Lancaster Town (part 1 of 2)

By Hon. Henry S. Nourse

Tlie Nashawatjs and their Hume - King^s Pttrchase - The X<tsh<itvn>i Planters - Thf Town Grant - The Covenant - Land Attotmtnti - Death of Showanon.

At the time the Massachusetts Company were laying the foundations of their settlements on the river Charles, there dwelt in the northeastern part of what is now Worcester County a small tribe of red men, generally known as the Nashaways. They were an independent clan, though evidently of the same origin and speaking the same tongue with the natives of the coast, and the Nipmucks, Quabaugs and River Indians south and west of them. A close defensive alliance bound together these Massachusetts tribes, and this bond was their only safeguard against the murderous incursions of the Mohegans and Mohawks, their traditional foes.

Of the Nashaways there were three groups or villages, - one at the eastern base of Mt. Wachusett, another at the Waahacum ponds, and a third about the meeting of the two branches of the river which the pioneers called "Penecook," but which is now known as the Nashua. By the custom of the period the location of a native village or planting-field gave name to those there resident, and we find these Indians called indiscriminately, by the English, Washaeums and Wachusetts, as well as Nashaways. They proudly cherished traditions of great former prowess and pros- perity, but war and pestilence had greatly reduced their numbers before the coming of the white man, and in 1033 the small-pox swept away hundreds more, leaving but a comparatively enfeebled remnant behind; although they were even yet numerous enough to be styled "a great people" by Daniel Gookin.

The sachem holding mild sway over the Nashaways was Showanon or Nashowanon, also called Sholan, Shaumauw.Shoniowand Nashacowam - for an Indian chief of repute always had sundry aliases, each, perhaps, indicative of some specially memorable deed or personal experience. His home was upon a plateau between the little lakes of Washacum, about which were clustered the wigwams of his central and largest village. He appears not infrequently in early colonial history and always greeting the white man with welcoming words and generous hospitality. Finally the saintly Eliot joyfully proclaims that his personal ministrations have won Sholan and many of his followers to the Christian fold. Before this the chieftain had made many English acquaintances in his visits to the Bay, and among them Thomas King, of Watertown, gained his special favor. He persuaded King to visit his domain, and made him generous offers of a land grant, desiring him to establish a trucking-house, where his people could exchange their peltry for much-coveted iron weapons, kettles, cloths, and the various novelties brought by the strangers from over the seas.

The country of the Nashaways lay among lofty, smoothly-rounded hills, sloping gently down to broad meadows, through which coursed rivulets of pure, cool water; while numerous little lakes slept iu concealment of the forest. It was a famous hunting-ground, prolific of deer, beaver, wild turkeys and small game. Occasionally the swan wandered hither from the Merrimack, and moose, elk, bears, wolves and wild-cats were sometimes met with. Samuel Maverick tells us also that the waters were noted for excellent salmon and trout. For the capture of the migratory shad and salmon on their return towards the ocean, the Indians had built a weir at the shallows in the main river, while the frequent falls and rapids in the branches afforded convenient spots for the successful plying of spear and net, when the fish were ascending in spawning time.

The hunters or traders of Concord and Sudbury, adventurous enough to push fifteen miles westward into the wilderness, found a feeble band of the Natick Indians living at Okommakameset (now Marlborough) and a little beyond could look over the summit of the lofty Wataquadock hills into the paradise of the Nashaways. The widely-extended view with its delicate hues varying with sun and season, which there met their gaze, is the same that attracts so many admirers to-day; for even two hundred and fifty years of civilization cannot avail to mar, or add to, the grand features of so broad and varied a landscape. To the north the horizon is bounded by the picturesque mountain peaks of New Hampshire, blue or violet with distance. The shapely dome of Wachusett at the west dominate-i the scene, and, near at hand, little valleys creeping out from the shadows of the George and Wataquadock ranges of hills, join to form the broad, fertile intervales, dotted with hickory, sycamore and stately elms, which sweep northward, bearing the rivers towards the sea. All is gentle undulation, charming, restful - nothing awe-inspiring or grand, perhaps, certainly nothing precipitous or even abrupt - nothing suggestive of the ferocities of nature, save the sharp cone of Monadnock, dimly to be seen in the middle distance.

Nor was the landscape then a " howling wilderness," gloomy with primeval forest and impassable coppice, as so generally it has been depicted in story; for in the vicinity of the Indian plantations, twice in the year the woods were purposely fired to free them of the brushwood that could hide a stealthy foe, or obstruct pursuit of game. Therefore, in time, extensive areas came to wear a park-like appearance, resembling the similarly formed "oak-openings" of the West, everywhere passable, even for horsemen. The more fertile meadows, where not too wet, were swept bare of tree and underwood and clad in summer with a rank growth of coarse grasses, "some as high as the shoulders, so that a good mower may cut three loads in a day," as William Wood testified in 1634.

At how early a date the pioneer pale-face first looked down from its southern barrier of hills upon Sholan's beautiful domain is not known. John Winthrop relates that the Watertown people began a settlement at Nashaway in 1643. Before that Thomas King had accepted the invitation of the sachem, and selected a location for a trading post on the sunny slope of George Hill, near the parting of two trails which led from the " wading-place" of Nashaway, westward to Wachusett, and southwesterly by Washacum to the land of the Quabaugs. King was a young man. of limited means, and had formed a partnership with Henry Symonds, a freeman, a capitalist, and an enterprising contractor, living near the head of what is now North Street, in Boston. By a little brook that came brawling down the divide over which the western trail ran, the trucking-house was built, probably in 1642, certainly before the summer of 1643. Symonds, the moneyed partner, died in September of 1643, and King survived him little more than a year. In the inventory of King's property there is no hint of any estate at Lancaster. This is confirmation of the statement made by Rev. Timothy Harrington in 1753 - doubtless recording a tradition - that a company bought such proprietary rights at Nashaway as King had obtained by his bargain with Sholan. No deed of a sale is foun<l, but the price of the grant, as agreed upon with the Indians, was twelve pounds. The territory acquired was nominally ten miles long from south to north, by eight miles wide. It included a few families of Indians, dwelling about the rivers and ponds, though these, perhaps, joined the Washacum village, when, in 1663 and 1669, the warriors of the tribe were decimated in contest with the bloodthirsty Mohawks. A provision in Sholan's deed, however, restricted the purchasers and their successors from "molesting the Indians in their hunting, fishing, or usual planting places." Joint occupancy was the evident intent of the conveyance. *

The Nashaway Company, having signed a compact, at once began the assignment of home lots among themselves, and sought from the authorities legal sanction of their enterprise. Favorable response was made to their petition. May 29, 1644, and the names of the foremost undertakers thereafter appear from time to time in various records. They were chiefly from Boston and Watertown. At the head of the first list of the proposed planters found, stand the names of two graduates of Cambridge University, England - Nathaniel Norcross and Robert Childe. The former had been promised adequate settlement as pastor of the plantation, but growing impatient of delays in the gathering of his parish he soon departed for England, bearing the manuscript of the broken contract with him. Robert Childe was a scholar of varied learning. He had traveled in many lands, was a close observer, pretended to considerable knowledge of chemistry and metallurgy, was ambitions and restlessly energetic. He gave books to the infant college of Harvard, invested largely in the iron works at Lynn and Braintree, shipped from England vines, grafts of plums, and various seeds and plants to his intimate friend John Winthrop, Jr., and to all appearances wholly merited the commendation of that Puritan unimpeachable, Hugh Peters, who wrote of him in June, 1645: "that honest man who will bee of exceeding great vsc if the Country know how to improue him, indeed he is very very vsefull. I pray let us not play tricks with such men by our jelousyes."

But in that age toleration had no home on earth ; and why should Massachusetts be specially reproached because she oft'ered no asylum for original thinkers upon religious or political subjects? Jesuits and Quakers, rhapsodistsand philosophers, bedlamites and seers were alike crushed by the despotism of dogmas, - a despotism which now seems the more strange because wearing the cloak of liberty. Vane, Vassal and later William Pynchon fled the country in disgust at the intolerance of the majority in power; Coggeshall and Coddington were spurned, to be esteemed a great gain in the colony of Rhode Island, and Childe, despite the warning afforded by the fate of such able but unseasonable reformers, and overestimating his own strength, began a crusade against the theocratic restriction of suffrage to a select few. England was then shaken by the fierce contest for supremacy between Presbyterian and Independent. Childe and his fellowagitators were probably feared, and perhaps justly, as being secret emissaries of Presbyterian ism, and Puritanism rudely and speedily thrust them out of the Commonwealth. Thus the Nashaway Company lost its master of arts.

The third co-partner upon the list was also a noted personage in colonial history. Steven Day, a locksmith by profession, had in 1639 set up at Harvard College the first English printing-press in America, and on it had printed the Book of Psalms in 1640. He wa9«a man of worthy aims and rare energy, but so lavish or improvident that his earnings and the sales of lands granted him by the General Court, in reward for his art, could not keep him out of debt. He was an ardent promoter of the company's interests, often traveling to Nashaway, and entertaining Indians and proposed planters at his Cambridge home. His necessities forced him to sell the lots first assigned to him, but a few years later he acquired another with a dwelling upon it - yet never resided there, and died in January, 1668, a journeyman at the press he had founded. He had long before forfeited his proprietary rights at Nashaway by his inability to improve, or pay tithe for, his allotments.

Besides Day, four other workers in iron were prominent in the company : John Prescott, Harmon Garrett, John Hill and Joseph Jenkes. This fact, joined to the leadership of Childe, whose letters to Winthrop show him to have been enthusiastic in his estimate of the mineral wealth concealed in the New England hills, warrants the supposition that the inspiration of this proposed settlement, so far from tidal waters, was not alone the profitable trade in furs, but the expectation of discovering valuable ores, and especially iron.

undertaking, and ultimately, after one by one his original associates yielded to discouragements and abandoned him or died, lie alone, undismayed and equal to any emergency, with unbending will, hard common sense, and marvelous practical ability, fought the long battle with obstructive men and reluctant nature, and won. Prescott was the founder of Lancaster, and there existed no rival claimant to that honor. Garrett, the blacksmith of Charlestown, though he expended some time and means in the earliest days of the plantation, and clung to his landtitle for several years with the avowed intention of becoming a resident, finally drops out of sight. Hill, a Boston smith and a freeman of influence, business associate and neighbor of Henry Symonds, died July 27, 1646. Joseph Jenkes was a prototype of the Yankee mechanical genius. A smith employed at the Lynn Iron Works, he was granted the first patent in America for a water-mill. May 16, 1646, and thenceforward proved himself a bold, ingenious and successful experimenter in the mechanic arts, being selected by the Assistant in 1652 to make dies for the pinetree coinage of Massachusetts. He became too busy and prosperous to keep up his interest in the Nashaway scheme.

The other co-partners disclosed by various petitions and records were: John Fisher, of Medfield; Sergeant John Davis, a joiner of Boston ; John Chandler, of Boston ; Isaac Walker, a trader of Boston, who married the widow of Henry Symonds ; Thomas Skidmore, of Cambridge ; John Cowdall, a trader of Boston, who is found possessing the Symonds and King trucking-house after the death of the original owners; James Cutler, of Watertown, who married the widow of King ; Samuel Bitfield, a cooper of Boston ; Matthew Barnes, a miller and influential citizen of Braintree; John Shawe, a Boston butcher; Samuel Rayner, of Cambridge ; George Adams, a glover of Watertown. With the exception, perhaps, of Cowdall, Adams and Rayner, we have no proof that one of these men ever became actual residents at Nashaway, or took active steps to further its settlement after 1645. Chandler, Walker and Davis for some reason became actively hostile to the company's interests in 1647, as shown by the records of court, and Cowdall sold his land and improvements to Prescott the same year. Adams had his home-lot assigned him upon George Hill, but occupied it briefly, if at all.

The first two years after the General Court's sanction of the plantation saw little advance in the preparations for settlement. The first step taken by the associates was to send out fit pioneers to build houses, store provender for wintering cattle, enclose with paling a "night pasture," and prepare fields for grain. Richard Linton and his son-in-law, Lawrence Waters, a carpenter, and John Ball, all of Watertown, were employed and given house-lots. Linton and Waters built themselves houses upon lands assigned them near the wading-place in the North River, which were the first erected after the trucking-house. The covenant entered into by tlie proprietors with their minister contemplated the occupation of the valley during the summer of 1645.

Prescott, who had a considerable estate in Watertown, sold it, and packing his household goods upon horses, set out with his family through the woods for their new home. At the very outset of the journey he met with serious misfortune. " He lost a horse and his lading in Sudbury River, and a week after, his wife and children being upon another horse, were hardly saved from drowning." This sad experience Governor Winthrop seriously records as a special providence - divine punishment of the brave pioneer for his sympathy wilh that dangerous schismatic, Robert Childe ! The other proprietors seem to have been completely dismayed by this disaster to their leader, and forthwith - June 12, 164.5 - petitioned the authorities to order this yawning chasm in their path to be bridged. There is no reason to think that they exaggerated the formidable nature of the crossing, for more than one hundred years later the bridge and causeway at the same place were complained of as dangerous and in time of freshets impassable, and lotteries were granted, the proceeds of which, amounting to over twelve hundred pounds, were expended upon them. The petitioners in 1045 declared it " an vtter Impossibilitye to proceede forwards to plante at the place aboue sayd [Nashaway] except we haue a conuenient way made for the transportation of our cattell and goods oner Sudbery River and Marsh." Two years before, a cart-bridge had been begun by the town's people, but left incomplete, and the swamp remained unimproved. The court contributed twenty pounds towards finishing the bridge and causeway, stipulating that they should be completed within a year.

Whatever was done to render the way less perilous was done too late or too ineffectually to encourage Norcross or his parishioners, other than the indomitable Prescott, to venture across it with their cattle and household goods, during either 1645 or 164(5; and by that time their patience or pluck wa.s exhausted, the surviving Boston members of the company were trying to have the grant rescinded to relieve themselves of any responsibility incurred by their cove- | nant, and the minister had abandoned his parish. To ] the difficult task of obtaining planters to make good j so wholesale a defection, Prescott and Day seem to have devoted much time and energy with very moderate success.

The plan of settlement contemplated two groups or double ranges of house-lots, in sight of each other, but about a mile apart, the North River and its intervales lying between. The trucking-house formed the starting-point of the western range; the eastern lay along the plateau, then (as now) called the Neck, between the main or Penecook River and the North

Branch. Prescott, who had chosen his first home-lot in the eastern range, covering the site of the present Lancaster House, sold it to Ralph Houghton and made his home at the trucking-house. Philip Knight, of Charlestown, built a house on the lot which he bought of Steven Day, adjoining Prescott's on the north, and upon the next two lots were John and Solomon Johnson, of Sudbury, a roadway separating their dwellings. Upon the south corner of Solomon Johnson's lot now stands the George Hill Schoolhouse. Thomas Sav/yer, a blacksmith of Rowley, married Mary, the daughter of Prescott, in 1647 or 1648, and set up a home near his father-in-law, in a range of lots parallel to and south of those above named. Mrs. Sally Case's residence is nearly upon the site of the Sawyer house. These were probably the first five dwellings south of the North River. William Kerley perhaps moved upon his house-lot in the upper range not much later, and Daniel Hudson, a brickmaker from Watertown, occupied John Moore's lot certainly as early as the spring of 1651.

On the Neck side, Lawrence Waters sold his house to John Hall, whose wife Elizabeth occupied it, her husband going to England. Waters built himself a second house nearer the shallows in the river, a few rods west of the one sold. Ralph Houghton soon came up from Watertown and set up his roof-tree on the Neck. A petition of the inhabitants to the General Court of May, 1652, asking township rights, states that there were already living at Nashaway " about nine farailyes." They must be selected from those already named. Before this date there had probably been ten white children born in the settlement: two to Prescott, five to Lawrence Waters, two to Sawyer, and one to Daniel Hudson. The answer to the petition is the so-called Act of Incorporation of the Town of Lancaster. The first draft of the answer was passed upon by the deputies in May, 1652, and in this the name given to the town was Prescott, as had been requested by the petitioners, paying deserved honor to their generous, spirited and able leader.

The naming of a town for its founder had then no precedent in New England. Not even a magistrate or Governor had been so greatly honored. Probably the assistants or executive refused thus to exalt a blacksmith who was no freeman, and had but recently taken the oath of fidelity. They may have recalled also his sympathy with the agitation by Childe. The name Prescott was promptly refused, and after further consideration the name West Towne was inserted in the answer. This title, entirely wanting appropriateness and' euphony, satisfied no one, and further discussion carried the matter over another year. Prescott's force of character and liberality had won not only the admiration of his neighbors, but friendly interest in many and high quarters. He had proved very useful to Rev. John Eliot in his visits to the Indian tribes about and west of Nashaway. He had in 1648 been the pioneer of a "new way to Connecti- cut by Nashaway, which avoided much of the hilly way," and which Governor Hopkins, of Connecticut, as well as the leading ministers interested in the work of converting the Indians, esteemed a public benefaction. When, therefore, the inhabitants, disappointed of their first choice, petitioned asking to borrow a title for the new town from the Englisli shire in which Prescott was born, the suggestion was adopted, and Lancaster began its legal existence May 18, 1653. It was the forty-fourth town chartered in the Commonwealth, and the tenth in Middlesex County.

Three copies of the "Court's Grant" exist - one forming the first page of the town records, one an official copy by Secretary Rawson in Massachusetts Archives cxii. 54-55, and the original record of the court. They difier somewhat in orthography. That of the town records is as follows :

Coppie Of The Court'S Grant

1. In answer to the Peticon of the Inliabitunta of Nasliaway tlie Court finds according to a former order of the Gen'" Court in Anno H>47 no 0 : 95 : That tlie ordering and disposeing of the Phmtatiun at Nashaway is wholly in the Courts power.

2. Considering that there is allredy at Nashaway about nine fTamiliee and that severall both freemen and othere intend to goo and setle tbt-rp borne whereof are named in this Petition tiie Court doth Grant them the libertie of a Townesliippand olhei-stbat hensfortli it shall In- called I-aiicaster.

3. That the Bounds thereof shall be sett out according to a deede cf tlie Indian Sagamore, viz. Nashaway Riuer at the passing oner to be the Center, fivu* miles North fine miles south fine miles east and three miles west by such Comissiouei-s as the Courte shall appoint to see their Linea extended and their bounds limitted.

4. That Edward Breck, Nathaniell Hadlocke, William Kerley, Thomaw Sayer, John Prescot and Ralph Houghton, or any foiire of them, whereof the maior Parte to be froenien to be for present the prndentiall men of ihe said Towno both to see all allottments to be laid out to the Planters in due proportion to theire estates and allso to order other Prudentiall afaires vntill it shall Appeare to this Court that the Place be so fai r seated with able men as the Court may Judg meet, to give them full liberties of a Towushipp according to Lawe.

5. That all such Persons whoe haue possessed and Continued Inhabitants of Nashaway shall haue their Lofts formerly Laid out conlirmed to them provided they take the oath of fidellitie

6. That Sudbery and Lancaster Layout highwaies betwixt Towne and Towne according to order of Court for the Countries vse and then repaire them as neede slialbe

8. That the Inhabitants of Lancaster doe take care that a godly minester may bo nuiiiitained amongst them and that no evill persons Enemies to the Lawes of tliis Comonwealth in Judgment or Practi/.e be Admitted as Inhabitants amongst them and none to haue Lotts Confirmed but such as take the oathe of fidellitie y. That allthough the first Undertakereand partnei-s in the Plantacon of Nashaway are wholy Kvacuafed of theire Claimes in Lotts there by order of this Courte yet that such persons of them whoe haue Expended eitlier Charge or Labor for the Benefitt of the place and haue heipped on the Pnblike workes there from time to time either in Contributing to the minestrie or in the Purchase from the Indians or any otber Publike worke, that such persons are to be Considered by the Towne either iu proportion of Land or some other way of satisfaction as may be Just and meete. Provided such Persons do make such theire expencea Cleorly Appeare within Twelue monethes after the end of this Sessions for such demandes and that the Interest of Harmon Garrett and such others as were first vndertakers or haue bin at Great Charges there shalbe made good to him them his or theire beires in all Allottments as to other the Inhabitiints in proportion to tlie Charges expended by him and such others aforesaid. Provided they make Improiiem' of such Allotmt-* by building and Planting w^'in three i-eares after they are or shalbe Laid out to them, otherwise theire Interest hereby Provided for to bee voyde,

Aud all such Lands soe hereby Reserved to bethenclortli at the Townes Dispose : In further Answer to this Peticon the Court Judgeth it meete to Confirm the aboue mentioned Nine perticulers to the Inhabitants of Lancaster, and order that the bounds thereof be Laid out in proportion to eight miles square.

Of the six prudential men, the first three only were freemeu, and the death of Hadlocke, in Oharlestown, very soon deprived them of a legal quorum, according to strict construction of the fifth article. In October, 1653, however, they agreed upon a " covenant of laws and orders," which all who were accepted as citizens of the town were required to sign. As of the signatures to this, ten were dated a year before, it was undoubtedly an obligation entered into by the earlier comers adopted by the new oflicials. This covenant served as a Constitution by which the internal economies of the town were administered for very many years, and is therefore worthy to be given here in full, with the signatures, as found in the town records :

I65i 18:8 m". The botul to hiu'le all comers. Memorandum, That wee whose Names are subscribed, vppon the Receiueingand acceptanc of our severall Lands, and Allottments w^h all ApiMirtinuuces thereof, from those men who are Chosen by the Generall Court to Lay out and dispose of the Lands within the Towne of Lanchaater heertofore Called by the name of Nashaway doe hereby Covenant »t bimle ourseluea our heirea Execut" it Assignes to the observing and keepeing of these orders and Agreementd hereafter mentioned and Expressed.

Clmrch LtiHih. Rii'st ffor the maintainanc of the miin"stree of Gods holy word wee doe Allowe Covenant and Agree that there be laid out Stated and established, and we doe hereby estate and establish as Church Land with all the pritiilledgea aud Appurtiuancea therevnto belonging for ever, thirty acoi's of vppland and fortie acors of Entervale Land and twelue acora of meddowe with free Libertie of Commons for Pasture and fire wood, The said Lands to be improved by the Plantation or otht^rwise in such order as shalbe best Advised and Ctmcluded by the Plantation without Hent paying for the same, vntit the Labours of the Planters or tliose that doe improue the same, be ffidly aattisfied. And wee doe agree that the Plantation or Sellect men shall deternune the time, how Lunge every man shall hold and Improue the said Lands for the prortit thereof. And then to be Rented according to the yearly valine thereof and paid in to such persons as the Plantation or Sellectinen shall Appoynt to and for the vse of and towards the maintainanc of the minester Pastor or Teacher for the time being, or whomesoever may bee stated to preach the word of God among vs : or it may be in the Choyce of the minester to improue the said Lands himselfe.

Meeting house. And fturther wee doe Covenant and Agree to build a Convenient meetinghouse for the Publicpio Assembling of the Church and People of God, to worshipp God according to his holy ordinances in the most eaqual! aud Convenient place that maybe Advized and Concluded by the Plantation.

/((>(t«e lotts til pfftj h\^ p anil in the minister. And ffiirthcr we doe Engage and Covenant every one for himselfe his heires Executors & Assignes to pay to and for the vse of the minestreeabouesaid the sumeof ten shillings a yeare as for and in Consideracon of o' home Lotts yearly forever, our home Lotts to stand Engaged for the payment thereof, and what all this shall fall short of a Competent maintainanc we Covenant to make vpp by an equall Rate vppon o'^ Goods, and other improved Lands (not home lots) in such way and order as the Country rate is Raised. And in case of vacansy of a minester the maintainanc Ariseing from the Church Land and home Lotts abouementioned, shalbe paid to such as ahalbe Appoynted for the uae of a scoole to be as a stock ; or aa stock towards the maintainanc of the minester, as the Plantation or Sellect men shall think meetest.

To biiUd Inhabit d'C in a year or loose all and pn/j 5: "' And for the better Promoteing and seting forward of the Plantation wee Covenant and Agree, That such person or persons of vs who haue not inhabited this Plantation heretofore and are yett to come to build Improue and luhabitt That we will (by the will of God) come vpp to build tu Plant land aud Inhabit at or before one whole yeare be passed next after o' agcept- aDce of c AUottnients, or elc to Loose all our Charges about it, and our Lotts to Return to the Plantation, and to pay flue pounds for the vae of the Plantation.

What Inhabitants not to be Admited. And for the Better. preserveing of the pnritie of Religion and oursehies from infection of Error we Covenant not to distribute Alluttineuts atid to Keeeiue into the Plantation as Inhabitants any exnoniinicat or otherwise prophane and scandalus (known so to bee) nor any notoriously erring against the Docktrin and Discipline of the Churches and the state and Governni^ of this Com onweale.

to end all lU/renc by Arhitracon. And for the better preserveing ol peace and love, and yet to keepe the Rules of Justice and Equitie amoiige ourselues, we Coveuant not to goe to Lawo one with an other in ActioriM of Debt or Damages one towards an other either in name or state but tu end all such Controversies among oursehies by arbitration or otherwise except in cases Cappitall or Criniinall that sinn may not goe vnpuuisheil or that the mater beaboue our abillities to Judge of, and that it bee with the Consent of the Plantation or ScHect men thereof.

To pat) lOa p Loll. And for the Laying out measureing and bounding of our Allottmeiits of this first Diuision and for and towards the Satisfieing of our Engageui'" to the Generall Court, to make payment for purchase of the Indians we Covenant to pay ten sliillings everyone of vs for our several! AUottni^, to the Sellect men or whome they may Appoynt to Receive it.

Equall Lotts first DiuUion, hi 2"d Diuitiom acord to Estates : And. whereas Lotta are Now Laid out for the the most part Equally to Rich and poorc, Partly to keepe the Towne from Scatering to farr. and partly out of Charitie and Respect to men of meaner estate, yet that Equallitie (which is the Rule of God) may he observed, we Covenant and Agree, That in a second Devition and so through all other Devitions of Land the mater shall be drawne as neere to equallitie according to mens estates as wee are able to doe. That be which hath now more then his e.state Deservelh in home Lotts and entervale Lotta shall haue so much Less: and he tliat hath now Less then his estate Deserveth shall bane so much more. And that wee may the better keepe due proportion we Covenant and agree thus to account of mens estates (viz) ten pounds a head for every person and all other goods by due valine, and to proportion to every ten pounds three acoi-s of Land two of vpland and one of Entervale and we giue a years Libertieto Euery man to bringe in his estate.

Gifts free. Yet Nevertheless it is to he vnderstood That w* doe not hfeerehy preiudice or Barr the Phintation from Accomodateing any man by Gifift of Land (whidi proply are not AHottnit^:) but wee doe reserve that in the free Power of the Plantation as occatitm may hereafter be offered : And in Case The Phiutei-s estate be Lowe tliat he can elainie Nothing in other dilutions yet it is to be vndei-stood that he shall euioy all the Land of the first Devition.

Rules fur Ptoporcun of Meddoim. And tfurther wee Covenant to lay out Meddow Lands according to thepreasent estates of the Planters/with respect to be had to Remoteness or Neereness, of that which is remote to giue the more and of that wch is neere to giue the Less,

And Concerning the 30 acors of vppland and 40 acors of Entervale aboue Granted as Church Land. It is agreed and concluded to Lye hounded by John Prescotts Ditch vppon the South and the North Riuer over an ends [iinensl\ Lawrenc Waters vppon the North and so Rangeing allong westward.

And for the Preventing of Inconveniences and the more peaceable Isuing of the business about building of a meeting house it is Considered and Concluded as the most equall place that the meeting house he builded as neere to the t.'hnrch Land and to the Neck of Land as It can bee without any notable inconveiiiencie.

And it is allso agreed That in all partes and Quarters of the Towne where Sundry Lotts do Lie together they shalbe ffenced by a Coniiuon ffenc according to proportion of acors by every planter, And yett not to barr any man from perticuler and priuat Inidosure at his pleasure.

This is a true (topple of tlie Lawes and erdere ffirst Enacted and made by those Appoynted and Inipowered by the Genrall Court as it is found in the old book.

I subscribe tc this for my selfe and for my soun Edwai-d Brek ! Kybert saue that it is agreed that we are not bound to Rob" Brek: i "^^'"^ ^PP ^o inhabit wt^in a years time in our owne persons: This is a true Coppie:

Subscribed 12^: 12 ni": 1G54 : and it is agreed by the Towne that he shall haue 20 accui*s of vpland & 40 acore of Entervale in the Night Pasture : Jn^Riggby: Subscribed 12""; 12"> m<» : 1654 and he is to haue 20 acors of

Roger Sumner Gainalidl Beinand Subscribed : Gamaliell tt Bemaiid his marke r/*"»H(H U'//<rWfr; Subscribed the l'*" July 1659 TlionuiB Wyellder of that intent. In running the southern boundary Noyes came upon the north line of the WhipsufTerage plantation, wiiieh had been settled by court grant and laid out the year before. He could not therefore complete the rectangle called for by Sholan's deed, but added a sufficient triangle on the east to make up for that cut off by this IMarlborough grant. The original territory of Lancaster was therefore an irregular pentagon containing, by Noyes' record of survey, eighty and two-tenths square miles, but actually embracing not far from one hundred.

The extent of their magnificent realm and its capacity for human support seems to have dawned upon the town after the viewing of their boundaries, for this year the restriction of families to thirty-five was rescinded, and a new policy declared that "soe many inhabitants bee admitted as may be meetly accommodated, provided they are such as are acceptable."

From his letters it may fairly be inferred that Master Tinker was neither by physical constitution nor tastes well adapted to the rough life of the pioneers, and this, added to the fact that his ambition and abilities naturally demanded a larger sphere for their exercise, deprived Lancaster of his services. In June, 1659, he had removed to New London, Ct., and died three years later, when on the high road to wealth and political preferment. There were accepted as citizens during the year before. Major Simon Willard, Jonas Fairbanks, Roger Sumner, Gamaliel Beman, Thomas Wilder and Daniel Gaiens. Wilder was at once appointed selectman in place of John Tinker, bought the lot next north of the trucking-house and there resided for the rest of his life. He came from Charlestown. Roger Sumner was of Dorchester, and was, like Wilder, a freeman. He had, in 1056, married Mary, the daughter of Thomas Joslin. He seems to have been the first deacon in the Lancaster Church, although but twenty-eight years of age; being dismissed from the Dorchester congregation August 26, 1660, " that with other Christians at Lancaster a Church might be begun there." At this date doubtless Mr. Rowlandson waa ordained - though no record of such fact is found - and the church thus formally organized. Beman also came from Dorchester, bringing a large family. Both he and Sumner were assigned home-lots upon the Neck. Jonas Fairbanks, of Dedham, and Lydia Prescott, the youngest daughter of John, were the first couple whose marriage was solemnized within the limits of Lancaster, the ceremony being performed by John Tinker by authority of special license. They set up their roof-tree upon the next lot south of Prescott's on George Hill, now owned by Jonas Goss. Daniel Gaiens, so far as is known, brought no family with him. He waa assigned a house-lot between Rugg and Kerly in the George Hill range.

Major Willard .succeeded to the greater portion of Tinker's Lancaster land rights, and occupied the house before often mentioned as the first built in the town. Its site is in the garden of Caleb T. Symmes. Whether the major rebuilt or enlarged the dwelling which had been occupied successively by Waters, Hall, Smith and Tinker is not told, but the Willard home must have been of ample proportions to fill the needs of his natural and enforced hospitality as a magistrate, and also furnish the suitable accommodations for a garrison and military headquarters. That it was a substantial structure, largely of brick or stone, we know from the fact that at its abandonment in 1676 it was partially blown up, which means would not have been used if fire alone could have effected its destruction. It was probably surrounded by a stockade, being the chief garrison. Here Major Willard lived for about thirteen years, often called from home for public duty, now in Council, now in " Keeping County Courts," now in exercise of his military office.

The three commissioners continued to appoint selectmen until, in March, 16(J4, the town legally assembled confirmed all that had been done and recorded in past years, and elected Major Willard, John Prescott, Thomas Wilder, John Roper and Ralph Houghton selectmen, empowering them "to order all the jirudencial af'airs of the towne only they are not to dispose of lands." This action of the people was accompanied with a request to the commissioners to ratify their doings and allow them thereafter the full liberty of a town, to which they gladly consented. The General Court did not formally discharge the commissioners, however, until May 7, 1072.

For several years the town's aftairs apparently moved on in very quiet fashion. Lancaster had become a vigorous, healthful community, with as much individuality as the jealously paternal nature of the colonial government would jiermit. The few scant records of town-meetings tell only of the harmonious and commonplace, for under the discreet leadership of Major Willard and Prescott the contentious and the busybodies were soon silenced. That a minority existed who led unedifying lives in the midst of the children of grace is now and then disclosed by the Middlesex County Court records, but seldom were the sins of these such as would call for any court's attention nowadays.

A sermon-scorner, Edmund Parker, who lived squalidly in a hovel, was arraigned, convicted and admonished "for neglect of God's public worship;" Daniel James was presented before the grand jury "for living from under family government;" John Adams was summoned to answer "for lying and false dealing;" William Lincorne "for forcing of himselfe into the towne as an Inhabitant," contrary to law, was warned out and had his goods attached to secure the fine. Nothing more criminal than these examples appears. It may be deemed rather complimentary than otherwise that the town was once presented for not having stocks ; it had no use for them.

January 2, 1671, Cyprian Stevens married Mary, the daughter of Simon Willard, and the next year is found in possession of the " Houseings, Barns, Stables, Orchards, Lands, Entervales, meadow lying and being in Lancaster," lately the property of his fatherin-law, who had removed to his Nonaicoiacus Farm, then within the bou nds of Groton.

No record of the town's doings between 1671 and 1717 are found, save in the register of the proprietors' divisions of common land. This lamentable gap in the manuscript annals of the town is by tradition attributed to the loss of a volume of records by fire. Whatever church records may have existed prior to the pastorate of Rev. John Prentice, in 1708, have likewise disappeared. The facts of the town's history for this period of ibrty-six years must be chiefly gleaned from county and State archives.

Daniel Gookiu, writing the year previous to the breaking out of war with the Wampanoags, says the Nashaways had become reduced by disease and battle with the Mohawks to fifteen or sixteen families ; that is, to less than two hundred men, women and children. Matthew, the Englishmen's friend, was dead, and his nephew, the treacherous Sam, alias Shoshanim, alias Upchattuck, reigned in his place. The tribe was not only few in numbers, but sadly degenerate. In fact, the average savage was always a dirty loafer, often besotted, who would not work so long as he could beg or live upon the toil of the women of his wigwam. The tidy English housewife shuddered whenever she saw one entering her kitchen. His habits were repulsive, his presence unsavory, his appetite insatiate. He was quick to take offence, and never forgot an injury or slight.

The Nashaways at first stood in great awe of the white men as superior beings ; feared their far-reaching muskets; hoped for their protection against the predatory Mohawks, and craved the hatchets, knives and other skilled handiwork of the smiths, and the cloths, kettles, fish-hooks and gewgaws of their traders- In Sholan's day the strangers were few and gracious, brought with them valued arts, and were much to be desired as neighbors. But familiarity cast out awe and was fatal to mutual respect. The younger warriors, after a time, began to look askance at the increasing power, encroachments and meddlesomeness of the English, and the planters made little concealment of their contempt for the communists of the forest. When, in 1663, the Mohawks made a sanguinary raid into Central Massachusetts, the white men stood aloof, offering no aid to the children of the soil against the marauders. When again, in 1069, the Nashaways, Nipmucks and other Massachusetts tribes combined in an expedition to wreak vengeance upon their life-long foes, the English proffered no assistance. This species of neighborliness was not likely to be forgotten by the defeated warriors. Most of the braves now possessed guns and had learned to use them with more or less skill.

So early as 1653, George Adams, who lived at Watertown, but claimed proprietorship in Lancaster, was convicted of selling guns and strong waters to Indians, and, having nothing to satisfy the law, was ordered to be severely whipped the next lecture day at Boston. When a valuable otter or beaver skin could be got in exchange for two or three quarts of cheap rum, the temptation was too great for Adams, and he was perhaps neither poorer nor less honest than other traders. Even John Tinker broke the law, by his own confession. The red men had not learned the white man's art of transmuting grain into intoxicating drink, but they had quickly acquired the taste for rum, and like wilful children indulged their appetites without restraint when opportunity offered.

Then, as now, there were stringent laws restrictive and prohibitory respecting the sale of strong drink. Then, as now, these laws were evaded everywhere and constantly. Then two sure roads to financial prosperity were the keeping of a dram-shop and buying furs of Indians. What with the refusal to aid against the Mohawks, the peddling of rum, the greed of the peltry-buyers, and the nagging of proselyting preachers and laymen - very few of whom possessed a tithe of the prudence and willingness to make haste slowly which characterized the Apostle Eliot - it is hardly to be accounted strange that degenerate sagamores, succeeding the generous Sholan and Matthew, followed their savage instincts ; and that a harvest of blood followed where folly had planted.

Lancaster

noags, it was suspected that Philip had solicited the assistance of the Nipmucks, and agents were sent to discover their intentions. The Nashaways were apparently not distrusted. The agents were deceived, and returned with renewed pledges of friendship from the older chiefs. A shrewder messenger, Ephraim Curtis, familiar with Indian wiles, in July came from a similar mission, bringing news that startled the Governor and Council from their fancied security. The inland clans were already mustering for war, and with them were Shoshanim and Monoco, leading the Nashaways. The Council promptly sent a mounted troop to treat with the savages, or if needful to " endeavor to reduce them by force of arms." Counting, in their foolish self-confidence, one trooper equal to ten Indians, this platoon, which should have been a battalion, invited ambush and met disastrous defeat at Menameset, August 2d. Major Willard, at the head of less than fifty men, set out from Lancaster on the morning of August 4th, under instructions from the Council "to look after some Indians to the westward of Lancaster," probably the Nashaways. While on the march, news came to him that Brookfield was beleaguered, and he hastened to the rescue, re-enforcing the besieged garrison the same night. In that quarter he remained until September 8th, five or six companies arriving from the Bay to join his command. Lancaster and Groton were thus stripped of their natural defenders, and wily foes recognized the opportunity.

The Nashaways, led by their two bloodthirsty and cunning sachems, Sam and One-eyed John - who was also known as Monoco and Apequinash - had been conspicuous in the Brookfield fight. On the 15th of August, in the evening, Captain Mosley with a company of sixty dragoons arrived at Lancaster, having been sent thither by Major Willard to pursue a band of savages, reported to be skulking in the woods about the frontier settlements. On the 16tb Mosley started out in search of the enemy, but their chief, Monoco, intimately acquainted with all the region around, warily avoided the troopers, got into their rear, and on August 22d made a bloody raid upon Lancaster. Daniel Gookin says that twenty of Philip's warriors were with Monoco, and this is plausible, for Philip, who came into the camp of the Quabaugs with the small remnant of his tribe the day after the siege of Brookfield was raised by Major Willard, there met the one-eyed sachem and gave him a generous present of wampum. From that time Philip seems to have been no more seen in battle, and if his men fought at all, it must have been under other leaders.

Monoco gave no quarter. The foray was made in the afternoon of Sunday. The house of Mordecai McLeod, which was the northernmost in the town situated somewhere near the North Village Cemetery, was burned, and McLeod with his wife and two children were murdered. The same day three other men were slain, and a day or two after a fourth, all of whom were mangled in a barbarous manner. Two of these victims, George Bennett and Jacob Farrar, Jr., were heads of Lancaster families; the others, William Flagg and Joseph Wheeler, were probably soldiers detailed for service here from Watertown and Concord. This massacre was but the prelude to a more terrible tragedy, the most sanguinary episode in Lancaster history.

Over thirty years had passed since the building of the first dwelling in the Nashua Valley. There had been one hundred and eighty-one recorded births in the town, and, including the recent murders by the savages, there had been but fifty-eight deaths. Ten of the oldest planters had died in Lancaster and five elsewhere: Thomas Rowlandson, Thomas James, Thomas Joslin, John Whitcomb, Stephen Gates, John Tinker, Edward Breck, Richard Linton, Thomas Wilder, Steven Day, Philip Knight, John Smith, William Kerly, William Lewis, John White. The sons, as they reached manhood, had usually sought wives among their neighbors' daughters, built homes on the paternal acres, and their families grew apace. John Prescott could number thirty-five grandchildren, nearly all living in sight of the old trucking, house. With its two mills, its skilled mechanics, its spinning-wheels buzzing in every cottage, the town was independent of the world. Its nearest neighbors were Groton and Marlborough, ten miles away. Numerous barns and granaries attested the farmers' prosperity. Cattle, horses, sheep, swine and poultry had multiplied exceedingly. Time and thrift had increased domestic comforts. Frame houses, in which the windows, though small, were glazed, had succeeded the gloomy log-cabins. Orchards had come into bearing and yielded bountifully. All kinds of grain flourished. Wheat was received for taxes at six shillings the bushel, corn at three shillings six pence, and apples were sold at a .shilling per bushel. Potatoes were unknown until fifty years later, but of most other vegetables, and especially of peas, beans and turnips, large crops were raised.

The dwellings, as at first, were mainly in two scattered groups of about equal numbers, one occupying the Neck, the other extending along the slope of George Hill. But Prescott with two of his sons now lived near his grist and saw-mills, a mile to the south, the "mill-path" leading thither. John Moore and James Butler had built upon Wataqnadock. Several of the houses were more or less fortified, being furnished with flankers or surrounded with a stockade. Of those known were: Prescott's, at the mills ; Richard Wheeler's, in South Lancaster ; Thomas Sawyer's, not far north from the house of Sally Case, his descendant ; Rev. Joseph Rowlandson's and Cyprian Stevens'. It is supposed that a few soldiers from the older towns were distributed among these garrisons.

History Op W0R0E3Ter County, Massachusetts

of war, generally proved faithful to the English, and their services as scouts were invaluable. Among these none deserves better to be honored in Lancaster story than James Wiser, alias Quanapaug or Quanapohit, whose courage and fidelity would have saved the town from the massacre of 1676, had not his timely warning been unwisely discredited by the apparently lethargic Governor and his slumberous Council.

Quanapaug was a Nashaway, for he owned lands at Washacum in 1670. He was so noted for his brave conduct in the contests between the English and the Wampanoags, when he .served as captain of the Christian Indians, that Philip hail given orders to his lieutenants that he must be shown no mercy if captured. Governor Leveret h.aving ordered that scouts should be sent out to ascertain something of the numbers, condition and plans of the foe. Major Gookin selected James Quanapaug and Job Kattenanit for this perilous enterprise, and these two men, carrying a little " parcht meal " for sustenance and armed only with knives and hatchets, made the terrible journey of eighty miles upon snow-shoes to the Indians' camp at Menameset, setting out from Cambridge December 30th. They were greatly mistrusted and their lives threatened by some of the Indians; but fortunately James found a powerful friend in Monoco, who respected him as a brave comrade in the Mohawk War, and took him into his own wigwam. But James knew that his every motion was watched by suspicious enemies, and that even Monoco's protection might be powerless in the presence of Philip, who was expected soon. Finding that a meeting with that dangerous per.sonage was inevitable if he delayed longer, and having effected the main purpose of his errand, he escaped by stratagem, and on the 24th of January, 1676, brought to the Massachusetts authorities full information respecting the hostile camp, and especially the intentions of the sagamores ; Monoco declaring that "they would fall upon Lancaster, Groton, Marlborough, Sudbury and Medfield, and that the first thing they would do should be to cut down Lancaster bridge, so to hinder their flight and assistance coming to them, and that they intended to fall upon them in about twenty days from Wednesday last."

It can scarcely be believed, but the result proves that no heed was paid to this seasonable warning; no steps were taken to ward oft' the coming blow. A body of troops, who had been in pursuit of the fleeing Narragansetts not far from Marlborough, had, less than a week before, because of a lack of provisions, been withdrawn to Boston instead of being uaed to garrison the threatened towns. Even the chief military ofiicer of the State, Daniel Gookin, afterwards confessed that the report of Quanapaug " was not then credited as it .should have been, and consequently no so good means used to prevent it, or at least to have lain in ambushments for the enemy."

The fact is, little energy or skill of generalship was shown then or afterwards, and the savages wreaked their vengeance in due time upon all the towns named according to Monoco's programme.

Meanwhile some premonition of the approaching tempest reached the valley of the Nashua, and in fear and discouragement the people wrought at such defences as were possible. The outlying houses were abandoned or visited only by day. The chief military officer, Henry Kerly, the minister and perhaps some of the other prominent citizens finally went to Boston to beg for additional soldiers. In their absence the storm burst upon the devoted town. About ten o'clock at night of the 9th of February, Job Kattenanit reached the door of Major Gookin in Cambridge, half dead with fatigue, He had left his wife and children in the hostile camp at New Braintree, and traveled night and day to notify his English friends of their imminent peril. He confirmed every word that his fellow-spy, Quanapaug, had told. On the morrow Lancaster was to be a.esaulted, and Job had seen the war-party of " about 400 " start out upon their bloody errand.

Shortly after the attack upon the Narragansett fort, December 19th, the remnant of that tribe, of which about five hundred were reputed "stout warriors," abandoned their homes. Lute in January they joined the Quabaugs and Nashaways in their winter-quarters. The snow lay deep in the woods and the weather had been of unwonted severity, but before the close of the month a thaw suddenly swept away the snow, and the country became again passable. Philip, with his feeble following, seems to have lost that importance as a military leader which tradition has persisted in attributing to him, and had become at best only an artful political general ; maliciously instigating animosities, but never appearing in the fight, and often overruled in council. Quanapaug reported the fighting men at Menameset to be " the Nipmuk Indians, the Quabaug Indians, the Pacachooge Indians, the Weshakum and Niishaway Indians.'' The accession of the Narragansetts more than doubled the force, and a part of them participated in the raid upon Lancaster, which was led by Shoshanim and Monoco, of Nashaway, Muttaump, of Quabaug, Quinnapin, a Narragansett sachem, brother-in-law of Philip, and probably Pakashoag and Matoonas, of the Nipmucks. The unqualified statement made by Rev. Timothy Harrington, in his Century Sermon, that Philip was present at the burning of Lancaster with fifteen hundred men, it must be said, wholly lacks the support of any contemporary authority. Sewall in his diary speaks of Maliompe (alias of Muttaump) as "the general at Lancaster;" and some slight deference may have been paid to that sachem by the others to ensure concert of action ; but Sagamore Sam and Monoco doubtless planned the attack. From his prominence in the subsequent correspondence with the authorities

Awakened to the emergency. Major Gookin hastened to consult with his neighbor, Thomas Danforth, a member of the Council, and a post-rider was at once despatched to order what soldiers there were stationed at Concord and Marlborough to the aid of Lancaster. About forty men, the company of Captain Wadsworth, were on duty at the latter place. Upon the arrival of the messenger at break of day, Tliursday, February lOth, this little force, under their gallant commander, marched immediately for Lancaster Bridge, ten miles distant. They reached it to find the planks removed so as effectually to prevent the passage of horsemen - the river being unfordable at that season ; but the troopers did not arrive to be of assistance. Captain Wadsworth forced his way over, and, avoiding an ambush laid on the main road, safely marched by another route to the garrison-house of Cyprian Stevens, near the North Bridge, and f)nly a ritle-shot distant from the minister's.

The assault of the savages was made at sunrise, and simultaneously in five places. The people were nearly all in shelter of the feebly fortified garrisonhouses. John Ball, who had for some reason remained in his owu dwelling, was butchered together with his wife and an infant; and two older children were carried away captive. Though the position of Ball's house is not exactly known, it was probably on the George Hill range. At John Prescott's, his grandson, Ephraim Sawyer, was killed. Of the garrison of RicharcTWheeler, which was in South Lancaster, five were slain : Richard Wheeler, Jonas Fairbanks, Joshua Fairbanks, Henry Farrar and another unknown. The first three were shot by Indians, who climbed upon the roof of the barn and could thence fire down over the palisades. The other two were waylaid while out of the garrison upon some errand.

But the chief slaughter was at the central garrison, that of the minister. For about two hours the savages beset this house in overwhelming numbers, pouring bullets upon it " like hail," and wounding several of its defenders, among whom was the commander. Ensign John Divoll. Unfortunately there was no stockade about the house and its rear iianker was unfinished and useless. The besiegers were therefore able, without much exposure, to push a cart loaded with flax and hemp from the barn, up against a lean-to in the rear, and fire it. One heroic man rushed out and extinguished the kindling flames ; but a renewal of the attempt succeeded, and soon the inmates of the burning house had to choose between death by fire and the merciless rage of the yelling demons that stood in wait for them without. There were forty-two persons in the dwelling according to the best contemporary authorities, of whom twelve were men. By some marvel of daring or speed or strategy, Ephraim Roper burst through the horde of savages and escaped. Eleven men were killed, and the women and children that survived this day of horrors were dragged away captive.

We gather our knowledge of the incidents of the massacre and captivity mostly from the pious narrative of Mrs. Rowlandson, first printed in 1682. No literary work of its period in America can boast equal evidence of enduring popular favor with this of a comparatively uneducated Lancaster woman; and very few books in any age or tongue have been honored with more editions, if we except the imaginative masterpieces of inspired genius. Mrs. Rowlandson states that there were thirty-seven in the house, and that twenty-four were carried captive, twelve were slain and one escaped. It is probable that she omits five soldiers casually stationed in the garrison. She gives no names and a full list of the victims cannot now be made. The following includes all that are known :

Killed in liowlaudsoti Garrison. Knsign John DiTolI. .Toeiah DivoII, son of John, aged 7. Daniel Gains. Abraham Joslin, aged 26. John MacLoud.

Joseph Kettle, son of John, aged in. >IrB Elizabeth Kerley, wife of Lieut. Henry. William Kerley, son of Lieut. Henry, aged 17. Joseph Kerley, do., aged 7.

>Ire Mary Rowlandson, wife of the minister, ransomed. Mary Rowlandson, daughter of the minister, aged 10. ransomed. Sarah Rowlandson, do., aged 6, wounded A died Feb. 18.

Rowlandson, son of the minister, aged 13, ransomed. .\Ire Hannah Divoll, wife of Ensign John, ransomed. Divoll, eon of Ensign John, aged 12, died captive? William Divoll, do., aged 4, rausomed.

Hannah Divoll, daughter of do., aged 9, died captive? Mrs Ann JoBlin, wife of Abraham, killed in captivity. Beatrice Joslin, daughter of Abraham, do. Joseph Joslin, brother of Abraham, aged 16. Henry Kerley, son of Lieut. Henry, aged 18. Hannah Kerley, daughter of do., aged 13. Mary Kerley, do., aged 10.

A child Kerley, name & age unknown. Mrs Elizabeth Kettle, wife of John, ransomed. Sarah Kettle, daughter of John, aged 14, escaped. Jonathan Kettle, son of John, aged 5.

One of Wadworth's soldiers, George Harrington, was slain near Prescott's Mills, a few days later, and John Roper fell on the day the town was abandoned. As the tot.al casualties by reliable authorities were fifty-five, the names of seven suftereis remain unknown. The other garrisons made successful resistance, and the Indians, after plundering and burning most of the abandoned houses, withdrew with their terror-stricken prisoners to the summit of

George Hill, and passed that night in triumphal orgies, cooking and feasting on the spoils of the farm-yards and storehouses. "This," writes Mrs. Rowlandson, " was the dolefullest night that ever my eyes saw. Oh, the roaring and singing, and dancing j and yelling of thgse black creatures in the night, which made the place a lively resemblance of hell.' By Saturday afternoon most of the blood-stained crew were again in their camps at Menameset.

The mounted companies arrived the next day, and drove away the skulkers engaged in plunder. The minister and Captain Kerly returned in time to assist in burying the mangled and charred relics of their dead relatives and neighbors. Those of the inhabitants who had a place of retreat in the seaward towns and means to remove, soon fled, and those who were forced to remain behind crowded into the strong garrisons of Thomas Sawyer and Cyprian Stevens. With them were eighteen soldiers. Thence they sent forth, March 11th, an eloquently pitiful appeal to the Governor and Council for help to remove to a place of safety. /'

On March 2ljth, Major Willard sent a troop of forty horsemen, with carts, who carried the survivors and some portion of their goods and provisions to Concord. The buildings not before destroyed were soon after burned by the Indians, two only being left standing in the town - presumably those of Butler and Moore, upon Wataquadock.

The valley of the Nashua, blood-stained and disfigured by fire-blackened ruins, lay desolate, and so remained during four years. The quick succeeding raids of the stealthy foe spread dismay even to the sea-coast throughout the English plantations. No outlying town but experienced their barbarity, and several were abandoned. The contest, one of racial antipathy, was now mutually recognized as for existence. In the knowledge of the horrors of defeat, the white men fought with the courage of desperation, and soon learned to meet the cunning tactics of the savages with superior wiles. The Indians, unable to procure a regular supply of food, and often nearly starved, were gathered into villages on both sides of the Connecticut a few miles above Northfield. Early in April the head sachem of the Narragansetts, Canonchet, whose controlling genius held together the incongruous alliance of rival tribes, was fortunately captured and jnit to death. Distrust and jealousy soon began their work, and a few days later Philip was on his way with the Nashaways to their hunting-grounds about Wachusett. Quinnapin accompanied him, with a portion of the Narragansetts, and with him was Mrs. Rowlandson, his prisoner, the servant of Weetamoo, one of his three wives. A majority of the Nipmucks and Quabaugs soon joined them.

Messengers were sent to Wachusett by the authorities at Boston to negotiate for the redemption of the captives and especially Mrs. Rowlandson. Philip fiercely opposed any bargaining with the English, but his blood-thirsty counsels no longer found listening ear*. Some of the prisoners had fallen under the tomahawk, and others had succumbed to exposure starvation. Most of the survivors were freed during May, for a stipulated ransom. The Nashaway sagamore, though yet far from humble, was evidently tired of hostilities. If we may believe his own letter to the Governor, he even journeyed to the villages of the river Indians to recover certain captives there. In his absence. Captain Henchman, under the guidance of Tom Dublet, an Indian scout, surprised a party of thirty-six Indians fishing at Washacum, of whom he killed seven and captured the others. The prisoners were mostly women and children, and among them were the wives and sons of Shoshanim and Muttaump. After this stroke of ill fortune, the proud boasting of the sagamores was turned to servile supplication. Philip and Quinnapin, fearing treachery, fled to their own land.

Early in September, the harassed and repentant chiefs, Shoshanim, Monoco and Muttaump, worn out with privation and trusting to some alleged promise of pardon from the Council, surrendered themselves and their men at Cocheco. September 26th, the three sagamores with others were hanged at Boston. Their wives and children, with other undistinguished captives, were sold as slaves and shipped to the Bermudas. The score or two of the Nashaways that may have escaped or were allowed to go free joined the Pennacooks. The Indian who captured Hannah Dustin, in 1697, and was killed by her, was one who had lived in Lancaster. A few who had embraced Christianity, like Quauapaug and George Tahanto, probably dwelt at Natick. The tribal history of the Nashaways had reached its finis.

Chapter Iii

The lieiittUemtnt - Fraich and Indian liitidB - The Garrinong - Netv Meelinghfmte - The Additional Grant - Earhj School-masters - Lovnreira War - M'orcesler Conntti Fanned - Birth of Harvard^ Bolton and Leominster - Sieges of t'itrlha<jcntt and Lonisbonrg - The Conquest of Canada.

The Lancaster exiles were widely scattered as they sought refuge with relatives and friends in the Bay towns. Many of them, so soon as bullet and gallows had avenged their slain kindred and made return possible, looked with longing towards their farms, orchards and gardens, purchased so dearly with years of toil and anxiety, and final blood sacrifice. But first shelter had to be built and leave of court obtained ; for the re-occupation of a deserted town, by an order of General Court, was placed in the same class with new plantations, requiring preliminary petition and the appointment of a fatherly committee to view, aiul hear, and consider, and order, and enjoin obedience to, a form and manner of resettlement. Probably some buildings were erected and some of the proprietors were upon their lands when John Prcscott, with two of his sons, his two sons-in-law, Thomas Sawyer and John Rugg, his grandson, Thomas Sawyer, Jr., and Thomas Wilder, John Moore and Josiah White, sent to the court their petition, in 1679, asking for a committee that they might, together with others, speedily "proceed to settle the place with comfort and encouragement." The committee were appointed and, although no record of their conclusions is known to exist, births in Lancaster were recorded during 1679 and 1680. In 1681 seventeen or eighteen families had returned and petitioned for exemption from "country rates" successfully.

Their minister was not with them. In April, 1677, Mr. Rowlandson had accepted liberal otiers from Wethersfield, and was settled as colleague to Rev. Gershom Bulkeley. In that office he died, aged fortyseven years, November 24, 1678, " much lamented." In December, 1681, John Prescott, the founder and the oldest inhabitant of the town, died. The meeting-house having been burned during or after the destruction of the town, a new one was built upon the same site, probably in 1684. Among the newcomers was Samuel Carter, a graduate of Harvard College in 1660, who bought the Kerly homestead on George Hill, and probably served the people as teacher and minister for a time, but accepted a call to Groton in 1692. His sons continued in Lancaster, and the family so multiplied that the Carters soon rivaled the Wilders and Willards in the town census. William Woodrop and Edward Oakes also temporarily preached here, but there was no regular pastor until December 3, 1690, when .lohu Whiting, a Harvard graduate of 1685, was ordained, after preaching on probation for nine months.

Upon the revolutionary deposition of Andros by the people, in 1689, the magistrates and other prominent gentlemen of the cfilony recommended the towns to send instructed delegates to form an Assembly and assume the responsibility of reorganizing the government until orders should be received from England. Lancaster's action in response was the election of Ralph Houghton as representative, instructed to favor the re-assumption of government by the Governor and assistants elected in 1686. This seems to have been the last public service of Ralph Houghton for the town. He spent the declining years of life with a son in Milton, where he died in 1705. At his departure the most able man of affairs in the town was John Houghton, second of the name, and upon him the duties of town clerk devolved.

Soon the horrors of Indian warfare again menaced the frontier, and a general retreat of the inhabitants was imminent, when a special act was passed forbidding removal from outlying towns under severe pen- alty. One of the towns named in the act was Lancaster. Some hunters, in April, 1692, reported seeing about three hundred Indians in the neighborhood of Wachusett, and they were suspected of hostile designs. By day or night mothers grew pale at every half-heard cry of bird or beast, imagining it the death-shriek of a dear one, or the dread war-whoop of the savage. The able-bodied men and boys had to delve all day in the planting season, or expect to starve the next winter, and their unintermitling toil ill fitted them to watch every second night, as they were obliged to do in garrison. If they remained in their unfortified houses they were exposed to worse than death in case of an attack. But they could hope for little help from the Bay towns.

There were now eight garrisons in Lancaster: - Josiah White's, of ten men, upon the east side of the Neck ; Philip Goss', nine men, near the North River bridge ; Thomas Sawyer's, eleven . men, in central South Lancaster; Nathaniel Wilder's, eight men, at the old trucking-house site on George Hill ; Ephraim Roper's, seven men, a little to the north of Wilder's ; Lieut. Thomas Wilder's, thirteen men, on the Old Common; Ensign John Moore's, eight men, on Watarjuadock ; Henry WiUard's, eight men, at Still River. These embraced fifty families, and indicate a population of about two hundred and seventy-five.

July 18, 1692, a small band of Indians surprised the family of Peter Joslin, on the west side of the Neck, while he was absent in the field, killed Mrs. Sarah Joslin, Mrs. Hannah Whitcomb and three young children, and took away as prisoners Elizabeth Howe, the sister of Mrs. Joslin, and Peter Joslin, aged about six years. The boy was butchered in the wilderness. Elizabeth, a girl of sixteen years, when the Indians approached the house, was singing at the spinning-wheel, and tradition says escaped the fate of her sister because of her captors' admiration for her song. She was ransomed from Canada after four years of captivity.

For several years the townspeople lived in a state of continual " watch and ward," plowing, sowing and reaping in fear of the skulking, relentless foe. There were occasional alarms, the garrisons were strengthened at great expense of labor, and in them the whole community huddled together for defence at every rumor of danger. The town became very much impoverished, and the General Court allowed them twenty pounds " for encouragement," October 20, 1694. One Sabbath, in the autumn of 1695, Abraham Wheeler, when on his way from Sawyer's garrison to his own house near the river, was mortally wounded by an Indian lying in wait for him. September 11, 1697, in the forenoon, when the men were many of them in their fields or at their own houses, and the garrison gates were open, a band of savages who had been larking in the woodland watching for a favorable opportunity, made a sudden dash upon the western portion of the settlement. Their plan had been to first carry by assault the garrison of Thomas Sawyer, but as they were preparing to rush upon it, Jabez Fairbank galloped at full speed into the gate coming from his own house, and the Indians, supposing that they were discovered - though such was not the fact - turned their attack upon those in the fields and defenceless houses. They surprised the families of Ephraim Roper, the widow John Rugg, Jonathan Fairbank, John Scateand Daniel Hudson, murdering capturing or wounding nearly every member of them, and burning their houses and barns. Meeting the minister, Rev. John Whiting, at a distance from the garrison, they attempted to take him captive, but "he chose rather to fight to the last," and was slain and scalped. Ephraim Roper's was a strongly garrisoned house, and that of Daniel Hudson was lortified. The killed numbered niueteen, the captives eight, five of whom ultimately returned ; two others wounded, recovered. Capt. Thomas Brown with fifty men pursued the enemy for two days, during which they came upon the mangled corpse of one of the captured women, probably Joanna or Elizabeth Hudson, whom the retreating savages had slain.

Utterly disheartened, the people in their new distress appealed for exemption from taxes, aid to procure a minister and the help of soldiers in their garrisons. They were given only twenty pounds. As temporary preachers, John Robinson, Samuel Whitman and John Jones served them in the pulpit, and in May, 1701, Mr. Andrew Gardner, a Harvard graduate of lti'J(5, was invited to preach. The following September he accepted an invitation to become their settled pastor. Before this the minister's salary had been in part paid by an annual assessment of ten shillings upon each original home-lot. As these lots were many of them abandoned, and the rule in other respects bore unequally upon the proprietors, the Legislature, upon petition, ordered the levying of their church rate upon all inhabitants in the same way as other taxes.

The regular garrisons in 1704 were eleven in number, and their location and the number of their families mark a very important change in the growth of the town. As one bloody raid after another strewed the slope of George Hill with ruins, the fact that in a military sense the east side of the rivers was much the more secure from surprise, and the most defensible, became obvious ; and thither the increase in population tended. The garrisons on the Neck were : Sergeant Josiah White's, seven men ; Ensign Peter Joslin's, nine men. Those on the west side were : Rev. Andrew Gardner's, nine men ; Lieut. Nathaniel Wilder's, on George Hill, seven men ; and John Prescott's, four men, at the corn-mill. East of the rivers were: At Bride Cake Plain (now the Old Common), Capt. Thomas Wilder's, fifteen men. Upon Wataquadock and eastward: John Moore's, nine men ; Josiah Whetcomb's, eight men ; Gamaliel Beman's, eight men. At Still River: Simon Willard's, twelve men.

At Bare Hill : John Priest's, ten men. There were seventy-six families, indicating a population of about four hundred and twenty-five, of which two-thirds lived on the east side of the rivers. The only innkeei)er was Nathaniel Wilder, who had for twenty years been " licensed to sell beer, ale, cider, rum, etc."

In the summer of 1704 a large Ibrce of French and Indians, under " Monsieur Boocore,'' who had designed the destruction of Northampton, finding that place prepared, became disorganized. A portion returned to Canada, but about four hundred determined upon a raid eastward. On Monday, July 31st, early in the morning, this force made a furious onslaught upon Lancaster, and first,asusual, upon the George Hill garrisons. The brave Lieutenant Nathaniel Wilder was here mortally wounded. Re-inforcements from Marlborough and other towns, under Captains William Tyng and Thomas Howe, promptly came, and the enemy were finally driven ofl" with considerable loss. Besides Lieut. Wilder, threesoldiers - Abraham Howe, Benjamin Hutchins and John Spaulding - were killed. A French officer of note among the assailants was also slain, " which so exasperated their spirits that in revenge they fired the Meeting-house, killed several cattle and burned many out-houses." Four dwellings at least were destroyed - those of Ephraim Wilder, Samuel Carter and Thomas Rdss upon George Hill, and that of Philip Goss near the meeting-house and upon the same site as the Rowlandson garrison destroyed in 1676.

Hostile bands continued to prowl about the frontier towns during the summer and autumn, occasionally scalping some unfortunate victim. During the alarm after one of these murders a pitiful accident deprived Lancaster of her third minister. On Thursday, October 2()lh, in the night, Samuel Prescott - being the sentinel on duty at the garrisoned house of Rev. Andrew Gardner, walking his beat within the stockade - suddenly saw a man " coming down out of the upper flanker," and having challenged him twice and receiving no reply, he fired upon him, in his surprise sup[)osing him to be " an Indian enemy." To his own grief and horror, as well as that of the whole community, it was found that he had mortally wounded the minister, who had gone up into the watch-tower over the flanker to keep guard by himself, probably in distrust of the wakefulness of the sentinels, who had been scouting in the woods all day. The following May, Rev. John Prentice began his ministry in Lancaster, and on December 4, 170.3, married the widow of his predecessor. He was not ordained until March 29, 1708. For nearly two years the Sabbath exercises were held at the parsonage, there being no meeting-house.

October 15, 1705, the savages again invaded the town. There were at this date two saw-mills in Lancaster, Thomas Sawyer, Jr., having, in 1698 or 1699, built one upon Dean's - now called Goodridge's - Brook, at the existing dam near the Deer's-horn's

School-house. At this mill the Indians captured Thomas Sawyer, Jr., his son Elias, a youth of sixteen, and John Bigelow, a carpenter of Marlborough. The three were taken to Canada, where Sawyer was rescued from torture and death at the hands of his captors by the intervention of the Governor, on condition that he and his companions would build a saw-mill upon Chambly River. The mill was built, being the first in all Canada, and the captives returned in safety.

Forty pounds had been granted by the General Court, after the burning of the meeting-house in 1704, towards the building of a new one, to be paid upon the erection of the frame. A large majority of the inhabitants now living upon the east side of the rivers, it was voted in town-meeting to place the building upon Bride Cake Plain, a mile eastward of the old site, and there a frame was set up in 1706. The new location roused a tempest in the community. A committee of four from other towns was appointed to settle the dispute, and being equally divided in opinion made the quarrel worse. Then the Council and the Deputies took opposite sides. Finally, as winter drew near, the majority were given their way. John Houghton donated the land for the building site, Thomas Wilder gave a lot for the burial-ground on the opposite side of the highway, Robert Houghtyn with his assistants covered in the summer-seasoned frame, and peace reigned once more in the parish.

In 1707 Jonathan White, a youth of fifteen years, was killed by Indians, and August lOth a band killed a woman and captured two men near Marlborough, one of whom escaped. The other, Jonathan Wilder - whose father, Lieut. Nathaniel, had fallen three years liefore - was murdered when his captors were overtaken by a force which hastily pursued them. In the fight that ensued, Ephraim Wilder, brother of the captive, was severely wounded. Ensign John Farrar, a native of Lancaster, but resident of Marlborough, was killed. Two others of Marlborough suffered, Richard Singletary losing his life and Samuel Stevens being badly wounded. The fight took place in the northwest corner of the "Additional Grant" of Lancaster. For a year or two soldiers were quartered in the town to aid in its protection. The last to be killed by the enemy was an Indian servant of the Wilders, August 'i, 1710. He was at work in the field upon George Hill with Nathaniel Wilder, who was wounded at the same time.

In 1711 there were eighty-three families and four hundred and fifty-eight inhabitants in Lancaster, divided among twenty -seven garrisons; and twentyone soldiers were stationed in the town. Ten years before the proprietors had purchased of George Tahanto, "in consideration of what money, namely, twelve pounds, was formerly paid to Sbolan (my uncle), sometime sagamore of Nashuah, for the purchase of said Township, and also six shillings formerly paid by Insigne John Moore and John Houghton of said Nashuah to James Wiser, alias tiuenepenett (Quanapaug), now deceased

The town entered upon its second century prosperous and free from internal dissension. The Second Precinct, temporarily content with its gain of semiautonomy, had, December 19, 1744, secured Rev. John Melleii for their pastor, a Harvard graduate of i 1741. He had married Rebecca, the daughter of ' Rev. John Prentice, the year after her father's decease, and had given token of abilities that soon placed him in the very front rank of the ablest ; clergymen of his day. The repayment by England to Massachusetts, in 1749, of its expenditures in the late war, made possible the redemption of the paper currency, which had greatly depreciated, and specie again appeared in the channels of trade. But life in Lancaster was with most a struggle for shelter, food and raiment. The only measure of wealth was the ownership of acres and cattle. Few things better illustrate the simplicity or luxury of a community than its conveniences for travel. Tn 175.3 Lancaster paid tax to the Province upon three chaises ; in 1754 upon one chaise ; in 1755 upon two chaises and three chairs; in 1756 upon two chaises and two chairs - while most of the younger towns, until recently Lancaster soil, had neither chair nor chaise. The heavy carts and wagons of the farm were the only wheeled vehicles.

No census of the town was taken until ten years later, but the population of its centennial year can be fairly estimated from an existing tax-list of 1751, jiractically a census of the heads of families at that time. Although by the dowering of Harvard, Bolton, Berlin and Leominster it had lost more than half its area, its gain by births, and by immigration from other towns, had fully made up the loss of inhabitants. The rate list of 1751 contains two hundred and eighty-five names, representing three hundred and fifty-five polls. The population at that date did not, therefore, fall far short of fifteen hundred souls. That of the towns excised from Lancaster amounted to nearly as many. Provision, generous for the times, was annually made for educating the young. Rev. Josiah Swan was generally the teacher of the Neck School from 1747 to 1760, and Rev. Josiah Brown was schoolmaster at Chocksett for as many years. For the third school the teachers were successively : Stephen Frost, Edward Bass, Joseph Palmer, Moses Hemmenway and Samuel Locke - all Harvard graduates - the last named a resident of the town, afterwards president of Harvard College.

Seven years of pretended peace between Canadian Jesuit and New England Puritan passed, and again the British colonies were hurrying preparations for a decisive struggle with their alert and aggressive foes. During the autumn of 1754 several mechanics of Lancaster, under Capt, Gershom Flagg, were engaged in the construction of Fort Halifax. Others of her citizens were serving on the eastern frontier in the

Of the four great expeditions planned in 1755 to break through the cordon of French occupation that extended from the Ohio to the mouth of the St. Lawrence, Lancaster was represented in two - that against Crown Point, and the Acadian campaign. In the former Samuel Willard, the eldest son of the deceased colonel of the same name, was commissioned to raise a regiment of eight hundred men. John Whitcomb, of Bolton, was second in command; but Col. Willard died at Lake George shortly after joining the army, and Whitc:flinl> was promoted to the vacancy. In the regiment were seven men of Lancaster, including two lieutenants, Hezekiah Whitcomb and William Richardson, Jr. Lieut. Benjamin Wilder led a mounted troop of thirty-three volunteers from Lancaster and its neighborhood, serving in the regiment of Col. Josiah Brown. But the majority of the Lancaster men, fifty one in number, foughi in the regiment of Col. Timothy Ruggles, under three Lancaster captains - twenty-four with Capt. Joseph Whitcomb, sixteen with Capt. Asa Whitcomb, and eleven with Capt. Benjamin Ballard. All three companies were in the bloody melee of AugiistSth, knc^vn as " the morning fight," when the valor of the New England rustics snatched victory from what at first seemed defeat. On that day ten of the fifty-one were killed or mortally wounded: Ithamar Bennett, Samuel Fairbanks, William Fairbanks, Isaac Kendall, Peter Kendall, Oliver Osgood, Josiah Pratt, Jr., Phineas Randall, Joseph Robbins, Jr., John Rugg. Others, enfeebled by camp fevers, in the late autumn dragged themselves homeward, or were brought thither by short stages through the wilderness upon horseback. The campaign, a barren one save for the experience and confidence in themselves gained by the colonial officers and soldiers, ended with the year.

The Acadian expedition, though even more inglorious than that against Crown Point, is far more famous in story, and Lancaster's part in it was a more prominent one than has ever been given it in history. Of the force of two thousand men embarking from Boston May 20, 1755, under Col. John Winslow, for the purpose of dislodging the French from the regions bordering on the Bay of Fundy, one company of one hundred and five men, allotted to the Second Battalion, was organized at Lancaster and officered by men of that town. These were: Capt. Abijah Willard, Lieut. Jo.shua Willard, Second Lieut. Moses Haskell, Ensign Caleb Willard. Thirty-six of the rank and file were credited to Lancaster, of whom William Hudson was killed in the attack made by the Acadians upon the force engaged in burning the "Mass House" at Peticodiac. The company took part in the capture of Beau Scjour. Capt. Willard was selected by Lieut.-Col. Monktou, the King's officer in command, to lead a detachment to Tatmagouche.

There, opening his sealed orders, to his great surprise and pain he found assigned to him the ungracious task of laying waste that whole fair district to the Bay of Verts, and removing the residents to Fort Cumberland. Amid the wailing of women and children, and the smoke of blazing cottages, barns and storehouses, Cai>t. Willard marched from hamlet to hamlet, leaving desolation behind, in accordance with the letter of his orders, but tempering them with such mercy as he could ; his kindly heart, as his journal testifies, bleeding for the distress he was compelled to inflict.

Leaving their families among the smoking ruins of their homes, the Acadian men were marched to Fort Cumberland, and Capt. Willard received the gracious commendation of the British officer. During the rigors of a Canadian winter the Lancaster men, ill provided with food and clothing, remained in barracks at the fort, but were allowed to return home the following April. Massachusetts was ordered to care for one thousand of the " French neutrals," and apportioned three families - twenty persons - to Lancaster. There these exiles lived in the wretchedness of squalid poverty, disease and homesickness for ten years, housed, fed and cared for by the town authorities. The last of them were finally shipped to France.

The general plan of the campaign of 17.56 was almost identical with that of the previous year, but Shirley was superseded by pompous and loitering officers of high rank in the British army. Their conceit and inactivity gave the daring Montcalm an opportunity to win some glory, and neutralized the enthusiasm and costly preparations of New England. The Lancaster soldiers were in the field as early as the opening of spring would permit military operations, building roads and bridges and transporting stores up the Hudson to Fort Edward, and thence to Fort William Henry. Col. John Whitcomb was one of the Committee of War for Massachusetts. William Richardson and Hezekiah Gates were efficient agents of the committee for procuring and forwarding military supplies. Twenty soldiers from Lancaster were in the regiment of Col. Jonathan Bagley, mustered in the company of Capt. Benjavnin Ballard, and eight or ten others are found serving in other regiments and among the artillerymen of Fort William Henry.

The year 1757 saw a new plan of operations, but the campaign under the same haughty and inefficient generals ended as before in discomfiture. Several Lancaster men served in the regiment of Col. Fry, who, with most of his command, were in the massacre which followed the surrender of Ft. William Henry to Montcalm, and escaped with the loss of everything but life, j Nine others were in the regiment of Col. Israel Wil- I liams. The fall of Ft. William Henry spread consternation through the colonies, for it was expected that the French would follow up their success by an invasion of the English settlements. The militia were hurriedly sent towards Albany. Capt. John Carter with a mounted troop, and Capt. Nathaniel Sawyer with an infantry company - one hundred men in all - inarched as far as Springfield whence they were recalled, Montcalm having returned to Canada with his easily-won spoils.

With the year 17-58 the inspiration of a new war policy, that of William Pitt, was felt throughout the colonies. They obtained payment for their military expenses and were promised relief from the extortion and insolence they had constantly experienced from Crown officials. The impetuous Wolfe and the chivalrous Lord Howe were sent with some of the best troops in England, to infuse energy into the campaign, and the slothful Loudoun retired. The ministerial orders required vigorous assault along the whole frontier. The enthusiasm awakened in Massachusetts is apparent in the zeal which Lancaster evinced in the contest,

Col. Jonathan Bagley's regiment in Abercrombie's advance upon Ticonderoga was in the van of the right division, and charged upon the French at the time Lord Howe lost his life. It was also engaged in the assault upon Ticonderoga and met with some loss. Of this regiment John Whitcomb was lieutenant-colonel, and his brother, Capt. Asa Whitcomb, served in it with forty of his Lancaster neighbors. Six of them laid down their lives in the service: William Brabrook, Eben Bigelow, Jonathan Geary, Philip Geno, .lohn Larkin, Jacob Smith. In Colonel Timothy Ruggles' regiment, under Cajjt. Joseph Whitcomb, of Lancaster, and Capt. James Reed, of Lunenburg, were twentyone more Lancaster men, of whom one, Simon Kendall, lost his life; eleven others served in other organizations, making at least seventy-three known to have enlisted in the campaign. Capt. Aaron Willard, who led a light infantry company in the regiment of Col. Oliver Partridge, was shot through the body in the murderous assault upon Ticonderoga, but survived to take part in the war for independence. After the untimely death of Lord Howe the imbecility of Abercrombie had again nullified the sacrifice and bravery of the provincials. The veterans who had fought at Louisbourg in 1745 under Pepperell, and conquered under Lyman at Lake George in 1755 were fast learning to despise as well as hate the supercilious British regular officers, who contem)>tuously spurned the counsels of .soldiers like Pomeroy , and always were defeated by inferior forces of the enemy.

The campaign of 1750, under Amherst, directed towards the same strategic points as those of two years before, brought to the front once more Capts. Aaron Willard and James Reed, and with them were fortyfive Lancaster men, three of whom - George Bush, Stephen Kendall and Reuben Walker - died during the campaign. These two officers' companies served in Col. Timothy Ruggles' regiment. Abijah Willard also appears again, now as colonel of a regiment of eighteen companies; Cyrus Fairbanks was his adjutant and Manasseh Di vol his quartermaster. Capt. Thomas Beman, with twenty-two other men of Lancaster, served in Willard's command, and five more were in other companies.

Amherst did nothing to add to his own reputation, and, in disregard of Pitt's positive orders, displayed no energy in the movement to assist Wolfe. The younger general's fame shone the brighter, and all New England mourned him as their preserver. Col. Willard and his fellow-townsmen marched home before the snows fell and rested by their own firesides through the winter, preparing for the final struggle.

With the spring Col. Willard again led his regiment to the frontier. In his staff were most of the old members, but Samuel Ward, of Worcester, afterwards to become one of Lancaster's most valued citizens, was made his adjutant. Capt. Beman again accompanied him, with Sherebiah Hunt for his lieutenant, and thirty enlisted men of Lancaster formed a part of his company. Rufus Putnam, who in Revolutionary days became chief engineer and brigadier-general in the patriot army, was his ensign. Six Lancaster volunteers served in other companies of Willard's regiment. In Col. Ruggles' regiment were Captains Aaron Willard and James Reed, with eighteen Lancaster soldiers.

Col. John Whitcomb also served in the campaign of 1760, and with him were Li£ute^Ephraim Sawyer and Henry Haskell, with eighteen others of Lancaster. Sergt. Josiah Prentice died and Joseph Stesvart was drowned during the year. Under Col. William Haviland, these two regiments leisurely rowed down Lake Champlain in batteaux about the middle of August. Arriving at Isle au Noix, Col. Whitcomb was ordered to throw up defences while the rest of the army moved to attack the fortified post; but the enemy did not await assault, and Haviland moved on towards Montreal. September 8th, orders were read announcing to the troops the closing act in the conquest of Canada, the capitulation of the Marquis Vaudreuil. On the 10th the Massachusetts regiments began the march back to Crown Point, where for two months they were engaged in the construction of earthworks and barracks. In November Cols. Whitcomb and Willard led their commands through the wilderness across Vermont to Charlestown, N. H., and by the forest paths to Lancaster, where they were disbanded about December 1st.