USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Lancaster > The story of colonial Lancaster (Massachusetts) > Part 7
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In another page the old memorandum book gives a list of innkeepers' charges: for an "ordination dinner," 3s. 6d; for an ordinary dinner, one half that sum. Casual lodging for one person for a night was 4d; for a horse for twenty-four hours, 6d; for a yoke of oxen, a penny or two more than for a horse. As this road was a part of the old Bay Path, Bride Cake Plain had important taverns on this main line of traffic.
There is a tradition that Judge Wilder set out many elm trees beside the road past his house and the Atherton Bridge road, many of which grew to great size, and were standing within the memory of people now living.
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The Wilder lands took in all the grounds now covered by the State Industrial School, and more. Two centuries of care and cultivation have given this section of the town an atmosphere of old England.
It had become necessary to enlarge the meetinghouse by 1725, though many were in favor of building a new one. The location was not then near what had come to be the center of population, and there was much agitation and discussion about dividing the town. Finally it was decided to add twenty feet to the length of the church at a cost of £100; an additional sum of £40, was granted later.
When the work was completed in 1727, a committee of nine men was chosen to "seat" (apportion seats in) the enlarged house, according to rank-based upon family, property or office of the members. It is said that resultant jealousies and heart burnings lasted through succeeding generations.
Mrs. Prentice, the minister's wife, was given "the pew at the foot or next to the pulpit stairs." It was voted that "thirteen men be seated in the body of seats"; ten men in the front gallery, and twelve men in a seat in the side gallery. Also that "it be left to the committee to seat aged persons as they shall think convenient and decent." Thus the life of the church went on for a few years in the enlarged building but, before the death of Rev. Mr. Prentice a new church became a necessity. The "damnified" building was then torn down and the lumber was used in school buildings.
There was a movement at this time to form a new county from certain towns of Suffolk and Middlesex counties. Lancaster was much interested and chose James Wilder and Jonathan Houghton to act for the town. There is a tradition that it was expected that there would be two shire towns in this new county, and that Lancaster would be one of them, as it was the wealthiest, the oldest and the largest of the fourteen towns set off to form Wor- cester county. The honor of first county treasurer went to Jonathan Houghton of Lancaster, and Joseph Wilder was made judge of the Court of Common Pleas.
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CHAPTER XXII
Raids on the Indians-Bounty for Scalps-Lovewell's War- 1722-1726
LANCASTER WAS NOT INVADED DURING THE TIME OF "LOVEWELL'S war"-1722-1726-although records of that time show that the citizens lived in constant fear of attack. The names of five men from Lancaster appear upon the muster roll, in the first year of that war.
Lieutenant Jabez Fairbanks sent a letter to the Honorable William Dummer, in the following year, informing him that fifteen able-bodied men from Lancaster had enlisted with men from Groton and Dunstable, ready to go upon the march as scouts.
Jabez Fairbanks was a grandson of John Prescott. His father, Jonas Fairbank, and his brothers, Joshua and Jonas, were slain in the earlier Indian wars. It is not strange that men with such family traditions were eager to range the woods and guard the towns. Moreover, a great inducement to volunteers was the enact- ment of 1722, offering volunteer scouts a reward of fioo for the scalp of any male Indian over twelve years of age; and half that amount for an Indian woman or child, scalped or unscalped.
Captain John White of Lancaster was associated with Captain Lovewell, and was famous as an Indian fighter. He lived on the east side of the Neck. He died in the service. His widow received £100 "in consideration of the good service done this province by her late husband."
There are numerous journals relating the hardships and diffi- culties of carrying the war into the enemy's country. One episode is referred to as "At killing of them 10 Indians," in February, 1724. Captain White's journal records killing bears and "divers rattle- snakes which pestere us very much in our march" and also of getting a "black moose." He records heavy rains day after day, and great heat which caused much sickness among his men. The days that found the men very sick and weak they traveled but seven or eight miles: at other times nineteen or twenty miles.
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Captain White was a blacksmith and, for a single year, 1717 was a licensed innholder. An old shop stood many years on the land of the late N. C. Hawkins where it was said to have been used as a smithy since the days of Captain White, a grandson of the pioneer bearing the same name.
This Captain White was considered a great hero when, on March 10, 1725, he marched through Boston at the head of his sixty rangers, mostly from Lancaster, displaying ten scalps. They were taken in the night surprise of a party of hostile Indians near the source of the Salmon river in New Hampshire, and were worth £1000 bounty. He was well off for his times, leaving an estate of £1220. He left eight children.
In the Massachusetts archives there are several letters to Lieutenant Governor William Dummer from another Lancaster man, Captain Samuel Willard. He was a grandson of Major Simon Willard, and a son of Henry, who lived on the large Still River farm. Having inherited this farm and considerable property, Captain Samuel Willard bought the homestead of his grandfather, the "night pasture" adjoining, and the land of Edward Breck,- in all seventy-six acres. He is supposed to have built and lived in the large house near the railroad crossing just north of the Lancaster station, where three generations of his descendants succeeded him.
Captain Samuel Willard's military career began in Lovewell's war when he led two companies of about ninety men each, to and from the headwaters of the Saco and Pemigewasset rivers-a march of 500 miles. His letters tell of hardships and privations endured on the march through a pathless wilderness. There are a number of entries which read: "We lay still by reason of Rain." At other times, when tracking the Indians, the journal records that the scouts marched twenty-four miles in a day. He was the first to explore the region around the White Mountains.
Captain Josiah Willard, a brother of Captain Samuel, com- manded a company in this expedition. He removed to Turkey Hills (Lunenburg), and became a colonel in the French and Indian war. Indian guides were used on this expedition, as "Jo the Mo- hawk" is mentioned, also "Nessa Gawney" an interpreter.
Although both Captain Lovewell and Captain White were killed, the rangers drove the Indians back into the fastnesses of the
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forests and inflicted heavy losses upon the savages, destroying their strongholds.
The soldiers did not forget the fertile valleys and beautiful rivers and lakes they had seen in New Hampshire, and soon many of them returned there to build log cabins and open up homesteads in the new country.
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CHAPTER XXIII
Country Life Around 1730
ALTHOUGH WE SPEAK OF LANCASTER AT THIS TIME AS THE wealthiest town in Worcester county, compared to modern standards life was very simple. There is an adage that "hard work is happiness" and, if this be half true, our yeoman ancestry should have been happy. These men worked from sunrise to sun- set, never idle except on the Sabbath, from the first day that the frost was out of the ground, making it possible for the farmer to handle a plow, until the ground froze again in the fall. All were rich in acres of land, but all were poor as to ready money, house- hold goods, or any kind of labor saving devices; yet there were no paupers and no loafers.
Some farmers were skilled in mechanical crafts at which they worked, in addition to carrying on their farms. All were handy with tools and were what might be called "Jacks-at-all-trades." And so they plowed, planted, hoed, hayed and reaped their har- vests.
The long winter season was not a time of leisure. It had its special labors-the butchering, the salting of meat, the curing and smoking of hams and shoulders, the making of sausages and head cheese, trying out tallow and lard, and pickling souse and tripe. Corn had to be shelled by scraping the ears on the edge of an iron shovel on which the boy or man doing the shelling sat. Wheat, barley and oats were threshed with flails upon the barn floor, then sifted and winnowed by hand, on some windy day.
After each drifting snowstorm every man and boy, and all the teams in town, were expected to share the work of breaking out the roads, and when the snows had fallen in the woodland, every boy who could swing an ax helped his father cut and load ox sledges with logs and fire wood. Yards were piled as high as the eaves of the houses with wood which, in time, was cut into back- logs, forelogs, and chunks for the fireplace, and for ovenwood, kindling, light wood and chips. The choicest longer logs were hauled to the sawmill to be cut into boards to be used for repairs
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about the farm buildings-the sawyer taking half for his pay. Cuts from young chestnut trees were split for fencing rails and posts, many of which were needed, for fences around the grain fields had to be "horse-high, bull-proof and hog tight."
Swine were allowed to run at large, and cattle and horses grazed unattended along the highways. Stones were so numerous on the hills that, in time, stone walls took the place of rail fences. The best of the white pine butts were sawn into bolts or "rived" for shingles, by hand.
Straight hickory sticks and choice pieces of ash and white oak were saved to be fashioned into sled stakes, whipstocks, handles for hoes, shovels, forks, ax helves and plow handles, on winter evenings or when the days were stormy. Then, too, there were oxbows, cart tongues, hoops, and scores of other useful articles to be fashioned. All this work was done slowly by hand. The tools used were jackknife, ax, saw and drawshave.
Each farmer was required to deliver one prime load of wood at the minister's door. It was the age of wooden ware. The daily meals were eaten from wooden bowls and trenchers. The milk vessels were all of wood. Doors were held by big wooden latches, strong enough to bar the door if the latchstring were pulled in.
The cooper was one of the busiest men, for all looked to him for barrels for cider and beer, for dye tubs, malt vats, cheese vats and churns; for dry measures, firkins and buckets.
Pewter, tin and potter's ware were scarce and expensive-some few pieces had been brought over from England and were heir- looms; but the dish turner, with his rude lathe, turned out cherry and maple trenchers, bowls, trays, spoons, mortars and pestles, dippers and drinking cups for every day use.
Furniture was of the simplest design and was made mostly at home. By the chimney usually there stood a settle, made with a high back to ward off drafts. Usually the best bed was in the parlor and was of feathers. For common use the beds were made of coarse wool and were called "flock" beds. Beneath these were ticks, stuffed with straw or corn husks. A great chest held the family supply of linen. A clock was a rare possession. Noon marks on the kitchen floor to show when the sun was at its height, told the good wife when it was time to blow the horn for dinner. There were a few hour glasses, usually one in the pulpit to keep the minister from preaching less than an hour.
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Every family made candles and soap as regularly as butter and cheese were made. The chief illumination was from the blaze of pine knots. These were separated into little slivers. They were so full of resin or pitch that they gave a brilliant, but unsteady light. Never was the fire on the hearth allowed to die out, for there were no matches. Every night, the last one to bed heaped the embers against the backlog, and covered them deep with ashes, ready to kindle the next day's fire. If a family lost its fire some one must get live coals or a burning brand from the nearest neighbor's -no matter how far away it might be.
All journeys were made either upon foot or on horseback. Often on the stout farm horse a pillion was fastened behind the saddle to carry a woman rider. Most wedding journeys were made in such fashion. A young couple, after being "published" for a fort- night on the meetinghouse door, rode thus upon one horse to the minister or magistrate, and returned as man and wife. Usually a new small home was built upon a piece of land from the paternal estate-a marriage portion to the bridegroom. It was customary for the groom to furnish the iron utensils around the fireside. The village blacksmith turned out trammels, cobirons, branders, toasting forks, and tongs. The settle, and a table, also the big linen chest were turned out by the local carpenter, and with a few necessary dishes for the cooking and serving of meals com- pleted the groom's portion.
The bride's dowry consisted of a cow, her spinning-wheel, a "flock" bed, and the store of sheets, pillow cases, blankets, quilts and rugs which she had been working upon in anticipation of this happy day. For "best" wear she had an extra "serge gown" and a "say apron" besides a "satinesco petticoate," an extra "linsey woolsey petticoate," and over all "a red serge hood and mantle." She was lucky if some of her numerous relations gave her an iron pot, a brass kettle, a skillet, an iron porringer or two, or such heirlooms as a set of pewter plates and spoons, or a few dishes of common crockery.
In the evenings, by the firelight, the young husband made brooms of birch twigs or fashioned rude baskets of splint, and tools and utensils of wood. The young wife worked at her spinning- wheel or busily plied her knitting-needles. Godliness, cleanliness and industry were their home atmosphere.
Although there was plenty, the food of the farmer's family
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was plain fare. The staples were bean porridge, brown bread, hominy, hasty pudding, pork, salt beef, salt fish and fresh fish. There were vegetables in their season. Molasses and honey were used for sweetening, as sugar was scarce and expensive. A cone of white sugar, weighing from eight to ten pounds and wrapped in purple paper, was an average yearly supply for a family. These purple paper wrappings were saved with care and used in dyeing yarn.
Potatoes were not yet in common use. Wheat, rye, oats, barley, peas, parsnips, carrots, onions and hops had been brought from England, and from the mother country also were brought apples, pears, cherries and quinces. From the Indians the settlers had got pumpkins, squashes, maize and beans.
It was discovered early that the hills around Harvard and Bolton were peculiarly adapted to fruit culture, and that such fruits, brought from England, improved greatly in size and flavor.
Tobacco was raised for domestic use, and the good wife was as fond of her cob pipe as was her husband. Mrs. Rowlandson, the wife of the minister, many years before had told in her narrative how "bewitching" was the habit of smoking. She added that it was a great waste of time, and that she had resolved to give up the habit.
One man left, among other provisions in his will, that his wife was to have twenty pounds of tobacco to be provided yearly by her sons.
In the inventories of the goods of "first citizens" once in a while we find such luxuries as "a silver cup," an "oval table" or a looking-glass.
In the forest wolves, wildcats and bears were numerous, and the farmers were driven to despair by their nightly raids upon pigs, lambs and calves. Catamounts were not rare, and the town paid a bounty on the head of a wolf, wildcat or lynx. A substantial reward was offered for the extermination of raccoons, foxes, gray squirrels and muskrats: they were considered vermin.
The pioneers had no lime for their houses, but about this period, 1730, the Whitcombs established lime kilns in the northeast corner of Bolton, and Fairbank and Houghton started others in the southeast section of Harvard. Laths and plaster then took the place of the sheathed walls and ceilings in the houses, and the high wainscoating of the earlier period. The shape of the
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houses had changed little, and the two-storied front, with huge central chimney, and the roof sloping at the back to within eight or ten feet from the ground was the customary shape. The chief timbers for the frames were of hewn oak. Over the rough boarding was laid a second covering of thin lapped sheathing, "claved" from logs. Such claved boards soon came to be called clapboards.
The windows were small panes of greenish leaded glass, which let in but little light even in the brightest part of the day. In the museum of the Lancaster library there is an old window taken from the old Thurston house at the parting of the ways towards Sterling. The house was torn down around 1840, and was the last in town to have such windows.
Whenever possible, heavy wooden pins were used in construction, for nails were made by hand, were expensive and were bought by number-not by weight.
There were no porches to the houses, and the only projections of any kind were an occasional second story built out slightly beyond the lower story. There was no paint either within or with- out the house. There were often elm trees for shade; lilac bushes beside the door; some cinnamon roses and a few herbs, and usually a picturesque wellsweep that completed a homelike picture.
Fashions for both sexes were simple and unchanging. The clothing was literally grown on the farm-both flax and wool. The spinning, weaving, dyeing, cutting and sewing were done with the thought and the hope that the garment would outlive its owner. Much fine work went into the garments, and although all sewing was done by hand, no pains were spared to conceal the stitches. There is in Lancaster today much fine sewing that was done over a century ago.
There was much sociability and neighborhood visiting, because the folk were wholly dependant upon each other for company. There was no Christmas celebration-that was considered pagan: there were no balls, no card parties: but there were quilting parties, husking bees, sheep-shearings, and apple paring bees, each followed by a bountiful supper. The great feast day of the year was Thanksgiving.
On the Sabbath the call to church was by beating a drum. There was a horse block at the door for the women to alight. The men and the women sat apart, and the boys had benches in the gallery, with a tything-man who had long rod to rap them with,
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if they misbehaved or went to sleep; and it was easy to go to sleep when the sermon and the prayer each lasted an hour. There was no instrumental music; one of the deacons gave the pitch for the tune and read the hymn line by line, before the singing began. The tunes used in regular succession were York, Hackney, Windsor, and St. Mary.
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CHAPTER XXIV
1730-Harvard Seeks Independence-Other Towns Follow
LANCASTER'S NEAREST NEIGHBOR ON THE NORTH WAS THE township of Groton, of which the present town of Ayer was a part. Road connecting the two towns was laid out to follow the course of the river, but, in 1673, owing to the annual freshets which often made it impassable; a joint committee from the two towns had relocated it upon higher grounds in much the same course in use today. Between the two towns, Groton and Lan- caster, this highway crossed a strip of land that was not claimed by either town. It stretched the whole seven miles along the south- ern boundary of Groton, and was but two-thirds of a mile wide. Together with other unappropriated lands to the east, this "No- man's-land" was given to establish the town of Stow, and soon came to be known as Stow Leg. The district known as "Shabokin," which now is used as a rifle range by Fort Devens was a part of Stow Leg. Here still may be found cellar holes marking the location of early homes.
It had been a known fact for several years that the householders east of the Nashaway river were planning to secede from the mother town at the earliest opportunity. The time came with the controversy over enlarging the meetinghouse, in 1728. That all-important center-the meetinghouse-was not large enough to accommodate the fast growing population, and, al- though it had been enlarged, greatly, the voters who were ambitious to establish a new township saw to it that money was not forth- coming to make it sufficiently ample.
The voters living around Bear Hill voiced their plans at town- meeting in May, 1730, asking for "Setting off a part of ye Town of Lancaster" sufficient for a township with "that part of Stow and Groton whose inhabitants have agreed and covenanted with the petitioners."
The voters of Stow and Groton were approached with a similar proposition at the same time. Lancaster and Stow voted not to allow the petition. Groton was willing to accede within certain
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limits, one being that "No part of the Town on the West Side of the Nashua River" be taken.
Nothing daunted, the secessionists carried their petition to the House of Representatives, with the result that an "Honourable Board" was appointed to repair to the lands petitioned for, and view their situation and circumstances.
Lancaster remained firmly opposed to separation, but tried to compromise by offering to build two meetinghouses in places considered most suitable to accommodate the whole town.
The first plan was to cut off the whole northern third of the old township of Lancaster. The citizens living west of the river in that section bitterly opposed being set off as part of the new town. All the householders around Wataquadock and to the south of that hill also were opposed to the plan, for they were biding their time to propose a township of their own. Their remon- strance was presented by "John Beaman and ten others, Inhabi- tants of the Southwest part of the Northeast quarter of the old Township of Lancaster."
Six of the nine petitioners from Groton bore the surname Farnsworth, the others were Davis, Robbins and Stone. There were ten petitioners from Stow Leg. Of the forty-four petitioners from Lancaster six were named Atherton; four were Houghtons; six were Willards; one each, Fairbanks and Whitcomb, three Wrights and four Whitneys. All these names proclaim their pioneer ancestry.
There were concessions on all sides, and compromises about the boundaries. Stow persistently opposed but the peculiar situa- tion of the "Leg" made its opposition seem unreasonable to the Board and, in the short space of two years, the act of incorporation for the new township was approved and published on June 17, I732.
No name was given to the town in the bill, but later "Harvard" was inserted in the handwriting of Secretary Josiah Willard, whose father had been acting president of the university at Cam- bridge from 1701-1707. There seems to have been no local reason for the name.
Stow had lost only that part of the Leg which lay east of the Nashua river. Groton had given the southern part of its area which lay east of the river, which was also the dividing line for Lancaster, but the mother town had given an area of about eighteen square miles-more than twice as much as Groton gave.
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The first town meetings in Harvard were in a building about a third of a mile north of the present Common, where, it is believed, church services had been held for a time, before 1732. It now was deemed desirable to have a new house of worship, and a solemn fast was observed in September, 1732, as a first step, to be followed by building a church and selecting a pastor.
The land chosen for the site was common, the property of the Lancaster proprietors, and was known as "Meeting House Plain." A committee was appointed to petition Lancaster to grant to Harvard about thirty acres of this common land for a meeting- house, for a training-field, for a burying-field "and other Public uses.'
The mother town, having done all she could to prevent the separation, seems now to have accepted the situation and so, quite generously, gave the desired land, which once covered a much larger area than the present Common, church grounds and cemetery in Harvard. This friendly gesture seems to have cemented the peaceful relations which have existed since between the towns.
Encouraged by the fact that they had escaped being included in the town of Harvard, the residents of "the southwest part of the northeast quarter" of Lancaster soon began to prepare their presentation of plans for their own township. They wanted all the land east of the rivers not taken by Harvard. About a dozen householders in the southwest corner of the town petitioned for a separate organization at the same time as did the citizens around Wataquadock, in May, 1733.
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