Wachusett, Massachusetts

There are but three natural bodies of water in Westminster. The most important of these is Meeting-house Pond, a mile southeast of the centre, in recent years more frecjuently named Westminster Pond or Lake, which contains one hundred and fiftytwo acres and one hundred rods. Wachusett Pond or Lake is a beautiful sheet of water, larger in size, lying under the shadow of Wachusett Mountain, partly in Princeton, but mostly iu Westminster, on the northern and western borders of which several summer houses (private and public) have beeu erected, while ample and attractive picnic-grounds have been laid out and fitted up as a resort for pleasure-parties and temporary sojourners in the summer season. Mud Pond is in the northern section of the town. A large tract of meadow land in the east, lying along the banks of the streams flowing out of the first two bodies of water mentioned, has during the last twenty years beeii kept under water and made serviceable as a reservoir for the benefit of the manufacturing interests below. The same is true of what used to be termed the town meadows, three-fourths of a mile east of the central village, while two or three similar changes have been niade in the western portion of the territory. A few small mill-ponds fill out the number of bodies of water which at jjresent exist in the jilace.

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

Roads. - It is generally believed that the pioneer settlers of Narragausett No. 2 were obliged to make their way from Lancaster, the nearest settlement, through the intervening wilderness by marked trees, there being no distinctive path or thoroughfare for them to follow. Such, however, was not the case. Four years before the coming of Messrs. Moor and Holden to the place the Provincial Government had caused a road to be laid out and opened for travel from Lancaster to the valley of the Connecticut, near Deerfield, which ran through the south part of the town, entering its borders east of the school-house in what was formerly District No. 7, and passing thence across the northerly end of Wachusett Lake, and up over the hills westward, not far from the residences of the late Cephas Bush and Betsey Bacon, and on in the aame general direction to the Hubbardstou line, south of the dwelling of Mr. Joel Newton, and so through Templeton, Petersham, etc., to its farthest terminus at Sunderland, which gave it the name of the " Sunderland road." Along this thoroughfare, no doubt, the early settlers for several years came to the township, branching oft" from it at such points as would be convenient for them in reaching the various lots on which they had located or proposed to locate. That a way was opened from this road at a point a little east of where it crossed the line of the township to the old Common very soon after the settlement took place is evident from the fact that at a proprietors' meeting held October 31, 1739, it was an item of business to .see if they would clear the road from Crow Hill to the meeting-house. This road was in part the one laid out by the committee who made the first division of the lands of the township, and was, in fact, an extension of the present Main Street of the central village southeastwardly until it struck the socalled Sunderland Road. For a dozen years from the time of the settlement of the place no public roads except this one were made - each man probably opening his own path to his building site when and where he pleased. But in 1750, at the first meeting of the proprietors held, by order of the General Court, in the township, several highways were laid out in different directions, the principal one running from the meeting-house to Lunenburg, which then joined the township on the east, and which had already become quite a settlement. In the year following thirteen additional roads were opened, which furnished the inhabitants at the time all needed facilities for communication with each other, and for reaching the older and larger settlements to the eastward of them. In 1753, a county road was laid from Ipswich Canada (Winchendon) to Lunenburg, running through the extreme north part of the township, and in 17.'>4 another from Lancaster to Quojiaige (Athol). This road crossed thetown boundary near Everettville, and ran substantially where the highway now is to the old Common, thence southwesterly by tbe residence of Mr. Thomas Damon to the old Bigelow homestead, and on in a northwesterly direction through what are now pastures and woodlands to the village of South Gardner. Several other roads of importance were opened in the township before the year 1759, so that at the date of incorporation the foundation and framework of that more complete system of highways which has in later days served the public convenience and need were fully established. As time has gone on, such additions, modifications and discontinuances have been made as seemed, in the judgment of the citizens of the town or of the county authorities, conducive to the common welfare.

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

The military spirit has prevailed somewhat extensively in the town independently of those special manifestations displayed in connection with the great crises in the history of the country to which reference has been made. As early as 17G1 a company of soldiery had been organized, of which Nicholas Dike was commissioned captain and Benjamin Butterfield lieutenant. Ten years later there were two such companies - one in the north part, with John Rand, captain, and one in the south part under the command of Captain Nathan Whitney. The territory seems to have been divided into two military districts by the first county road from Lancaster to Athol, which division was practically continued some years into the present century, the companies enlisting from the different sides of that road taking the name of the North and South Companies respectively. In the year 1816 the North Company, which had belonged to the infantry, was reorganized as a rifle company and continued in that capacity for some twenty five years. It attained a high standing in military circles, and was the pride of those people in town interested in the profession of arms. After the formation of the Rifle Company the South Company disbanded and thenceforward the former had the whole field, to itself. Subsequently to the dissolution of that organization an infantry company called the Westminster Guards was chartered, but it had only a brief existence. In 1868 the " Wachusett Rifles'' was enrolled as a part of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia and continued for ten years, being thrown out when the State forces were reduced in 1878. A company of cavalry, composed of men from Westminster and neighboring towns, existed for many years after the Revolution.

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 Westminster Town - it names this place 1 more 1 time.