Worcester City (part 8 of 58)

The minister's maintenance was no small burden upon his little flock, so few and so poor, and there was evidently much, dilatoriness and uncertainty in the payment of the stipend. Suddenly, in 1658, it was noised about through the settlement that Master Rowlandson was about to accept an invitation to the church in Billerica. The selectmen at once visited him to learn if the report were true, and became convinced of his determination to go. Twelve days later the messengers from Billerica came " to fetch Master Rowlandson away." The people assembled, and unanimously voted to invite him " to abide and settle amongst them in the worke of the ministrie," and to allow him " flftie pounds a yeare, one halfe in wheat, sixpence in the bushell vnder the Curant prises at Boston and Charlstowne, and the rest in other good curant pay in like proporcion, or otherwise fiftie and fine pounds a yeare, taking his pay att such rats as the prises of Come are sett eurie yeare by the Court." The meeting also confirmed the deed of house and land which had been made in his favor the preceding August. Mr. Rowlandson accepted the invitation upon the terms propo.sed. The first house for public worship was completed this year, if not earlier. All previous meetings of the selectmen had been at private dwellings, but that of June 22, 1658, was "at the meeting-house."

Thus far in the town's history houses must have been constructed of logs or hewn timber, stone and clay. Prescott's saw-mill was in operation early in 1659, after which more commodious framed structures doubtless began to appear. It having been found impossible to obtain the services of either of the surveyors designated by tlie court to lay out the bounds of the town, consent was given for the employment of Ensign Thomas Noyes, of Sudbury, a return of whose survey is as follows :

April *J*^, le.'SO In obedience to the order of the honoured generall Court to the now inhabitants of lancaster layd out y« bounds of lancaster accordinge to the sayd grants, wee bogane at the wading place of nassua riuer and rune a lline three rnille vpon a west north w«6t poynt one degree westerly, and from the end of y three mill we rune two perpendicular lines beinge flue mills in length each line, the one line runing north north est one degree northerly, the other line running south south west one degree southerly wee made right angis at the ends of the ten mille line, runing two perpendicular lines, runningo both of tliem vpon an east south east poynt on degree osterly, one of the sayd lines beinge the north line wee did rune it eight mill in length the other being the sonth line, wee did rune it six mill and a halfe in length and ther meeting w'*i the niidell of the line, which is the line of the plantation granted to the petition" of Sudbury whos plantation is called Whipsuffrage and so runinge their line four mill wanting thre score perches to the end of their line at the nor west Angle of Whipsuffrage plantation and from the jiayd angle of Whipsufrage runing six mille and three quarters ther meeting with y fore sayd east end of the eight mile line and soe period all the sayd lines and hounds of lancaster which sayd grants rune eighty square milles of land

The magist" consent thereto prouided afarmeof amilesquare 640 acres, be Layd out w'tiin this bounds for the countrys vso in such place as is not already Appropriated toan.v - their brethren the deputyes hereto consenting. And that Major Willard, Ralph Houghton & Jno Prescot see it donne.

Why the report was not approved until thirteen years after the actual survey, and six years after the death of the surveyor, does not appear in records. Neither is there further allusion anywhere found to the mile appropriated for the State, and the provision was perhaps disregarded at first and finally overlooked. The measurements of the survey were made with the liberal allowance usual at that time in laying out town grants, and can hardly be explained by the allowance for swag of chain and irregularity of ground, that being customarily only about one rod in thirty. The ten-mile line of Noyes was, by modern methods of .survey, over eleven miles in length, and the other dimensions were proportionably generous. The method of defining the limits of a purchase from the Indians, by distances and courses from a central point, was not unique. Major Simon Willard, in bargaining for Concord in 1636, " poynting to the four quarters of the world, declared that they had bought three miles from that place east, west, north and south, and the s"* Indians manifested their free consent thereto." So Sholan and the white men probably stood, in 1642, at the wading-place of the Nashaway, which was very near the bridge known as Atherton's, and agreed upon the transfer of a tract of land five miles northerly, five miles southerly, five miles easterly and three miles to the westward. John Prescott, ""who was perhaps present at the time of purchase, and certainly the only one of the first proprietors now resident in the town, and acquainted with the exact terras of the compact, accompanied Noyes to see that the mutual intention of grantor and grantees was satisfied. It is to be presumed that the three-mile base-line was run twenty-three and one-half degrees north of a true east and west course, to accord with Prescott's knowledge 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.

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.

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, but especially for and in consideration of eighteen pounds, paid part and the rest secured to be paid by John Houghton and Nathaniel Wilder, their heirs, executors and assigns forever, a certain tract of land on the west side of the westward line of Nashuah Township. . . ." At that time petition was made to the Legislature for sanction of the purchase, which was given, and a committee appointed to view and report. The matter lay dormant until February 15, 1711, when a new committee was authorized and the land surveyed. June 8, 1713, the grant was duly confirmed to the town. Certain parties laying out new townships to the westward in 1720, alleged that the committee surveying this grant had given more generous measure than the terms of purchase warranted, but after a year's wrangling the bounds were again confirmed as conforming to the marks by which the Indian grantors had designated them. Out of this added territory have since been shaped the two towns of Leominster and Sterling, besides a considerable tract given to the Boylstons.

During 1713 and 1714 the growth of enterprise in the town was marked by the erection of two sawmills - one by Samuel Bennett up the North Branch, and the other by Jonathan Moore on Wataquadock Brook by the Marlborough road. The town was advancing more rapidly than ever before. In December, 1715, the selectmen appeared before the County Court to answer for not having a grammar school according to law. This proves that there were one hundred families within the town limits. For several years the versatile John Houghton, conveyancer, inn-keeper, justice, selectman, representative to General Court, etc. - who served the town as clerk from 1684 to 1724 - had also acted as schoolmaster, and is the first named, although the ministers, during earlier days, served in that capacity. Now the town procured the services of a college graduate, Mr. Pierpont, of Roxbury, as master of their grammar school, and no notice of another is found until 1718, when Samuel Stow, probably of Marlborough, a Harvard graduate of 171-5, was elected master at a salary of forty pounds per annum. The minister's salary was then raised from seventy to eighty-five pounds per year.

In 1717 Lancaster was presented "for neglecting to repair ye great bridge," and a special town-meeting, March 10, 1718, considered the rebuilding of the "neck bridge." This is the first mention found of any crossing of the Penecook save by wading-place or canoes. The accounts of the destruction of the town in 1670 point plainly to the existence of two bridges only, one upon each branch. In the discussion of 1705 relative to the location of a new meetinghou.se, the wording of a petition implies the same condition as existing. Some cheap structure, within the means of the impoverished town, probably was thrown across the main river after the building of the church upon the east side. The bridge of 1718 was ordered to have five trestles and to be thirteen feet wide. Thirty-five pounds were appropriated for its erection; tlie townspeople were all, however, expected to assist at the raising, which doubtless was a season of extraordinary jollification.

During Lovewell's War, as it is called, from 1722 to 1726, Lancaster was at no time entered by any considerable force of Indians, but her young men were forward in carrying the war into the enemy's country. An act of 1722 oftered one hundred pounds for the scalp of a male Indian over twelve years of age, and half that sum for a woman or child, dead or alive. This proved a sufficient inducement to enlist in tlie terrible perils and hardships of the scouting parties many bold spirits under popular leaders. Of these, Capt. John White, an associate of Lovewell, won great repute as a successful Indian fighter. Dying in the service, he was eulogized by a contemporary as "a man of religion, probity, courage and conduct, and hearty in the serviceof his country against the Indian enemy." Capt. Samuel Willard here began a military career that reflected honor upon the town, leading what he dignified in his journals as an "army " - two companies of about ninety men each - to and from the head-waters of the Saco and Pemigewasset, a march of five hundred miles tlirough a pathless wilderness. The numerous bands of rangers not only carried desolation into the strongholds of the savage, but discovered the fertile, sheltered valleys beside the beautiful rivers and lakesof New Hampshire, and the log-cabins of venturesome pioneers soon rising here and there proved that the partisans had well noted the advantages of the land.

Lancaster was no longer a border town, but the mother of new frontier settlements. In a single decade its population had doubled. In 1726 the meeting-house had to be greatly enlarged, and two years later the minister's salary was raised to one hundred pounds. There were now four licensed inn-holders: Capt. Samuel Willard, who had moved to the Neck and probably built the house still standing near the railway crossing; John Wright, at Still River; Oliver Wilder, upon George Hill, and Thomas Carter, where H. B. Stratton until lately resided. Among the chattels of the latter was " one old Indian slave," valued at twenty-five pounds, who lived untiri737. The orchards of the town had become famous, and much of the fruit was converted into cider. AVhat was not " drunk upon the premises" had a ready sale both at Boston and in the new towns. Even the minister in 1728 was credited with a product of sixty-one barrels at the cider-mill of Judge Joseph Wilder.

About the more important garrisons little villages had grown, where the cottagers, with their household industries and simple wants, were almost independent of other communities, except that all gathered at one common meeting-house on the Sabbath to listen to the fervid exhortation of Rev. John Prentice, and all sought Prescott's mill with their grist. In cases of a broken limb or alarming illness, Jonathan Prescott, with his saddle-bags full of drastic drugs, galloped up from Concord when summoned, and for an astonishingly small fee. If the need of medical skill was less pressing, the local herbalist, Doctress Mary Whitcomb, sufficed. Edward Broughton was school-master, graduating the length of his terms according to the taxes contributed, now teaching on the Neck, now at Still River or Bare Hill, or on AVataquadock, until 1727, after which, apparently, the custom came into vogue of employing young Harvard graduates as teachers for short terms. From fifty to sixty pounds per annum were appropriated for the town's schools. ,

In 1728 a movement began looking to the formation of a new county from certain towns of Suttblk and Middlesex. The town was deeply interested in this project and voted to favor it, provided the superior courts should be held at Marlborough and two inferior courts at Lancaster annually. The next year, on February 3d, the vote was reconsidered, a new plan being then under consideration, "for erecting a new county in ye westerly part of ye Count)' of Middlesex." The meeting favored petitioning for the new county and chose James Wilder and Jonathan Houghton to act for the town in the matter. It is traditional that the Lancaster people fully expected that two shire-towns would be designated, and that Lancaster would be one. No hint of this, however, appears in the recorded action of the town-meetings. Lancaster was not only the oldest, but the wealthiest and the most populous of the fourteen towns set off April 2, 1731, to form the county of Worcester. It remained so until the Revolution was over, save that Sutton for a brief time had a few more inhabitants. Jonathan Houghton, of Lancaster, was chosen the first county treasurer and Joseph Wilder was made judge of the Court of Common Pleas.

In 1731 the first public library of Lancaster was established. It comprised but a single volume, though that was a bulky quarto of nine hundred pages. Rev. Samuel Willard's " Complete Body of Divinity," by vote of the town, was purchased and kept " in the meeting-house for the town's use so that any person may come there and read therein, as often as they shall see cause, and said Book is not to be carried out of the meeting-house at any time by any person except by order of the selectmen." ' I

A petition from a majority of those/living in the northerly part of the town in May, ll^O, engaged the attention of a special town-meeting. The proposition at first W.1S to cut off about one-third of the original township on the north, which, with additions from Groton and Stowe, should form the new town. After two years' discussion at town-meetings and in the Legislature, the town of Harvard was created by an act published July 1, 1732. This took from Lancaster an area of about eighteen square miles, and included the villages which had sprung up about Bare Hill and Still River.

of the "Additional Grant," Gamaliel Beman heading the movement, had set up new homes among the hills of Woonksechocksett, as the Indians called the region north of Washacum. Emboldened by the successful secession of the people in the northeast corner, these residents of the southwest corner of Lancaster, to the number of about a dozen householder:?, petitioned for separate town organization in May, 1733. The same day there appeared a demand for another precinct or township from some of the residents of Wataquadock and vicinity, proposing to divorce from the old town all the territory east of the rivers not taken by Harvard. Both requests received repulse, and attempts were made to appease disati'ection by the introduction of proposals to build three new meeting-houses, so situated as better to accommodate the scattered population. For several years discu.ssion and precinct strategy made town-meetings frequent and lively, and annually some plan for the dismemberment of the town went before the Legislature. The act erecting the new town of Bolton was published June 27, 1738, its western boundary being parallel with the western boundary of the original township and four miles from it. Out of the area thus taken, - about thirty-five square miles, - Berlin and a part of Hudson have since been carved.

Meanwhile the attractions of the valley of the North Nashua in the Additional Grant had drawn thither many Houghtons, Wilders, Carters, Sawyers and others, chietly the grandsons of the early proprietors. Being more incommoded because of their greater distance from the meeting-house, and soon becoming more numerous than those living at Woonksechocksett, they had a better reason for seeking independence, and complicated the situation by presenting, in February, 1737, their petition for separation. They moreover shrewdly joined with the old town to defeat the aims of other petitioners, in order to gain consent to their own scheme, and July 16, 1740, the act was published which severed about twenty-six square miles more from Lancaster under the title of Leominster. This area was wholly from the Additional Grant, excepting the farm of Thomas Houghton, exsected from the northwest corner of the old township. The Cliocksett people were not dis heartened. They grew more numerous year by year, and Gamaliel Beman did not recognize defeat. The town finally consented to allow them their wish, provided they would assume perpetual support of the river bridge, now known as Atherton's. This proposition did not please, and, after another year's wrangle, in January, 1742, the " Chocksett War" was interrupted by a truce, the town voting to build two meeting-houses.

The house of worship for the Second or Chocksett Precinct, "nearEidge Hill," was completed so that the first service was held in it November 28,1742. That for the First Precinct was delayed by the difficulty of agreeing upon its location. The aid of a legislative committee had at last to be invoked for the settlement of the question, and School-house Hill was selected as the most central site. Two hundred pounds were appropriated to build the Second Precinct house, and four hundred for that of the First Precinct, which stood nearly in front of the present residence of Solon AVilder. The meeting-house upon the Old Common was torn down, and the materials divided between the two parishes to aid in the building of school-houses. These, three in number, were placed : one on the Neck, not far from the meetinghouse, but on the opposite side of the road ; one nearly opposite the present Deershorn's School-house, and the third near the Chocksett meeting-house. Each of them was twenty-four by eighteen feet, with seven foot studding.

The new First Church building was nearly square in plan, being about fifty-five by forty-five feet, with entrance doors in the middle of the north, east and south sides. Across the same three sides were galleries to which stairs led from the side-aisles. One of these was assigned to men exclusively, the opposite one to women. Special seats apart were for " negroes." Directly before, and forming a part of the pulpit, was a deacon's seat. On a part of the Hoor the wealthier families were permitted to build family pews at their own cost. These were square, mostly about six feet by five, ranged along the walls from the pulpit, while in the centre of the floor, on either side of a central aisle were long seats, the female part of the congregation occupying one side, the male the other. The pews were " dignified," the size, and position of each marking pretty well the wealth and social rank of its owner in the community. The sequence of the first families in 1644 appears nearly this : Rev. John Prentice, Deacon Josiah White, Colonel Samuel Willard, Captain John Bennett, Hon. Joseph Wilder, John Carter, Thomas Wilder, etc.

In 1742 the north part of Shrewsbury was set off as a precinct, and Lancaster surrendered to it about five square miles from the most southerly part of its domain. This was the foreshadowing of a new town, which, with slightly altered bounds, was created in 1786, under the name of Boylston.

Although three towns and two precincts had been peopled from the Lancaster hive, attempts at further swarming were not over. In December, 1747, fourteen residents of Lancaster, under leadership of Henry Haskell, covenanted with citizens of Harvard, Groton and Stow, with the intent to be incorporated into a township. This attempt, which signally failed, proposed taking two or three square miles from the northeast corner of the town. When the district of Shirley was finally authorized, in 1753, Lancaster's bounds were not disturbed.

The avocations of peace had been unharassed by war alarms for fifteen years, when, in 1740, a recruiting officer drummed for volunteers in Lancaster, and succeeded in persuading eighteen or nineteen of her young men to wear the cockade. Captain John Prescott, of Concord, a lineal descendant of the father of Lancaster, was the senior officer of a battalion of five hundred men raised by Massachusetts to join the expedition of Vice-Admiral Vernon against Carthagena, and Jonatlian Houghton, of Lancaster, was one of his lieutenants. Those who enlisted with Houghton from this town, so far as known, were: Daniel Albert, David Farrar, Nathan Farrar, Ephraim Fletcher, Benjamin Fry, John Hastings, Thaddeus Houghton, Ezekiel Kendall, Peter Kendall, Joshua Pierce, Benjamin Pollard, Gideon Powers, Timothy Powers, Oliver Spaulding, Darius Wheeler, William Whitcomb, Jacob Wilder. Few, if any of them, ever saw their homes again, giving their lives for tlae King in a quarrel of doubtful justice, not in the front of victorious battle, but slain by virulent disease after defeat.

Upon the breaking out of the war for the Austrian Succession it was not to be hoped that the New England colonies could remain at peace with their French neighbors. Governor Shirley was gifted with sufficient sagacity to see that only by the capture of Louisbourg could Massachusetts retain her valuable cod fisheries, or expect exemption from invasion. Against that fortress, upon which had been lavished all the resources of military art, he skilfully organized an expedition, which accomplislied his desperate behest by sheer audacity, the sublime pluck of the New England rank and file and happy fortune, ratherthan by any prescience or rare judgmentof plan.

February 17, 174.5, Colonel Samuel Willard received orders to take command of the Fourth Massachusetts Infantry, enlisted for this expedition. The regiment numbered about five hundred men in ten companies, and, as the fleet sailed from Boston, March 24th, was recruited within thirty days. This speaks well for the popularity and energy of its leader, but the enterprise itself took on much of the nature of a crusade. Thomas Chandler, of Worcester, was lieutenant-colonel and Seth Pomeroy major of the regiment. Colonel Willard's own company had for its officers: Captain-lieutenant, Joshua Pierce; Lieutenant, Abijah Willard; Ensign, John Trumbull. Abijah Willard, the colonel's second son, was soon promoted a step, and another son, Levi, became ensign. In this company doubtless were many men of Lancaster and vicinity, but the majority of Lancaster soldiers were probably in the Fourth Company, the officers of which were: Captain, ,Iohn Warner; Lieutenant, Joseph Whetcomb ; and Ensign, William Hutchins. Unfortunately, the muster-rolls of this expedition are not known to exist, and the names of the soldiers are mostly unknown. Captain Warner died in hospital and Thomas Littlejohn fell in action. Many of their townsmen pr()bal)ly succumbed to the rigors of the climate and the toils of the siege, for the victims of disease were counted by hundreds.

January 6, 1748, Rev. John Prentice died. For forty-three years he had preached, and during forty was the ordained pastor of the town. He was the son of Thomas and Sarah (Stanton) Prentice, born in Newton, 1682, and a graduate of Harvard in the class of 1700. By his two wives - Mrs. Mary Gardner and Mrs. Prudence (Foster) Swan - he had ten children. His contemporaries prized him for his learning, his liumility and his steadfastness. His juniors tell of his sturdy dignity and Puritan manners. His four printed sermons suggest that as a preacher he was orthodox, clear in his convictions, earnest and explicit in his exhortations. He was selected to deliver the Election Sermon at Boston, May 28, 1735. Reverends Benjamin Stevens, William Lawrence, Stephen Frost and Cotton Brown temporarily supplied the vacant pulpit, but in February the last named was invited to become pastor of the parish. He declined, and August 8th the church made choice of Timothy Harrington to be their minister. November 16th of that year he was installed. He had been pastor of a church at Lower Ashuelot, a town abandoned during the Indian raids of 1747.

November 19, 1752, Colonel Samuel Willard was seized with apoplexy and died the next day. He was the wealthiest citizen ot Lancaster, and, Judge Joseph Wilder jierhaps excepted, the most prominent socially and politically. For twenty-five years he had been the highest military officer of the district, and for nearly ten judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He was a grand.son of Major Simon and son of Henry Willard, born in Lancaster, 1690. Judge Joseph Wilder died March 27, 1757, aged seventy-four. His contemporaries unite in lavish praise of his virtues and abilities. Rev. Timothy Harrington in a funeral sermon speaks of him as furnished " with a penetrating judgment, strong reason and a tenacious memory, and all, so far as we can judge, were consecrated to the honour of the Most High." Appointed judge at the organization of Worcester County, he was chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas at his death. He was a son of the second Thomas Wilder.

The one hundredth birthday of Lancaster, May 28, 1753, was appropriately celebrated by a "century sermon " in the First Parish meetinghouse. This discourse was printed, forming a pamphlet of twentynine pages, and contains the early annals of the town in sadly condensed form. Unfortunately, the author. Rev. Timothy Harrington, bound by the mode of his times, was more anxious to preserve the pulpit dignity of his rhetoric than to gather and embalm for posterity the reminiscences of the gray-headed veterans among whom he daily walked. He devotes half his pages to the history of the Jews and primitive Christians, and accords but half a dozen lines to the hospitable Sholan and the Nashaways. He gives details of the various sieges of Jerusalem, but omits all mention of the deeds of Colonel Willard's regi-

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.

For six years the town had, with the coming of each spring, sent forth to the blood-stained frontiers scores of her stalwart sons under their chosen leaders. About seventy-five of her citizens annually were, for at least eight or nine months, in the army. At least thirtythree of these are known to have perished by bullet, tomahawk or disease while on duty. Of the wounded no record was kept.

Chapter Iv

The First Censtis - Organization for lierolnlion - Lexington Alarm - Bunfrer Hill and the Siege of Boston - War Annatt - Separation of Ciiocksett' - Shays' liebellion - Bridge Lotteries.

The long war between alien races and religions was hardly ended before the domestic "Chocksett War" again broke out. But the town-meeting vote of 1762 proved that the Second Precinct was not yet strong enough to carry its point. It persisted in its endeavors year after year, but whenever the proposition to divide the town gained a favoring vote, it was always upon condition that the support of some bridge of vagrant habits should be perpetually borne by the seceders. To this they refused consent, and the contest was prolonged until all local questions were forgotten in the turmoil of the struggle for national existence. The two parishes were nearly equal in population. The town-meetings were sometimes held in the Second Precinct meeting-house, and the grammar-school was kept alternately at Ridge Hill and on the Neck - the proportion of the two terms being decided in townmeeting.

The first colonial census, that of 1764, gives Lancaster 1999 inhabitants, living iu three hundred and twenty-eight families and three hundred and one houses, classified as follows :

How many of the twenty-six colored were slaves is not told. Ten years before this there were but five '"servants for life" in the town. Seven years later than this five slaves were reported between the ages of fourteen and forty-five. At least ten slaves are known to have died between the two dates. The total population of the four towns included in the original Lancaster grants was four thousand eight hundred and one. Notwithstanding the great waste of human life in the war, the town's growth had been steady and healthy, and so continued. It will be seen that the average family then numbered over six individuals. In the latest census, omitting the State school, the average family is less than four and fourtenths persons.

The direct descendants of the first proprietors were yet largely in the majority, gave character to the town, and almost monopolized the management of its affairs. But into the procession of the town's life had come several prolific families, and some men of political weight and large social influence. John Warner, of Woburn, appeared about 1700; the Osgood family, always prominent in the church, first came in 1710, Hooker Osgood, a saddler from Andover, purchasing the Rowlandson estate of Philip Goss. About the same date, and from the same source, came Edward

Phelps, the weaver, and bought lands not far from Lane's Crossing. Soon followed John Fletcher, from Chelmsford, progenitor of a sturdy race that peopled a portion of George Hill. Thomas Whitney, of Stow, and his sons John and Jonathan, about 1720 built upon Wataquadock Brook. From Woburn, William Richardson came in 1721, found a wife in Captain Ephraim Wilder's daughter, became a prominent justice and represented the town several years in the Legislature. Samuel Locke, also of Woburn, and connected by marriage with the Richardsons, came to Lancaster in 1742, and kept a famous tavern where Wm. A. Kilbourn now lives. Nathaniel and Abijah Wyman, from Woburn also, about the same tin.e bought homes upon the Neck. Benjamin Bal'ard, from Andover, a little earlier founded a new home upon the northern portion of the George Hill range and gave his family name to that section of the town. The Dunsraoors appeared first about 1740 and furnished the town two physicians, father and son. The last, Dr. William Duiismoor, in whose veins flowed mingled Sawyer and Prescott blood, developed political abilities that soon placed him in leadership of the revolutionary spirits of the neighborhood, and gave him prominence even in colonial councils. The Thurstons, Peter and Samuel, second cousins (the first from Exeter, the second from Rowley), appeared about the middle of the century.

In 1768 Lancaster received an addition to its territory - a tract of land at its southwestern corner about three miles long by one and one-half wide, known m " Shrewsbury Leg." It included the site of the present village of Oakdaie, but then contained less than a dozen families. The same year a trader came from Groton to form a mercantile partnership with Levi Willard. The store of the firm was at the cross-roads of South Lancaster, and became the widest known and best patronized of any in the region. The senior partner sometimes made a journey to England to buy goods. He lived in a house which stood near the well on the lawn of E. V. R. Thayer's residence. The junior partner. Captain Samuel Ward, already mentioned as holding a commission in the French and Indian War, purchased an ancient house and lot upon the opposite corner, being a part of the Locke farm, and the eastern end of the original home-lot assigned to John Moore in 1653. Captain Ward was not only a man of unusual business ability, but his rare intellectual powers, quick and accurate judgment of character, prudence and shrewd management of men would have given him exalted political place had he not resolutely shunned all official position. He soon became a conservative leader in the town.

It was apparently a season of calm and prosperity. War had left few visible scars. The Briti-sh government had reimbursed to the colony the sums contributed in aid of the expulsion of' the Bourbons from America, and plenteous harvests had gladdened the farmers. But a jealousy of all authority not delegated by popular sutfrage everywhere began to appear, pervading church as well as state politics. The pulpits about Lancaster were all jarred, and some severely shaken, by a revolt against clerical councils ; and the orators proclaimed the divine right of an anointed king subject to the divine right of the m.ijority. The veteran soldiers had not forgotten the insults they had borne, year after year, from the King's ofljcers, nor the needless campaigning and bloodshed chargeable to the incompetency of the generals set over them. The nagging encroachments of the British ministry upon charter rights found the majority of the colonists already on the verge of rebellion, for which seven years of war had been a practical school of arms.

The first town-meeting record in Lancaster for 1773 anticipates by three and one-half years the liberty-breathing sentiments of the Declaration of National Independence. The action of that meeting took form in written instructions lor the guidance of the town's representative, Capt. Asa Whitcomb, and a series of resolutions drawn up by a " Committee for Grievances,'' as follows :- ****** ****

1. Jtenolvvd, That* this and every Town in this Province liave an undoubted Right to meet together and consult upon all Matters interesting to them when and so often as they shall judge fit : and it is more especially their Duty so to do when any Int'ringenient is made upon their Civil or Religious Liberties.

2. Resolvttl, That the raising a Revenue in the Colonies without their Consent, either by themselves or their Representatives, is an Infringement of that Right which every Freeman has to dispose of his own Properly.

3. RenoJued, That the granting a Salary to his Excellency, the Governor of this Province, out of the Revenue unconstitutionally raised from us, is an Innovation of a very alarming Tendancy.

4. Itefuiherl, Tliat it is of the highest Importance to the security Of Liberty, Life and Property, that the pnblick Administration of Justice should be pure and impartial, and that the judge should be free from every Bias, either in Favour of the Crown or the Subject.

5. Resolved, That ttiu absolute Dependency of the Judges of the Superior Court of this Province upon the Crown for their Sui)port would, if it should ever take Place, have the strongest Tendancy to bias the Minds of the Judges, and would weaken our Contidence in them.

6. lieti'hed, That the Extension of the Power of the Court of Vice- Admiralty to its present enormous Degree is a great Grievance, anil deprives the Subject in many Instances of that noble Privilege of Eng. lishnien. Trials by Juries.

These resolutions were signed by the committee : Dr. William Dunsmoor, John Prescott, Josiah Kendall, Ebenezer Allen, Nathaniel Wyman, Joseph White and Aaron Sawyer. The instructions to the town's delegate breathe the same spirit, and enjoin him to use his " utmost efforts ... to obtain a Radical Redress of our Grievances.''