History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 33

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1464

USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II > Part 33

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The climate of the whole region is cold, though the hills so shelter some sections of Athol as to make the winters milder than in many of the adjacent towns, but the winds sweep violently up the river, lowering the temperature of its valley several de- grees.

When the town was opened for settlement the for- ests were very heavy, and the work of elearing the land for tillage was extremely exhausting. Huge pines, beeches, chestnuts, ashes and maples abounded. Few of the virgin trees remain, but the woodlands have become very valuable property. Of the com- mon fruit-trees, the apple is almost the only one that secures confidence for a long term of years. Wild grapes are plentiful, and all the earlier (the e are often the choicest) kinds can be cultivated with suc- eess. The wild small fruits, such as the strawberry, the raspberry and the blueberry, abound, and have nowhere a richer flavor.

Though it has some fine farms, agriculture is not the chief business of Athol. The soil yields fair crops to the cultivator, not, however, repaying labor like the valley lands of the Connecticut River. The excellent and abundant water-power furnished by Miller's River and its tributaries offers more lucrative employment than tillage. Hence the population tends steadily towards the villages, and many outly-

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ing farms have passed into the hands of new owners, some of whom are of foreign birth. Miller's River- originally the Pequoig River, but unfortunately re- named for a man who was drowned while crossing it, more than a century and a half ago - has a rapid current, and supplies power for various manufactur- ing establishments. It is a tributary of the Connec- ticut. Its own feeders in passing through Athol are Tully's Brook and Mill Brook, both of which carry numerous mills that stand upon their banks.

Much the largest sheet of water in the town is South- west Pond. Lake Ellis, near the Worcester North- west Fair Grounds, is a picturesque spot with wooded islands and shores, and is a popular resort for pic-nic parties. Silver Lake lies low down among the hills near the railroad station, and is noted for the quiet beauty of its surface and shores.

The early settlers found the river and streams stocked with choice fish : trout, pickerel and salmon were plentiful. The forests abounded with small game, while the deer, the bear, the wolf and the cata- mount roamed through the region. The three last- mentioned animals were a source of terror and of con- siderable loss to the settlers. As wolves rarely attack men except when nearly starved, they were chiefly dreaded for their depredations on the calves and sheep. The bear and the catamount were more dangerous, and encounters with them, and hunting parties in pursuit of them, broke up somewhat the monotony of life in the colony. Mt. Monadnock was the strong- holl of these beasts, but they raided the cattle-pens, even as far as Gardner and Templeton. The children were employed to watch the herds by day and at night they were driven into strong enclosures. A large bounty was paid for each wolf killed. The most noted wolf-hunt in the region was in the winter of 1819-20. The parties engaged in it came from Southern New Hampshire, and days were spent in the pursuit of the three-legged animal. It would invade the farm-yards of the very houses in which the hunters were sleeping and feast on the sheep and calves.

The catamount, which one hundred years ago was occasionally found in the Monadnock region, was a very formidable and dangerous beast to encounter. The last of its race was taken in a powerful steel trap, near the foot of the mountain. From the nose to the end of the tail it measured thirteen feet and four inches. For its stuffed skin the proprietors of the Boston Museum are said to have paid forty-five dollars.

In the southerly part of the town there is a sul- phur spring, whose waters have been deemed effica- cious in the treatment of certain diseases. It can hardly be said that these are pleasant to the taste, but they may have virtues nevertheless. At present the locality of this spring does not bid fair to become a popular resort.

Whitney, in his "History of Worcester County," published in 1793, gives us this information concern- ing another spring in Athol :

There is a vory fino spring in this town, which issues out of a very high bank on the side of Miller's River, perhaps twenty fret above the surface of tho river. The water whereof is medicinal. Many persons who have drank freely thereof have found it to act as a gentle ca. thartic, and some who have been poisoned have been speedily cored by washing the parts affected therewith. Several who have been afflicted with rheumatic complaints bathed in the water of this spring in a cis- tern, some few years ago provided to receive them, and found great re- lief.

And what is worthy of notice is this. These waters have the same efficacy and virtue without soap in washing of persoos which other waters live with.

This spring, which was so celebrated a century ago, is supposed to be identical with the one that issues from the north bank of Miller's River, very near the north end of the bridge that is crossed on the way from Athol Centre to Chestnut Hill and Royalston, but whether its remarkable value for economic pur- poses is as great as formerly, is somewhat uncertain.

CHAPTER CXXXIII. ATHOL-(Continued.)

PAQUOAGI ON MILLER'S RIVER.

Loss of the Proprietors' Records-Efforts to Re-establish their Authority- Grant of the Township -- Drawing for House-Lots-First Settlers-Perilx from Indians-First Meeting-House-Second Meeting-House-Call of Mr. James Humphrey to the Pastorate-Ordination-Pastor's Home- Second and other Divisions of Lands-Acts of the Proprietors.

THIS, as given in the original grant, was the name of the township which, at its incorporation, was called Athol. Generally speaking, the Proprietors' Records are the great store-house from which the historian of a New England town must obtain mnost of his information respecting its settlement and con- dition during the earlier period of its history.

For the most part these records were kept with commendable care, whatever else was neglected, for the proprietors' clerks were often men of education, and were justly regarded by their contemporaries as holding a most important and responsible office. But, in a very important sense, the earliest records of the proprietors of Paquoag on Miller's River are not accessible in the preparation of this history. The facts regarding this appear to have been substantially these : very soon or immediately after the grant of this township to certain individuals by the General Court of the province of Massachusetts, which must have been as early as 1734, the proprietors named in the grant chose for their clerk Dr. Joseph Lord, who, coming from Sunderland, Mass., was one of the first settlers of the township. Dr. Lord was a capable man, and, for anything that appears to the contrary, enjoyed for a number of years the confidence of all the parties concerned. But for a considerable period

1 This name will be found spelled in at least ten different ways in the various records.

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before 1758 a majority of the proprietors had been dissatisfied with the proceedings of their clerk, and in the month of June of that year had displaced him and appointed a new treasurer and clerk. Dr. Lord having refused to deliver up the books and papers that were in his hands to the new and legally ap- pointed clerk, a suit was commenced against him, and all his property that could be found was attached to satisfy the claims of the proprietors. In Novem- ber of 1758 the court decided that Dr. Lord must de- liver up all the books and papers in question or pay £1000 in lawful money as damages and the costs of the court, amonnting to £23 8s. 1d., but before this decision was rendered Dr. Lord had left the State, taking with him, if he had not previously destroyed them, all the early records and valuable papers of the propriety. Certain it is these were never recovered. Whether the property of Mr. Lord, which had been attached and was sold at auction, yielded a sum suffi- cient to meet these demands upon his estate is uncer- tain, as no complete record of this transaction was made.

The most that can be learned respecting this mat- ter is that on March 25, 1761, the proprietors voted that their committee having this business in charge should proceed to execute "good and sufficient Deeds to such person or persons as have purchased said lands or any part of them " (meaning the estate of Dr. Lord) and adding : "And we engage for our- selves and heirs to indemnify the said Committee, who have managed the controversy with said Lord on behalf of the proprietors and their heirs from all · damages which may rise to them on account of said controversy and the sale of said lands." Measures were soon adopted to replace the lost records as far as possible, and for this purpose a petition, signed by Abraham Hill and John Caldwell, as a committee of the proprietors, was presented to the General Court in June, 1760. The result of this was that "Rev. Mr. Abraham Hill was empowered and directed to make a new Book of the Records of said Proprietors during the time that the said Joseph Lord was Pro- prietors' Clerk," drawing his information from all papers within his reach and "the remembrance of the Proprietors," and then to lay the same before the General Court, that it might be established as the legalized Records of the Propriety. This was done, and hence we have the Proprietors' Records as we find them in Vol. I., more than fifty pages of which are covered by material obtained in the manner indicated above. Rev. Abraham Hill, of Road Town (now Shutesbury), appears to have been inde- fatigable and cautious in the performance of the dif- ficult task assigned him, and his work was as exhaus- tive and correct as the circumstances would admit.

But with the best intentions and the most laborious and careful research, it was plainly impossible for him to recover and replace very many important items that must have been inserted in the original records,

such as concerned the laying out and construction of some of the roads, the building of bridges, arrange- ments for a school, etc. Mr. Hill's name does not appear in the list of the first proprietors, and like many other clerks of similar bodies, he was not a res- ident of Paquoag on Miller's River.

He was the clerk of the proprietors for about four years, or until 1762, and of course the items recorded of transactions before 1758 lack, with the historian, a measure of authority.

In July, 1732, the General Court of Massachusetts opened for sale and settlement a new township in the northwest part of Worcester County, called from the Indian name of the river which passes through it, " Paquoag on Miller's River." The date of the grant was April 20, 1733.

The grant provided that the township should be divided into sixty-three equal parts, one of which should become the property of the first minister, another should be set apart for the support of the ministry and another for the support of a school, while the remaining sixty parts should afford house- lots for sixty settlers, each of whom must occupy his lot in person or in the person of one of his children.

Each settler was required to build, within three years, a house on his lot of at least "18 feet square and of seven feet stud," and to clear and fence eight acres of his land in the same period, or forfeit twenty pounds for the use of the other settlers. Each was also required to pay five pounds into the Provincial Treasury when he was admitted as a proprietor, while the proprietors were required within five years to erect a suitable meeting-house and settle a learned Orthodox minister.

These conditions were similar in most respects to those under which a large proportion of the county townships of New England were settled. In Connec- ticut provision was often made for two additional shares, one for the State School Fund and a second for Yale College, while in New Hampshire the pro- prietors were not by any means always required to occupy their lots in person or by their children, but had power to sell them.1 On the second page of the Proprietors' Records, as prepared by Rev. Abraham Hill, proprietors' clerk, there is this entry under date of August 21, 1761 :

The following is a list of the Games of the men admitted hy the Honble William Dudley, Chair Man of the Comee & others, the Great and General Court's Committee, to draw House-Lotts in the township of Pequoiag on Miller's River, ou the 26 of June, 1734, at Concord, ae Set- tlers of said Pequoiag."

Following this is a tabular view of the drawing for house-lots, with the location of these as north or south of the river and east or west of the highway, with the number of each. After the lapse of one hundred and fifty-four years from the date of this im-

1 Of the twenty-three original proprietors of Monadnock No. 4 (Gow Fitzwilliam, N. H.), ouly a single one, Gen. James Reed, of Revolu- tionary facie, became an actual resident of the township.

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

portant transaction at Concord, and the changes that have taken place in the ownership of the Athol lands during this period, a reproduction of this table is hardly deemed necessary in this historical sketch. The curious are referred to the volume of Records named above. Only the names of the proprietors are here given, as follows :

Edward Goddard, Daniel Epps, Sr., Daniel Epps, Jr., Ebenezer God- dard, Zecharinh Field, Nehemiah Wright, Richard Wheeler, Richard Morton, Sammel Morton, Ephraim Smith, Nathan Waite, John Wood, Benjamin Townsend, Jonathan Morton, Joseph Smith, William Oliver, Moses Dickinson, Joshua Dickinson, James Kellogg, Richard Crouch, Ezekiel Wallingford, James Jones, Charles Duharthy, Gad Waite, Joseph Lord, Benoni Twichel, John Wallis, Samuel Willard, John Smeed, Wm. Chandler, Jonathan Marble, William Iliggins, James Kenney, Abner Lee, Abraham Nutt, John Headly, Isaac Fisk, Thomas Hapgood, Rich- ard Ward, Samuel Tenney, John Gront, Daniel Adams, John Cutting, Samuel Kendall, Jonathan Page, John Longley, Joseph Brown, John Child, Nathaniel Graves, George Danforth, James Fay, Capt. Joseph Bowman, Francis Bowman, Stephen Fay, Israel Hamond, Benjamin Bancroft, Joseph Harrington, James Holden, Daniel Fisk.

N. B .- 1 transcribed the above from a List under the land of Joseph Lord, who has made Oath to the Truth of it, and adds the following N.B., viz .: This above mentioned List is what the ('lerk of Pequoiag has always made use of for Want of an Attested Copy, and also entered in their Book of Records without Attest. The above entered per

A. HILL, Prop. Clerk.

Aug. 2nd, 1761.

From the table containing the results of the draw . ing for lots in Pequoiag, it appears that prior to June 26, 1734, a highway had been laid out, if not opened, through the township, north and south, which probably passed over "The Street," through the upper village and, crossing Miller's River some- where in the vicinity of the existing bridge, continued over Chestnut Hill or west of it to the northern line of the grant. At the drawing for lots it is probable that this highway was confined to the plan of the township and simply aided in the location of the lots.

From an intimation given in the legislative act that created the township, it would appear that the cost of the survey and laying-out of this highway was paid from the provincial treasury, but with the expec- tation of its being reimbursed from the fund received through the £5 required of each proprietor, which he was to pay within one year after the survey, for the admission of settlers. The way was now prepared for the location of settlers in the new township.

Tradition asserts (for no record has been discovered respectiug it) that on September 17, 1735, five men with their families arrived here from the earlier settled townships in the valley of the Connectient River. These were Richard Morton, Ephraim Smith, Samuel Morton, John Smeed and Joseph Lord. The four first named are said to have come from Hatfield, while the last-mentioned was a physician, who had previously been established in his profession for a longer or shorter period in Sunderland, and was plainly the leading spirit in the enterprise. That they brought with them through the wilderness their clothing, cooking utensils and as much food as they could carry, is certain, but the supply of each must have

been scanty, for they made the journey on foot, and by marked trces in the thick forest. During the following winter their supplies were obtained from the Connecticut Valley in the same manner.

Most, or all, of these five families erected their huts upon The Street, but at considerable distance from one another, for the lots which they drew, and doubtless commenced clearing at once, were by no means in close proximity.

That the winter of 1735 and '36 was one of con- stant anxiety and great hardship with these pioneer families cannot be doubted, for in three of the huts a son was born, while warm rooms, good beds and a full supply of substantial clothing and suitable food were out of the question.

But the greatest perils arose from other sources, for not far away and on nearly all sides were Indians, not a few of whom were hostile, and the settlers must have been familiar with the fearful cruelties inflicted by the savages in Lancaster, Brookfick] and other places.

The rich meadows upon the banks of the l'equoig in this township were a favorite haunt of the red tribes for a considerable period after they had de- serted the neighboring regions. Here were their corn lands, which were unusually productive, and the place was easy of access, being upon the Indian trail most frequently used from the southeastern sec- tions of New England to the Canadas. There were two Indian cro-sings of the Pequoig within the limits of this township-one a little above Lewis Bridge, and the other not far from the house of the late James Lamb. The remains of these are still to be seen. Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, of Lancaster (the murder of whose infant daughter, Grace, by the Indians is said to have given the name to Mt. Grace in Warwick), was taken captive by the Indians in Lancaster, February 10, 1675. She was brought to this place, as it appears from her narrative, and here crossed the "Payquage " or " Bacquag " River upon a kind of raft constructed by her captors. And it is understood that the breaking up of this favorite haunt, where some of the most cruel and perfidious Indian tribes congregated, was one of the objects of the Colonial Government in the votes that were passed in 1732 with reference to the settlement of this region.

The perils of the first settlers in this township from this source were great indeed, almost beyond concep- tion. Penhallow, in his "History of the Indian Wars," describes the Indians " as implacable in their revenge as they are terrible in the execution of it, and will convey it down to the third and fourth gener- ation."

When, in 1759, the colonists suddenly attacked the Arosaguntacook or St. Francis Indians in Canada and defeated them, among other things found in the set- tlement were six or seven hundred English scalps suspended on poles, the trophies of their barbarous

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warfare. And for forty years after 1703, wherever settlements were made in New Hampshire and in the adjacent parts of Massachusetts, the Indians, incited by the French, were ready to fall upon them at the most unexpected moment, as when the people were at church or attending a wedding.

Penhallow's sickening record gives the names and particulars of the capture, torture and murder in cold blood of hundreds during this period, as well as of the fearful sufferings that the prisoners of both sexes ex- perienced while wading through the deep snows to Canada and during their captivity, before redemption or death put an end to their miseries.

War conld be no sooner proclaimed between France and England than the Indians seemed to become ac- quainted with the fact, as it were instinctively, when the signal would be given to renew the work of pillage, burning and butchery.

The Indians were very early instructed in the use of fire-arms and supplied with powder and balls by renegade whites, conspicuous among whom was Baron Castine, a French nobleman, who settled among the Indians in Maine, and filled his house with Indian women. Thomas Morton, the ring-leader of a com- pany of outlaws, whose headquarters were in Brain- tree, Mass., was engaged in the same infamous business and severely punished for his crime.

Notwithstanding the hardships and exposures of the five families that settled in this township in the au- tumn of 1735, the spring of 1736 brought with it other settlers. These came from different parts of the Province, but largely it is supposed, from the Connec- ticut Valley, and their arrival added not a little to the strength of the colony. The common exposure led them to do everything in their power to protect one another. As soon as might be, forts were erected in different parts of the township, to which all the fami- lies might flee in case of an attack. These were built of trees set close together in the ground, with small openings between them for the free use of fire arms.

Each fort had its well inside the enclosure and was furnished with a good supply of provisions.

Such a stronghold, with a goodly number of well- armed and resolute men and women inside, could not easily be captured or burned. Thirty years ago a number of persons were living in Athol, who distinctly remembered having seen in childhood and youth the remains of these ancient places of refuge.

One of these forts (and probably the one first con- structed) was located on "The Street," nearly in front of the house then occupied by the late Mrs. Betsey Humphrey, the home of Mr. John F. Humphrey and Mrs. Ebenezer Brock in their childhood. The well of this fort, now to be seen, has long furnished water for the first parsonage, the home of the first pastor and his descendants bearing the name of James Humphrey for four generations. Where the Pequoig House now stands tradition has located a second of these forts, while a third was located northwest of the Lower Vil-

lage, on the hill which commands a view of the ancient corn-fields on the banks of Tully Brook and Miller's River.

Notwithstanding all the precautions which ex- tended to the carrying of loaded fire-arms into the fields which the settlers were clearing, and a loaded musket into the pulpit by the pastor, the settlement did not wholly escape, for, after eleven years of watchfulness, Ezekiel Wallingford, one of the origi- nal proprietors, who lived at the fort on West Hill, fell a victim to Indian atrocity. Contrary, it is said, to the advice of his friends, he went one night from the fort to protect his corn-fields from the bears, when a ball from the gun of an Indian fractured his thigh, and he was quickly dispatched by the murderous tomahawk. Soon after the murder of Mr. Walling- ford Jason Badcock was fired upon, wounded and captured by the Indians, who, according to their cus- tom, carried him to Canada. After a few months he was redeemed and returned to Pequoiag.

About this time, 1746, when the settlement had been maintained for eleven years, the peril was so great that a number of families are said to have re- linquished all their improvements and to have re- moved, for safety, to less exposed parts of the Prov- ince. These Indians were of the Nipmuck or Nipnet tribe. Their territory John Eliot described in 1651 as "a great country lying between Connecticut and the Massachusetts, called Nipnet, where there be many Indians dispersed."

They seem to have ranged over the Province as far west as the Connecticut River and over the northern central portions of the State of Connecticut, while their villages were chiefly located in Worcester County.1 Plainly nothing but the indomitable cour- age and strong will of the majority of the scattered settlers in 1746 saved the colony from practical aban- donment.

Soon after the occurrences named above the In- dians seem to have retired permanently from the region and the population of the township began to receive larger accessions from the older settlements. The first settlers, consisting of five families, received considerable accessions to their numbers, probably in the spring of 1736.

These were mostly from Hatfield or from towns in that vicinity, and plainly were part of a company that had been previously organized for the settlement of Pequoig on Miller's River. Of the physical, in- tellectual and moral characteristics of these pioneers something is learned through tradition, but more probably through the wellknown habits and deeds of their descendants of the next generation.

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 33

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1464

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1464