Historic Towns of New England - Various

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the other towns on the hills round about her, and like every good old New England town – has her long line of simple local annals, well worthy the attention of the summer visitor from Boston or Chicago. Happy are you if you hear them all from the lips of one or another of the local antiquarians, as you ride with him through the fields to Muschopauge Pond, or along the Princeton road to Wachusett, or over Paxton way to see the lot which Senator Hoar has bought on the top of Asnebumskit Hill, – perhaps finding the Senator himself on the hill, as we did, where he could see Worcester in one direction, and in the other, Rutland.

      I remember well the crisp September night when I first saw Rutland, with the new moon in the clear sky, and the evening star. I remember that the man who drove me up from the little station to the big hotel on the hill, while I filled my lungs with Rutland air, proved to be the hotel proprietor himself, and, which was much better, proved – and proved it much more the next day – to be the very prince of local antiquarians. He had himself written a history of Rutland for a history of Worcester County, and there was nothing that he did not know. If there was anything, then the good village minister – he has been to Marietta since, and is president of the Rutland Historical Society – had read it in some book; or the town clerk knew it; or Mr. Miles remembered it – who was to Rutland born, and whose memory was good. So in the dozen pleasant visits which I have made to Rutland since, I have not only taken mine ease with the benevolent boniface, but have taken many history lessons on the broad piazzas and the hills.

      The boniface will tell you, sitting in the corner looking toward Wachusett, how, in 1686, Joseph Trask, alias Pugastion, of Pennicook; Job, alias Pompamamay, of Natick; Simon Pitican, alias Wananapan, of Wamassick; Sassawannow, of Natick, and another – Indians who claimed to be lords of the soil – gave a deed to Henry Willard and Joseph Rowlandson and Benjamin Willard and others, for £23 of the then currency, of a certain tract of land twelve miles square, the name in general being Naquag, the south corner butting upon Muschopauge Pond, and running north to Quanitick and to Wauchatopick, and so running upon great Wachusett, etc. Upon the petition, he will tell you, of the sons and grandsons of Major Simon Willard, of Lancaster, deceased – that famous Major Willard who went to relieve Brookfield when beset by the Indians – and others; the General Court in 1713 confirmed these lands to these petitioners, “provided that within seven years there be sixty families settled thereon, and sufficient lands reserved for the use of a gospel ministry and schools, except what part thereof the Hon. Samuel Sewall, Esq., hath already purchased, – the town to be called Rutland, and to lye to the county of Middlesex.” The grant was about one eighth of the present Worcester County, comprising almost all the towns round about. When the new Worcester County was incorporated, Rutland failed of becoming the shire town, instead of Worcester, by only one vote – and that vote, they say in Rutland, was bought by a base bribe. The antiquarian taverner will point his spy-glass toward Barre for you, and tell you it was named after our good friend in the House of Commons in the Stamp Act days; toward Petersham hill, back of it, where John Fiske spends his summers, and tell you about Shays’ Rebellion; toward Hubbardston, and tell you it was named for an old speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives; toward Princeton, and tell you it perpetuates the memory of Thomas Prince, the famous old pastor of the Old South Church in Boston, founder of the Prince Library; toward Paxton, and tell you about Charles Paxton, who was something or other; toward Oakham, and tell you something else. He will tell you that Holden is so called after that same family whose name is also honored in Holden Chapel at Harvard College; and he will probably point to Shrewsbury, on the hill away beyond Holden, and talk about General Artemas Ward, whose old home and grave are there.

      He will tell about the first settlers of Rutland, respectable folk from Boston and Concord and other places, and how many immigrants from Ireland there were, with their church-membership papers in their pockets. He will tell you of Judge Sewall’s farm of a thousand acres in the north part of the town, and of his gift of the sacramental vessels to the church; of the five hundred acres granted to the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company; of how the road through the village was laid out ten rods wide, and so remains unto this day; of the call to the “able, learned, orthodox minister,” Joseph Willard, in 1721, and how he was “cut off by the Indians” – shot in the field north of the meeting-house – just before the installation day, so that Thomas Frink, “an able and learned, orthodox and pious person,” was called instead. Presently there was “a coolness in affection in some of the brethren” towards Mr. Frink, because two fifths of the church-members were Presbyterians, over against the three fifths Congregationalists, and “contrary to his advice and admonition communed with the Presbyterians in other towns.” The upshot was a split, and a Presbyterian church in the west part of the town. These Rutland Presbyterians seem to have come from Ireland – they were of the same sort as those who founded Londonderry, New Hampshire just before; and some of them were so tenacious of their own ordinances that they carried their infants in their arms on horseback as far as Pelham to have them baptized in good Presbyterian form.

      Rutland had her minute-men, and fifty of them were at Bunker Hill. She had some hot town-meetings between the Stamp Act time and Lexington, and passed ringing resolutions and some stiff instructions to Colonel Murray, her representative to the General Court, whom more and more she distrusted, and who, when the final pinch came, declared himself a Tory out-and-out, and fled to Nova Scotia, leaving Rutland “by a back road,” to avoid a committee of the whole, which was on its way to visit him.

      To tell the truth, this Tory Colonel, John Murray, must have been the most interesting figure ever associated with old Rutland, save General Rufus Putnam himself; and, curiously enough, the Putnam place had belonged first to Murray, – the house being built by him for one of his married daughters, all of Murray’s lands and goods being confiscated, and this house falling into Putnam’s hands in 1780 or 1782, probably at a very low figure.

      He was not John Murray when he came to Rutland, but John McMorrah. He came from Ireland with John and Elizabeth McClanathan, Martha Shaw and others, his mother dying on the passage. He was not only penniless when he set his foot on the American shore, but in debt for his passage. “For a short time,” says the chronicle,” he tried manual labor; but he was too lazy to work, and to beg ashamed.” He found a friend in Andrew Hendery, and began peddling; then he kept a small store, and later bought cattle for the army. Everything seemed to favor him, and he became the richest man that ever lived in Rutland. “He did not forget Elizabeth McClanathan, whom he sailed to America with, but made her his wife.” She lies, along with Lucretia Chandler, his second wife, and Deborah Brindley, the third, in the old Rutland graveyard. “He placed horizontally over their graves large handsome stones underpinned with brick, whereon were engraved appropriate inscriptions.” He had a large family, seven sons and five daughters; and the oldest son, Alexander, remained loyal to America and to Rutland when his father fled – entering the army and being wounded in the service. Murray became a large landholder and had many tenants; he was the “Squire” of the region. He grew arbitrary and haughty as he grew wealthy, but was popular, until the stormy politics came. “On Representative day,” we read, “all his friends that could ride, walk, creep or hobble were at the polls; and it was not his fault if they returned dry.” He held every office the people could give him, and represented them twenty years in the General Court. He was a large, fleshy man, and, “when dressed in his regimentals, with his gold-bound hat, etc., he made a superb appearance.” He lived in style, with black servants and white. “His high company from Boston, Worcester, etc., his office and parade, added to the popularity and splendor of the town. He promoted schools, and for several years gave twenty dollars yearly towards supporting a Latin grammar school.” He also gave a clock to the church, which was placed in front of the gallery, and proved himself a thoroughly modern man by inscribing on the clock the words, “A Gift of John Murray, Esq.”

      All these things your loyal Rutland host will tell you, or read to you out of the old books, – where you can read them, and many other things. And he will take you to drive, down past the Putnam place, to the field where a large detachment of Burgoyne’s army was quartered after the surrender at Saratoga. The prisoners’ barracks stood for half a century, converted to new uses; and the well dug by the soldiers is still shown – as, until a few years ago, were the mounds which marked the graves of those who died. Three of the officers fell in love with Rutland girls, and took them back to England

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