Ashburnham, Massachusetts

Originally the town of Ashburnham included about one-third of each of the adjoining towns, Ashby and Gardner. It is situated in the northeast corner of Worcester County, and is bounded on the north by New Ipswich and Rindge in New Hampshire; on the east by Ashby, in Middlesex County, and by Fitchburg ; on the south by Westminster and Gardner, and on the west by Winchendon. Since 1792, except the addition of two farms, the gift of Westminster, the boundaries and area of the township have remained unchanged. The present area is about twenty-four thousand five hundred acres, including about one thousand five hundred acres of ponds and reservoirs. Situated in tlie line of the water-slied between the Connecticut and Merrimack Valleys, the course of numerous streams is outward ; the only waters flowing into the town are a few small brooks which have their source in Eindge and New Ipswich on the north. There are eight natural ponds in the town ; four are tributary to the Connecticut and four to the Merrimack River. Here the Souhegan and Squannacook and important branches of the Nashua and Miller's Rivers have their source. The altitude exceeds that of the surrounding country on the east, south and west. The summit on the line of the Chcsline Railroad, one and one-half miles northwest of station at South Ashburnham, is one thousand and eighty-four feet above tide water, while the old burial-ground on Meeting-House Hill exceeds the summit by two hundred feet. The rounded form of Great Watatic on the dividing line between Ashburnham and Ashby, towers to the height of one thousand eight hundred and fortyseven feet. In the north part of the town are several lenticular hills with rounded outlines and arable to the summit. These remarkable accumulations of hill are also found in Rindge, Ashby and Gardner, but only a small proportion of Ashburnham falls within the area of this glacial drift. The soil is tliat common to the hill towns of Worcester County. When placed in comparison it is stubborn and rocky, yet generally arable and productive. The subsoil is clay retentive of moisture, and numerous springs gushing from the hill-sides are the perennial source of brooks and rivulets winding through the valleys, and supporting the crystal lakes nestled among the surrounding hills. The fauna and flora of the locality are topics discussed in the general history of tlie county.

Passage source: History of Worcester County, Massachusetts, published 1889.

Lunenburg, including Fitchburg and a part of Ashby, and Townsend, including a more considerable part of Ashby, were originally granted 1719, and within those grants numerous settlements were made in rapid succession. For several years the territory at the west of the new settlements was unbroken, and the future town of Ashburnham remained the border of the wilderness on the line of the settlements. In 1735 six grants of land, containing three thousand eight hundred and fifty acres, were located within the present township, and are minutely described in the "History of Ashburnham," recently published. Also in 1735, and while these individual grants were being located and surveyed, the General Court made grants of several townships to the surviving soldiers or the heirs of those deceased who served in the expedition to Canada in 1690. The companies from Dorchester, Ipswich, Rowley and other towns each received the grant of a township, and |)reservingat once the names of the towns in which the soldiers resided and the military service in which they had engaged, the new grants which were located in this vicinity were called Dorchester Canada (now Ashburnham ), Ipswich Canada (now Winchendon), and Rowley Can.ada (now

Passage source: History of Worcester County, Massachusetts, published 1889.

Deacon Moses Foster, of Chelmsford, and James Colman, of Ipswich, cleared land and built houses in the northeast part of Dorchester Canada previous to the permanent renewal of the settlement. The sites of these early homes are now in Ashby, having been included within the limits of that town when incorporated in 1767. In times of expected danger they removed their families to Lunenburg, and prosecuted their labor in this town with many interruptions. About 1750 Deacon Foster removed to the centre of the town, and subsequently was an inn-holder many j'ears. He died October 17, 1785, aged ninety-four years. Mr. Colman was a prominent citizen, and was a member of the first Board of Selectmen. He continued to reside at the scene of his early labor in this town, but, after 1767, he was a citizen of Ashby, where he died August 15, 1773. Elisha Coolidge removed from Cambridge, 1752, and settled at Lane Village. He was a mill-wright, and a useful citizen. He died August 29, 1807, aged eighty-seven years. Jeremiah Foster, from Harvard, and a native of Ipswich, removed to this town with hi.s family in 1753, and settled on the Gamaliel Hadley farm. He was a man of character, and influential in the new settlement. He died December 12, 1788, aged seventy-eight years. Next in order appear John Bates, Zimri Heywood and Benjamin Spaulding, an enterprising trio in the northeast part of the town, who were subsequently included in Ashby. Enos Jones, from Lunenburg, at the age of nineteen years, settled on a farm in the north part of the town, on the Rindge road, which still perpetuates a name that remains prominent in the annals of Ashburnham. Omitting mention of several families that removed from town after a few years' residence, to the settlement was added Jonathan Samson, a native of Middleborough, who removed from Harvard in 1762, and settled on the Merrick Whitney farm. He was a useful citizen, and late in life he removed to New Hamp.shire, where he died at an advanced age. Ehenezer Conant and Lieutenant Ebenezer Conant, Jr., from Concord, settled near Rice Pond in 1763. Both died in this town. Their descendants have won a merited distinction in several scholastic callings. In the midst of these arrivals several German families settled in the eastern part of the town, in a locality which still bears the familiar appellation of " Dutch Farms." Soon after their arrival in the colony, and while temporarily living near Boston, Henry Hole, Christian William Whiteman, Jacob Schoffe, Simon Rodamel, Peter Perry, John Rich and John Kiberling, in 1757, purchased one thousand acres of land, and early the following year removed hither, except Peter Perry, whose name does not again appear. At the same time, purchasing land of them and locating among them, came other Germans, Jacob Constantine, Jacob Selham, Andrew Windrow, Henry Stack and Jacob Barkhardst, while John Oberlock and Philip Vorback settled near the site of Gushing Academy. A few years later Jacob Wilker settled on the farm still owned by his descendants. These were born in Germany, and nearly all of them were married in their native land. They were educated, intelligent people, and in full sympathy with the settlement in religion and in hatred of tyranny. By assimilation and intermarriage, in language and manner of living they quickly became equal and common factors in the body poliiic, and in social relations. No traces of caste, or prejudice of race, appear in the records or the traditions of the town. In the second and subsequent generations the name of Hole was written Hall; Kiberling or Kiblinger became Kibling; the Oberlocks assumed the name of Locke; Rodamel was changed to Rodimon, and later to Dimond, while Windrow was Anglicized in Winter. After the Revolution, in which they manifested a conspicuous patriotism, members of the second generation of several of these families removed to Northern New Hampshire.

Passage source: History of Worcester County, Massachusetts, published 1889.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

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