Ash Street School

The earliest recorded fact concerning any inhabitant of Shrewsbury comes to us from the soil itself, and from a grave found upon our borders. Here we learn that the mastodon once roamed in his majesty over our hills, and claimed one of our valleys for his last resting-place. For an unknown number of years no owner of the soil had any suspicion that beneath the smooth, heavy sod m the meadow lay a gigantic body, until the flesh had become a part of the soil and the bones had crumbled to dust. In 1884, while Mr. W. U. Maynard, the present owner, was having a deep trench dug, in order to drain and improve the land, the spades of the workmen brought up with the dark soil nine beautiful, polished teeth darkened with earth stains, and resembling choice specimens of agate. These with a few fragments of bone were all that remained of the "Mastodon Giganteus. " In close proximity to these teeth was found a human skull, and the mystery surrounding the fact, that these two skulls were found in one place eight feet below the surface of the ground, has not yet been cleared away. Perhaps a ray of light is shed upon the human skull by a recent reliable historian, W. T. Harlow, who tells us that undoubtedly this farm was the first in town occupied by a white man, and that this man was ]Mr. Warner. He also tells us that ]Mr. Warner suddenly disappeared and no trace of him was ever found. May not this be a trace, this skull without a name.? Doubtless I\Ir. Warner lost his way in the trackless swamp and sank in the soft mire to the rock bed on which lay the mastodon. This spot may now be seen in the meadow bordering on the Northboro line and the county road, at the right as you go westward. The mastodon teeth are preserved by the Natural History Society in Worcester, and Mr. Warner's skull (if it be Mr. Warner's) was sent to the Peabody Museum in Cambridge, where it has been examined by scientists and pronounced by them to be a remarkable specimen ; they also deemed it worthy of a learned treatise by one of their number. It is fitting that the memory of the first white inhabitant should be thus perpetuated.

Passage source: Old Times in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. Gleanings from History and Tradition, published 1892.

The Town of Shrewsbury in said County having been Presented at the Court of General Sessions of the peace held at Worcester in and for said County on the first Tuesday of November in the fourth year of his Majesty's Reign by the grand jurors for the Body of said County, for that the Said Town of Shrewsbury hath for some years last past, Consisted and does now Consist of more than an Hundred and Fifty Families or House-holders, and so are by Law obliged to Set up a Grammer School and maintain a Grammer SchooU master there, Suitable for such School, yet in Contempt of Law, and in Discouragement of Learning they for the Space of Six Months last pest utterly neglected the same and for the time aforesaid have not been Provided with Such School or School Master, as by the Law is appointed and Required, in evil Example to others against the peace of the said Lord the King and the law in that Case made and Provided. And the Presentment by order of Court hath been Continued from Court to Court until this Court. And now the Selectmen of Shrewsbury Plead and say they will not Contend with our Sovereign Lord the King but put themselves on his Grace.

Passage source: Old Times in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. Gleanings from History and Tradition, published 1892.

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 Shrewsbury Town - 37,888 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.