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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts
VOLUME I
In placing before the public, for their consideration and acceptance, a work as extensive and peculiar as the present, the Publishers conceive it to be no less due to their readers than themselves, to offer some preliminary thoughts, as to the nature of the work itself, and the circumstances, felicitous or otherwise, that have attended its production.
It must, probably, be admitted as a unique feature, that this History covers, in a sense strictly local and minute, a greater space of territory than has ever before been embraced in a single effort of the kind. We certainly are not aware of any one historical work, hitherto issued, that has dealt with an area of one thousand five hundred square miles, distributed between fifty-six thrifty towns and two large incorporated cities. There would not, indeed, be very numerous cases of such a possibility. Yet this is the task which we have pro- posed to ourselves, and with the execution of which we now advance, as we hope, to the approbation of a candid and intelligent public.
There seems to be little need to explain our purpose, to have every town history prepared by some author of full and admitted acquaintance with the place in question. We have, we think, been able to do this in nearly every instance, even to the employment of an author dwelling on the very ground. While the effect of this system, working in compliance with a prospectus of definite historical topics, may be found to be the production of a certain mannerism in style, we cannot but affirm, that it has led to the gathering up of more and better facts, more lucidly arranged and more vividly recited, than could have been found in the work of any single writer attempting to handle the whole subject.
Table of Contents
PREFACE III
CONTENTS V
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS VII
MAP IX
INTRODUCTION TO COUNTY HISTORY XI
HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY
TOWNS IN WORCESTER COUNTY
INDEX TO WORCESTER COUNTY 635
INDEX TO TOWNS
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VOLUME II
Table of Contents
TOWNS IN WORCESTER COUNTY
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Leominster
This town, situated in the north-easterly part of the county of Worcester, forty miles by carriage-road and forty-six miles by the Fitchburg Railroad, and fifty-three miles by the Old Colony Railroad from Boston, and twenty miles from Worcester, was formerly — a largo share of it — a part of Lancaster; being substantially the northerly half of what was called the "Lancaster New" or "Additional Grant," a tract of land conveyed by George Tahanto, Sagamore of the Nashua tribe of Indians, to Insigne John Moore, John Houghton, and Nathaniel Wilder, dated June 13, 1701, and recorded in the Proprietors' Records, now deposited with the records of the town of Leominster, and confirmed to the town of Lancaster by an order of the General Court, passed Nov. 21 and 22, 1711.
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