Lane Village, Massachusetts

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.

Educational. - " Voted to Keep a School and voted Eight Pounds for y" School and Voted for y' y" School Should be a moveing School, voted to leave it to y" Selectmen to make j" Quarters where y' school shall be Cept and voted it bee a free School." These votes, adopted in 1767, are the beginning of the educational history of Ashburnham. From this date public schools have been maintained, the orthography of the town clerk has been improved and general results have kept pace with the progress of the age. Seen in the light of the present, the sums raised for school purposes in the early history of the town were limited, but they were not less than the appropriations made in other towns of equal ability. With the exception of the years 1768, 1709 and 1776, in which no appropriation was made for this purpose, the town raised twelve pounds annually until and including 1777. During the later years of the Revolution a large nominal sum in depreciated currency was appropriated, and for several succeeding years the annual appropriation was fifty pounds. The substantial and increasing sums raised for school purposes in this town are given in each decade : 1800, ifSOO ; 1810, .$400 ; 1820, $500 ; 1830, |500 ; 1840,1900; 1850,11400; 1860, $1700; 1870, $3000; 1880 and to 1888, $3000. From 1872 to 1875, $3500 was appropriated. For a considerable number of years the town was divided into three school districts, and while under this arrangement, a school was maintained at the centre of the town, another at the Dutch Farms, in the east part, and the third in the south part of the town ; there were no school-houses until immediately after the Revolution. At the close of the past century there were nine districts, and in each a comfortable school-house. In 1829 the Tenth District, including Lane Village, was organized mainly from the old Seventh District, and in 1850, by a division of the First District, the Eleventh District was created.

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.

Read the whole chapter on Ashburnham Town.