USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Lancaster > The story of colonial Lancaster (Massachusetts) > Part 9
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to fail. There was not sufficient silver and gold in the country to redeem outstanding bills. In commenting upon this financial crisis, in his History of Lancaster, Rev. A. P. Marvin says "Every new generation seems to need a terrible experience to learn the plain fact that a paper promise to pay is worthless unless based upon ample ability to redeem itself, on demand, with gold or silver."
If fighting for the King brought no other reward, it at least taught the colonists self dependence and gave them confidence in their own strength which so soon was to be needed in a conflict as yet undreamed-the War for Independence.
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CHAPTER XXIX
End of the Ministry of Reverend John Prentice-Reverend Timothy Harrington Succeeds Him-1748
STRANGE AS IT MAY SEEM, NEW ENGLAND MEN BEGAN TO CHANGE in personal appearance. Their mode of living and their diet told a different story in their faces. They were no longer like their English forbears. The English diet had been beef, beer and wheat. Theirs had become pork, cider and corn, which produced less brawn but more muscle. Their struggle with the severe climate and their heavy farm work kept them lean. We begin now to see the "raw-boned Yankees"-taller, more active, nimbler of wit than their English contemporaries. Existing conditions were giving them a clearer insight into their own problems and prepar- ing them to work out their own salvation.
Lancaster surrendered about five square miles more from the southern end of her territory when, in 1742, a part of Shrewsbury was set off as a separate precinct, later to become the town of Boylston. A few years later an attempt was made to take away still more territory at the north end of the town. Fourteen residents then joined citizens of Harvard, Groton and Stow, in 1747, hoping to form a township. It was proposed to take two or three square miles in the northeast corner of the town.
The attempt failed, and when the district of Shirley finally was authorized, in 1753, the bounds of Lancaster were not disturbed. While still belonging to this town, this district, called Shabikin is now under the control of the United States government as an outpost of Fort Devens.
A counter attempt to join Lancaster was made by the residents of a strip of land belonging to Shrewsbury, called the Leg, in 1748. Permission was not granted by the General Court at the time, but twenty years later such addition was made to the town.
The first of the town's long pastorates closed in 1748, when after forty-three years of service, Rev. John Prentice died. Tradi- tion tells us that his father, along with Capt. Thomas Prentice,
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had been members of the bodyguard of Oliver Cromwell, in England.
Mr. Prentice graduated from Harvard College in 1700. Soon after coming to Lancaster he married the widow of his predecessor, Rev. Andrew Gardner. Thus he came into possession of the par- sonage which the town had built, first for Rev. John Whiting, whose widow had resold to the town, so that it had passed to Mr. Gardner.
The house is described as a large, unpainted, two-story mansion, fronting south. A double row of huge buttonwood trees led down to the main road. At the back of the house the roof sloped to within a few feet of the ground. Nearby was a well, with a huge well- sweep, which remained until near the close of the last century. The location was known for many years as "the ministerial lands" and was at the corner, on the east side of the Main Street, and the road leading to George Hill, in South Lancaster. For a half a century it has been known as "Fairlawn," the estate of the late E. V. R. Thayer.
With his own funds Reverend Mr. Prentice bought the house and lands diagonally across the way to the east, once the home of the unfortunate Samuel Prescott, who, heartbroken over his unintentional killing of the minister, Mr. Gardner, had left Lan- caster. This estate went to the eldest son, Dr. Stanton Prentice, for many years a physician of this town.
Upon the death of his first wife, Reverend Mr. Prentice had married a widow, Mrs. Prudence Foster Swan. By the first marriage there were seven children, by the second marriage three.
At this time the minister of any rural town, where, supposedly, there was no distinction in rank, was not only an autocrat but an aristocrat; and was so with full knowledge and consent of his parish. Even in his dress he was set above the common people by the cloth and the cut of his garments. He wore a powdered wig and a cocked hat. At his knees long silken stockings met the breeches, where they were fastened with gold or silver buckles. At the neck were finely stitched white neck bands, and at his wrists were ruffles of the same sheer linen.
No matter how rich any parishioner might be, the minister and his wife were socially above him. The parson was a majority in the church, and his was often the deciding vote in town meeting. He accepted this exalted position with becoming dignity, insisting on it, if necessary.
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His children inherited this position as a birth right and "the minister's son" and "the parson's daughter" were admitted to high social standing, as if by divine right.
The family of Reverend John Prentice helped not a little to establish an aristocracy in the towns around. The eldest son, Dr. Stanton, married twice. His wives were sisters, women of great beauty and accomplishments, daughters of Samuel Jennison of Groton. They bore him sixteen children.
A daughter, Mary Prentice, married Rev. Job Cushing. Two of her sons became Doctors of Divinity and another son, Thomas Parkman Cushing, founded Cushing Academy, in Ashburnham.
Another daughter, Rebecca Prentice, married Rev. John Mellen, the first minister of the second precinct, soon to become Sterling and her son was Judge Mellen of Portland, Maine.
Relief Prentice married Rev. John Rogers, of Leominster. All of these with the progeny of the divine's other six children added many names to the social register of New England.
In spite of her exalted social position, the minister's wife eked out his small salary by keeping what would be called today a small drygoods shop, in a small building near her house.
Rev. John Prentice is described as a man of severe and dignified appearance, thoroughly liberal in his style of preaching. While he was kindly and held in high esteem, he lost no time in bringing offenders to justice: for instance Jesse Wheeler, was convicted by the court for "planting corn upon the Sabbath day," and fined fifteen shillings to be used for the poor of the parish.
Following the pastorate of Mr. Prentice, Rev. Timothy Harring- ton was invited to settle here. He had graduated from Harvard College and for a short time had preached at Lower Ashuelot, a town which had been abandoned in the Indian raids of the year before. He was installed here in November, 1748.
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CHAPTER XXX
The Centennial Year-1753
THE SETTLERS IN THE NORTH WEST PART OF WORCESTER COUNTY had grown so discouraged, and were so fearful of being attacked and slain that many had deserted their homes and returned to the more eastern towns whence they had migrated. What is now Ashburnham, then called Dorchester-Canada, had been confirmed as a township in 1736, and had a church, a saw-mill, and at least two fortified houses; but fear of the savage foe drove all the in- habitants out, and soon not an occupied dwelling was left. The town was utterly deserted until after 1750. The French hated their English neighbors more than ever. Bands of Indian allies now and then were equipped and sent out to burn plunder and scalp along the border, and then return to receive a bounty, in spite of pretended peace.
Lancaster, now was so far from the frontier that it was con- sidered safe from Indian invasion, and the great advantages of its location were well known. The population was increasing rapidly by the addition of several families, formerly from the Bay towns, and many names were added to the voting list.
There were still plenty of wild animals in this region, for as late as 1732, a Lancaster hunter was paid a bounty for five wolves and sixteen wildcats. The provincial law offered a reward for the destruction of raccoons, gray squirrels and muskrats, also foxes: all these were numerous enough to be considered vermin. Passenger pigeons were also plentiful, and were snared by the hundreds and eaten. About this time steps were taken to prevent the killing of deer, out of season, and there after "deer reeves" were among the town officers annually chosen.
The year 1749 was noted for a great drought. Almost no rain fell after the melting of the snow until the sixth of July. Springs and brooks dried up; many of the trees in the forests dropped their leaves, and soon were killed; the early crops were destroyed and much of the grass was dried up in the great heat. The privation and disappointment of this blow to their farms added to the gloomy
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certainty of impending war must have preyed upon the spirits of the people, but their minds were intent upon the great question of right and the struggle for liberty.
Lancaster celebrated her one hundredth birthday in the parish meetinghouse on May 28, 1753. The pastor, Reverend Timothy Harrington preached a "century sermon" which was printed in a pamphlet of twenty-nine pages. The early annals of the town were given in condensed form, while half the pages were devoted to the history of the Jews and the details of the various sieges of Jerusalem. It has always been a matter of regret to historians that the minister had not filled these pages with reminiscences of those earlier days of which no town or church records tell the story, or of the pitiful sacrifice of Lancaster youth at Carthagena, or the brave deeds of Colonel Willard's regiment in the siege of Louisburg.
The town was free from internal dissension, as the second Pre- cinct was satisfied temporarily with its own church and its young pastor, Rev. John Mellen, who soon was considered one of the ablest clergymen of his day.
The redemption of paper currency had eased the financial depression, but life at its best was simple. The heavy carts and farm wagons had to answer for means of travel, for in Lancaster in this year, tax was paid to the Province upon but three chaises, while the younger towns recently set off, had neither chaise nor chair.
Generous provision was made for schools. Rev. Josiah Swan, a son of Mrs. Prentice, was generally the teacher of the school in the center of the town, from 1747 to 1760, while Rev. Josiah Brown was schoolmaster at Chocksett for as many years. For the third school the teachers were successively: Stephen Frost, Ed- ward Bass, Joseph Palmer, Moses Hemmenway and Samuel Locke-all Harvard graduates-the last named a resident of the town, afterwards president of Harvard College.
No new census of the town was taken until ten years later, but the population in the centennial year is estimated from an existing tax list to be about 1,500 persons.
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CHAPTER XXXI
Lancaster's Part in the Conquest of Canada-1754-1755
SEVEN YEARS OF PEACE HAD PASSED, BUT IN 1754 THE BRITISH colonies prepared for a struggle to settle, once for all, the fate of the rival civilizations. The mother countries did not declare war until two years later, but frequent collisions upon the frontiers foretold a desperate struggle.
Again Louisburg had become a standing menace to the com- merce of New England. The Puritans were pushing their prepara- tions with all possible speed. All the old forts were being strength- ened and, during the fall of 1754, Capt. Gershom Flagg, com- manding several mechanics and carpenters from Lancaster, worked upon the construction of Fort Halifax, on the Kennebec River, in Maine. To the western frontier Ensign John May led out thirteen soldiers to join Col. Israel Williams. Other men of the town were on the eastern front, in the regiment of Col. John Winslow.
The French had extended a line of forts and blockhouses from the Ohio river to the mouth of the St. Lawrence. They claimed, by right of discovery, the Mississippi and its tributaries to their sources in the Alleghanies, and were preparing to make their claim good. They had strengthened their fortresses, from the Acadian forts at the head of the Bay of Fundy, all along the way.
Four great expeditions were planned in 1755 against this French line of occupation, and four Colonial and British armies were sent out. Lancaster was represented in two-that against Crown Point, in New York, and the Acadian Campaign.
Lancaster had lost her veteran military commander by the death of Colonel Samuel Willard in 1752. His place was taken by his three sons, each one becoming a colonel.
The eldest son bore his father's name; and in the expedition against Crown Point this Samuel Willard was commissioned to raise a regiment of 800 men. John Whitcomb, of Bolton, was second in command. Shortly after joining his army, Col. Willard
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was stricken with a fever at Lake George and died, in his thirty- sixth year. Whitcomb was promoted to the command. In the regiment were seven men from Lancaster, including two lieuten- ants, Hezekiah Whitcomb and William Richardson, Jr. Lieut. Benjamin Wilder led a troop of cavalry-thirty three volunteers from the neighborhood, but the majority of Lancaster men, fifty-one in number fought in the regiment of Col. Ruggles under three Lancaster captains-Joseph and Asa Whitcomb and Benjamin Ballard. These three companies were in the bloody battle of September 8, known as "the morning fight" at Lake George. In spite of. the mismanagement of the commander-in- chief, the undisciplined but brave New England soldiers were victorious in what had seemed likely to be defeat. The regiment suffered severely and on that day, ten of the fifty-one from Lan- caster were killed or mortally wounded.
Many others were the victims of camp fevers and other diseases, and in the fall, dragged themselves homeward through the wilder- ness, or were brought on horseback by easy stages. Petitions for repayment, preserved in the Massachusetts archives, show some of the experiences of these patriots: Aaron Dresser writes, "I was taken sick at the Camp and was unable to Travil and Brought Down to Albaney In a wagon and Remaind sick at Albaney thre wekes and thre Days and then was unable to travil on foot and was forst to Hire a man and Horse to Carry me homward." For the cost of the journey "which ye man was 15 Days a performing I being so weke" he asks £5-18s-6d. Other petitions mention candles, boarding, nurses, doctors' bills and horse hire, and two widows ask an allowance for "Nussing and Billiting" as well as "Doctring."
This first Crown Point expedition was fruitless, except for the experience and confidence in their own officers it gave to the soldiers of New England.
The story of the campaign is one of mismanagement, delay and inefficiency on the part of the British officers. Their treatment of the Colonial officers and men was breeding hatred, and con- tempt as well, in the New England men, and it was hard for them to fight with a will under officers so incompetent, so unfair, and so grasping-so pompous and so lazy.
Campaign after campaign was planned but all were fruitless. The disheartened New England men spent their winters either
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in camp or in their homes, knowing that with the coming of spring it must all be gone through again; and always with the fear that the French would follow up their victories with invasion of the colonies.
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CHAPTER XXXII
The Acadian Expedition-1755
THE ACADIAN CAMPAIGN, IN WHICH LANCASTER MEN TOOK PART was the second expedition of the four planned against the French. It was even more inglorious than that against Crown Point, but it is famous in song and story. Lancaster's part never had had the prominence it deserves. Few people know it was a Lancaster man into whose unwilling hands was placed the order to banish the French from the regions bordering on the Bay of Fundy and the isthmus connecting New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
Nearly two centuries have passed
"since the burning of Grand Pré,
When on the falling tide the freighted vessels departed, Bearing a nation, with all its household gods, into exile, Exile without end, and without an example in story."
The poet Longfellow telis the story in "Evangeline."
Two thousand men embarked from Boston on the 20th of May, 1755, under Colonel John Winslow. Of this number one company of 105 men, allotted to the 2nd Battalion, was organized and officered by Lancaster men. These were: Capt. Abijah Willard, Lieut. Joshua Willard, Second Lieut. Moses Haskell, Ensign Caleb Willard. They were assigned to a sloop called "Victory." This company took part in the capture of Beau Sejour.
Captain Abijah Willard and his brother Joshua were sons of the elder Colonel Samuel Willard and brothers of the Colonel Samuel who had died a short time before. The King's officer in command, Lieut. Col. Moncton, chose Capt. Abijah to lead a detachment to Tatmagouche. Apparently Capt. Willard won the favor of Col. Moncton for, on August 5th, he was given command of 250 men, with sealed orders to go to the head of Minas Bay. A party of Regulars from the English army was to join them at some point in advance. Capt. Willard knew full well that the British officer, though of inferior rank, would assume command over him. He refused to accept the position and submit to such indignity. Then Col. Moncton gave written instructions to support
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Capt. Willard's authority. We are told that when they were joined by the English Regulars the British officer "was something Blank to think a New England Captain should Take Command of a Capt. Lt. of the Regulars," and immediately he said he was "much Fatigued with his Traveling so much and desired to have the Liberty of Coming on to Cobequid." Capt. Willard refused to relieve him.
The claim that a royal commission entitled a British officer to precedence over every Provincial of the same grade was a constant source of bitterness and strife. No matter what the army record or the length of service of the New England men, a soldier of the same rank fresh from England and with no experience in the new country had, up to this time, not only precedence, but apparently the right to ridicule and insult the Provincial officers.
The "Orderly Book" of Capt. Willard is now in possession of the Willard family. It contains a journal kept by him from April 9, 1755 to January 6, 1756. In this journal are recorded the follow- ing events:
"We killed the Chief Indian a Sagamore from the Island of Saint Johns which are known by the name of Mickmack, he lived about 5 hours after he was Shott and behaved as bold as any man Could Do till he Died but wanted Rum and Sider which we gave him till he Died, he was shott through the Bodey just below his Ribs, he was supposed to be 6 feet and two inches and very Large bon'd but very poor."
Capt. Willard's march along the shore of Minas Bay came near ending in disaster. He had been going along the beach; the banks were steep and nearly one hundred feet in height. Suddenly the roaring of the tide coming louder and louder attracted his attention, and at the same time a Frenchman shouted to the company to run for their lives. The "Journal" gives the following account of the near-tragedy, due to the noted high tides of the Bay of Fundy:
I ordered the party to Return back as fast as they Could; the men being frighted Traveled as fast as possible. We was oblige to Travell 2 miles before we could escape the tide and before we Got to the upland where we could get up the Banks was obliege to waid in the Rear up to their middles and Just escape being washed away and when come to this case sum of the men very much fatigued and att this place by the best observation the tides rise 80 foot.
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When the expedition reached Tatmagouchie, obeying his instruc- tions, Captain Willard opened the secret orders with which he had been entrusted. To his amazement he found a command to burn all the houses on the road to the Bay of Verts. He immediately proceeded to carry out his orders.
He ordered all the inhabitants of the district to assemble, and when they had come they were surrounded by the English soldiers, and Captain Willard addressed them. According to his journal, though not according to his manner of spelling as will be seen in his account of being overtaken by the tides, he "told them that they must go with me to Fort Cumberland and burn all their buildings, which made them look very sober and dejected. One of the French asked me for what reason, for he said he had never taken up arms against the English since they had the fight at Minas .- I told him they was rebellious-in harboring the Indians from Saint John's Island to go to the English settlements in New England and Nova Scotia, and find them provisions and ammunition which they answered me and said they was obliged to, or the Indians would kill them. I told them that if they had been true, they might have been protected by the English; and I told them they might carry their families with them if they thought best; and upon that they asked me for to have the liberty to go to the island of Saint John's but I soon answered them that it did not lie in my power to do it .- They asked me liberty for two hours to consult whether they thought best to carry their families. I granted them the liberty, and after they had consulted with each other they sent for me and they made this reply that they had chose to leave their families, which I readily granted for I did not want the trouble of the women and children .- This afternoon I ordered the whole to be drawn up in a body and bid the Frenchmen march off, and set fire to their buildings and left the women and children to take care of themselves, with great lamentation, which I must confess it seemed something shocking." Something shocking, indeed! Pillage and destruction, women widowed and children made fatherless and left behind amid the smoking ruins of their homes without shelter, food, or clothing.
Capt. Willard marched back to Fort Cumberland, where Col. Moncton, much pleased with his conduct of the affair, invited him to supper in his tent.
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But this was not the end of the story, dismissed so lightly by Lancaster's captain.
The mills of the gods grind slowly But they grind exceeding small.
Victorious in his expedition, praised by military authorities for his conduct of the affair Capt. Willard little realized that while seven thousand French neutrals, from Massachusetts Bay to Georgia, were grieving for their lost Acadia, fate was spinning a web, which, in a little more than twenty years, would take him back to Nova Scotia-a fugitive, branded as a tory and a traitor- his name a reproach among his lifelong neighbors, his property confiscated-back to Nova Scotia-never to return, but doomed so long as he lived to look westward with yearning heart towards his elm-shaded home in Lancaster.
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CHAPTER XXXIII
The Acadian Refugees in Lancaster, Crown Point, Lake George and Ticonderoga-1756-1759
MASSACHUSETTS WAS ORDERED TO CARE FOR ONE THOUSAND OF these "French neutrals," as they were called. Three families- twenty persons-were apportioned to Lancaster. These were: Benoni Melanson, his wife Mary, and seven children; Geoffry Benway, his wife Abigail, and four children; Theal Foree, his wife Abigail, and three daughters. The Foree family were soon trans- ferred to the town of Harvard.
These exiles arrived here in February, 1756. The accounts for their support were regularly rendered by the selectmen until 1761. They were destitute, sickly, and apparently unable to sup- port themselves. They were placed around among the farmers of the town, some in one family, some in another-homesick, grief- stricken, speaking a different language, holding a different religion. It is to be feared that they received scant sympathy from their strait-laced and austere Puritan keepers.
When these unhappy people had been in this section two years, they suddenly disappeared from their habitations. Made reckless by homesickness, they fled to the Atlantic coast, in February, 1761, in the vain hope that they might find some way to get back to the basin of Minas. They appeared at Weymouth, and when questioned by the authorities, admitted they had come from Lancaster. Melanson complained of the treatment of the Lancaster authorities, but no ground was found for the complaint. When about to be returned to Lancaster, Melanson asked permission to leave two of his sons in Weymouth, as they were fishermen.
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