TOWNSHEND HARBOUR:  A HARBOR THAT SERVES NO SHIP

WHAT'S IN A NAME?      By WILLIAM PATE

Towns in New England have deep and long histories. Stories of how they were founded, why they were founded and where their names came from are abundant in every small village. My home town of Townsend Massachusetts is no different.

After moving to Townsend, I found it peculiar to have a section referred to as Townsend Harbor: the nearest harbor on the Atlantic was seventy miles away. I assumed that it was so named because of the small lake created by a dam built for the first industry, a mill, many years ago. A few years after moving into town, however, I was traveling in the South when I happened to strike up a conversation with a Southern gentleman. When he asked me where I was from, I told him "Townsend Mass.", and to my surprise he replied "Oh I the Harbor." I was startled because I had no idea of how my home town could be known in the South as the "the Harbor." When I inquired how he knew,, he told me that everyone in the South knew that Townsend was a safe harbor for slaves on their way to Canada.

I contacted the Townsend Historical Society and was told they knew of no evidence that the name "Harbor" came from the underground railroad. However, they were still a young Society and had not yet finished cataloging everything. They felt the name was derived as a result of being a safe harbor from Indians in the early beginning of the town. I went to the Townsend Library and found the earliest published town history. it was written in the late nineteenth century by Ithamar B. Sawtelle.

Sawtelle suggests that the reason there is a section of town referred to as the Harbor is because a veteran of Indian warfare, from Rhode Island, by the name of Timothy Heald, settled there. Nothing much further was known of him except to say that

He was in charge of a log-house made in a defensible manner against losses by the incursions of the Indians. One of these castles was located north of the Harbor and overlooking the same, and another near the meeting-house on the hill, and the same tradition further saith that the log-house and mill, where the Harbor now stands, and the direct surroundings were called 'the Harbor,' because by signals from these three points, in case of the appearance of any 'red skins,' the settlers could soon reach these places of safety^l

 

Sawtelle does not give the account much weight because he believed the man was prone to exaggeration.

Since Sawtelle wrote his book after the Civil War, I did not give the reference to Indians much thought and decided to follow the Underground Railroad connection. I discovered it came through Leominster and Fitchburg, on its way north, being helped by the many sympathetic churches in the area. The Trinitarian Church in Fitchburg center, founded by Benjamin Snow, Jr., Abel Thurston and Alpheus Kimball, is one of the documented "railway stations.² Abolitionists were also visiting Townsend at this time:

Henry Stanton, at the annual meeting of the New Hampshire Anti-Slavery Society in December 1838 had publicly stated that a meeting-house in which he had been scheduled to speak in Townsend Massachusetts, had been closed to him by a friend of Nathan Brooks. Stanton recalled that Brooks's friend had stated that an antislavery lecture at that time by Stanton would be detrimental to Brooks's chances for election (The Liberator, December 21, 1838).³

William Lloyd Garrison, an outspoken Abolitionist, in a letter to his wife mentioned traveling to Townsend; on the 22nd of April 1839, he wrote, "I leave at half past seven O'clock this morning, going direct to Groton in the stage. Dr. Farnsworth will take me over to Townsend this evening."4 I also found the Townsend Town Census, and it listed four "coloreds," Oliver, Horace and Nathum Hazzard, and John Hennessey, enlisting in the army between 1863 and 1864. This gave me reason to believe there was a probability of the slaves receiving help from some town residents.

After finding that African Americans lived in Townsend, abolitionists had come to speak in town, and three of the four major evangelical churches supporting reform -- being the Methodists, the Baptists, and the Congregationalists -- all having a church in town, I was sure the Harbor had received its name from being part of the underground railroad. Yet, there was something not right, and I needed to find what was wrong.

Sawtelle referred to the town by using its three locations of West Townsend, Townsend Center and Townsend Harbor. The Harbor dam was begun in 1733 and completed in 1734 for the new mill.⁵ It made sense that the first growth would occur in this section of town; it was the eastern part of the town, and settlement would occur in an east to west direction, continuing the trend from Lancaster, Groton and Dunstable. Since Sawtelle wrote the history after the Civil War and referred to the harbor by name in the early beginning of the town, I believed he might merely be using the reference to give a more exact location for what had occurred in prior years. Further investigation would cause me to think that I might be wrong.

One night in the library, 1 came across a small typed booklet dated 1917, which was reprinted from an 1896 original by Samuel A. Green. This shed more light on the origin of the name "Harbor." Mr. Green stated that there were originally three harbors in this area.- Dunstable Harbor, which later became Nashua, New Hampshire in 1837; Mason Harbor, also known as Mason Village, which became Greenville, New Hampshire in 1872; and Townsend Harbor, the only one to still bear the name. As far as he knew, these were the sole instances in New England where the word "Harbor" was used connected with the name of a settlement away from the coastline, or from a large body of water. The village of Centre Harbor for example, is on Lake Winnepesaukee. Green mentioned that Sawtelle wrote to him that

... formerly there was a tradition that the village was first called 'Tory Harbor' on account of the number of Tories living there during the Revolution; but he was inclined to doubt it, as there were so few of that class in the immediate neighborhoods⁶

That small booklet was enough to make me visit the Town Clerk's Office.

I began by looking for maps or any reference to the Harbor prior to the eighteen thirties. The Town Clerk, Lea McGee, gave me access to any materials I needed and directed me to the one place she had seen the name Harbour used to describe "a town road leading from Ephrraim Spauldings to the road leading from the harbour" dated April 20, 1837.7 My case for the underground railroad theory, as the origin, was becoming stronger until, in the office, I found a hand-written copy from the town book of records, book one, covering the years 1734 to 1792. In that copy, page number sixty-one was dated February 1, 1748; it mentioned a "Road from Kings by Averys southerly and south westerly from Groton line, and it may be part of the Townsend Harbor and Brookline road." The date of this piece of information required I return to the library and find out what Indian tribes were in the area during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Townsend Harbor may have harbored slaves for the underground railroad, but this did not appear to be the origin of its name.

The authors of the town histories mention Indians only as passing through the territory or being docile, but the account of Samuel Penhallow from 1703 to 1723 gives a much different view, with settlers being taken captive, tortured and burned at the stake by blood thirsty savages.

Samuel Penhallow was born in St. Mabon, Cornwall, England in 1665. He came to New England in 1686 to continue his studies at Harvard College in preparation for missionary labors, but political troubles about that time are alleged to have caused his discouragement, He moved to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he began a prosperous career in business and political life. He accumulated what in those times would be described as a great estate. In 1699, he was elected the Speaker of the House which he held for three years. He was an influential member of the Royal Council, holding concurrently the offices of Treasurer of the Province and of Recorder of Deeds. At the time of the Indian wars,, he was Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, which he held until his death in 1726.

Penhallow was an influential man and, because of his position in the community, he took part in the ratification of the treaties with the Indians. He was as qualified as any in the colonial community to chronicle the relations between the aggressive colonists and the restless Indians. His account of this bloody and tragic relationship during the period from 1703 to the ratified peace treaties of 1723 is considered an important and generally reliable source of information of this colonial period in American history.

To the New England colonist, the Indians were of extreme importance. Never before the colonization of America had the English come into continued and intimate contact with a primitive culture. They found that they were unprepared with their lack of knowledge and ill-conceived policies of fanatical conversion to Christianity. Naturally enough, before the Indians were overwhelmed, they devastated out-lying settlements. in one of the many accounts Penhallow wrote;

Their first descent was on Dunstable, the third of July, where they fell on a Garrison that had twenty Troopers posted in it,...Upon this they burnt the House, and next Day about forty more fell on Amesbury ... Several Strokes were afterwards made on Chelmsford, Sudbury and Groton, ... ⁸

During the half century before the publication of this history, more than eight thousand people lost their lives. Few families escaped mourning the loss of a friend or relative.

I felt now that I had what I needed to show that the fear of Indian attack was the reason the settlers referred to this section of town as the "Harbor." I returned to the Town Clerk's office to double check the hand written copy of page sixty-one to the original. What a disappointment to find that the mentioning of the Harbor was someone else's simple abbreviation for the usual northwesterly or southerly type of directions one finds. I remembered something I saw written by Richard Smith, and started over.

In History as elsewhere, it is best to begin at the beginning. The farmer must clear the fields before he is to plow. Yet choosing the field, determining the moment of conception, is often difficulty.⁹

 

The land grant was issued in 1676, to a little known Salem colonist by the name of Major William Hauthorn, Esquire, sometimes spelled Hawthorne and listed another way in the proprietors' records as "Hathorn's Farm." ¹⁰ He was a Captain of the Salem militia during the Indian wars, after which he was promoted to Major. He was a Deputy to the General Court two or three times, Speaker it 1661 and considered a man of prominence.¹¹

The town was chartered and received its name on June 29, 1732. The Provincial Government and its Governors accepted the responsibility of giving the towns their names. Townsend received its name in honor of Viscount Charles Townshend, King George' s Secretary of State. The name was spelled with the "H" until the late eighteenth century when it is dropped from the Town Record.

Neither the original Land Grant nor the Town Charter gave any mention to the Harbor by name, which did not surprise me. I went to the Town R Townsend 1734 - 1790 and started the painstaking process of viewing each page. I found for the first forty years, they dealt with the every day problems faced by a town. They would begin every meeting in the same way with "At a meeting of the Inhabitants of the Town of Townshend."

The men at these meetings voted for Selectmen, Surveyors of highways, Preservers of Deer, Constables, Tythingmen, Field Drivers, Fence Viewers and whether to allow the swine to run at large. "Rev Hemminways Sallery"¹² was an annual vote, as was accepting new road lay outs. Road and bridge repairs were work that had to be done often because of spring flooding, and the men at the meeting would set the amount of money to be paid for a man's work per day, extra for a cart and even more if they used their own ox. Committees of men were formed to see that the work was done and to keep track of the time that was put in by each man. Those that did not work their share were charged a tax called a highway rate. In all of the voting to "Chuse a Comety to recon with the town treasuer," repairing the old meeting house, or, in 1769 building a new one, the selling of seating for those houses and all the rest, I saw no reference to the harbor by name or any indication of any trouble with Indians. if the Harbor was their area of safety from the Indians because they feared for their lives, it was their and only their secret.

By January 5, 1773, things were becoming more interesting and exciting. Townsend was becoming more frustrated with England " in the way our money is taken by the powers 'vested in the Commissioners of the Costoms and of a Military Force being employed to keep us in Awe and soforth.' "¹³ By 1774, they were agreeing with other patriots on the price of tea imposed by "'Parlamente' and the East India Company 'Requirs our Attention. I'" ¹⁴

Through these years, the town gathered money and supplies to send to Boston and Charlestown. Money was voted for and collected to pay the men who carried guns and blankets to the army. March eighth 1776 was the first time in the forty years I've covered that the town was divided into sections for defense and for "The purpose of chusing Militia and dividing the town... at Old County Highway"¹⁵ with those south of the road referred to as South Company and those men in the north as the North Company.

In 1777, the town formed a committee to divide the town into school squadrons. The committee gave their report at the May meeting, dividing the town into seven squadrons -- North, South, Centre, Bayberry Hill, Lt. Hosley's, and East squadrons. The East squadron's description mentions the Conant property, which is located in the area we now call the "Harbor."

That May, in 1777, was also a time when things did not seem to be going very well in Townsend. A message sent to their representative in the "Great and General Court" concerning a new State Constitution states:

With respect to the General Courts forming a New Constitution, We direct you not to consent to it in the present situation of our public affairs -- the opening a campaign in the Country and pressing internal difficulties lately arisen in this state we consider as objects which require that attention in the court which will not afford sufficient leisure for so interesting an affair as exciting as a New Form of Government.¹⁶

July of that year, the Selectmen voted to lay before the town a list of persons they thought dangerous or unfriendly to the United States or had been since April 1775. This was done in compliance with an act of the General Court entitled "An Act for Securing Internal Enemies."¹⁷ Some Tories were arrested and taken to the Cooper Shop, "which stood nearly opposite the leather-board mill" and were guarded by a detachment of soldiers from Captain Douglas's company.¹⁸ Those names were

Isaac Wallis-one of the original sixteen members of the first church in 1734

William Wallis-Isaac's son, both located in the east part of town on Nissiqudssick Hill, later Wallace Hill and now Townsend Hill.

Dave Holden

Joshua Smith-was a trader and lived in the Harbor

Reuben Tucker

Seth Johnson-was a Blacksmith in the southeast corner of Hathorns farm

Israel Hobart-bought 10 acres from John Conant near John Stevens house

Jonathan Wallis

Ebenezer Giles-a large land holder

Dr. Joseph Adams-owned 65 acres north of the meeting house, at that time located between the harbor and the present center ¹⁹

Jonathan Wallis and Ebenezer Giles were crossed off this list with a note by their names "erased by the town" with no reason given. William Wallis and David Holden came before the Selectmen during their December 1777 meeting for "Reconsideration of Enemical conduct, "²⁰ both were denied. Out of the eight men remaining on the list, half or more were located in the Harbor, and when compared to the 1776 census, showing a population of 821,²¹ the total number of eight men seems insignificant, but compared to the number of males who answered an important warrant on March 30, 1778, stating:

... to warn all the male inhabitants of said town that ar free and twentyone years of age to assemble and meet at the publick Meeting House of said town... to take into consideration the Constitution or form of Government for this State and act thereon as they think propper²²

that was not acted upon until May of 1780 with 29 voters present and accepting this now Government, or with other warrants responded to in following years, i.e., 27 votes for Governor in 1785, 44 unanimous votes for Governor John Hancock in 1787 and 63 votes for Representatives of Middlesex County to the United States of America;²³ the number becomes much more significant at twenty-five to fifty percent of the voting population. Still, if some of these Tories were confined as Sawtelle says, then they were not held for long because the more prominent names still were active in later town meetings.

In the midst of a war and deciding to choose a new form of government for the country, Townsend again defined new squadrons for the schools in 1783. They were the Center, Northwest, North, Bayberry Hill, South, East-near Wallace Hill, and Southeast-near Conant's Mill in the Harbor. Fifty years have passed and still no reference to the Harbor by name.

I did come across the first time the name of the town changed from Townshend to Townsend in the record dated April 1786. The introduction to the warrant for town meeting was changed to "Commonwealth of Massachusett: To the Freeholders and Other Inhabitants of the Town of Townsend.... ",²⁴ The Town Clerk who wrote the town's name on documents at that time was Benjamin Ball.

Then in 1790, Daniel Adams Jr. became Town Clerk and spelled the name both ways, although favoring the new spelling more. The "H'' was gone forever by 1800, giving us the permanent spelling we know today. I did find the hew spelling even earlier, however, at the Registry of Deeds in Cambridge, on a Deed for property sold in 1765 and recorded on April 10, 1770, to Israel Hobart of Groton and sold by John Conant.²⁵

I finished Book one and moved on to book two, which covered the years from 1792 to 1817. It was back to the same routine as the first forty years from fence viewers to letting the swine run at large, only now with restrictions. Then finally, (I had to read it twice, the date was October 5, 1795),, the town "Voted to set up four guidposts in this town(viz.) one at Moses Warrens, one at Goss Bridge, one at Lt. Petts and one at the Harbour."²⁶ It was signed by Jacob Blodget-Town Clerk. I had just eliminated the Underground Railroad as the reason the Harbor got its name for sure, but my work was not done.

I went to the Proprietor Records and began again from June 30, 1732. It was much faster now because a lot was the same. Roads were laid out in the same manner as the Town Record, from this pile of rocks to a chestnut tree from there between two houses and so forth. Much of the Proprietor Records dealt with business in the town. One article of their meeting, dated March 30, 1767, dealt with the flooding of land caused by the dam built in 1734. Article two stated, "To see what allowance the Proprietors will make Capt. Bartell for what land he has flooded by Mr. Conants mill pond that he has not had satisfaction for..."²⁷ The mill pond of which they wrote today is called Harbor Pond. Since the Proprietors dealt with the business of the town and sold land giving descriptions occasionally, none of which mention the Harbor, I decided to head for Cambridge to the Registry of Deeds to see what was there.

I began with the name Conant because I knew they were in the Harbor. In the two days I spent at the Registry, I searched twenty-five deeds. Lott Conant bought land from John Stevens in 1734. In 1743 John Conant bought property from his father along with another 35 acres from John Stevens "boardering the Groton line". John Conant bought and sold a great deal of land in town. The 104 acres he bought and registered on March 15, 1747, from J. Baldwin, bordered the "Squannoocook river... with a line running to the corner of John Wallis's meadow lott."²⁹ In 1758 he had 3 parcels of land recorded, one from Nathan Richardson which stated,, "A small piece of land being upland and meadow situated lying and being in the Easterly part of Townshend... ",³⁰

The land John Conant sold, one parcel in 1765 to Isreal Hobart, as before mentioned dropping the "H" from Townshend, and another in 1767 to Daniel Emery^3l. In 1771, he sold property to Oliver Procter Jr. "boardering the Pepperal line"³² and to Joshua Smith, "A piece of upland situate and lying in the Southerly part of Townsend also laid on the Northerly side of the mill pond belonging to me the above said John Conant.^",33

These properties changed hands again from their new owners over the years and are recorded as follows; 1773, Oliver Proctor Jr. to J. Bowers³⁴ and 1776 to W. Stevens,³⁵ 1774, Joshua Smith to Levi Whitney,³⁶ April 24, 1779, Several tracts of land from Levi Whitney to Nathan Conant³⁷ and November 1779 Nathan Conant to Joseph Warner, "land situated on the line of the towns of Pepperrell and Townshend..."³⁸ Still, in all these legal transactions of land located in the "Harbor" there is no mention of it by name. I decided I needed to find the real meaning of this word.

"Harbour" is a British variation of the word "harbor." Harbor dates back to middle English and is akin to Old High German and Old Saxon, heriberga-. meaning army encampment,, hostelry. All the different variations of the word, harbor, come from a prehistoric West Germanic and North Germanic compound whose components are akin respectively to Old High German - Heri-. meaning army, and Bergan meaning shelter or hide. The first definition today is "a place of security and comfort ³⁹

Inn comes from Middle English and is akin to Old Norse: meaning dwelling. The definitions are "A public house for lodging travelers for compensation ... syn: Hotel, Hostelry, or a place of public entertainment that does not provide lodging: tavern"⁴⁰

I find that the first date in which the reference to the Harbor is used eliminates the harboring of slaves, even though Townsend could very well have been part of the underground railroad. The fact that so much time had passed between settlers first arrivals and the first reference of this elusive word, makes being a safe harbor from Indians not probable for the origin. As for a place that harbored Tories, I found no reference of securing these "dangerous and unfriendly" people except by Sawtelle and even he did not think they were held long.

John B. Hill, in his Centennial Address at Mason, alluding to Mason Village, said in a note:

Then called the Harbor. A word of explanation of this term may not be deemed out of place. In the early settlement of the country, towns were laid out upon the sea-coast, on which in many of them there was a bay, cove, or mouth of a river, used as a harbor for vessels. The meeting-house, where town meetings were held and public business transacted, was at the center of the town, but it often happened that the "Harbor" was the Principal if not the only mart of trade in the place. And when, in an inland town, a locality on its border became the principal mart of trader it was known by the same name of Harbor, as Mason Harbor, Townsend Harbor, Dunstable Harbor.⁴¹

This was an interesting theory because the mill and tavern were located in the harbor from the very beginning and according to Sawtelle, by 1787 Townsend harbor could have been called a village because it was the only collection of houses. It contained the tavern, a large old house, a saw and grist mill, a blacksmith shop, a tanner, a saddler, by 1788 a trader and by 1790 a clothier. If Hill were correct and it was brought with the settlers from the coast, then, why did it take so long for the name to take hold in the records?

The answer came to me when I decided to investigate the man I found first recorded the name. I looked to find Jacob Blodget in the records of births and found nothing. Then, listed in the intentions of marriage on the date September 28, 1778 it states "Jacob Bloged of Mason and Sarah Taylor of Townshend as the law directs in order for marriage." ⁴² my Journey was leading me to Mason, New Hampshire.

The Mason Town History listed three Blodgets, David, John and Jacob, arriving in town. Jacob "established residency in Mason in 1772, with removal shortly after the Revolution."⁴³ Upon his arrival, he bought a sawmill with his brother David.⁴⁴ The only good size river in Mason, is in the northwest corner and was where Mason Village was located. Jacob Blodget served as Treasurer, Selectman and Town Clerk in Mason during his years there.⁴⁵ When he left town in 1786, he sold land "bordering New Ipswich and west of John Blodget Is land." ⁴⁶ John Blodget's property was mentioned during an annual town meeting on March 14,1791, when they divided Mason into districts for schools. A list of residents for each district was given and John Blodget was listed in the seventh district. A note stated that the sixth and seventh districts were the largest and located in Mason Village.⁴⁷ I felt I had established that Jacob Blodget lived and owned the mill in the area referred to by Green as Mason Harbor. Still, why was Mason Village sometimes referred to as Mason Harbor?

Most of the early settlers of Mason were younger men, from Dunstable capable of handling the harsh conditions. Many of them were sons or nephews of the Proprietors.⁴⁸ Mason was divided into Lots in 1749, at a meeting in Dunstable, at Capt. Joseph French's Tavern. One of the Proprietors was a Joseph Blodgett, and he drew three Lots. When I checked to see if he might have given or sold any of his property to Jacob Blodget, I found it was inconsequential because he sold the properties shortly after receiving them and Jacob would only have been a young boy. Jacob Blodget was born in Dunstable on January 8, 1748, to Josiah and Jemimah Blodget.⁴⁹ The different spelling of the name bothered me, but it was not uncommon because I had already seen it spelled differently in several of the documents noted and also in the family records for Blodgett kept at the Church of Latter Day Saints.

Joseph Blodgett was born in Chelmsford and was a forth generation Blodgett since their arrival in Boston in the early fifteenth century with the arrival of Thomas. The Blodgetts moved from Boston, to New Hampshire and to Connecticut in five generations. Josiah was listed in both the forth and fifth generations, presumably making him a cousin or a nephew of Joseph's. Unfortunately, I was unable to connect these two Dunstable residents definitively.

I had followed the Blodgetts to Dunstable, which was once enormous and encompassed several other towns including the Eastern part of Townsend. The inhabitants had been through all of the Indian Wars referred to in Penhallow. The Blodgetts began settling the easterly side of 'the Merrimac river in garrisoned houses before 1721,⁵⁰ simultaneously with selling land there.⁵¹

Joseph Blodgett's garrisoned house was sometimes full of soldiers as illustrated when Colonel Flagg was ordered to detach from his regiment

A Sergeant and 12 effective, abled bodied men, well armed for his Majesty's service, for secuity and reinforcement of Dunstable until the return of Colonel Tying... stating, They must be posted at Garrisons of Joseph Blodgett... and dated, Boston, May 19, 1725.⁵²

With all the Indian trouble Dunstable had, they seemed to always have an army encampment located between the Salmon Brook and the Merrimac River. After the trouble subsided, it would become Dunstable Village. An army encampment that became an area of business, and the first businesses in these towns have been a mill and an Inn. The definition I had found of a Harbor i.e., Army Encampment or Hostelry, was beginning to make more sense.

It was clear, that Townsend Harbor was not sympathetic for the slaves, not patriotic for securing Tories, not adventurous for defending against Indians, nor was it nostalgic for the seafarers who moved inland. The name Townshend Harbour came from a man who referred to this area of business using a reference he had grown up with and that had followed him to Mason with the other former Dunstable residents. He had resided in Mason village and moved to Townsend Village, buying land from Hinchsman Warren that bordered Emery's land, Heald's land - (the Indian fighter who occupied one of the safe houses mentioned in Sawtelle) - and the highway leading to Lunenburg, containing two hundred and twelve acres more or less.⁵³ When he became Town Clerk, he coined a name that was familiar to him, one he had grown up with to describe the business area of town for the location of a guide post. It was no different than the copy of the Town Record I found describing a road through the Harbor, with the person copying those directions substituting a word they felt comfortable with and was habit to use to simplify what had been truly written, and, just as Benjamin Ball dropped the "H" from the name of Townshend to which all the succeeding Town Clerks conformed, so did those who followed Jacob Blodget. Townsend Harbour came into existence officially on October 5, 1795.

ENDNOTES

^llthamar B. Sawtelle, History of The T2xn of Townsend. 1676-1878 (Fitchburg, MA Blanchard & BroWn, 1878), pp. 61,62

²Doris Kirkpatrick, The City and the River (Fitchburg, MA: Fitchburg Historical society, 1971), p. 193.

³William Lloyd Garrison, The Letters of William L.Garrison. ed.Louis Ruchames vol. 2: A House Divided Against Itself 1836 - 1840 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 447, ed. note 14.

⁴Ibid p. 453.

⁵Ithamar B. Sawtelle, History of The,Town of Townsend: 1676-1878 (Fitchburg, MA: Blanchard & Brown, 1878), pp. 241 -242.

⁶Samuel A. Green, A Number Of villages Near Groton, Massachusgtts: Formerly Knom As "Harbors", (Groton MA: 1917) p. 5

⁷Town Records: Townsend 1821 to 1840 p. 346.

⁸Samuel Penhallow, History of the Indian wars (Williamstown, Mass.: Corner House Publishers, 1973) pp.34-36.

⁹Richard N, Smith, Divnity and Dust: A History of Townsend Massachusetts (Lancaster, MA: The College Press, 1978), p. 15.

^1OIthamar B. Sawtelle, History of The Town of Townsend: 1676-1878 (Fitchburg, MA: Blanchard a Brown, 1878), p, 33.

^IlSamuel A. Drake, History of Middlesex County vol. 2 (Boston, MA: Estes and Lauriat, 1880), p. 382.

¹²Town Records of Townsend 1734 - 1790, p. 99.

¹³Ibid P. 145.

¹⁴Ibid p. 149.

¹⁵Ibid p. 160.

¹⁶1bid p. 174.

¹⁷1bid p. 175.

¹⁸Ithamar B. Sawtelle, History of The Town of Townsend: 1676-1878 (Fitchburg, MA: Blanchard & Brown, 1878), p. 192.

¹⁹compiled from Massachusetts Bay Colony Registry of Deeds: Sk No 70 p. 134, Sawtelle, p. 193, and Town Record of Townsend 1734 -1790, p. 175

^2OTM Record of Townsend 1734 -1790, p. 175

^2IIthamar B. Sawtelle, History.of The Town of Townsend: 1676-1878 (Fitchburg, MA: Blanchard & Brown, 1878), p. 30t

²²Town -Record of Towsend 1734 -1790, p. 193

²³Ibid pp. 199 - 265

²⁴Ibid p. 245

²⁵Massachusetts Bay Colony Registry of Deeds,. Bk No. 70, p. 134.

²⁶Town Record of Townsend 1792 -@17, p. 35

²⁷Proprietors Records, begining June 30, 1732: p. 35

²⁸Massachusett,Bay Colony Registry-of Deeds: Bk 44 pp.227-228

²⁹1bid Bk 46 p.161

^3OIbid Bk 55 p.444

³¹1bid Bk 72 p.24

³²Ibid Ek 73 p.341

³³1bid Bk 75 p.420

³⁴Ibid Bk 75 p.2

³⁵Ibid Bk 76 p.612

³⁶Ibid Bk 75 p.422

³⁷1bid Bk 80 p.176

³⁸Ibid Bk 80 p.368

³⁹ed. Philip Babcock Groove, Webster 3rd New International Dictionary of the English Language, (Springfield, MA G & C Meriam Co., 1976), p. 1031.

⁴⁰1bid p. 1165.

^4lSamuel A. Green, A Number Of Villaqes Near Groton, Massachusetts: Formerly Known As IliarbQrs", (Groton MA: 1917) p. 4 (Proceedings of the Centennial Celebration at Mason, August 26, 1868, page 42.)

⁴²Vital Records of Townsend M&, p. 8

⁴³Mason Bicentenial Committee, Mason Bicentenial,1768-1968, (Milford, NH: The Hunter Press, 1968) p. 214

⁴⁴Hillsboro County Registry of Deeds, Bk 2, pp. 363, 364

⁴⁵Mason Bicentenial Committee, Mason BiceMnial 1768-1968, (Milford, NH: The Hunter Press, 1968) p. 229

⁴⁶ Hillsboro County Registry of Deeds, Bk 98, p 113

⁴⁷Mason Bicentenial Committee, Mason Bicentenial 1768-1968, (Milford, NH: The Hunter Press, 1968) pp. 237, 239

⁴⁸Ibid p. 127

⁴⁹Rev. Elias Nason, A History of the Dunstable Massachusetts, (Boston MA: Alfred Mudge a Son, 1877) p. 271

^5OIbid p. 271

^5lMassachusett Bay Colony Registry of deeds Bk 21 p. 490

⁵²Mason Bicentenial Committee, Mason Bicentenial 1768-1968, (Milford, NH: The Hunter Press, 1968) p. 49

⁵³Massachueett Bay Colony Registry 2f Deeds: Bk 122 p. 361

REFERENCES

Published Primary Sources:

Garrison, William Lloyd. The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison, Edited by Louis Ruchames, vol. 2: A House Divided Against 'Itself 1836 - 1840, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971.

Penhallow, Samuel. History of the Indian wars, Williamstown, Mass.,. Corner House Publishers, 1973.

Vital Records of Townsend Massachusetts: Town Records to 1850 with Marriage Intentions to 1873 and Cemetery Inscriptions. Transcribed and Edited by Henry C. Hallowell. Boston, Mass.: N.E. Historic Genealogical Society, 1992.

Manuscript Primary Source:

Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Registry of Deeds: Book Nos. 21, 35, 44f 46f 54, 55, 60, 68, 69, 70f 72, 73, 75, 76t 80, 85, 86, 122.

Grantees Book: Colony of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, 1639 - 1799,

Grantees Index., Hillsboro County, Nashua, New Hampshire, 1771 1849.

Grantors Book: Colony of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, 1639 - 1799.

Manuscript Primary Sources

Grantors Index: Hillsboro County, Nashua, New Hampshire, 1771 1849.

Grantors Index: New Hampshire Records Management and Archives, pre 1771.

Hillsboro County Records, Registry of Deeds: Book Nos. 2, 4, 5, 11, 34, 80, 98.

Town Records of Townsend, Massachusetts: BOOK 1, 1734- 1792, BOOK 2, 1792-1817 BOOK 3, 1821-1848.

Secondary Sources:

Boston Athenaeum. Courage and Conscience, Edited by Donald M. Jacobs. Black and white Abolitionist in Boston. Indiana: University Press, 1973.

Drake, Samuel A., History of Middlesex County Massachusetts, vol 21 Boston, Mass.: Estes and Lauriat, 1880.

Fox, Charles J., History of the Old Township of Dunstable, Nashua, New Hampshire: Charles T. Gill, Publisher, 1846.

Kirkpatrick, Doris. The City and the River, Fitchburg, Mass.: Fitchburg Historical Society, 1971.

Mason Bicentenial Committee. Mason Bicentenial 1768 - 1968, Edited by Elizabeth 0. Jones. Milford, New Hampshire: The Hunter Press, 1968.

Nason, Rev. Elias. A History of the Town of Dunstable Massachusetts, Boston, Mass.: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1877.

Sawtelle, Ithamar B., History of The Town of Townsend: 1676-1878, Fitchburg, Mass.: Blanchard & Brown, 1878.

Smith, Richard N. Divinity and Dust: A History of Townsend Massachusetts, Lancaster, Mass.: The College Press, 1978.