The Bay State Monthly. Volume 1, No. 5, May, 1884. Various
emptying into the Nashua River, however, are not very exact; and in the engraving for the sake of clearness I have added their names, as well as the name of Forge Pond, formerly called Stony Brook Pond.
Accompanying the copy is a description of the survey, which in connection with the drawing gives a good idea of the general shape of the township. Perhaps in the original these two writings were on the same sheet. In the transcript Mr. Butler has modernized the language and made the punctuation conform to present usage. In the engraved cut I have followed strictly the outlines of the plan, as well as the course of the rivers, but I have omitted some details, such as the distances and directions which are given along the margins. These facts appear in the description, and perhaps were taken from it by the copyist. I have also omitted the acreage of the grant, which is grossly inaccurate.
Whereas the Plantation of Groton, containing by grant the proportion of eight miles Square, was begun to be laid out by Ensign Noyes, and he dying before he had finished his work, it is now finished, whose limits and bounds are as followeth,
It began on the east side of Nashua River a little below Nissitisset hills at the short turning of the River bounded by a pine tree marked with G. and so running two miles in a direct line to buckmeadow which prtains to Boston Farms, Billerica land and Edward Cowells farm until you come to Massapoag Pond, which is full of small islands; from thence it is bounded by the aforesaid Pond until you come to Chelmsford line, after that it is bounded by Chelmsford and Nashoboh lines until you come to the most southerly corner of this Plantation, and from thence it runs West-North-West five miles and a half and sixty four poles, which again reacheth to Nashua River, then the former west-north-west line is continued one mile on the west side of the river, and then it runs one third of a point easterly of north & by east nine miles and a quarter, from thence it runneth four miles due east, which closeth the work to the river again to the first pine below Nissitisset hills, where we began: it is bounded by the Farms and plantations as aforesaid and by the wilderness elsewhere; all which lines are run and very sufficiently bounded by marked trees & pillars of stones: the figure or manner of the lying of it is more fully demonstrated by this plot taken of the same.
By JONATHAN DANFORTH,
April 1668.
Surveyor.
The map of Old Dunstable, between pages 12 and 13 in Fox's History of that town, is very incorrect, so far as it relates to the boundaries of Groton. The Squannacook River is put down as the Nissitissett, and this mistake may have tended to confuse the author's ideas. The southern boundary of Dunstable was by no means a straight line, but was made to conform in part to the northern boundary of Groton, which was somewhat irregular. Groton was incorporated on May 25, 1655, and Dunstable on October 15, 1673, and no part of it came within the limits of this town. The eastern boundary of Groton originally ran northerly through Massapoag Pond and continued into the present limits of Nashua, New Hampshire.
On the southeast of Groton, and adjoining it, was a small township granted, in the spring of 1654, by the General Court to the Nashobah Indians, who had been converted to Christianity under the instruction of the Apostle Eliot and others. They were few in numbers, comprising perhaps ten families, or about fifty persons. During Philip's War this settlement was entirely deserted by the Indians, thus affording a good opportunity for the English to encroach on the reservation, which was not lost. These intruders lived in the neighboring towns, and mostly in Groton. Some of them took possession with no show of right, while others went through the formality of buying the land from the Indians, though such sales did not, as was supposed at the time, bring the territory under the jurisdiction of the towns where the purchasers severally lived. It is evident from the records that these encroachments gave rise to controversy. The following entry, under date of June 20, 1682, is found in the Middlesex County Court records at East Cambridge, and shows at that time to re-establish the boundary lines of Nashobah:—
Capt Thomas Hinchman, Lt. Joseph Wheeler, & Lt. Jno flynt surveyor, or any two of them are nominated & impowred a Comittee to run the ancient bounds of Nashobah Plantation, & remark the lines, as it was returned to the geñall Court by said mr
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