Ahijah Wood House

King Philip's War. - The history of Westminster, which properly includes the causes that led to its original settlement, began in the year 1675, at the opening of that tragic episode in early New England life known as the Narragansett or King Philip's War. More than half a century had passed away since the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, and more than forty years since the founding of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, and peace and good-will had prevailed for the most part between the new-comers to these shores and their aborigin.al occupants. This state of tranquillity and kindly intercourse had been secured and perpetuated largely through the influence of Massasoit, the benignant, just, magnanimous chief of the Wampanoags, an important Indian tribe occupying the territory lying along the eastern borders of Narragansett Bay.

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

The subject seems to have received no further attention from any one for more than forty years or until a large percentage of those actually engaged in the Narragansett service had gone to their graves, when, in the month of June, 1727, Samuel Chandler and Jacob Wright, " in behalf of themselves and of many others who were personally present at the fort and fight at Narragansett, or descendants of those who were there or in strictest alliance with them," petitioned the General Court for lands substantially as before, " under such restrictions and limitations as the Court shall judge fit." The petition was favorably received and action was taken looking to the granting of the prayer of the petitioners and also to the ascertaining of the names of all persons having claims under the pledge of the government designated. The matter did not come to a definite conclusion, however, until the 15th of .June in the following year, when a committee was chosen to survey and lay out two tracts of land of the contents of six miles square in some of the unappropriated territory of the province for the officers and soldiers who served their country in the Narragansett War, to whom said tracts were to be granted and assigned on condition that the grantees shall " settle sixty families at least in each township, with a learned Orthodoxminister, within the space of seven years from the date of the grant.'' On the 18th of the next December this committee reported " the plan of a town of the contents of six miles square exclusive of the pond near Rutland and Lunenburg." This was the original plan of what was afterward the town of Westminster, and is still preserved in the Archives of the State of Massachu- setts. On the same day a plan of a second township of the same size was reported situated on Souhegan Kiver, which subsequently became Amherst, N. H. Time went on, but no steps were taken in regard to the settlement of these grants. Indeed, the grantees of them were not definitely determined for several years after they weremade. The number of claimants for lands under the pledge given to the Narragansett soldiers increased slowly until it reached the aggregate of eight hundred and forty, whereupon it was maintained that the grants made were much too small to give each person a sufficient amount to satisfy him and answer the demands of justice and honor in the case. Consequently the whole body of claimants, who had duly organized and were holding meetings from time to time in Boston and vicinity for the purpose of conserving their interests in the matter, through a committee chosen for the purpose, asked the coui-t for further appropriations. After a long delay it was finally decided to grant a township of the contents of six miles square to every one hundred and twenty soldiers who had proved their claims satisfactorily to the court, and a grant of five additional towns - making seven in all - was ordered and duly approved by the Governor April 26, 1733. It was not, however, till February 26, 1734, that the last of the plans of these five townships was submitted by the committee chosen to survey and lay them out and finally approved by the General Court and confirmed to the grantees.

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 - 17,974 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.