USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Groton > Three historical addresses at Groton, Massachusetts > Part 10
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with the commander were fresh in his memory. The hero of the capture of Louisburg always wrote his sur- name with a double "r"; and for many years the district followed that custom, and like him spelled the name with two "r"s, but gradually the town dropped one of these letters. It was near the beginning of the nineteenth century that the present orthographic form of the word became general.
In the session of the General Court which met at Water- town, on July 19, 1775, Pepperell was represented by a member, and at that time practically acquired the rights and privileges of a town without any special act of incor- poration. Other similar districts were likewise represented, in accordance with the precept calling that body together, and thus they obtained full municipal rights without the usual formality. The precedent seems to have been set by the First Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, which met in the autumn of 1774, and was made up of delegates from the districts as well as from the towns. It was a revolutionary step taken outside of the law; and the in- formality led to a general Act, passed on August 23, 1775, which legalized the change.
Shirley, unlike Pepperell, was never incorporated as a precinct, but was set off as a district on January 5, 1753, three months before Pepperell was set off as one. In the Act of Incorporation the name was left blank, - as it was previously in the case of Harvard, and soon afterward in that of Pepperell, - and "Shirley" was filled in at the time of its engrossment. It was so named after William Shirley, the Governor of the Province at that period. It never was incorporated specifically as a town, but became one by a general Act of the Legislature, passed on August 23, 1775. While a district it was represented in the ses- sion of the General Court which met at Watertown, on July 19, 1775, as well as represented in the First Provin- cial Congress of Massachusetts, and thus tacitly acquired the dignity of a town, which was afterward confirmed by the Act, just mentioned.
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These two townships, Pepperell and Shirley, were the first settlements to swarm from the original Plantation. With the benediction of the mother they left the parent hive, and on all occasions they have proved to be dutiful daughters in whom the old town has always taken a deep pride. In former years, before the days of railroads, these two towns were closely identified with Groton, and the social intercourse between them was very intimate. If the families of the three towns were not akin to one another, in a certain sense they were neighbors.
The latest legislation connected with the dismemberment of the original grant, - and perhaps the last for many years to come, - is the Act of February 14, 1871, by which the town of Ayer was incorporated. This enactment took from Groton a large section of territory lying near its southern borders, and from Shirley all that part of the town on the easterly side of the Nashua River which was annexed to it from Groton, on February 6, 1798.
Thus has the old Groton Plantation, during a period of two hundred and fifty years, been hewn and hacked down to less than one half of its original dimensions. Formerly it contained 40,960 acres, while now the amount of taxable land within the town is 19,850 acres. It has furnished, substantially, the entire territory of Pepperell, Shirley, and Ayer, more than one half of Dunstable, and has contributed more or less to form five other towns, - namely, Harvard, Littleton, and Westford, in Massachusetts, besides Nashua and Hollis, in New Hampshire.
The early settlers of Groton, like all other persons of that period of time or of any period, had their limitations. They were lovers of political freedom, and they gave the largest liberty to all, - so far as it related to their physical condition; but in matters of religious belief it was quite otherwise. With them it was an accepted tradition, - per- haps with us not entirely outgrown, - that persons who held a different faith from themselves were likely to have a lower standard of morality. They saw things by a dim light, they saw "through a glass darkly." They beheld
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theological objects by the help of dipped candles, and they interpreted religion and its relations to life accordingly. They viewed all ecclesiastical matters through chinks, while we who live two hundred and fifty years later can bring to our aid the electric light of science and modern discovery. We have a great advantage over what they had, and let us use it fairly. Let us be just to them, as we hope for justice from those who will follow us. Let us remember that the standards of daily life change from one century to another. Perhaps in future generations, when we are judged, the verdict of posterity will be against us rather than against the early comers. More has been given to us than was given to them, and we shall be held answerable in a correspondingly larger measure. It is not the number of talents with which we have been entrusted that will tell in our favor, but the sacred use we make of them. In deciding this question, two centuries and a half hence, I am by no means sure of the judgment that history will render. Do we as a nation give all men a square deal? The author of the Golden Rule was color-blind, and in its application he made no difference between the various races of mankind. This rule applied to the black man equally with the white man. Do we now give our African brother a fair chance? It is enough for us to try to do right, and let the consequences be what they will. "Hew up to the chalk line, and let the chips fly where they may," once said Wendell Phillips. We hear much nowadays about the simple life, but that was the life lived by the settlers, and taught to their children, both by precept and example. Austere in their belief, they practised those homely virtues which lie at the base of all civilization; and we of to-day owe much to their memory. They prayed for the wisdom that cometh from above, and for the righteousness that exalteth a nation; and they tried to square their conduct by their creed.
The early settlers were a plain folk, and they knew little of the pride and pomposity of later times. To sum up briefly their social qualities, I should say that they were
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neighborly to a superlative degree, which means much in country life. They looked after the welfare of their neighbors who were not so well off in this world's goods as they themselves, they watched with them when they were sick, and sympathized with them when death came into their families. In cold weather they hauled wood for the widows, and cut it up and split it for them; and when a beef " crittur " or a hog was killed, no one went hungry. When a man met with an accident and had a leg broken, the neighbors saw that his crops were gathered, and that all needful work was done; and after a heavy snow-storm in winter, they turned to and broke out the roads and pri- vate ways with sleds drawn by many yoke of oxen be- longing in the district. Happily all this order of things is not yet a lost art, but in former times the custom was more thoroughly observed, and spread over a much wider region than now prevails. When help was needed in private house- holds, they never asked, like the lawyer of old, " And who is my neighbor?" They always stretched out their hands to the poor, and they reached forth their hands to the needy.
To us it seems almost pathetic, certainly amusing, to see how closely they connected their daily life with the affairs of the church. As a specimen I will give an instance found in the note-book of the Reverend John Fiske, of Chelmsford. He records that James Parker, James Fiske, and John Nutting wished to remove from Chelmsford and take up their abode 'in this town. The subject of their removal was brought before the church there in the autumn of 1661, when they desired the "loving leave " of their brethren so to do, as well as prayers that the blessing of God might accompany them to their new homes. The meeting was held on November 9, 1661, when some dis- cussion took place and considerable feeling was shown. Mr. Fiske, the pastor, shrewdly declined to commit himself in the matter; or, according to the record, declined to speak on the question "one way or the other, but desired that the brethren might manifest themselves." At the conference one brother said that there was no necessity for
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the removal, and hoped that the three members would give up their intention to remove, and would remain in Chelms- ford. Reading between the lines it seems as if this town had invited the three men to settle here; and Brother Parker speaking for them (" in the plural number ") said that God's hand was to be seen in the whole movement. The same hand which brought them to Chelmsford now pointed to Groton. Apparently the meeting was a pro- tracted one, and "scarce a man in the Church but pres- ently said the grounds, the grounds." This was another form of calling for the question, - in other words, for the reasons of the removal, whether valid or not. While the decision of the conference is not given in exact language, inferentially it was in favor of their going, - as they were here in December, 1662. James Parker was a deacon of the Chelmsford church; and perhaps there had been some slight disagreement between him and a few of the other members. Evidently he was one of the pillars of the body at Chelmsford; and at once he became a deacon at Groton. To us now it is amusing to see what a commotion in the church was raised because these three families purposed to remove to another town. " Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth." Fortunately for this town James Parker, James Fiske, and John Nutting with their house- holds came hither to live, where they all became useful and influential citizens far above the average. In his day James Parker was the most prominent man in Groton, filling many civil and military positions; the next year after coming James Fiske was chosen selectman, and later town- clerk; and John Nutting was appointed surveyor of high- ways. There are in this audience, doubtless, at the present moment many descendants of these three pioneers who had so many obstacles thrown in their way before taking up their abode here. If these families had not removed hither at that early period, perhaps their descendants now would be celebrating anniversaries elsewhere rather than here, and might never have known what they lost by the change in their respective birthplaces. Without being able to call them by name or to identify them in any way, to all such
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I offer the greetings of this gathering on the good judg- ment shown by their ancestors.
This town took its name from Groton, Co. Suffolk, England, which was the native place of Deane Winthrop, one of the original petitioners for Groton Plantation. His name stands at the head of the list of selectmen appointed in 1655 by the General Court; and to-day we should give him the title of Chairman of the Board. He was a son of John Winthrop who came to New England in 1630 as Governor of Massachusetts; and it was in compliment to him that the name of his birthplace was given to the town. Without much doubt he was a resident here for a few years; and in this opinion I am supported by a distin- guished member of that family, now deceased, who some time ago wrote me as follows :
BOSTON, 27 February, 1878.
MY DEAR DR. GREEN, - It would give me real pleasure to aid you in establishing the relations of Deane Winthrop to the Town of Groton in Massachusetts. But there are only three or four letters of Deane's among the family papers in my pos- session, and not one of them is dated Groton. Nor can I find in any of the family papers a distinct reference to his resi- dence there.
There are, however, two brief notes of his, both dated " the 16 of December, 1662," which I cannot help thinking may have been written at Groton. One of them is addressed to his brother John, the. Governor of Connecticut, who was then in London, on business connected with the Charter of Connecti- cut. In this note Deane says as follows : -
" I have some thoughts of removing from the place that I now live in, into your Colony, if I could lit of a convenient place. The place that I now live in is too little for me, my children now growing up."
We know that Deane Winthrop was at the head of the first Board of Selectmen of Groton a few years earlier, and that he went to reside at Pullen Point, now called Winthrop, not many years after.
I am strongly inclined to think with you that this note of December, 1662, was written at Groton.
Yours very truly,
SAMUEL A. GREEN, M.D.
ROBT. C. WINTHROP.
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During my boyhood I always had a strong desire to visit Groton in England, which gave its name to this town and indirectly to six other towns in the United States. Strictly speaking, it is not a town, but a parish; and there are technical distinctions between the two. More than fifty years ago I was staying in London, and as a stranger in that great metropolis, even after many inquiries I found much difficulty in learning the best way to reach the little village. All my previous knowledge in regard to the place was limited to the fact that it lay in the county of Suf- folk, near its southern border. After a somewhat close study of a Railway Guide, I left London in the month of October, 1854, for Sudbury, which is the only town of considerable size in the immediate neighborhood of Groton. After changing trains at a railway junction, of which the name has long since faded from my memory, I found myself in a carriage alone with a fellow-passenger, who was both courteous and communicative, and thoroughly ac- quainted with the country through which we were passing. On telling him the purpose of my visit, he seemed to be much interested, and told me in return that he was very familiar with the parish of Groton; and he had many questions to ask about our good old town, which I was both able and glad to answer. It soon turned out that my hitherto unknown friend was Sir Henry E. Austen, of Chelsworth, Hadleigh, who, on reaching Sudbury, gave me a note of introduction to Richard Almack, Esq., of Long Melford, which I used a day or two afterward with excellent results. From Sudbury I drove in a dog-cart to Boxford, where I tarried over night at the White Horse Inn, and in the morning walked over to Groton, less than a mile distant. This place - the object of my pilgrimage - I found to be a typical English village of the olden time, very small both in territory and population, and utterly unlike any of its American namesakes. Its history goes back many generations, even to a period before Domes- day Book, which was ordered by William the Conqueror more than eight hundred years ago, and which registers
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a survey of lands in England made at that early date. The text is in Latin, and the words are much shortened by various contractions. The writing is peculiar and hard to read; but it gives some interesting statistics in regard to the place.
On reaching the end of my trip I called at once on the rector, who received me very kindly and offered to go with me to the church, which invitation I readily accepted. He expressed much interest in the New England towns bear- ing the name of Groton, and spoke of a visit made to the English town, a few years previously, by the Honorable Robert C. Winthrop, of Boston, which gave him great pleasure. We walked over the grounds of the old manor, once belonging to John Winthrop, first Governor of Massa- chusetts ; and Groton Place, the residence of the lord of the manor at that time, was pointed out, as well as a solitary mulberry-tree, which stood in Winthrop's garden, and is now the last vestige of the spot. In strolling over the grounds I picked up some acorns under an oak, which were afterward sent home to my father and planted here, but unfortunately they did not come up. I remember with special pleasure the attentions of Mr. R. F. Swan, post- master at Boxford, who took me to a small school of little children in that parish, where the teacher told the scholars that I had come from another Groton across the broad ocean. He also kindly made for me a rough tracing of the part of the parish . in which I was more particularly interested; and as I had left the inn at Boxford when he called, he sent it by private hands to me at the Sudbury railway station. All these little courtesies and many more I recollect with great distinctness, and they add much to the pleasant memories of my visit to the ancestral town, which has such a numerous progeny of municipal descend- ants in the United States.
Of this large family our town, now celebrating the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its birth, is the eldest ; and as the "first-born, higher than the kings of the earth."
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The next child in the order of descent is the town in Connecticut, - younger than this town by just half a cen- tury, and during the Revolution the scene of the heroic Ledyard's death. It was so named in the year 1705, dur- ing the Governorship of Fitz-John Winthrop, out of re- spect to the Suffolk home of the family. In population this is the largest of the various towns bearing the name, and contains several thriving villages. It is situated on the east bank of the Thames River, in New London County.
The next town in age is the one in Grafton County, New Hampshire, which was originally granted by the Legislature of that State as early as July 3, 1761, under the name of Cockermouth, and re-granted on November 22, 1766; but the present name of Groton was not given until December 7, 1796. It was chosen by certain inhabitants of the place, who were connected either by birth or through kindred with this town. The population is small, and the principal pursuit of the people is farming, though there are eight or ten sawmills within its limits. Mica is found in great abundance, and forms the basis of an important in- dustry. There is a Spectacle Pond, lying partly within the town, of which the name may have gone from this neigh- borhood. There are two villages in the township, the one known as North Groton, perhaps the more important, and the other situated near the southerly border, and known as Groton. Between these two villages, in the centre of the territory, are the town-house, and an old burying- ground where fifteen years ago I examined many of the epitaphs and found a few family names that are still common here in our Old Burying-ground.
The fourth child in the municipal family is the town of Groton, Caledonia County, Vermont, a pretty village lying in the Wells River valley, and chartered on Octo- ber 20, 1789, though the earliest settlers were living there a few years before that date. The first child born in the town was Sally, daughter of Captain Edmund and Sally (Wesson) Morse, who began her earthly pilgrimage on September 2, 1787. The father was a native of our town,
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and principally through his influence the name of Groton was given to the home of his adoption among the foot-hills of the Green Mountains. Wells River runs through the township in a southeasterly direction, and with its tributaries affords some excellent water-power along its course. This stream rises in Groton Pond, a beautiful sheet of water, and empties into the Connecticut at Wells River Junction, a railway centre of some importance.
My visit to the town was made on July 26, 1890, and while there I called on the Honorable Isaac Newton Hall, one of the oldest and most prominent citizens of the place, who kindly took me in his buggy through the village, point- ing out on the way the various objects of public interest. Mr. Hall, to whom I was under great obligations, died in Chicago, while there on a visit, November 30, 1893, aged 85 years and 6 months. The Methodist Episcopal Church, situated at one end of the village street, had some memo- rial windows, of which two had inscriptions, as follows: -
Capt · Edmund · Morse Born . Groton . Mass . 1764 Died · Groton . Vt . 1843
Sally . Morse . Hill Born . 1787 - Died . 1864 The . First . Person . Born . in . Groton
Before leaving the" place I walked through the burying- ground and examined some of the epitaphs, but none of the names reminded me particularly of the parent town.
The next town of the name is Groton, Erie County, Ohio, which was settled about the year 1809. It was first called Wheatsborough, after a Mr. Wheats, who originally owned most of the township. It lies in the region known as the Fire Lands of Ohio, a tract of half a million acres given by the State of Connecticut in May, 1792, to those of her citizens who had suffered losses from the enemy during the Revolution. Like many other places in the neighbor- hood, the town took its name from the one in Connecticut.
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Late in the autumn of 1889 I happened to be in Nash- ville, Tennessee, as a member of a committee on business connected with the Peabody Normal College in that city, of which ex-President Hayes was chairman. On telling him incidentally that on my return homeward I purposed to tarry for a day or two at Groton, Erie County, Ohio, he kindly invited me to make him a visit at his home in Fremont, which was very near my objective point; and he said furthermore that he would accompany me on my trip to that town, which offer I readily accepted. On the morning of November 27 we left Fremont by rail for Norwalk, the shire town of Huron County, - a county in which the township of Groton formerly came, - where we alighted, and at once repaired to the rooms of the Firelands Historical Society. Here we were met by sev- eral gentlemen, prominent in the city as well as in the Historical Society, who showed us many attentions. We had an opportunity there to examine various objects of interest connected with the early history of that part of the State. Then taking the cars again on our return, we proceeded as far as Bellevue, where we left the train. Here at a livery-stable we engaged a buggy and a pair of horses, without knowing exactly to what part of the town- ship I wished to go, as I was then told that there was no village of Groton, but only scattered farms throughout the town. One man, however, said that there was a place called Groton Centre, which name seemed to me very familiar, and so thither we directed our course. After driving over muddy roads for five or six miles, we inquired at a farm-house the way to Groton Centre, where we were told that a school-house in sight, half a mile off, was the desired place. There was no village whatever to be seen in any direction; and the building was the public voting- place, on which account the neighborhood received the name. The town is entirely agricultural in its character, and the land is largely prairie with a rich soil. It is small in population, and does not contain even a post-office. The inhabitants for their postal facilities depend on Bellevue
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and Sandusky, adjacent places. I was told that its early settlers came largely from Connecticut and Pennsylvania ; and I thought that I could detect the origin of some of them by the different styles of construction as seen in their houses and barns still standing, whether they came from the one or the other of the two States.
Another town bearing the good name of Groton, which I have visited, is the one in Tompkins County, New York. More than eighteen years ago I found myself at Cortland, Cortland County, New York, where I had gone in order to see the venerable Mrs. Sarah Chaplin Rockwood, a na- tive of this town. She was a daughter of the Reverend Dr. Chaplin, the last minister settled by the town, and at that time she was almost one hundred and two years old. By a coincidence she was then living on Groton Avenue, a thoroughfare which leads to Groton, Tompkins County, a town ten miles distant. Taking advantage of my near- ness to that place, on May 4, 1887, I drove there and was set down at the Groton Hotel, where I passed the night. Soon after my arrival I took a stroll through the village, and then called on Marvin Morse Baldwin, Esq., a lawyer of prominence, and the author of an historical sketch of the place, published in 1868, but who is now deceased. The town was formed originally, on April 7, 1817, from Locke, Cayuga County, under the name of Division; but during the next year this was changed to Groton, on the petition of the inhabitants, some of whom were from Groton, Massachusetts, and others from Groton, Connecti- cut. The principal village is situated on Owasco Inlet, a small stream, and is surrounded by a rolling country of great beauty. The population is small, and the business chiefly confined to a machine-shop and foundry, several carriage-shops, and the making of agricultural implements. The town supports a National Bank and also a weekly newspaper, and has railway communication with other places.
In all these visits to the several towns of the same name, I have interested myself to learn the local pronunciation
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