Charlton, Massachusetts

The town of Charlton is situated in the southwesterly part of the county, about thirteen miles from Worcester, and may with good reason be called one of the " hill towns." The surface is very uneven, and it has within its litnita the highest land in the south part of the county. The Boston and Albany Railroad runs through the north part of the town, and the highest point on that road is a short distance east of Ch.arlton Depot. The highest land in the town is the summit of the hill called Little Mugget, a short distance southeast of the depot. The large hill east of Charlton Centre, known as Mugget, and formerly called Mashey Mugget, affords a better view of the surrounding country, and has for that reason, perhaps, been considered by many higher land. There are several other hills in the town nearly as high as the ones mentioned, and a number of broad, deep valleys. About three-fourths of the present territory of the town was formerly a part of Oxford, and was set off from that town in 1755. The remainder was a part of a tract of land adjoining the town of Oxford on the north, said to contain ten thousand acres, of which no persons had obtained a grant, and that had not been included in any of the adjoining towns when incorporated and called the "Country Gore." About seven thousand acres of this tract was annexed to Charlton in 1757. The part taken from Oxford contained about twenty-three thousand five hundred acres. In 1788 ab ut three hundred acres, and in 1807 about forty acres were taken from the southeast corner of the town and set to Oxford. In 1792 a small tract of land was taken from the southwest corner of the town and set to Sturbridge; and in 1816 about three thousand acres were taken from the same part of the town to form a part of the town of Southbridge. On this latter tract was valuable water-power afforded by the Quinebaug Eiver. No alterations have since been made in the to^vn lines, although in 1831 an attempt was made to have a larg6 tract from the east part set to Oxford. The project met with strong opposition from a large majority of the inhabitants of the town and was defeated. According to a survey made since the last tract was set off the town now contains a little over twenty-seven thousand acres, and is exceeded by few, if any, of the towns of the county in area of territory.

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

All the land formerly belonging to Oxford had been granted in 1683 to Daniel Cox and others. About twelve thousand acres on the east part of the grant was allotted to settlers and called the village; the remainder was reserved by the proprietors. In 1788 Daniel Cox and Robert Thompson, of London, Joseph Dudley, of Roxbury, William Stoughton, of Dorchester, John Blackwell, of Boston, and Thomas Freake, of Hanningtou, England, were the owners of all the grant lying west of what was called ihe village line. In that year a survey and division of the land was made. According to this survey, the tract contained thirty thousand acres. By the terms of the deed of partition, Joseph Dudley took six thousand acres on the south side of tract, extending from the village line on the east to Sturbridge on the west. John Blackwell took an equal quantity of land north of and adjoining Dudley's lot. William Stoughton took a like quantity of land north of Blackwell's. North of Stoughton's land Blackwell took a second lot of about seventeen hundred acres. North of Blackwell's second lot Daniel Cox took about twenty-six hundred acres. North of the lot taken by Cox, Thomas Freake took about seventeen hundred acres. Robert Thompson had the remaining lot, which contained six thousand acres, and lay between Freake's lot and the " Country Gore." When Dudley was incorporated, in 1731, the six thousand acre tract of Joseph Dudley was included in that town. All the other tracts, with the exception of a strip of each, one mile wide, bordering on the village line, were taken from Oxford to form the district of Charlton. Mary Wolcott, of Salem, became the owner of the Freake land, and in 1730 sold it to Edward Kitchen, of the same place, who caused the land to be divided into one hundred acre lots, and soon commenced disposing of his land to settlers. In October, 1733, Ebenezer Mclntire, of Lynn, and Obadiah Mclntire, of Salem, each purchased one of these lots, and they were probably the first settlers of the town. Daniel Mclntire and Eleazer Mclntire both purchased land of Kitchen soon afterwards. The two tracts of land that Blackwell had by the division were sold by his heirs, in 1720, to Captain Peter Papillion, of Boston. In 1727 they were divided into lots of suitable size to sell to settlers, and in 1738 were divided, by commissioners appointed for the purpose, among the heirs of Papillion. In 1735 Richard Dresser, of Thompson, bought one of the lots, and was probably the first person to settle in the south part of the town. The land purchased by Richard Dresser was part of the well-known Dresser Hill farm. His brother, John Dresser, soon afterward bought land lying west of Richard's. Isaiah Blood, Richard Blood and Nathaniel Blood, from Bellingham, at about the same time purchased land, on which they settled, lying south of Dresser Hill.

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

By virtue of a warrant from Moses Marcy, of Sturbridge, issued by order of the General Court to John Dresser, a principal inhabitant of the district, " the freeholders and other inhabitants " were warned to meet at the house of Ebenezer Mclntire on the 12tli day of March, 1755, to choose such town officers as the law required, and to see if the district would let swine run at large. At this meeting Richard Dresser was chosen clerk ; William Alton, treasurer ; Richard Dresser, Lieutenant Obadiah Mclntire, Jonathan Ballard, John Dresser and Ebenezer Mclntire, selectmen ; Samuel Streeter, tything-man ; Isaiah Blood, constable; Ebenezer Mclntire, clerk of the market; Ebenezer Lamb and Edward Chamberlain, fenceviewers; Nathaniel Blood, Nathaniel French and Nathaniel Mclntire, surveyors of highways. Hogreeves, deer-reeves and a brander of horses were also chosen, but no assessors. The name of the moderator wai not recorded. On the 24th of May, as recorded, the selectmen of the town of Oxford and the selectmen of Charlton, with William Young, surveyor, and Captain Elisha Moore and John Nichols, chainmen, mutually agreed upon and sworn, run the dividing line between .said Oxford and Charlton. On the 27tli day of March of the same year, the second districtmeeting was held, at which eight pounds, lawful money, was voted for schooling, and six pounds thirteen shillings and four pence for necessary charges. In April following it was voted " that the centre of the district should be the place to build a meetinghouse upon, if a convenient place, and if not, the nearest convenient place to the centre should be the place to build upon." At the same meeting it was voted that the schools should be kept in two places - one on the north side, the other on the south side of the district. At this time there were no inhabitants of the district living farther north than the north line of the Kitchen land, which ran just north of the house now owned by Wm. S. Wakefield, at Charlton Centre- Between the Kitchen land and the Gore lay the Thompson land, on which there were no inhabitants. This land had been divided in 1749 amongst the devisees of Joseph Thompson, but at the time the district of Charlton was established none of the land had been purchased by settlers, and, in 1760, when a tax of two-pence per acre was granted by the General Court on the lands of the non-resident proprietors toward paying for building the meeting-house, sixty acres of the land were sold to pay the tax on three

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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