Rice, Capt. Peter, House

For fifteen years there was fear throughout the township. Tlie Indian community consisted of about fifty persons. Their ruler's name was Onomog, who was described by a contemporary as a pious and discreet man. They had religious and civil institutions like their white neighbors; employed a schoolmaster, a constable, and other officers. They had brought their land under cultivation, and remained pacific under the vexatious encroachments of the English settlers ; although they were in 23art to blame for their annoyances, seeing they were careless in fencing their fields. Their town lying, as it did, in the heart of Marlborough, the cattle wandered into it, and could hardly be prevented by their owners. The Indians passively retired about a mile into the interior of their land. The celebrated General Gookin of Cambridge, from whose account our knowledge is derived, ])roposed to the English settlers to buy part of tliis land from which they had retired, fence it with stonewalls, and ou one part build a house for a schoolmaster, with a school-room under the same roof, erecting a barn, and giving the teacher as his salary the use of the rest of the land. He also says that at this time the English were backward iiIkhiI employing a schoolmaster, availing themselves of the law which exempted towns of less, than fifty families from being compelled to engage a teacher, although they wanted but a few families to make this number. He suggested that if the Indian school proposed were instituted they might send their children to it, " being the most thrifty and facile way they can take." This field was conveyed to General Gookin by the Indians May 2, 1677. The English town grew unchecked, though not rapidly. Unhappily during this time the community was agitated, indeed distracted, with internal dissensions about both civil and ecclesiastical affairs. They had to do, first, with the reliability of the records and indirectly with the tenure of their lauds ; secondly, with questions as to the support of the minister and the desirability of organizing a church. The public muid was apparently in a state of chronic irritability; to raise a question, was to raise a bitter dispute. Some light is thrown on this period from subsequent sentences in a petition and remonstrances to the General Court. The first explains that their difficulties are of long standing, arishig " partly from our own corruptions and the temptations of Satan, hindering their own good feelings in matters both civil and ecclesiastical, which have been and are very uncomfortable to them and their friends." Even this devout and frank statement proved an irritant, - a denial following that any considerable difficulty existed, and the declaration that they " never went about to destroy the Town Book but only to rectify what was amis in it " ; nor had they attempted " to root out the minister." They vaunted the fact, that, in personal character and liberality to religious and secular institutions, they were the equals of the jjetitioners, and cdiirluilcil \\ith the caustic statement, "We are willing, with our [)ersons and estates, to uphold the Authority of the country, and do therefore desire the liberty of the law which gives towns jrower to iransad their own affairs.'" The appeal to the General Court resulted (1675) hi the appointment of a committee which indorsed the records. The strife, however, was not allayed ; Thomas King and others demanded the reopening of the case. The war ensuing, the matter was not immediately pressed ; but in October, 1679, the quarrel was practically ended by the decisive action of a committee ap- ])()inted by the court to hear the complaints on the sjjot. They censured the turbulent opposition to the former decision, declared better provision shuuhl be iiiailc for llic iiiii:islei-, and u'ave orders as to the custody of the torni records, enjoining a full and veracious report of the proceedings and decisions of the committee who had arbitrated in the case. Their action was approved and confirmed by the court.

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

Some of the Marlborough Indians liad joined Philip, and those who remained apparently passive or amicable were suspected of treachery. Wiiether the suspicion was well grounded or not, the inhabitants lived in dread of them, and from tradition we learn that they, with other towns, sought protection from the government, so tliat Captain Mosely, it is believed, with a company of soldiers, early in the morning surprised these Indians while they were in the fort to which they repaired at niglit, seized their persons and arms, fastened their hands behind tiieir backs, connecting them with a cart-rope, and drove them to Boston, from whence they were taken with others to some island in the harbor and kept in durance until the conclusion of hostilities. Tiiose who returned denied tiie charge ; but wlnle suffered to remain even when guilt had been proven, as in the case of David Munnauow who confessed participation in the destruction of Medfield, they were despised and uninfluential, and though their plantation was not formally forfeited by disloyalty, it was gained the more easily from so demoralized and enfeebled a people.

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 Marlborough City - 43,359 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.