USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume I > Part 2
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Area and Altitudes of Towns-A map of Worcester County showing the town boundary lines resembles the craziest kind of a crazy quilt. The townships are laid out in a bewildering variety of shapes and sizes. A few have a four-sided regularity, but the outlines of most of them are peculiarly angular. As a whole, this was all for good and sufficient reasons. Many of the townships are the results of splitting up original grants, which were of unwieldy size. Various exigencies governed the fixing of boundaries, chief among them the locations of parishes, villages and farming districts.
Another perplexing variation in the geography of the cities and towns is in their altitudes. We have already referred to this in a gen- eral way in sketching the geological history of the region. They played an important part in the development and progress of the towns. Those of the highlands, as a rule, were much handicapped by their ruggedness, and the lot of their settlers was by no means as easy as that of their neighbors of the lowlands. In more recent years this matter of eleva-
GEOGRAPHY OF WORCESTER COUNTY
II
tion has often had an essential place in the study of farming possibilities. Then, too, a great many people are naturally interested in the heights of country through which they travel, particularly in their motor journeys.
Therefore we are including a table in which are combined the area of each township in Worcester County, and the altitudes of its city or town center, and of its loftier eminences.
ELEVATIONS AND AREAS OF WORCESTER COUNTY CITIES AND TOWNS.
Elevation in Feet Area in Above Square Sea Level. Miles.
Elevation in Feet Area in Above Square Sea Level. Miles.
Ashburnham
40.9
Charlton
44
Town
1,060
Town
820
Mt. Hunger
1,420
Mugget Hill 1,012
Jewell Hill
1,460
Prospect Hill 925
Nutting Hill
1,600
Clinton
7.2
Town
340
Athol
33
Town
550
Chestnut Hill
1,000
Raccoon Hill
940
Round Top
1,260
Douglas
38.1
Auburn
16.4
Town
508
East Douglas 400
Growl Hill
840
Wallum Pond Hill. 778
Barre
44.8
Dudley
22
Town
935
Town
685
Allen Hill
1,225
Hawes Hill
1,277
Prospect Hill
1,000
East Brookfield
10.3
Berlin
13.2
Teneriffe Hill
880
Town
375
Mt. Pisgah
700
Fitchburg
28.3
Sulphur Hill
620
City Center
433
Brown Hill
1,180
Pearl Hill
980
Rollstone Hill
820
Candlewood Hill
300
Waterbug Hill
440
Gardner
22.8
Bolton
20
Barber Hill
1,240
Bickford Hill
1,260
Pine Hill
480
Wataquodoc Hill
660
Grafton
23.3
Boylston
19.8
George Hill
600
Town
430
Keith Hill 620
Brookfield
16.8
Hardwick
39.9
Town
706
Town
900
Stone Hill
900
Poverty Hill
1,080
Wheelock Hill
1,000
Dougal Mountain
1,060
Dana
19
Town
680
High Knob
980
Rattlesnake Hill 840
Town
582
Bisco Hill 808
'T'own
620
Blackstone
II.3
Town
200
City Center
1,100
Town
390
Town
632
Mt. Watatic
1,847
I2
WORCESTER COUNTY
ELEVATIONS AND AREAS OF WORCESTER COUNTY CITIES AND TOWNS.
Elevation in Feet Area in Above Square Sea Level. Miles.
Elevation in Feet Area in Above Square Sea Level. Miles.
Harvard
27
Northboro
18.7
Town
420
Prospect Hill
557
Vaughn Hill
640
Holden
36.2
Northbridge
18
Town
860
Holbrook Hill
980
Pine Hill
1,140
North Brookfield
22
Hopedale
5.3
Town
960
Town
260
Batcheller Hill
920
Neck Hill
420
Cooly Hill
1,100
Hubbardston
41.7
Oakham
21.2
Town
1,020
Town
1,100
Gates Hill
1,240
Prospect Hill 1,164
Lancaster
27.9
Oxford
27.4
Town
320
Town
480
Ballard Hill
465
Fort Hill
860
George Hill
540
Rocky Hill
810
Leicester
24.5
Paxton
15.4
Town
1,000
Leominster
29.5
Crocker Hill
1,180
Town
Ball Hill
1,120
Petersham
39
Town
1,100
Prospect Hill 1,360
Soapstone Hill
880
Lunenburg
27.5
Town
Phillipston
24.3
Hunting Hill
542
Town .
1,165
Prospect Hill
1,380
Ward Hill
1,340
Mendon
17.9
Town
Princeton
35.7
Inman Hill
480
Town
1,140
Pine Hill
1,440
Mt. Wachusett
2,108
Little Wachusett
1,563
Royalston
42.4
Town
400
Brigham Hill
600
Rutland
36.1
Millville
5
Town
215
Turkey Hill. 1,080
New Braintree
21
Shrewsbury
21.8
Town
990
Town
670
Tuft Hill
1,179
Rawson Hill
748
Town 293
Assabet Hill 454
Bartlett Hill 673
Ball Hill 720
Town
300
Northbridge Center 500
Town
1,130
Mt. Asnebumskit
1,407
Bee Hill
1,160
Manoosnoc Hill
1,000
Turkey Hill
647
Wigwam Hill
540
Milford
15
Town
280
Silver Hill
520
Millbury
16.4
Town
1,030
Jacob Hill
1,100
Potter Hill 760
Town
I,200
Rice Hill
1,260
I3
GEOGRAPHY OF WORCESTER COUNTY
ELEVATIONS AND AREAS OF WORCESTER COUNTY CITIES AND TOWNS.
Elevation in Feet Area in Above Square Sea Level. Miles.
Elevation in Feet Area in Above Square Sea Level. Miles.
Southboro
15.4
Town
320
Town
650
Wolfpen Hill 460
Marks Mountain 1,100
Southbridge
Webster
14.5
Town
500
Town
460
Hatchet Hill
1,020
Mt. Daniel 785
Wood Hill 930
Spencer
34
Town
800
Westboro
21.5
Moose Hill
1,120
Town
300
Sterling
31.6
Fay Mountain 707
Town
500
Fitch Hill
740
Justice Hill
920
Town
460
White Hill
740
French Hill
520
Malden Hill
880
Sturbridge
39
Town
600
Blake Hill
1,060
Town
680
Lead Mine Mountain
960
Coy Hill
1,100
Ragged Hill
1,227
Sutton
34
Westminster
37.I
Town
1,000
Bean Porridge Hill .. 1,120
Beech Hill
1,160
Town
1,140
Baldwinville
903
Winchendon
44
Crow Hill
1,160
Town
1,000
Dolbier Hill
1,280
Mt. Pleasant
1,280
Mine Hill
1,220
Tallow Hill
1,100
Upton
21.8
Worcester
38.5
Town
300
City Hall
481
Peppercorn Hill
580
Bancroft Hill
720
Pratt Hill
608
Chandler Hill
721
Uxbridge
29.8
Pakachoag Hill 693
Town
234
Parker Hill
1,000
Goods Hill
400
Winter Hill
980
Town
520
Putnam Hill
783
Templeton
32.2
West Brookfield
21.2
Mt. Dan
860
Boston Hill 560
West Boylston
13.8
20.7
Warren
27.8
Climate of the County-The climate of Worcester County is as varied as the terrain. It gives a wide range of temperature and a moderate humidity. Weather changes are frequent and often rapid and sometimes severe. The winters have periods of intense cold and occasional storms of great severity, which bury the country under deep snow. The sum- mers are moderately hot. The region has marked climatic variations within itself, as, for instance, between the relatively low country of the southeastern county and the lofty highlands of the northwestern area.
Green Hill 777
I4
WORCESTER COUNTY
No part of the shire lies near enough to the ocean to feel, excepting rarely, the dampness peculiar to the coastal region. The average summer temperature is estimated at about 65 degrees, the average winter tem- perature at about 25 degrees. The normal annual rainfall is about 45 inches.
By and large, the county has a healthy climate. The highland country is famous for its pure and invigorating air. Rutland, 1,200 feet above the sea, is peculiarly well adapted in atmosphere and soil for the successful treatment of tuberculosis, and has great sanitariums, main- tained by the Federal Government, the Commonwealth and private enterprise. Others of the hill towns are fashionable summer resorts, among them Princeton, Petersham, Harvard and Lunenburg.
Most of the time, at all seasons, the county's climate is delightful. At its worst, it is pleasantly endurable, owing to the present day com- forts of home and business existence and of transport. But in the early days the pioneers found weather one of the great obstacles in effecting a settlement. In winter deep snows blocked the rude thoroughfares for weeks at a time. Because of the absence of bridges, the spring and autumn floods made streams impassable. The settlers had these things to contend with as well as the inhospitality of the soil of much of the territory. But the men and women who first entered the county, and those who came after them in the period of transition from wilderness to cleared and settled country, were not of the breed to be daunted by rugged climate or rugged land. The very difficulties which the fore- fathers encountered and overcame were powerful influences in creating that sturdy New England stock which, moving westward in succeed- ing waves of migration, has played so great a part in the expansion of the Union.
The Wild Life of the Shire-In its wild life, Worcester County is situated in what science calls the Allegheny or Transition faunal zone. To the northward is the Canadian zone, to the southward, extending up into southern Connecticut, is the Carolinian zone. The same divisions mark the floral life of the region. Neighboring zones may have much wild life in common, but each has its own distinctive mammals and birds, plants and trees, which under usual conditions are not found in any great numbers in adjacent zones. With the birds this means their breeding grounds, with the animals their usual habitat. A line drawn from the northeastern to the southwestern corners of New England is the northern edge of the Transition zone, and this line passes through northern Worcester County. The southern lowlands are not far
15
GEOGRAPHY OF WORCESTER COUNTY
removed from the influence of the Carolinian zone. For these reasons wild life, and more especially bird life, is exceptionally diversified, because there is the natural overlapping of species.
Another influence is forest growth and elevation. The higher slopes of the mountains of the northern Highlands have an altitude which climatically is the equivalent of a more northerly latitude. Here we find nesting birds of the Canadian zone such as the white-throated sparrow and junco, and so we do in the spruce-grown country of Win- chendon and Ashburnham. Not infrequently birds of the Carolinian fauna wander up into the south county. Occasionally a mockingbird winters in the Highlands of the central county.
There is the same intermingling of plant life. In the forested High- lands of the north county are found growing together trees of the three zones-red pines, canoe and yellow birch, beech and basswood, sugar maple and spruce, all of the Canadian zone; hickory, tupelo, sassafras, pitch pine and various oaks, which are characteristic of the northern limits of the Carolinian zone; and white pine, hemlock, red oak and white ash of the Transition zone. In the same forest region grow flowering plants, such as the little Linnæa, which are typically of the Canadian flora.
In the settlement of a new country, the advance of civilization, the operations of the farmer, lumberman, hunter, trapper and fisherman, bring about important changes in wild life. In Worcester County, the bear, panther and wolf disappeared, because they were hunted as dan- gerous animals, and because their natural haunts were violated. The beaver, otter and martin went because they were trapped to extinction for their fur, and the moose because its hide and meat were needed by the settlers. The wild turkey, once a common bird, was exterminated because it was very good to eat and its feathers were decorative. The salmon and shad were no longer able to pass up the rivers from the sea to their spawning grounds, because man blocked the way with dams. It is long since the wild cries of the trumpeter swan and the whooping crane were heard. Here, as everywhere, the passenger pigeon, a cen- tury ago so numerous as to darken the sky with its migrating flocks, is gone forever. The bald eagle is a rare visitor.
While animal life is far less numerous in the county nowadays, there still remain most of the species with which the early settlers were famil- iar. The deer, under protection, is now common. Numbers of bay lynxes are shot every winter, and in the north county we still have the hedgehog. The raccoon is successfully hunted in wild lands, and the red fox has held its own against the hunters and their hounds. In the
I6
WORCESTER COUNTY
heavily wooded swamps lives the varying hare, and the little cottontail rabbit is common and even wanders into city gardens. Beyond a doubt there are dozens of woodchucks today to every one which inhabited the forest country of primeval central Massachusetts. Nor has the muskrat succumbed, even though the trappers have been constantly after it for many years.
Among the birds the changes have been infinitely greater. Edward Howe Forbush, in his Birds of Massachusetts, 1927, wrote: "The settlers of necessity cut away more or less of the forests and transformed the land into cultivated fields and pastures, driving out the forest birds, but increasing the birds of the open. It seems probable that there are in New England today more sparrows, orioles, robins, bluebirds and other birds that feed in the open than were here when the country was settled. The cultivation of the soil brought in numerous earthworms and greatly increased insects that feed on farm lands, such as grasshoppers and cut- worms, thus providing an accession to the food supply of the field-birds. On the other hand, woodpeckers and forest birds may have decreased somewhat in numbers as the forest area was reduced. During the last fifty years, however, many farms in rough and rocky regions have been abandoned and are now overgrown with forest trees, thus adding to the breeding area of forest birds. There is more wild land than there was seventy-five years ago."
The greatest change of all has been with the waterfowl. Originally, the Canada goose and some of the ducks bred in Worcester County, and these we now know only in their migrations, and then, of course, in nothing like the numbers of the old days. Once upon a time there was a far greater abundance of game birds, notably the ruffed grouse and the quail. These have been kept from extermination by game laws, and the Mongolian pheasant has been acclimated and has increased rapidly, par- ticularly, strange as it may seem, near populated neighborhoods. The changes in bird life which began when the early settlers started swing- ing their axes have never ceased, even to the present day.
The Growth of the County-The growth of Worcester County in population and wealth has been steady, and, for an old-established county, rapid. The census of 1930 gives it 491,242 people, and, based upon tax valuation, $747,829,888 of wealth. It ranks fourth among the fourteen Massachusetts counties both in population and wealth, being outranked only by Suffolk, Middlesex and Essex. Another measure of the progress and also the thrift of its inhabitants may be found in the approximately $500,000,000 of deposits in its banks, commercial, mutual
Photo by Dwight A. Davis
MT. WACHUSETT, TOP OF THE WORLD OF WORCESTER COUNTY
-
-
17
GEOGRAPHY OF WORCESTER COUNTY
savings and cooperative. In 1790, when the first census was taken, the county had a population of 56,807, in 1830, 84,355, and in 1890, 280,787. In the intervening forty years, to 1930, the increase was more than 210,000.
The accompanying table of population contains two spans of a cen- tury each from 1790 to 1890, and from 1830 to 1930. Considered terri- torially, the growth has been most uneven. Insignificantly small towns are now important cities, other towns which were small a hundred years ago are even smaller today. We find Worcester grown from 4,173 in 1830 to 195,311, in 1930, Fitchburg from 2,169 to 40,692, Leominster from 1,930 to 21,810, and Gardner from 1,023 to 19,399. These are the four cities of the county. Among the fifty-seven towns are other com- munities whose increase in population is almost as impressive, and several that have attained a size sufficient to warrant a city status. Milford has 14,741 people, Southbridge 14,264, Webster 12,992, and Clinton 12,817.
Others of the towns have dwindled. To compare their present pop- ulation with that of 1790 would not be fair, for at that time they had not finished the process of splitting up their territories to form other towns. Some of the original grants based on purchase from the Indians were very large. Rutland, for example, covered 144 square miles. From it were cut off all or a part of the present towns of Princeton, Hubbard- ston, Paxton, and Oakham. The original territory of Lancaster was sheared away in the laying out of the towns of Leominster, Bolton, Har- vard, Berlin, Clinton, Sterling, and Shrewsbury.
But by 1830, the subdividing was practically finished, so far as it affected materially a comparison of population. Of the fifteen towns whose population was less in 1930 than in 1830, only Brookfield had given up populous area during the century, as it did in the establish- ment of East Brookfield. The fourteen others are Bolton, Charlton, Dana, Harvard, Hubbardston, Mendon, New Braintree, Oakham, Peter- sham, Phillipston, Princeton, Royalston, Sutton, and Sterling.
Growth has come only where manufacturing industry had prospered, or where the trend toward suburban residence has been felt, as it has in the towns adjoining Worcester. Some of the strictly farming towns have held their own, but usually this has been because of number of residents of the villages rather than those of the farms. The falling away has come in the towns where agricultural conditions were most difficult; where, until the coming of the motor truck, markets were not easily accessible; and where living conditions were neither happy nor
Wor .- 2
18
WORCESTER COUNTY
wholesome because of the semi-solitude and lonesomeness which pre- ceded the telephone and radio and automobile, and electric light and power. Many farms were abandoned because the younger generation refused to repeat the toilsome and unremunerative lives of their parents. Another cause of decreasing population was the partial or complete dis- appearance of industries which gave local employment, such as wooden- ware manufacturing and lumbering.
In recent years, however, there has begun a movement back to the abandoned Worcester County farms. Participating in this, to some extent, are farmers who hope, under modern conditions, to make the venture profitable. More important than they are city people, who, because of their cars, and because of the comforts now available in the country, are buying old places and making of them summer homes, where they may farm a little, but where the chief attraction is the charm of environment. Nowhere are landscapes more beautiful than in these old hill towns.
POPULATION OF WORCESTER COUNTY-1790, 1830, 1890, 1930.
Ashburnham
970
1,402
2,074
2,079
Athol
850
1,325
6,319
10,677
Auburn (Ward)
473
690
1,532
6,147
Barre
1,613
2,503
2,239
3,510
Berlin
512
692
884
1,075
Blackstone
6,138
4,674
Bolton
861
1,253
827
764
Boylston
840
820
770
1,097
Brookfield
3,100
2,342
3,352
1,352
Charlton
1,965
2,173
1,847
2,154
Clinton
623
700
505
Douglas
1,080
1,742
1,908
2,195
Dudley
I,II4
2,155
2,944
4,265
East Brookfield
926
Fitchburg
1,151
2,169
22,037
40,692
Gardner
530
1,023
8,424
19,399
Grafton
880
1,889
5,002
7,030
Hardwick
1,725
1,885
2,922
2,460
Harvard
1,400
1,600
1,095
987
Holden
1,080
1,719
2,623
3,871
Hubbardston
1,000
1,674
1,346
1,010
Lancaster
1,460
2,014
2,201
2,897
Leicester
1,100
1,782
3,120
4,445
Leominster
1,190
1,930
7,269
21,810
Lunenburg
1,300
1,317
1,146
1,923
Mendon
1,555
3,152
919
1,107
Milford
840
1,360
8,780
14,741
Millbury
1,61I
4,428
6,957
Millville
940
825
573
407
Northboro
620
992
1,952
1,946
Northbridge
570
1,053
4,603
9,713
..
. ..
. .
1,176
2,973
Hopedale
10,424
12,817
Dana
I790.
1830.
1890.
1930.
. .
2, III
New Braintree
1
19
GEOGRAPHY OF WORCESTER COUNTY
POPUTATION OF WORCESTER COUNTY-1790, 1830, 1890, 1930.
North Brookfield
I790.
1830.
1890.
1930.
Oakham
772
1,010
738
502
Oxford
1,000
2,034
2,616
3,943
Paxton
558
597
445
672
Petersham
1,520
1,696
1,050
660
Phillipston
(Gerry)
740
932
502
357
Princeton
1,016
1,346
982
717
Royalston
1,130
1,493
1,030
744
Rutland
1,072
1,276
980
2,442
Shrewsbury
963
1,386
1,449
6,910
Southboro
840
1,080
2,114
2,166
Southbridge
1,322
1,618
8,747
6,272
Sterling
1,428
1,794
1,244
1,502
Sturbridge Sutton
2,642
2,186
3,180
2,147
Templeton
950
1,552
2,999
4,159
Upton
900
1,167
1,878
2,026
Uxbridge
1,310
2,086
3,408
6,285
Warren (Western)
900
1,189
4,68I
3,765
Webster
934
1,438
5,195
6,409
West Boylston
1,055
3,019
2,114
West Brookfield
1,592
1,255
Westminster
1,176
1,696
1,688
1,925
Winchendon
950
1,463
4,390
6,202
Worcester
2,100
4,173
84,655
195,3II
56,742
84,355
280,787
491,242
1,444
7,655
14,264
Spencer
1,800
1,688
2,074
1,772
7,031
12,992
Westboro
1,24I
3,871
3,013
Increasing Transport Facilities-The county has no water communi- cations. Its rivers are not navigable for any craft larger than a skiff or canoe. A century ago the Blackstone Canal connected Worcester with the sea at Providence, but it was discontinued upon the advent of rail- roads. The region is well served by three great systems of competing railroad lines-the Boston & Albany division of the New York Central, the New York, New Haven & Hartford, and the Boston & Maine, which with their branches constitute a network covering the county.
In the light of modern transportation facilities, of greatest impor- tance is the constantly growing system of State highways, which give access not only to the cities and important towns, but to nearly every village in the shire. The county in 1932 had 293.5 miles of these modern thoroughfares. The sum total of all its highways is 4,308 miles, largest of any county in the State, and most of these have now been improved to permit of safe and comfortable driving of automobile and truck.
CHAPTER II.
The Nipmuck Country and Its People
To the uninformed imagination, Worcester County as the early settlers found it, appears covered, hill and plain, with dense forests of mighty trees shading a jungle-like growth of underbrush. Such, however, is not a true picture of the great wilderness which stretched from the thin fringe of Eng- lish settlements on the east to the Connecticut Valley and beyond. The wet swamps were heavily wooded and well-nigh impenetrable. But the dry uplands had been burned over each autumn by many generations of Indians, to make their hunting easier and to remove the coverts in which raiding red enemies might skulk.
There remained only a sparse growth of old timber and a clean forest floor, over which explorers on their horses looked long distances through the vistas of tree-trunks. Here and there, old writers relate, were grassy lawns broken by groves or scattered trees, much like the oak-openings of the Wis- consin country of the Great Lakes. The meadows, too, along the streams in the valleys, and more particularly in the intervales, were kept clear of brush by fire, and their soil, enriched each year by the sediment of floods and the ashes of the burnings, yielded grasses and sedges lush and tall.
The character of the forests, in their variety of trees, was much as it is today. There were areas covered with white pine and pitch pine, and in the uplands were spruce and hemlock. But most of the timber growth was deciduous, comprising oak, walnut and chestnut, butternut and beech, maple, birch and ash. The old Indian trails followed the divides, avoiding the swamps and seeking the streams at their fords. Such was the home land of the group of tribes which are usually referred to by the general name of Nipmuck, or Nipnet, which translates as "Fresh Pond" Indians, as distin- guished from the coast tribes and the river tribes of the Connecticut and Merrimack rivers and their tributaries.
2I
THE NIPMUCK COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE
The Indians of the Nipmuck Country and other Massachusetts tribes had not yet recovered from a plague which swept through their villages in 1612- 1613, not many years before the landing of the Pilgrims. Their peoples had been decimated by some deadly disease, which the tribes of Connecticut and Rhode Island escaped. The total Indian population of the region was not large. The Nipmuck war strength was greatly inferior to that of the Poca- nokets of the Plymouth country, the Narragansetts of Rhode Island, and the Mohegans of Connecticut. Until, in 1637, the English destroyed the power of the Pequods, a truculent tribe living along the Thames River, they, too, were a constant threat to the Nipmucks. Evidently they lived on friendly terms with the Merrimack Indians, and other tribes to the northward. But they were almost defenseless against the war parties of the fierce Mohawks of the Hudson Valley, who were hereditary enemies of the New England tribes, and at intervals raided the villages of the Connecticut Valley, and sometimes extended their depredations to the Nipmuck country.
One great reason why the southern tribes were so strong was the superi- ority of their food supply. They had the ocean to depend upon, yielding them fish, and oysters for the dredging, lobsters for the trapping, and clams for the digging. In winter as well as in summer, they could keep starvation away, while the inland Indians were frequently experiencing weakening famine. They lived well, and their lands supported a large population.
Because of their power, each of these southern neighbors at one time or another claimed sovereignty over the Nipmucks, which they denied, but to which, on occasion, they were compelled to yield.
The Fresh Pond Indians have been regarded by some historians as inferior in culture to the southern New England tribes. They had lost prestige with their own race before the English came. From the Indians' standpoint they demeaned themselves still farther by their docility in their relations with the whites, particularly by the spineless manner in which they threw aside their own ancient spiritual faith to accept the Christian teach- ings of Missionary John Eliot and his followers, an apostacy of which few Poconokets or Narragansetts or Mohegans were ever guilty.
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