Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 1.djvu/65

 THE CITY OF NASHUA.

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��Church, but some of the citizens came to its rescue, and the sum was raised with- out difficulty. The communion service of St. Michael was also sent to Columbia during the war for safety, and at the evacuation of that city by our army it could not be found. It had been stolen in consequence of its value, or taken as a trophy of war. The old tankard was found in a pawn-broker's shop in New York, and purchased and returned to the Church by a kind-hearted gentleman of that city. Another piece of the com-

��munion service was found in a shop in a town in Ohio. A kind Episcopalian seeing the inscription, bought it and returned it to the Church. The balance of the ser- vice has never been recovered. This ser- vice was highly prized, from the fact it was presented to the Church in 1702 by Gov. Boone. A monogram was taken from the pulpit ; a clergyman in New Jersey accidentally became informed of itsjwhereabouts and returned it to the Church. Altogether, this seems, indeed, to be a very remarkable Church history.

��THE CITY OF NASHUA.

��BY O. C. MOORE.

��The early history of Nashua (formerly Dunstable,) could only be narrated in full in a volume by itself. The town of Dunstable was chartered by the General Court of Massachusetts, Octo- ber 16th, 1673, O. S., corresponding to October 27th, N- S. The township took its name from Dunstable in England, in honor of Hon. Edward Tyng and his wife, Mary Tyng, who emigrated from that parish and settled in Boston, but died in Dunstable, where their children owned large estates. The name is gen- erally supposed to be derived from u Dun," or "Dunum," signifying a hilly place, and '"Staple," a place of trade. Dunstable included within its bounda- ries, as originally chartered, the present town of Tyngsborough, the east part of Dunstable, the north part of Pepperell, and the northeast corner of Townsend, all in Massachusetts. In the State of New Hampshire, it embraced the town of Litchfield, most of Hudson, the south west part of Londonderry, the west part of Pelham, two thirds of Brookline and Milford, and all the towns of Amherst, Hollis, Merrimack and Nashua. This ancient township contained about two hundred square miles, or one hundred and twenty-eight thousand acres.

In 1741, the long disputed boundary line between Massachusetts and New

��Hampshire was settled, and the settle- ment severed the ancient township of Dunstable, leaving in Massachusetts that part of it now in Tyngsborough and Dun- stable. From the territory left in New Hampshire, which retained the name of Dunstable, was successively erected the towns of Merrimack, Hollis, Monson, Hudson, Litchfield, Amherst and Milford. That portion of the township now em- braced within the limits of Nashua con- tinued to bear the old name until 1837, when it was changed to Nashua, the name of the beautiful river that divides the city from east to west, and which signifies in the Indian tongue the "beau- tiful river with the pebbly bottom."

The city of Nashua has an area of 18,- 898 acres, and presents a fine diversity in its topography. The north part of the city, where are many of the finest resi- dences and most attractive sites, rises gradually from the Merrimack on the east and from the Nashua on the south, and commands a prospect of the whole surrounding country. Few locations any where afford more beautiful and at- tractive building sites. From the south side of the Nashua and the west side of the Merrimack stretches a broad plain, upon which extend miles of broad and regular streets, lined on both sides with the best of sidewalks and the noblest of

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