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HISTORY OF LANCASTER.

IN

IN giving a sketch of the history of Lancaster, I labor under serious disadvantages. Those valuable sources of information, the records, are quite imperfect: the records of the Church till the time of Rev. Mr. Prentice in 1708, are lost; while those of the town extend no further back, than 1725; the first volume having unaccountably disappeared, more than forty years since. After much exertion, I have been able, only in part, to supply these deficiencies, from various and distant quarters; and from the books of the proprietors, in which are preserved some valuable materials: but even here there is a lamentable hiatus from 1671, to 1717, including King Williams' war, of eight, and Queen Ann's war, of eleven years.

After giving the topography, present state &c. of the town, I shall touch upon its civil and ecclesiastical history.

The town of Lancaster is situated in the north part of the County of Worcester, about 33 miles west from Boston,* and 15 miles nearly north from Worcester.

BOUNDARIES. The general boundaries of the town are as follows, viz. north by Shirley and Lunenburgh, west by Leominster and Sterling, south by Boylston and Berlin, and east by Berlin, Bolton and Harvard. The general direction of the town, in length, is northeast and southwest. The average length, is nine and eleven sixteenth miles; the greatest length nine and fifteen sixteenths, de

The distance was till the last year, 35 miles. The great alterations in the road, especially through Stow, and the new road from Watertown to Cambridge, make a difference of two miles.

duced from an accurate map.* It was originally laid out for ten miles, and this slight variation of one sixteenth of a mile, was probably owing to an error, in the original survey, which will be mentioned in the sequel; a less error it is supposed than was usual in such ancient measurements. The breadth, is very irregular; it va

ries from 4 to 27 miles.

ROADS, MAILS, &C.-The public roads extend over 600 acres of land. The principal road, is the one leading from Boston, through Leominster, to Greenfield and Brattleborough: and another branch of it through Sterling, to Barre, Greenfield, &c. The mail arrives and departs daily,excepting on Sunday: thirty two mails are opened and closed, and the various stage coaches pass and repass the same number of times, in the course of each week. There is a short turnpike road which begins in Bolton, and terminates in Lancaster, a mile north of the church.

SOIL, PRODUCTIONS, &c.—The town contains twenty thousand two hundred and eight acres of land. Of this three thousand acres, no inconsiderable part of the whole, are intervale, and about seventeen hundred, by estimate, are covered with water. Much of the soil is deep and rich. The light lands, produce large quantities of rye, barley, oats, &c. while the better part of the upland, and all the intervales, are well adapted to Indian corn, the potatoe, grass, and indeed to every kind of cultivation, with but comparatively little labor. The intervale, in particular, yields largely, and rewards the husbandman, many fold, for the little care he is obliged to take of it.

Its fertility, is owing to the annual overflowings of the river, when the ice and snow melt in the spring. The waters become turbid by the rapidity of the current, and the earth, that is washed into its bosom, is deposited on the land, and serves all the good purposes of every kind of manure. These freshes, undoubtedly, sometimes occasion much immediate injury: for by reason of the elevation of the country in which the river has its sources, and through which it passes, the stream rises ràpidly, and is borne along to the valley of the Nashaway, by an accelerated and furious cur

*Made by order of the General Court in 1794. I have followed the advice of a valued friend, and have omitted the boundaries, by degrees, rods, stakes, stones, &c.

+ It will be observed that I spell the word Nashaway; it is a better word than Nashua, the modern alteration, or refinement, as some may think it. The former, is the ancient reading, the true orthography; for which, I have the authority of Winthrop, Colony Records, Middlesex Records, proprietor's books, &c. from 1643, to a late period. The innovation should be rejected at once, as a corruption.

*

rent, filled with large cakes of ice, destroying mill dams, and sweeping away bridges, in its destructive course." In the spring of 1818, it was very busy in the work of ruin most of the bridges were dashed in pieces by the ice, and none, I believe, escaped uninjured. Since that time, only two bridges have suffered; one in the spring of 1823, called the Centre Bridge, just below the confluence of the two branches of the river, and the other, during the last spring, (1826,) on the south branch, between the first mentioned bridge, and the late Dr. Atherton's residence. But, notwithstanding the numerous losses that have been sustained of old and of late years, they are far outweighed by the annual benefits, which the Nashaway, bestows upon the land. The principal trees on the uplands, are the ever-green, and oak of the different kinds, the chesnut, maple, &c. on the intervales, the elm in all its beautiful variety and the walnut. More attention is now paid to the cultivation of fruit trees, than formerly; but it is chiefly confined to the apple, and in fact, to the pear. A strange neglect has ever prevailed, with regard to the delicious summer fruits, as the cherry, peach, plum, apricot, nectarine, garden strawberry, &c. that might be cultivated with but little expense of time or money. No place, within my knowledge, in this state, is better adapted to these fruits, both as it respects the soil, exposure to the sun, and gardens ready made. Some few individuals are beginning to think of these things, and to set out trees and probably in a few years, these articles of luxury that may be so cheaply obtained, will be more generally attended to. At present, excepting a few tolerable, and some intolerable cherries, and a few wild strawberries, &c. we have nothing, deserving the name of summer fruit. A few sorry peaches, the growth of other places, perhaps I should mention, are occasionally sold in town.

SURFACE OF THE COUNTRY, &c.—The general surface is undulating, with no very high or steep ascents. The principal eminence, *The damage to bridges in 1818, amounted to $1639 71.

Whitney says that "the river overflows the whole interval twice in a year, in the spring, and in autumn." However, this may have been in his day, it is not so in this nineteenth century.

Of the Shagbark kind. Much attention was paid by some of the principal inhabitants, some seventy years since, in ornamenting different spots, with the elm, and we, of the present day, enjoy the beauty, and the shade. The present age is less considerate in this respect. Dumbiedikes' advice to his son is disregarded-" Jock, when ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be growing, Jock, when ye're sleeping. My father tauld me sae forty years sin', but I ne'er fand time to mind him."

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