USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Westborough > The history of Westborough, Massachusetts. Part I. The early history. By Heman Packard De Forest. Part II. The later history. By Edward Craig Bates > Part 33
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NATHANIEL EMMONS PAINE, who has been superintendent of the Westborough Insane Hospital since the institution was estab- lished, was born, July 14, 1853, at the home of his grandfather, Dr. John A. Paine, in New Hartford, Oneida County, N. Y. His father, Horace M. Paine, M. D., was a physician at Albany, N. Y. ; his mother, Charlotte (Mann) Paine, was a daughter of Salmon Mann, of Norfolk, Mass.
Dr. Paine was a pupil at Albany Academy, and afterwards studied with Prof. Lewis Collins until he was admitted to Hamilton College in 1870. He graduated with high rank, and entered the Albany Medical College, -a department of Union University. His training at the medical school was supplemented by continu-
453
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
ous experience with his father. For a year after his graduation Dr. Paine studied in Germany, - chiefly at Vienna. Returning to America in 1877, he accepted a position as assistant-physician at the Middletown (N. Y.) Homoeopathic Asylum for the Insane. He spent three years and a half at Middletown, when, in 1880, his health failed, and he was forced to seek its restoration in treatment and travel. In December, 1884, he was appointed superintendent of the Westborough Insane Hospital, and after visiting the institu- tions of other States came here in May, 1885. He was in con- stant attendance during the remodelling of the buildings, and furnished many valuable suggestions. Since the opening of the institution, in 1886, he has been busily absorbed in managing the interests committed to his charge. In the fall of 1887 the doctor was appointed lecturer on insanity in the Medical School of Boston University.
Dr. Paine was married, June 5, 1879, to Harriet, the youngest daughter of the late William Gould, of Albany, N. Y. Dr. and Mrs. Paine have two children, - Alice and Nathaniel Emmons Paine, Jr.
454
APPENDIX.
II.
LAND GRANTS.
BY WILLIAM TROWBRIDGE FORBES.
T HE territory included within the present limits of West- borough contains, according to the survey of Nahum Fisher made in the year 1837, 13,340 acres. If we trace back the suc- cessive owners of the farms and village lots which make up the town, to the time of its first settlement, we find two classes of pro- prietors. About a thousand acres was granted to individuals by the General Court in return for services rendered to the colony, and the rest was granted to companies of men who were called Proprietors, and who received from the colony most of the ter- ritory included in the five towns from which Westborough has been formed.
The Indian title to the land was extinguished by the payment of small sums of money after King Philip's War. There was no Indian settlement of importance here, although there were three of Eliot's praying-towns north, east, and south of us. The south- erly part of the town, including all taken from Sutton and Upton, was claimed by an Indian named John Wampas, alias White. He resided for a while in Grafton (Hassanamisco), moved to Boston, became a sailor, and bought a house and lot on the east side of the Common, where Tremont Street now is. During his absence his enterprising wife, Anne Wampas, sold his house. On his return in 1677, in consideration of £20 he confirmed the sale. When in London he met Edward Pratt, of St. Paul's, Shadwell, a victualler, and deeded to him land between Mendon, Worcester, New Oxford,. Sherborn, and Marlborough, and claimed to own in all fourteen miles square. His claims were not admitted by the General Court or the other Indians in the Nipmuck country. William Stoughton and Joseph Dudley, commissioners, gathered the Indian "clay- mers " at Cambridge, and with the assistance of Eliot purchased
455
LAND GRANTS.
one thousand square miles, principally in the southern part of this county, from Black James and sixty-five other Indians, and Waban and twenty-one others, for £50 and some small presents.
In 1684, the town of Marlborough paid £31 to twenty-five Indians, then living in Natick and Wamesit, for a deed of all the land included within its bounds. At a time when so many pro- minent white men "made their marks," it is noticeable that six Indians signed their names, including the two witnesses.
The early settlers not only paid the Indians for this land to secure their good-will and stop their complaints, but were carry- · ing out the repeated commands of the original patentees to the first settlers in the colony. So long as he remained friendly to the white settlers, the Indian's right to hunt, fish, and occupy his ancestral domain was recognized. In the first letter of instructions from the Governor and Deputy of the New England Company to the colonists who had already arrived in 1629, we find the following : " If any of the salvages pretend right of inheritance to all or any part of the lands granted in our patent, we pray you endeavor to purchase their title, that we may avoid the least scruple of intru- sion." The Indians living within the present limits of Massachu- setts were so few that most of the territory included in townships of from five to eight miles square were deeded by from one to five Indians. It is probable that there are more persons of Indian descent in this commonwealth now than when the Puritans first landed in Massachusetts Bay.
MAYHEW GRANT.
As early as 1643, Thomas Mayhew, a merchant from Southamp- ton, England, later a preacher with Eliot to the Indians, presented " a charge about a bridge by Watertown Mill; " and the colony granted him three hundred acres of land without locating them. In 1666, Mayhew assigned this grant to the executors of Edward How, in part payment of his indebtedness to How's estate.
June 18, 1708, a committee from the General Court found a strip of land north of the Sudbury, between the present westerly line of Ashland and Rocklawn Mills, which was so rocky and unattractive that no one had occupied it, although it was very near older settle-
456
APPENDIX.
ments. The town of Marlborough formally disclaimed ownership, and prominent citizens of Framingham certified that it did not belong to their township. Even the Indians on Maguncook hill made no claim to it. The committee, however, laid this out as the
HUDSON
MARLBORO
CART WAY. AT STIRRUP BROOK
STIRRUP
HARBOR 0700
NORTHBORO
SOUTHBORO
ASSABET
CY
WESTBORO
THE ORIGINAL MARLBOROUGH, AND THE NEW TOWNS "SET OFF " FROM IT.
Mayhew grant, and report that of this " Fiddleneck," of three hun- dred acres, some " was good, some bad, some pine and some oak land and some meadow in it." Later, the water-power developed by the falls of the Sudbury increased its value, and the manufactur-
457
LAND GRANTS.
ing villages of Southville and Cordaville were built on this tract of land. Three years after this grant was laid out, Col. Joseph Buck- minster, of Framingham, lessee of the greater part of that town under the Danforth grants, claimed that the " Fiddleneck " belonged
BY LANCASTER. LINE
."CORAM FARM.
HOLLOWAY & WHEELER
FIELD
FCART WAY AT STIRRUP BROOK RESERVEO LAND OF Y' COW COMMON
HEAP OF STONES
COUNTY ROAD
GREAT ROCK
WARNERS CORNER
HAYNES FARM
LIEU.HCALEB RICE HIS FARM
CHAUNCY
FAY FARM SOME TIMES CALLED BRIGHAM FARM
THE HOUSES OF THE
FAYS
THE ORIGINAL CHAUNCY, AND SOME OF THE TERRITORY AFTERWARD ANNEXED.
to Framingham. His claim was sustained by the General Court, and the Mayhew grant was re-located at Whitehall, in what is now Hopkinton, and near the pond of that name. So it came to pass that Westborough was bounded on the east by Framingham
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APPENDIX.
until the year 1786, when the " Fiddleneck " was annexed to Southborough.
John Belknap, of Westborough, lived near the disputed territory in 1778, when he finally induced this town to choose a committee, to meet with Southborough and Marlborough, "to settle the line between Framingham and Westborough that Mr. John Belknap has been a contending about so long."
It was not till fifty-seven years later that this controversy was finally settled by the General Court. Sixteen acres of the Fiddle- neck, probably including the Abner Prentiss mill-site, were annexed to Westborough. About a century and a half ago there was a mill at this point, and for ages before, the beavers had constructed dams across the Sudbury and its tributaries,- thus aiding in the construc- tion of a large area of what were designated on the first plan of Marlborough as " Seader Swamps."
THE BOSWORTH GRANT.
Edward Bosworth and family were brought to Boston from Eng- land at the expense of Henry Seawall. The General Court, finding them unable to repay the costs of their transportation, fixed the sums to be paid by each, including the son Benjamin, and the times of payment, and further ordered that the " fore-named parties shal be bound, one for another, for the payment of the said somes att the several dayes of payement." 1
Benjamin Bosworth, like so many emigrants since, soon emerged from poverty and obscurity, and in 1658 we find the duty of warn- ing the freemen of Hull to vote on election-day resting upon him. The day arrives, Bosworth neglects to call the meeting, and is fined forty shillings. He appeals to the General Court to remit the fine ; and as the election in Hull was not so important then as now, and as he had to pay ten shillings for the entry of his petition, the fine was remitted. His brother Nathaniel becomes a deputy and magistrate to solemnize marriages in Hull, and Benjamin himself, in 1675, heads the list of petitioners who were granted the town- ship of Stow.
In 1686 he is still basking in the favor of the court, and receives a grant of two hundred acres of land, which was laid out between
1 Court Records, i. 152.
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LAND GRANTS.
the old west line of Marlborough and "The Farms," which were later included in Shrewsbury. Bosworth moved from Stow to Boston, and sold these two hundred acres to Thomas Harris, vic- tualler, whose widow, Rebecca, sold it to Gershom Rice, of New London, Conn., planter. Gershom Rice was later one of the founders of the permanent settlement at Worcester.
Sixteen years before Westborough was incorporated, Dea. Caleb Rice, of Marlborough, planter, bought it for £21; and this Bos- worth grant thereafter became famous in early plans and records as the "Deacon Caleb Rice farm." The northern and larger por- tion of this tract of land became part of the new town of North- borough in 1766, while the southern part is at Boston Hill, in the northwesterly part of Westborough. The westerly line ran on the present Shrewsbury line two hundred rods southerly "towards a snake hill [now Boston Hill], ending at a black oak tree, thence 25° north of east over the end of the rattle Snake hill, one hun- dred and sixty rods, ending at Marlburrough west line." 1
EATON'S GRANT. Fay's or Brigham's Farm.
Gov. Theophilus Eaton, of Connecticut, founded the colony of New Haven in 1638. He was one of the original patentees of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and landed in Boston in 1637. He had been a prominent merchant in England, and was agent of King James at the Court of Denmark. He advanced £50 to the Massachusetts Colony, which had not been repaid at the time of his death.
June 11, 1680, the General Court "judgeth it meet to grant to the heirs of that worthy gent", Theophilus Eaton, Esq., five hundred acres of land in any part of our jurisdiction free from former grants, and not prejudicing plantations." John Haynes sur- veyed and plotted the five hundred acres, and the grant was "con- firmed as laid out, provided that it exceed not fivety more than the five hundred granted them, and that the same be reduced to a square or rhomboyds, and doe not prejudice any former grants." A few months later, the plan and survey were confirmed to the heirs of Governor Eaton, although they described a tract of very
1 Deed of Gershom to Caleb Rice, Feb 25, 1701-1702.
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APPENDIX.
irregular shape, its western extremity forming the north half of the part of Westborough now extending into Shrewsbury.
About two years later, the Eaton heirs sold this farm to John Brigham, the surveyor, doctor, miller, and land speculator, Thomas Brigham his brother, and John and Samuel Fay, sons of their sister Mary, for £25, or just one half of what the colony owed the gov- ernor's heirs, not including interest. Each Brigham owned one third, and their nephews, the Fay brothers, one third together. The southeast corner of this farm was a little northeast of the house, on the Eli Whitney hill, now occupied by William H. John- son. From this point it extended a little south of west one hun- dred and eighty rods towards the F. J. Adams place. The stone wall on the west side of the Whitney pasture hill, which can be seen distinctly from the former home of the inventor of the cotton-gin, is described in old deeds as " Sutton line -. " The long lines of stone walls extending a little west of north towards the Assabet River are parallel to " Marlboro' old line," the most easterly of them being the former west line of Marlborough, which extended in the same course, a little easterly of Hockomocco pond, to the northwesterly part of Northborough. The east line of this farm passes near a spring used by the Fays and their successors which is southeast of the S. A. Howe house, where John Fay, the first town-clerk of Westborough, made his home. His brother Samuel erected his " mansion house " on the opposite side of West Main Street, near the North Grafton road. The two Fay farms are now owned by M. and J. E. Henry, who live in the Samuel Fay "man- sion." The "houses of the Fays" are indicated on the map of Chauncy and farms adjoining, before this town was incorporated.
The third of the " Eaton Grant," next west of the Fays, was assigned to the heirs of Thomas Brigham, and remained in the Brigham family until the third Jonathan Forbes, who had married Moses Brigham's daughter, made it the Forbes homestead about a century and a quarter ago.
The most westerly portion was taken by John Brigham, who soon sold it to his son-in-law, Oliver Ward. The latter erected the upper mill on the Assabet River, and sold the former farm to Joseph Grout. For more than a century it remained the Grout homestead, and is now owned by James McTaggart. The Assabet
461
LAND GRANTS.
meadows - to secure which the Eaton grant had been extended westerly in such irregular fashion - and the swamps were divided up at different times among the original owners and their succes- sors. If the present maps of the town are approximately correct, the surveyors must have made liberal allowance for the " sag of the chain," as this five-hundred-acre farm extends more than a quarter of a mile farther west than the distances in the grant indicate.
BEERS'S GRANT.
The south line of " Old Marlboro'" extended from the Sudbury River southwesterly on the present line between this town and Hop- kinton, and in the same course through the first road connecting the two streets to the town reservoir, nearly west of the Talbot or Dea- con Morse place, to a point a little southwest of the Eli Whitney house, and about forty rods southeasterly from the southeast corner of the Eaton grant. ' In early deeds of land near Piccadilly, this old south line of Marlborough is described as "Jack Straw's Old Line." When the General Court was considering the incorporation of West- borough, a plan was prepared. It did not indicate a hill within the proposed limits of the new town. Near the southwest boundary, however, are the words "Jack Straw's Hill at Sutton." Jack Straw brook is still well known by that name, and "Jackstraw pasture " annually appears in the printed report of the assessors. The road extending south from the house of N. M. Knowlton passes directly over Jack Straw's hill. A cellar and a well in the pasture on the left, and a cellar and an immense stone chimney on the right, indicate deserted farms,- the former once occupied by Daniel Forbes, and the latter by James Miller. The earliest Indian trail, known as the "Connecticut Road," trod by Oldham the hunter and Rev. Thomas Hooker, passed from Ashland through Hopkinton and Woodville, and near this hill to the Indian village in Grafton. Ac- cording to tradition, the home of the famous Indian Jack Straw was on the summit of this hill, which always bears his name in old deeds as well as in records before the coming of white settlers. His home was so well known to the early colonists in the Massachusetts Bay that a grant of three hundred acres of land to the relict and chil- dren of Captain Richard Beers was laid out, forty years before the
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APPENDIX.
incorporation of Westborough, "at a place called Jack Straw's Hill."
Capt. Richard Beers, in his petition for a grant of land, describes himself as one of the first planters of this colony, and says that he served this country in their wars against the Pequots twice. He had been many times employed as commissioner by the Gen- eral Court to settle disputes between towns, and locate land grants. He was appointed one of the prudential committee to manage the new settlement at Quansigamond, now Worcester. Although advanced in years, he pushed boldly to the front in King Philip's War, and fell, in 1675, in the disastrous fight at Deerfield. His widow and children had lost the land laid out for him near Dover, as it had been included in earlier grants.
In 1692, John Brigham, by direction of the General Court, laid out another farm of three hundred acres at Jack Straw's Hill. Jack Straw must have been a long time dead. The only Indian of that name mentioned in contemporary works, so far as now discov- ered, accompanied a party of Connecticut Indians on their way to Boston to secure aid from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He had been in the employ of Sir Walter Raleigh, whose Roanoke colony had failed more than forty years before, and had lived in England, but " was now turned Indian again." Wahginnacut and his san- nops from Hartford could hardly secure a better interpreter or more influential advocate than this venerable Indian, living so near his path to Boston.
In 1676, three Indians surnamed Jackstraw, of Hopkinton, were hanged in Boston for their share in the massacre of the Eames family in Framingham.
This tract of land was sold by the Beers heirs to Samuel How, of Sudbury, for £15, and he sold it in 1698 to Thomas Rice, of Marlborough, for £22. The latter owned all the land from his residence on East Main Street, near the present village of Westborough, to District Number Five School-house. This grant extended, on the south line of Marlborough, from near Mount Pleasant to a point on the west side of the Eli Whitney pasture hill. It also extended easterly so as to include the town reservoir.
LAND GRANTS.
ELIJAH WHITNEY ANNEXATION.
When most of the farms in the "Shoe " were annexed to West- borough, in 1762, Thomas Whitney, living on the North Grafton road, refused to be detached from Shrewsbury and was left behind
MITPISGAH
GIORAM
ASSABET R
STIRRE
BROOK
BROOK
ASSABER
CARTLE TO PONO
ROCK
LIQUOR HILL
LITTL CHAUNCY
HOP TOMBLIN HILL
INSANE HOSPITAL
CHAUNC
GRANE SWAMP
ONDI
--
BOSTON HILL
HOBOMOO
FAY FARM
CEDAR SWAMP POND'
...
-
..
CEDAR
...
FROM SHREWSBURY
SUDBURY RIVE
FROM SSUTTON
FR
TURTON
TOWN RESERVOIR
MAP OF WESTBOROUGH IN 1766.
with his forty acres of land, entirely surrounded by Westborough. He lived in the house on the south side of the road next easterly
463
BALL
COLD HARBOR
RICE FARM
BROOK
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APPENDIX.
from the residence of B. A. Nourse. We do not know whether he loved Shrewsbury more, or Westborough less ; but the Gen- eral Court, with more regard for individual wishes than in town divisions of the present day, allowed his farm to remain a part of Shrewsbury.
His son, Elijah Whitney, bought the farm, and in the year 1792 petitioned for annexation to Westborough. He says that his farm of forty acres is situated in Shrewsbury, but " is incircled with land within the limits of the Town of Westborough, whereby your peti- tioner is subject to the Evil of passing through some part of West- borough in Order to appear in the Town of Shrewsbury, to attend his Municipal dutys in said Shrewsbury, as well as that of travelling as much as two miles further than it is to the centre of said West- borough. Y' petitioner therefore humbly prays the honorable Court to take under consideration his singular local situation and afford him relief, by setting off the afforesaid premises from Shrews- bury and annexing the same to said Town of Westborough, which would have taken place many years since, when the adjacent Farms were set off from Shrewsbury and annexed to Westborough, had not said Whitney's predecessor, then Resident on said Farm, Re- fused to be thus set of .... " The selectmen of Westborough and Shrewsbury indorsed their assent, and this Shrewsbury oasis became part of Westborough, March 12, 1793.
III.
TOWN OFFICERS.1
T HE following lists give the principal town-officers in West- borough from 1717 to 1890 : -
MODERATORS AT MARCH MEETINGS.
JOHN FAY, 1719, 1721. John Pratt, 1722.
Thomas Ward, 1723.
James Eager, 1725, 1742, 1743, 1749. Jacob Amsden, 1726.
Thomas Rice, 1727. Eleazer Bowman, 1728.
Edward Baker, 1729, 1740, 1744, 1745, 1751-53, 1755-57, 1759-60.
Oliver Ward, 1730.
Joseph Wheeler, 1731.
Simon Tainter, 1732.
Josiah Newton, 1733, 1739, 1741, 1746-48, 1750, 1754.
Aaron Forbush, 1734. Abijah Bruce, 1735.
Jonathan Whipple, 1736.
Daniel Warren, 1737, 1738.
Jonathan Livermore, 1758, 1764.
Bezaleal Eager, 1761.
Francis Whipple, 1762, 1763, 1766, 1768, 1770.
Phinehas Hardy, 1765, 1767, 1769.
Jonathan Bond, 1771-73, 1777.
George Andrews, 1774-76, 1778, 1784. Joseph Baker, 1779, 1780, 1785-88.
Nathan Fisher, 1781. James Hawes, 1782. Abijah Gale, 1783, 1792.
Elijah Brigham, 1789-91, 1793-96, 1798, 1799.
Daniel Chamberlain, 1797, 1802, 1803, 1805, 1806, 1808, 1809, 1811-14. Andrew Peters, 1800, 1801, 1804. Charles Fisher, 1807. Solomon Fay, 1810. Asaph Warren, 1815-17, 1823. Jonathan Forbush, 1818, 1821, 1822, 1825.
Phinehas Gleason, 1819.
Lovett Peters, 1820, 1824, 1838, 1839. Joel Parker, 1826, 1829, 1834. Otis Brigham, 1827, 1828, 1830-33, 1836, 1843.
Joseph Lathrop, 1835.
George Denny, 1837, 1840, 1841, 1850. Curtis Beeman, 1852.
Elmer Brigham, 1844.
S. Taylor Fay, 1845, 1849.
Jonas Longley, 1846, 1847. Daniel F. Newton, 1848, 1853, 1856, 1857, 1859, 1861-65, 1867, 1868, 1870-73. Ethan Bullard, 1851, 1852, 1854. Benjamin Boynton, 1855, 1858. Timothy A. Smith, 1860. John W. Brigham, 1866.
John A. Fayerweather, 1867, 1877.
Arthur G. Biscoe, 1874-76, 1878. Sherman Converse, 1879. William T. Forbes, 1880-88, 1890. Louis E. Denfeld, 1889.
1 Where two dates are connected by a hyphen (as 1722-27) both years are included in the term of service.
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APPENDIX.
SELECTMEN.1
THOMAS RICE, Jan. 5 to March 3, 1718; 1727.
John Fay, Jan. 5 to March 3, 1718; 1718-21, 1723, 1725-27, 1732-34, 1736.
Simeon Hayward, Jan. 5 to March 3, 1718.
James Bradish, 1718.
Thomas Ward, 1718, 1721, 1722.
Thomas Forbush, 1718.
Thomas Newton, 1718, 1719, 1722, 1725, 1729.
Edmund Rice, 1719, 1722.
Daniel Maynard, 1720, 1725, 1728.
Oliver Ward, 1720, 1723, 1727, 1729, 1733.
Isaac Tomblin, 1720, 1727.
John Pratt, 1722.
Daniel Brigham, 1722, 1728.
Samuel Forbush, 1723.
Josiah Newton, 1723, 1739-41, 1743- 47, 1749, 1752-54.
Samuel Robinson, 1723.
Daniel Brigham, 1725.
Daniel Warren, 1725, 1728, 1731-33, 1735, 1737-39, 1743-48.
Charles Rice, 1726.
James Eager, 1726, 1728, 1730, 1732- 36, 1738, 1740-43, 1748-54.
Joseph Wheeler, 1726, 1729, 1737, 1745, 1746.
Edward Baker, 1726, 1730, 1734-38, 1740-42, 1744, 1749, 1751-54, 1756, 1757, 1759, 1760.
Thomas Forbush, Jr., 1727, 1728, 1730-33, 1735, 1738, 1739, 1743-51, 1755. Jonathan Forbush, 1729, 1734. Eleazer Beeman, 1729.
John Maynard, 1730, 1734, 1736, 1737,
1743, 1744, 1748, 1750, 1755, 1756. James Ball, 1730, 1740, 1749.
David Brigham, 1731, 1737.
William Halloway, 1731, 1735, 1739,
1741, 1742, 1748, 1751, 1753, 1759.
Jacob Amsden, 1731, 1739.
David Maynard, 1732, 1767.
Jonathan Whipple, 1735.
Charles Rice, 1735. Joseph Grout, 1736.
James Miller, 1738, 1742.
Nathaniel Whitney, 1739-42, 175I.
Jonah Rice, 1745, 1750, 1757, 1758.
Nathan Ball, 1746.
Jacob Rice, 1747, 1756, 1757, 1761-63. Jonathan Livermore, 1750, 1755, 1758, 1764.
Bezaleal Eager, 1752, 1755, 1756, 1760-62, 1765.
Francis Whipple, 1752-58, 1762, 1763, 1765, 1770.
Samuel Wood, 1754, 1759, 1760.
Daniel Forbush, 1757, 1758.
Phinehas Hardy, 1758, 1763, 1765, I770.
Benjamin Fay, 1759, 1760, 1769, 1774, 1777, 1786, 1789, 1790, 1790-92.
Jonathan Bond, 1759-64, 1766-75.
Stephen Maynard, 1761, 1762, 1768- 73, 1781, 1782. Ebenezer Maynard, 1761, 1766, 1768, 1770, 1772-74, 1778, 1780. Levi Brigham, 1763. Benjamin Wood, 1764-67.
Timothy Fay, 1764, 1765.
Jonas Brigham, 1764, 1766-69, 1771, 1772, 1775-77. Ebenezer Chamberlain, 1766.
1 It was the custom from 1717 to 1820 to choose five selectmen each year ; but from 1820 to 1890 - with the exception of the years 1822-26, 1828-33, 1836, 1851, and 1858 - it has been the custom to chose three. In earlier years the selectmen attended to many duties now performed by the overseers of the poor and other boards.
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