Sherborn, Massachusetts

Holbrooke took possessiou and commenced their labors. They were soon followed b}' Henry Layland, Benjamin Bullard, George Fairbank, John Hill, Thomas Breck, and Daniel Morse. Most of these persons were men of substance, of strong, determined character, hardy, and not easily discouraged, as the event proved. Many of their names still live in the persons of their descendants, who are found among the prominent citizens 'of Sherborn at this day. And they required all the energy and endurance of which man is capable to subdue tlie wild lands " in the wilderness beyond Medfield," and to protect themselves against the lurking Indian. For although the Nipmuck Indians who inhabited this portion of the colony had been treated fairly in the purchase of their lands, and were at first friendly, they were afterwards influenced and controlled by King Philip with disastrous results to the settlers.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

These first residents settled in the south and southeast parts of Sherborn, which then included a portion of the present eastern part of Medway. The Indian name for the locality was Boggestow ; it is perpetuated in the name of a meadow, pond, and brook. In various petitions to the governor of the colony and the General Court, the settlers termed themselves " inhabitants of Bogistow," and " inhabitants and proprietors of lands at or near Boggestow."

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

At this time Philip, the great sachem of the Wampanoags, was on the war-path, scattering fire and death wherever he went; and the consternation excited in the minds of the settlers was something of which we can have no adequate idea. The rapidity of the movements of the Indians through the by-paths, the thickets, and the forests, with which they were perfectly familiar, their stealthy advances, their sudden appearances, and violent murderous attacks as they swooped down on a village or a settlement, caused them to be peculiarly dreaded by a people who were wholly unaccustomed to this savage mode of warfare. Moreover, as Philip truly stated in a paper which he left on a portion of the bridge between Medfield and Boggestow, destroyed by him on the retreat following his desperate assault on the former town, "the Indians lose nothing but tlieir lives. You must lose your fair houses and cattle." The fear of so much loss undoubtedly added to tlie pangs of dread for tiie loss of life; for tlieir farms were of little use in this wilderness without their buildings and cattle. His bold threat in the same paper tliat tlie Indians " will war tiiis twenty-one years if you will," dirt not give them much hope for the future, although, as Hubbard quaintly observes, Philip fell short of this time by more than nineteen years. l?ut of his early death, efl'ected by a party under Captain Church, tlie colonists could then know nothing, and they had oidy the jirospect of continual watchfulness and defence for an indefinite period. During the known ))resence of the enemy in the vicinity, the jjcople all retreated to the garrison-houses, of which there were two,^ and lived there. Many remained for a long time, and there some of their children were born. One of these garrisons was the house of Daniel Morse, Sr., near the present road from Sherborn to Dover, and not far from Charles Eiver; and the other on the farm of Benjamin Bullard, near the present boundary line between Sherborn and Medway, and also near Charles Eiver. The latter was attacked by the enemy on February 21, 1676, the same day that Medfield was burned, and after their retreat from that jjlace. This garrison was made with great care and strength, and resisted the assaults of the Indians, some of whom were picked off by shots fired through the admirably arranged loop-holes. Finding their efforts vain, they next attempted to burn the building by pushing down the declivity above it a cart of burning flax. Destruction now seemed imminent ; but fortunately the progress of the cart was arrested by a rock, still to be seen, and the lives of the garrison saved. Some writers place the date of this attack at a later day, in May, but Hubbard, who wrote about 1677 - 78, is probably better authority. The only other concerted attack by the Indians was made either in May or July following (writers differing as to date), when they met with such a notable repulse that " they never dared to show their faces there afterwards.'" But there were single attacks by scattered Indians, and some deaths occurred among the whites. These were troublous times, and tried to the utmost the nerve and endurance of our ancestors. They never meditated a retreat from their possessions, but resolutely adhered to every means of defence, and were obliged to be watchful against surprise for a long time, not knowing the day nor the hour when they migiit be again attacked by their treacherous foe. Philip commanded not only his own tribe, but also Indians of other tribes, whom he had persuaded to enlist in his attempt to extinguish the new settlements of English people. Some of these Indians had hitherto been friendly to the whites, and among them the Nipmucks, who inhabited this and the neighboring region of country. Says S. G. Drake,^ " These were the most distressing days that New England ever beheld. Town after town fell a sacrifice to their fury. All was fear and consternation. Few there were who were not in mourning for some near kindred, and nothing but horror stared them in the face." But after the death of Pliilip in August, 1676, altliough tiie Lidians still made hostile demonstrations, their power was broken; and early in 1677 the colonists began to resume their usual occupations. The inhabitants of Sherborn again took up their negotiations with the Natick Indians for the desirable and important exchange of lands. This exchange, as before mentioned, was not fully completed and an agreement signed until April, 1679.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

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 Sherborn Town - it names this place 18 more 18 times.