New Boston, Massachusetts

The river follows the valley at the base of very abrupt hills to New Boston, a mile and one-half south of North Rutland, where there is another good waterpower, and a saw and shoddy-mill owned by Owen McGann. From this point it makes a complete horse-shoe in the next half-mile ; then flowing on into the town of Barre, near the junction of the three towns of Barre, Hubbardston and Rutland. The course of this river is very circuitous through this town, traversing a distance of nearly six miles and leaving the town within two and a half miles of the point of entrance.

Passage source: History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men., published 1889.

Perhaps the next most important stream is Long Meadow Brook, which takes its water from Long Pond. At the upper falls or north end of Long Pond is one of the best sites for mills or factories in town, which has been for a number of years unoccupied. In 1728 there was a saw-mill built here by Ephraim Jones. In 1836 Joseph Demond had a grist-mill, saw and shingle-mills in full operation. This stream flows northwesterly about two miles through Long Meadow into the East Branch of the Ware at New Boston School-house. Mill Brook received its name by having the first mills in Rutland carried by its power. It has its main source from Moulton Pond, and its course is westerly through Meeting-House Meadow, and enters Long Meadow Brook at a distance of two miles. The woolen-mill of M. R. Moulton is at the upper falls of this stream, and about a mile and a half farther down the stream is the turningmill of Paul Wheeler, where his famous axe-helves are turned out of oak and hickory. Formerly, before Moulton's Pond was flowed, the chief source of this brook was from two springs, lying near each other, about half a mile east of the Centre. One of the above-mentioned springs is on the place of Rev. Geo. S. Dodge, from whom a right has been purchased by the Central Mass. E. R. Co. to take the supply of water needed at the water-tank at Rutland station. The other spring is on the land of Geo. S. Gates, and the water is used to supply tanks for the breeding of trout. There are also several small springs on the west side of Muschopauge Hill, which flow into this pond. Pomagusset Brook is made up of waters that flow from meadows in the northerly part of the town, and runs westerly into the Ware, between New Boston and North Rutland. There was at one time a sawmill upon this brook, owned by William Davis, near where the Hubbardston road crosses this stream, and just below the reservoir recently flowed by Mr. G. R. Edson for the purpose of breeding carp.

Passage source: History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men., published 1889.

Government considering Rutland a suitable place for the safe encampment of Burgoyne's army, appointed John Frink, Esq., Jonas Howe, Esq., and Colonel Daniel Clap a committee to build barracks. This committee contracted with Captain Thomas Reed and caused to be erected a building one hundred and twenty feet long, forty feet wide and two stories high, containing twenty-four rooms twenty feet square, with chimneys. The building was thoroughly built, clapboarded and shingled and arranged with suitable bunks for the soldiers. The lot selected was at the junction of the Rutland and Barre road with the New Boston road, three hundred and seventy rods westerly from the meetinghouse. It contained several acres of land and was enclosed by a piquet fence twelve feet high. The terms of the capitulation granted by General Gates to General Burgoyne contemplated the speedy passage of Buegoyne's troops to Europe, they stipulating not to serve again in America during the war. Boston was agreed upon as the point of embarkation, and Burgoyne's troops were marched to Cambridge to be near the shipping point. Disputes and misunderstandings arising between Burgoyne and the Continental Congress, the embarkation was deferred and finally the troops were leit as prisoners of war, a part being removed from Cambridge to Rutland, and in November, 1778, all were removed to Virginia, where they remained till near the end of the war, when they were exchanged in 1781-82 and removed to New York, where they embarked for Europe. Lieutenant Aubury, a British officer under Burgoyne, who wrote a description of Burgoyne's campaign and the subsequent captivity of his army, in a work of two volumes entitled "Travels through the Interior Part of America in a Series of Letters by an Otiicer," published in London in 1789, gives the best accounts of the movements of Burgoyne's troops after the capitulation, or convention, as they called it, and from him these facts are obtained. He says : " It was understood at the convention that the troops were to be stationed on Prospect and Winter Hill in Cambridge, and the officers were to be quartered in Boston and the neighboring towns. On this supposition some of the officers had pushed forward and got into Boston, and were immediately ordered out. The English teoops were on Prospect and the German on Winter Hills. The officers have Cambridge, Mystic and Watertown to quar- ter themselves, and a parole of about ten miles in circumference, but to preserve order and regularity among the troops three otticers of each regiment reside in the barracks. It is no little mortification that I cannot visit Boston, the second city in America, and the grand emporium of rebellion, but our parole excludes us from it; what makes the mortification still greater, is, that we can go as far as the ferry at Charlestown and are debarred crossing it." The above letter was written from Cambridge on November 30, 1777. In a letter of May 20, 1778, from Mystic, he says : " The intention of congress is very apparent as to our detention as prisoners, no doubt as hostages, in case of failure to the southward the ensuing campaign, and the apprehensions that some division may be made near Boston so that our soldiers might be released, or escape to any army that may make a landing. The council of Boston, under pretense that the troops would fare better, removed the first brigade of the British, consisting of the artillery, advanced corps, and Ninth Regiment on the fifteenth of lastmonth from Prospect Hill to a place called Rutland, fifty-five miles farther up the country, at which place they are to stay till lurther orders from congress. The rest of the British troops are soon to follow. As to the Germans, the Americans look upon them as being so tame and .submissive that they are to remain at their old quarters on Winter Hill. By an officer who came from Rutland we learn that the first brigade arrived there the 17th about two o'clock. The men were sent to the barracks that were picketed in with pickets near twenty feet high and had been treated with great severity, were very badly supplied with provisions, and denied to go out for anything among the inhabitants. The officers with great difliculty obtained quarters in the neighboring houses, and those at a considerable distance from each other. It happened rather fortunately for the troops that a vessel under a flag of truce arrived with some necessaries just before they marched, otherwise the men would have been in a wretched state." Notwithstanding the intention of sending another detachment to Rutland, no other was sent, only the one sent in April, 1778.

Passage source: History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men., 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 Rutland Town - it names this place 2 more 2 times.