which were still occasionally found in the ex- tensive forest."

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 87

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed. cn Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1226

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed. cn
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1226