History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 25

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1576

USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 25

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).

LANCASTER.

School-house. At this mill the Indians captured Thomas Sawyer, Jr., his son Elias, a youth of sixteen, and John Bigelow, a carpenter of Marlborough. The three were taken to Canada, where Sawyer was res- cued from torture and death at the hands of his cap- tors by the intervention of the Governor, on condition that he and his companions would build a saw-mill upon Chambly River. The mill was built, beiug the first in all Canada, and the captives returned in safety.

Forty pounds had been granted by the General Court, after the burning of the meeting-house in 1704, towards the building of a new one, to be paid upon the erection of the frame. A large majority of the inhabitants now living upon the east side of the rivers, it was voted in town-meeting to place the building upon Bride Cake Plain, a mile eastward of the old site, and there a frame was set up in 1706. The new location roused a tempest in the community. A com- mittee of four from other towns was appointed to settle the dispute, and being equally divided in opinion made the quarrel worse. Then the Council and the Deputies took opposite sides. Finally, as winter drew near, the majority were given their way. John Houghton donated the land for the building site, Thomas Wilder gave a lot for the burial-ground on the opposite side of the highway, Robert Houghton with his assistants covered in the summer-seasoned frame, and peace reigned once more in the parish.

In 1707 Jonathan White, a youth of fifteen years, was killed by Iudians, and August 16th a band killed a woman and captured two men near Marlborough, one of whom escaped. The other, Jonathan Wilder -whose father, Lieut. Nathaniel, had fallen three years before-was murdered when his captors were overtaken by a force which hastily pursued them. In the fight that ensued, Ephraim Wilder, brother of the captive, was severely wounded, Ensign John Farrar, a native of Lancaster, but resident of Marlborough, was killed. Two others of Marlborough suffered, Richard Singletary losing his life and Samuel Stevens being badly wounded. The fight took place in the northwest corner of the " Additional Grant" of Lan- caster. For a year or two soldiers were quartered in the town to aid in its protection. The last to be killed by the enemy was an Indian servant of the Wilders, August 5, 1710. He was at work in the field upon George Hill with Nathaniel Wilder, who was wounded at the same time.

In 1711 there were eighty-three families and four hundred and fifty-eight inhabitants in Lancaster, divided among twenty-seven garrisons; and twenty- one soldiers were stationed in the town. Ten years before the proprietors had purchased of George Tahan- to, "in consideration of what money, namely, twelve pounds, was formerly paid to Sholan (my uncle), some- time sagamore of Nashuah, for the purchase of said Township, and also six shillings formerly paid by Insigne John Moore and John Houghton of said Nashuah to James Wiser, alias Quenepenett (Quana-

paug), now deceased, but especially for and in con- sideration of eighteen pounds, paid part and the rest secured to be paid by John Houghton and Nathaniel Wilder, their heirs, executors and assigns forever, a certain tract of land on the west side of the westward line of Nashuah Township. . ." At that time pe- tition was made to the Legislature for sanction of the purchase, which was given, and a committee appointed to view and report. The matter lay dormant until February 15, 1711, when a new committee was au- thorized and the land surveyed. June 8, 1713, the grant was duly confirmed to the town. Certain parties laying out new townships to the westward in 1720, alleged that the committee surveying this grant had given more generous measure than the terms of pur- chase warranted, but after a year's wrangling the bounds were again confirmed as conforming to the marks by which the Indian grantors had designated them. Out of this added territory have since been shaped the two towns of Leominster and Sterling, be- sides a considerable tract given to the Boylstons.

During 1713 and 1714 the growth of enterprise in the town was marked by the erection of two saw- mills-one by Samuel Bennett up the North Branch, and the other by Jonathan Moore on Wataquadock Brook by the Marlborough road. The town was ad- vancing more rapidly than ever before. In December, 1715, the selectmen appeared before the County Court to answer for not having a grammar school according to law. This proves that there were one hundred families within the town limits. For several years the versatile John Houghton, conveyancer, inn-keeper, justice, selectman, representative to General Court, etc .- who served the town as clerk from 1684 to 1724 -had also acted as schoolmaster, and is the first named, although the ministers, during earlier days, served in that capacity. Now the town procured the services of a college graduate, Mr. Pierpont, of Rox- bury, as master of their grammar school, and no no- tice of another is found until 1718, when Samuel Stow, probably of Marlborough, a Harvard graduate of 1715, was elected master at a salary of forty pounds per annum. The minister's salary was then raised from seventy to eighty-five pounds per year.

In 1717 Lancaster was presented "for neglecting to repair ye great bridge," and a special town-meeting, . March 10, 1718, considered the rebuilding of the "neck bridge." This is the first mention found of any crossing of the Penecook save by wading-place or canoes. The accounts of the destruction of the town in 1676 point plainly to the existence of two bridges only, one upon each branch. In the discus- sion of 1705 relative to the location of a new meeting- house, the wording of a petition implies the same condition as existing. Some cheap structure, within the means of the impoverished town, probably was thrown across the main river after the building of the church upon the east side. The bridge of 1718 was ordered to have five trestles and to be thirteen feet

HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

wide. Thirty-five pounds were appropriated for its erection ; the townspeople were all, however, expected to assist at the raising, which doubtless was a season of extraordinary jollification.

During Lovewell's War, as it is called, from 1722 to 1726, Lancaster was at no time entered by any con- siderable force of Indians, but her young men were forward in carrying the war into the enemy's country. An act of 1722 offered one hundred pounds for the scalp of a male Indian over twelve years of age, and half that sum for a woman or child, dead or alive. This proved a sufficient inducement to enlist in the terrible perils and hardships of the scouting parties many bold spirits under popular leaders. Of these, Capt. John White, an associate of Lovewell, won great repute as a successful Indian fighter. Dying in the service, he was eulogized by a contemporary as "a man of religion, probity, courage and conduct, and hearty in the service of his country against the Indian enemy." Capt. Samuel Willard here began a military career that reflected honor upon the town, leading what he dignified in his journals as an "army "-two companies of about ninety men each-to and from the head-waters of the Saco and Pemigewasset, a march of five hundred miles through a pathless wilderness. The numerons bands of rangers not only carried deso- lation into the strongholds of the savage, but discov- ered the fertile, sheltered valleys beside the beautiful rivers and lakes of New Hampshire, and the log-cabins of venturesome pioneers soon rising here and there proved that the partisans had well noted the advant- ages of the land.

Lancaster was no longer a border town, but the mother of new frontier settlements. In a single de- cade its population had doubled. In 1726 the meet- ing-house had to be greatly enlarged, and two years later the minister's salary was raised to one hundred pounds. There were now four licensed inn-holders: Capt. Samuel Willard, who had moved to the Neck and probably built the house still standing near the railway crossing; John Wright, at Still River; Oliver Wilder, upon George Hill, and Thomas Carter, where H. B. Stratton until lately resided. Among the chat- tels of the latter was "one old Indian slave," valued at twenty-five pounds, who lived until 1737. The orchards of the town had become famous, and much of the fruit was converted into cider. What was not "drunk upon the premises" had a ready sale both at Boston and in the new towns. Even the minister in 1728 was credited with a product of sixty-one barrels at the cider-mill of Judge Joseph Wilder.

About the more important garrisons little villages had grown, where the cottagers, with their household industries and simple wants, were almost independent of other communities, except that all gathered at one common meeting-house on the Sabbath to listen to the fervid exhortation of Rev. John Prentice, and all sought Prescott's mill with their grist. In cases of a broken limb or alarming illness, Jonathan Prescott,

with his saddle-bags full of drastic drugs, galloped up from Concord when summoned, and for an astonish- ingly small fee. If the need of medical skill was less pressing, the local herbalist, Doctress Mary Whitcomb, sufficed. Edward Broughton was school-master, graduating the length of his terms according to the taxes contributed, now teaching on the Neck, now at Still River or Bare Hill, or on Wataquadock, until 1727, after which, apparently, the custom came into vogue of employing young Harvard graduates as teachers for short terms. From fifty to sixty pounds per annum were appropriated for the town's schools.

In 1728 a movement began looking to the formation of a new county from certain towns of Suffolk and Middlesex. The town was deeply interested in this project and voted to favor it, provided the superior courts should be held at Marlborough and two infe- rior courts at Lancaster annually. The next year, ou February 3d, the vote was reconsidered, a new plan being then under consideration, "for erecting a new county in ye westerly part of ye County of Middle- sex." The meeting favored petitioning for the new county and chose James Wilder and Jonathan Hough- ton to act for the town in the matter. It is traditional that the Lancaster people fully expected that two shire-towns would be designated, and that Lancaster would be one. No hint of this, however, appears in the recorded action of the town-meetings. Lancaster was not only the oldest, but the wealthiest and the most populous of the fourteen towns set off April 2, 1731, to form the county of Worcester. It remained so until the Revolution was over, save that Sutton for a brief time had a few more inhabitants. Jonathan Houghton, of Lancaster, was chosen the first county treasurer and Joseph Wilder was made judge of the Court of Common Pleas.

In 1731 the first public library of Lancaster was established. It comprised but a single volume, though that was a bulky quarto of nine hundred pages. Rev. Samuel Willard's "Complete Body of Divinity," by vote of the town, was purchased and kept " in the meeting-house for the town's use so that any person may come there and read therein, as often as they shall see cause, and said Book is not to be carried out of the meeting-house at any time by any person except by order of the selectmen."

A petition from a majority of those living in the northerly part of the town in May, 1630, engaged the attention of a special town-meeting. The proposi- tion at first was to cut off about one-third of the original township on the north, which, with addi- tions from Groton and Stowe, should form the new town. After two years' discussion at town-meetings and in the Legislature, the town of Harvard was created by an act published July 1, 1732. This took from Lancaster an area of about eighteen square miles, and included the villages which had sprung up about Bare Hill and Still River.

About ten years before this some of the proprietors

LANCASTER.

of the " Additional Grant," Gamaliel Beman heading the movement, had set up new homes among the hills of Woonksechocksett, as the Indians called the re- gion north of Washacum. Emboldened by the snc- cessful secession of the people in the northeast cor- ner, these residents of the southwest corner of Lan- caster, to the number of about a dozen householders, petitioned for separate town organization in May, 1733. The same day there appeared a demand for another precinct or township from some of the resi- dents of Wataquadock and vicinity, proposing to di- vorce from the old town all the territory east of the rivers not taken by Harvard. Both requests received repulse, and attempts were made to appease disaffec- tion by the introduction of proposals to build three new meeting-houses, so situated as better to accom- modate the scattered population. For several years discussion and precinct strategy made town-meetings frequent and lively, and annually some plan for the dismemberment of the town went before the Legisla- ture. The act erecting the new town of Bolton was published June 27, 1738, its western boundary being parallel with the western boundary of the original township and four miles from it. Out of the area thus taken,-about thirty-five square miles,-Berlin and a part of Hudson have since been carved.

Meanwhile the attractions of the valley of the North Nashna in the Additional Grant had drawn thither many Houghtons, Wilders, Carters, Sawyers and others, chiefly the grandsons of the early propri- etors. Being more incommoded because of their greater distance from the meeting-house, and soon becoming more numerous than those living at Woonksechocksett, they had a better reason for seek- ing independence, and complicated the situation by presenting, in February, 1737, their petition for sepa- ration. They moreover shrewdly joined with the old town to defeat the aims of other petitioners, in order to gain consent to their own scheme, and July 16, 1740, the act was published which severed about twenty-six square miles more from Lancaster under the title of Leominster. This area was wholly from the Additional Grant, excepting the farm of Thomas Houghton, exsected from the northwest corner of the old township. The Chocksett people were not dis- heartened. They grew more numerous year by year, and Gamaliel Beman did not recognize defeat. The town finally consented to allow them their wish, provided they would assume perpetual support of the river bridge, now known as Atherton's. This propo- sition did not please, and, after another year's wran- gle, in January, 1742, the "Chocksett War " was in- terrupted by a truce, the town voting to build two meeting-houses.

The house of worship for the Second or Chocksett Precinct, "near Ridge Hill," was completed so that the first service was held in it November 28, 1742. That for the First Precinct was delayed by the diffi- culty of agreeing upon its location. The aid of a

legislative committee had at last to be invoked for the settlement of the question, and School-house Hill was selected as the most central site. Two hundred pounds were appropriated to build the Second Pre- cinct house, and four hundred for that of the First Precinct, which stood nearly in front of the present residence of Solon Wilder. The meeting-house upon the Old Common was torn down, and the materials divided between the two parishes to aid in the build- ing of school-houses. These, three in number, were placed : one on the Neck, not far from the meeting- house, but on the opposite side of the road; one nearly opposite the present Deershorn's School-house, and the third near the Chocksett meeting-house. Each of them was twenty-four by eighteen feet, with seven foot studding.

The new First Church building was nearly square in plan, being about fifty-five by forty-five feet, with entrance doors in the middle of the north, east and south sides. Across the same three sides were gal- leries to which stairs led from the side-aisles. One of these was assigned to men exclusively, the oppo- site one to women. Special seats apart were for "negroes." Directly before, and forming a part of the pulpit, was a deacon's seat. On a part of the floor the wealthier families were permitted to build family pews at their own cost. These were square, mostly about six feet by five, ranged along the walls from the pulpit, while in the centre of the floor, on either side of a central aisle were long seats, the fe- male part of the congregation occupying one side, the male the other. The pews were " dignified," the size and position of each marking pretty well the wealth and social rank of its owner in the com- munity. The sequence of the first families in 1644 appears nearly this: Rev. John Prentice, Deacon Josiah White, Colonel Samuel Willard, Captain John Bennett, Hon. Joseph Wilder, John Carter, Thomas Wilder, etc.

In 1742 the north part of Shrewsbury was set off as a precinct, and Lancaster surrendered to it about five square miles from the most southerly part of its do- main. This was the foreshadowing of a new town, which, with slightly altered bounds, was created in 1786, under the name of Boylston.

Although three towns and two precincts had been peopled from the Lancaster hive, attempts at further swarming were not over. In December, 1747, four- teen residents of Lancaster, under leadership of Henry Haskell, covenanted with citizens of Harvard, Groton and Stow, with the intent to be incorporated into a township. This attempt, which signally failed, proposed taking two or three square miles from the northeast corner of the town. When the district of Shirley was finally authorized, in 1753, Lancaster's bounds were not disturbed.

The avocations of peace had been unharassed by war alarms for fifteen years, when, in 1740, a recruit- ing officer drummed for volunteers in Lancaster, and

HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

succeeded in persuading eighteen or nineteen of her young men to wear the cockade. Captain John Prescott, of Concord, a lineal descendant of the father of Lancaster, was the senior officer of a battalion of , son of Thomas and Sarah (Stanton) Prentice, born in five hundred men raised by Massachusetts to join the - expedition of Vice-Admiral Vernon against Cartha- gena, and Jonathan Houghton, of Lancaster, was one of his lieutenants. Those who enlisted with Hough- ton from this town, so far as known, were: Daniel Albert, David Farrar, Nathan Farrar, Ephraim Fletcher, Benjamin Fry, John Hastings, Thaddeus Houghton, Ezekiel Kendall, Peter Kendall, Joshua , was orthodox, clear in his convictions, earnest and Pierce, Benjamin Pollard, Gideon Powers, Timothy Powers, Oliver Spaulding, Darius Wheeler, William Whitcomb, Jacob Wilder. Few, if any of them, ever saw their homes again, giving their lives for the King in a quarrel of doubtful justice, notin the front of victorious battle, but slain by virulent disease after defeat.

Upon the breaking out of the war for the Austrian Succession it was not to be hoped that the New Eng- land colonies could remain at peace with their French neighbors. Governor Shirley was gifted with suffi- cient sagacity to see that only by the capture of Louisbourg could Massachusetts retain her valuable cod fisheries, or expect exemption from invasion. Against that fortress, upon which had been lavished all the resources of military art, he skilfully organ- ized an expedition, which accomplished his desperate behest by sheer audacity, the sublime pluck of the New England rank and file and happy fortune, rather than by any prescience or rare judgment of plan.

January 6, 1748, Rev. John Prentice died. For forty-three years he had preached, and during forty was the ordained pastor of the town. He was the

Newton, 1682, and a graduate of Harvard in the class of 1700. By his two wives-Mrs. Mary Gardner and Mrs. Prudence (Foster) Swan-he had ten chil- dren. His contemporaries prized him for his learn- ing, his humility and his steadfastness. His juniors tell of his sturdy dignity and Puritan manners. His four printed sermons suggest that as a preacher he explicit in his exhortations. He was selected to de- liver the Election Sermon at Boston, May 28, 1735. Reverends Benjamin Stevens, William Lawrence, Stephen Frost and Cotton Brown temporarily sup- plied the vacant pulpit, but in February the last named was invited to become pastor of the parish. He declined, and August 8th the church made choice of Timothy Harrington to be their minister. November 16th of that year he was installed. He had been pastor of a church at Lower Ashuelot, a town abandoned during the Indian raids of 1747.

November 19, 1752, Colonel Samuel Willard was seized with apoplexy and died the next day. He was the wealthiest citizen of Lancaster, and, Judge Joseph Wilder perhaps excepted, the most promi- nent socially and politically. For twenty-five years he had been the highest military officer of the dis- trict, and for nearly ten judge of the Court of Com- mon Pleas. He was a grandson of Major Simon and son of Henry Willard, born in Lancaster, 1690. February 17, 1745, Colonel Samuel Willard re- ceived orders to take command of the Fourth Massa- Judge Joseph Wilder died March 27, 1757, aged seventy-four. His contemporaries unite in lavish chusetts Infantry, enlisted for this expedition. The praise of his virtues and abilities. Rev. Timothy regiment numbered about five hundred men in ten | Harrington in a funeral sermon speaks of him as fur- nished " with a penetrating judgment, strong reason

companies, and, as the fleet sailed from Boston, March 24th, was recruited within thirty days. This and a tenacious memory, and all, so far as we can speaks well for the popularity and energy of its judge, were consecrated to the honour of the Most High." Appointed judge at the organization of Worcester County, he was chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas at his death. He was a son of the second Thomas Wilder. leader, but the enterprise itself took on much of the nature of a crusade. Thomas Chandler, of Worcester, was lieutenant-colonel and Seth Pomeroy major of the regiment. Colonel Willard's own company had for its officers: Captain-lieutenant, Joshua Pierce; The one hundredth birthday of Lancaster, May 28, 1753, was appropriately celebrated by a " century sermon " in the First Parish meeting-house. This discourse was printed, forming a pamphlet of twenty- nine pages, and contains the early annals of the town in sadly condensed form. Unfortunately, the author, Rev. Timothy Harrington, bound by the mode of his times, was more anxious to preserve the pulpit dig- nity of his rhetoric than to gather and embalm for posterity the reminiscences of the gray-headed vet- erans among whom he daily walked. He devotes half his pages to the history of the Jews and primi- tive Christians, and accords but half a dozen lines to the hospitable Sholau and the Nashaways. He gives details of the various sieges of Jerusalem, but omits all mention of the deeds of Colonel Willard's regi- Lieutenant, Abijah Willard; Ensign, John Trum- bull. Abijah Willard, the colonel's second son, was soon promoted a step, and another son, Levi, became ensign. In this company doubtless were many men of Lancaster and vicinity, but the majority of Lan- caster soldiers were probably in the Fourth Company, the officers of which were: Captain, John Warner ; Lieutenant, Joseph Whetcomb ; and Ensign, William Hutchins. Unfortunately, the muster-rolls of this expedition are not known to exist, and the names of the soldiers are mostly unknown. Captain Warner died in hospital and Thomas Littlejohn fell in action. Many of their townsmen probably succumbed to the rigors of the climate and the toils of the siege, for the victims of disease were counted by hundreds.

LANCASTER.

ment at Louisbourg, and the pitiful sacrifice of Lan- regiment of Col. John Winslow, and Ensign John caster youth at Carthagena.

The town entered upon its second century pros- perous and free from internal dissension. The Second Precinct, temporarily content with its gain of semi- autonomy, had, December 19, 1744, secured Rev. John Mellen for their pastor, a Harvard graduate of 1741. He had married Rebecca, the daughter of Rev. John Prentice, the year after her father's de- cease, and had given token of abilities that soon placed him in the very front rank of the ablest clergymen of his day. The repayment by England to Massachusetts, in 1749, of its expenditures in the late war, made possible the redemption of the paper currency, which had greatly depreciated, and specie again appeared in the channels of trade. But life in Lancaster was with most a struggle for shelter, food and raiment. The only measure of wealth was the ownership of acres and cattle. Few things better illustrate the simplicity or luxury of a community than its conveniences for travel. In 1753 Lancaster paid tax to the Province upon three chaises; in 1754 upon one chaise ; in 1755 upon two chaises and three chairs ; in 1756 upon two chaises and two chairs- while most of the younger towns, until recently Lan- caster soil, had neither chair nor chaise. The heavy carts and wagons of the farm were the only wheeled vehicles.

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 Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 25

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1576

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1576