USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Lancaster > The story of colonial Lancaster (Massachusetts) > Part 6
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John Houghton, whose letter decided the Court in favor of the new location, was a son of the John Houghton who set up his home here in 1653. He married Mary Farrar, who lived in "Narrow Lane." They had set up in housekeeping on Bridecake Plain, on the south side of the road, opposite the present grounds of the State Industrial School. Lieutenant Houghton was conveyancer, inn keeper, justice, selectman, and served as town clerk for ten years. He is the first man mentioned in any records as a school- master. After fifty-two years of married life, having become a widower, he married at the age of seventy-five Hannah Wilder aged seventy-two. At the time of his death a Boston newspaper, the EVENING POST, made the following statement in his obituary notice: "He hath left a numerous offspring. There are now living of his children, seven; of his grandchildren, fifty-four; of his great- grandchildren, seventy-three; in all, one hundred and thirty- four." It is not to be wondered at that the name of Houghton was prominent in town annals for the next century and more.
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CHAPTER XVII
More Indian Raids-1707-1710-Petition for the Additional Grant
AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY, LANCASTER'S SECOND MILL WAS built at the waters of Goodrich Brook, in the district known as Deershorns, but earlier still as "Sly Corner."
Thomas Sawyer, a grandson of John Prescott, inherited much of his grandfather Prescott's enterprise. He built the mill in 1699. When, in 1705, the Indians made another successful raid upon the town, Thomas Sawyer, his son Elias, and John Bigelow, a carpenter from Marlboro, were captured by the savages and carried away to Canada. The elder Sawyer was tied to a stake for death by torture. He was rescued by a friar who held a key before the Indians and told them that unless they loosed their captive he would unlock the doors of Purgatory and cast them all into the flames. This was thought to have been a ruse on the part of the French governor to save the captive for his own purposes, for soon he employed Sawyer and his companions to build a saw- mill on the Chamblay river-the first saw-mill in Canada.
Then the elder Sawyer was allowed to return to his home, but the son was kept for a time to operate the mill and to instruct others in the sawyer's art.
When finally allowed to go home, Elias Sawyer brought, with other things, a curiously glazed plate of red earthen ware, which was handed down from generation to generation. It finally was given to the Lancaster library, by the will of Ellsworth Sawyer, the last male descendant of that line.
The 18th century had just opened when three enterprising young men of Lancaster bargained with George Tahanto, Indian sagamore, for land lying between the west end of their township and the Wachusett Hills. Ensign John Moore, John Houghton and Nathaniel Wilder had made what might be called a "down payment" of forty-three shillings, and later had paid in part and bonded the rest of eighteen pounds to the Indians. In return Ta- hanto had agreed to surrender lands and meadows adjoining the
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westward line and running as far north as the northern boundary of Lancaster. To the south it bordered for the most part upon the "Nashuah river," and bore westerly towards Wachusett. Tahanto promised to procure an order from the General Court for the allowance and confirmation of the sale, and to mark out the bounds and make deeds and conveyances within four months.
The petition for the "additional grant" went up with a request that a committee should be appointed "to go upon and take a view of the land petitioned for" and make a report to the next session of the Court. The committee appointed consisted of Col. Tyng, Major Thomas Brown and Captain James Minott.
No action seems to have been taken by this committee until ten years had passed, but these far-sighted young men had opened the way for the beginning of what is now the city of Leominster. They were descendants of the pioneers, and doubtless were imbued with the same spirit of adventure, the same love of acquiring land and of becoming self dependent.
In the light of quick succeeding events this delay was fortunate for the wooded hills to the north and west constituted a menace for several years.
The land was sought as recompense for losses in the French and Indian wars.
Because the western side of the town had been the scene of conflict so often, the east and north-east sections were becoming more and more favored for the new homes of the succeeding generations, and fast growing families were shaping little villages, which, within the next generation, were to separate from the mother town, to become the townships of Harvard, Bolton, and Berlin.
At the time of the erection of the new meetinghouse in 1707, letters from the petitioners show that no Indian atrocities had been committed upon the soil occupied by these townships, which, of itself, must have been a strong argument for their selec- tion as sites for homes.
Then, as to the parish meetinghouse where all were compelled to attend worship in winter and summer alike: it was many miles from the north and east boundaries of the town, from Bear Hill, from Quasaponikin and Wataquadock.
Some went to meeting on horse back, with wife or daughter on pillion; but most were afoot, the men with guns on their should-
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ers. It was not to be wondered at that their minds often turned towards the time when they would have a nearer church and schools for their children. Letters show that school attendance was much interrupted because mothers feared for the safety of their children.
Parties of hostile Indians had been seen hovering about the town, when on the 16th of July, 1707, news came that they had killed Jonathan White, a lad of fifteen, a brother of Capt. John White. In the Boston News Letter an account of the attack says "Thirteen Indians on the frontier surprised two men at their labor in the meadows at Marlborough' that they took them both alive and also that they took a woman whom they killed. One of the captives got away and gave the alarm. About twenty men, joined by twenty more from Lancaster, pursued and came up with the enemy, whose numbers had increased to thirty-six. When over- taken the Indians barbarously murdered the captive. In the skir- mish which followed the English lost two men and two were wounded. The dead were Richard Singleterry and John Farrar, the latter born in Lancaster. His father had been killed in the massacre of 1676. Ephraim Wilder and Samuel Stevens were wounded severely. The captive who was "barbarously murdered" was Jonathan Wilder, a brother to the Ephraim who was wounded.
The place where the skirmish took place was in the northwest corner of Sterling and to this day is called the Indian Fight.
The report tells of the capture and killing of at least ten or twelve of the Indians, as there were tracks of that many having been dragged away. Twenty-four of the Indians' packs were captured.
For a year or two soldiers were kept in the town to help to defend it. An Indian servant of the Wilders was the last person killed by the red men. He was working in a field on George Hill on August 5, 1710, with Nathaniel Wilder, who was wounded at the same time. The next year twenty-one soldiers were stationed in the town, which seems very much like "locking the barn after the horse was stolen." King William's war was over before the French and Indians made this disastrous attack upon Lancaster; but the news that peace had been declared had not yet reached this side of the ocean.
A short three years intervened before the colonists were again drawn into War, and from 1701 to 1713 they were again in arms for King and country.
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The selectmen of Lancaster were summoned in 1710 to appear in court to answer for want of a schoolmaster. Their answer was that they had appointed John Houghton at a town meeting, that he was actually engaged in the work and had been formerly engaged in instructing some in writing. They added that they were "under dangerous circumstances" and that it was very hazardous sending the children to school-"living so scattering." They assured the Court that not only to comply with the law, but for their own benefit, they were willing to do all that could be done. The Court accepted this explanation and placed the case on file.
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CHAPTER XVIII
The Scar Bridge Road-Renewal of the Church Covenant 1708
AT PRESCOTT'S MILLS NO LOSS OF LIFE OR PROPERTY IS RECORDED in the massacre by the Indians in 1697, nor in the attack by the French and Indians, in 1704. This was one of the six fortified posts in the town. At the time of the latter attack there were but three families and two soldiers at this garrison. The heads of the families were the second John Prescott, his two grown sons, John and Ebenezer, and John Keyes, a weaver.
For half a century there were but three families in that location. While the town was spreading out to the north and east, and even with an eye to new settlements to the west, Prescott's mills had harbored but three families. Most of the region about the Prescott garrison was covered with dense pine forests. It is interesting to note that, as early as 1703, legislation was required to prevent the destruction of trees by those who collected turpentine. Gathering turpentine had became an important industry in New England and the product was exported to Great Britain.
The three ponds in this section of the town now Clinton bore the same names as they do today. They are mentioned in docu- ments of this period: Clamshell, 1697; Moss or Mossy, in 1702; Sandy, about 1702.
Soon after the rebuilding of Lancaster began, in 1686, a petition was presented at town meeting "for a way to Goodman Prescott's Corne-mill, to ly over the River at the Scar." This was the second town road laid out within Clinton bounds. It was primarily for the use of the people of Stow, Marlboro and Sudbury, who had access to no grist and saw-mill nearer than Prescotts'.
Although this was a much-used public way for more than fifty years, few signs of it can be found today. There a few traces of the abutments of what was probably a slab bridge built by John Prescott, in 1718. This highway came down the hill not far from the scar known as Emerson's Bank, and over a bridge near the pumping station on North High Street, Clinton.
At the time of the ordination of Reverend John Prentice in
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1708, the Church Covenant was renewed, and records of baptisms and admissions to the church were kept. Twenty years later minutes of church meetings were recorded. The old book with words worn from the edges of the leaves is in the writing of Mr. Prentice and to it is signed his name. Written below are the names of seven members of his church: Thomas Wilder, John Houghton, Josiah Whetcomb, John Wilder, Jeremiah Willson, John Rugg, Jonathan Moor. Twenty-nine other names were signed from time to time as people became members. Many of the parish seem not to have signed the Covenant.
The seventh article in the Covenant would seem to be enough to warrant a real Utopia. It reads:
We also bind ourselves to walk in love one toward another endeavoring our mutual edification, visiting, exhorting, comfort- ing, as occasion serveth, and warning any brother or sister which offendeth, not divulging private offences irregularly, but heedfully following the precepts laid down for church dealing Matth. XVIII: 15, 16, 17. While forgiving all that do manifest unto the Judgement of Charity that they truly repent their miscarriages.
In the other six articles they pledge themselves to a most orthodox course of conduct and even to bring up their families to such use of orthodox catechisms that true religion will be maintained in their families "while we live, yea and among such as shall live when we are dead & gone."
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CHAPTER XIX
Bridges a Source of Trouble-1711
GOVERNOR DUDLEY ORDERED THE INSPECTION OF ALL GARRISONS in this neighborhood in 1711, and it is probable that the first census was taken then. The report showed 27 garrisons within the towns borders, housing 83 families and III "inhabitants," which must have meant heads of families, as the total was "458 souls."
By an old law of 1647, any town harboring 100 families should set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to "instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the university," and in 1715 we find the town's selectmen appearing in the Middlesex Court to answer "for want of a grammar school." Again we find the case dismissed upon the payment of a fee when Capt. Joslin and Hooker Osgood, speaking for the selectmen assured the Court that they had procured the services of young Mr. Pierpont, of Roxbury, a graduate of Harvard College, but that he "is fallen under indisposition of Body by reason of sickness" and that they "expect him speedily."
This action shows that there were now 100 families in the town. Owing to the widely scattered homes, school was kept part of the year "on the Neck," and another part in Still River.
The next schoolmaster mentioned is Samuel Stow, of Marl- borough, a Harvard graduate, who was paid £40 a year. The minis- ters salary was raised from £75 to £85 a year.
At a special town meeting in 1718, Lancaster considered rebuild- ing the Neck bridge. This is the first mention of any crossing of the main river save by wading places or canoes. Probably there had been some rude structure of slabs. This new bridge was ordered to have five trestles and to be thirteen feet wide, and was called "ye great bridge." Thirty-five pounds was appropriated for its erection.
For the next 150 years the bridges of the town were a constant source of expense and trouble. As the population grew, and out- lying districts were settled, eight bridges were needed to reach
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them and every year caused expense. The old Neck bridge never remained in good repair. Frequent freshets carried the poorly constructed spans down stream. Sometimes the location was changed in effort to find better foundation. Not until late in the last century was there an iron bridge constructed. The first such was the present Atherton bridge, built in 1870.
A volume could be filled with the town's actions upon repairs, replacements, and construction-from the time when the towns people first gathered at a jollification that celebrated the raising of "the great bridge" in 1718, through all the periods of spring freshets and ice jams, when one bridge after another was carried down stream, often to help dislodge the one next below, to the time the supposedly permanent structures were built by skilled modern engineers.
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CHAPTER XX
Rapid Extension of Settlements-1711-1720
RECORDS OF THIS PERIOD ARE FILLED WITH PETITIONS FOR additional grants of land for services rendered the town; for lengthening and straightening of highways to accommodate new houses, for setting up gates in the highway. Some of the reports accepted and recorded by the town might well have been in a foreign language if they were to have been of use to anyone except to those who owned the land. An example in the original spelling, as recorded in 1715, is as follows: "Layed out to ye Right of Muc- lode takeing in ye swamp to the Harrises as it is now marked John Benits Corner being a little pine & so Runs to a popler takeing in a smal Corner of land to Ebenezer Harris & from thence it Runes to a Red Oke, one the east side ye way & so runs to a white oke & so to another white oke & so to Ebenezer Beman's Corner."
The town now was advancing more rapidly than ever before. It was a period free from Indian raids and the farmers had been able to attend to their work with less interruption.
Two more saw-mills had been built: one upon the North branch of the river by Samuel Bennett; the other on Wataquadock brook, on the road to Marlboro.
The "additional grant" first asked for in 1701, confirmed in 17II, really was added and confirmed to the town of Lancaster, as part of the township in 1714. However, it was not paid for by the town, as a whole, but by subscription, and forty acres of the best ground was alloted to each share.
In laying out of new townships to the westward in 1720 it was claimed that the committee surveying this grant had allowed more land to Lancaster than the terms of the purchase warranted. After a year of wrangling the bounds were fixed by the court as they had been marked by the Indian grantors. Out of this territory was made not only Leominster, but Sterling and a large part of Boylston and West Boylston.
Gamaliel Beaman headed a movement about this time to set
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up new homes among the hills in the region north of the Washacum lakes-called Woonksechocksett by the Indians. With their corner stones they also laid the foundation of that part of the town called Chocksett, eventually Sterling.
Many Houghtons, Wilders, Carters, Sawyers and others, nearly all grandsons of the early proprietors, had taken up their homes in the valley of the north branch of the Nashaway, and being at so great a distance from church and schools looked toward an independent township, which was to become Leominster. But not yet, for Harvard and Bolton were first in the field.
Around the more important garrisons these little villages had grown and, except that all must gather at one common meeting- house on the Sabbath, and must carry their grist to Prescott's mills, they were quite independent of the mother town. Lancaster was no longer a border town. New frontiers had sprung up. It was now the wealthiest town in the county. In ten years its popula- tion had doubled, and it had a strong voice in all county affairs.
There were four licensed innholders. These were located at Still River, on the Neck, on George Hill and in South Lancaster.
When the services of a doctor were required to set a broken limb, or in case of an alarming illness, Jonathan Prescott was called from Concord, and galloped up with his saddlebag of drugs. He charged but a small fee. In less serious cases Doctor Mary Whitcomb administered herbs at home. "Doctress Whitcomb" was here as early as 1700. She studied the "profession" with the Indians, with whom she was once a captive, and acquired a knowledge of "simples" from them. She was well liked and had a wide practice as there was no other of the "faculty" nearer than Concord.
From £50 to £60 a year was allowed for "scooling." Edward Broughton was schoolmaster. He taught a few weeks at a time, according to the taxes contributed-on the Neck, at Still River or Bear Hill, and on Wataquadock. A year or two later it became the custom to employ young Harvard College graduates as teachers for short terms.
The orchards of the town had become famous, and much of the fruit was converted into cider. It found a ready sale in Boston and in the new towns, though much of it was used at home. Cider was considered a necessity at all public functions, such as raisings and huskings. When Captain Jonas Houghton, the Lancaster
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surveyor was employed to lay out a road along the north side of Wachusett, the contract test was that it should be "so feasable as to carry comfortably, with four oxen, four barrels of cider at once."
They were still warning undesirable persons out of town in 1717, when one Robert Hues was ordered "to depart out of ye bounds of limits of said Lancaster," as shown by the Middlesex Court Files.
The town fathers from the first had planned for "common" land to be used alike by all. There must have been back of this the English idea of a "village green" for, as the center of the town changed from one side of the river to the other, each time allow- ance was made for a stated common.
The first Common was the "night pasture" which was fenced in for the protection of the cattle, horses, goats, sheep and swine of the planter, and took in the land east of the house of Lawrence Waters to the river on two sides, and to the highway to the east Neck for a northern boundary. Several years later, when an allot- ment of land was made to the first minister, it was voted to take it from "the night pasture, within the fence that was formerly set up by the copartners." Joseph Rowlandson, the minister's son, sold his father's estate and, in time the "night pasture" was divided among many owners. A lot was laid out, as early as 1654, on the north side of the highway that bounded the night pasture to "Ly in common" for the plantation. This little common is still the property of the town though cut by two highways. The part which lies in the triangle between Main Street and Center Bridge road was enclosed, years ago, within a high hedge of arbor vitae.
When this little common was laid out it was voted that no second division of land should be made to any planter within the compass of two miles of this spot. Another order decreed that no person should cut any timber on the Common, under penalty of the law.
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CHAPTER XXI
An Illiterate and Wilful Town Clerk-The Meetinghouse Enlarged in 1725
AFTER THE THIRD MEETINGHOUSE WAS BUILT-ON BRIDECAKE Plain-a common was needed for that part of the town near the new center. A training-field "to lie common" was secured in 1718. It covered three acres "by the highway near Justice Houghton's barn." This field lay to the east of the church, opposite what is now the State Industrial School grounds. By mischance no deed was secured for this lot, so that, in the course of time, an heir of the man from whom it was bought refused to give the town a deed for it. The man who later purchased it fenced in the lot, and the Common ceased to be, and began to be referred to as "the Old Common."
Joseph Wilder, son of the second Thomas Wilder, was now proprietors' clerk, an office which he held for forty years; from 1716 to 1757. It is possible that he had been clerk at some previous time but, if so, the records are missing. He became town clerk in 1737 also, and held the office for seven years. He must have been a man of great native force for he held these offices by common consent, in spite of the fact that his penmanship was so poor as to be hardly legible especially in his later years, when he wrote with a palsied hand. He was illiterate, his spelling was very poor. Punctuation he ignored altogether. His wife was Lucy Gardner, a sister of the former minister of the parish, Rev. Andrew Gardner.
Joseph Wilder was deacon in the Lancaster church for forty- two years. He was noted for his sound common sense and integrity. His most noticeable trait was tenacity of purpose-an inherited trait which he, in turn, handed down and caused the family to be known as the "willful Wilders" for many generations. He was representative to the General Court at three sessions. When Worcester county was formed in 1731, he was appointed judge and held the office of chief justice at his death.
There is a tradition that Lancaster might have been the shire town of Worcester County but for the narrow minded opposition
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of this Judge Wilder. Lancaster was then the oldest town and had become the most populous and the wealthiest in the county. Many were in favor of locating the county offices here.
Judge Wilder would not give his consent. His reasons were that shire towns were "apt to be infested with gamblers, horse jockeys and drunkards" and that the morals of the town should not be sacrificed to increase its numbers and its wealth.
By some, his decision was considered the cause of the loss of a golden opportunity which could never be regained. By others, it was thought to have been the hand of Providence instrumental in keeping the town as it was.
At his death, at the age of 74, in March, 1757, Judge Wilder was succeeded by his son, Colonel Caleb, as clerk of the proprietors. Another son, Colonel Joseph, became town clerk, deacon, and Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. These two sons were engaged in manufacture of potash and pearlash, and became rich. The great iron boiler used by them for many years, later was a watering trough by the side of the main road from Lancaster to Bolton.
Colonel Caleb Wilder erected a Stately brick house on the grounds of what is now the State Industrial School. This building was destroyed by a fire, set by inmates of the school, half a century ago.
In an old memorandum of Judge Joseph Wilder's was found "an accompt of Cyder made in the ye 1728"-616 barrels. Sixty one barrels were for the minister, Reverend John Prentice. Cider was sold at that time for from four to six shillings a barrel. The historian, Henry S. Nourse, says that cider was "a liquid so abundant that the flow would have kept full a respectable brooklet."
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