Rider Tavern

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.

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 Charlton Town - 13,709 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.