Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/202

 176 THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

established more than twenty-five years ago. These and many other firms, in various branches, go to make up the commercial importance of Milford, which is a trade centre of this section. In contradistinction to most of the places in the valley of the Souhegan, Milford boasts of no antiquity and will not celebrate its centennial until 1894. For its origin it is indebted to a genuine outburst of human nature in the form of dissatisfaction, which took place in the old town of Monson. That ancient, now extinct town was incorporated April i, 1746, and was bounded on the north by the Souhegan river and south by HoUis. Its corporate existence lasted for twenty-four years, during which time, it regular- ly held annual town-meetings, elected its town clerks, selectmen, tithingmen, hogreeves and other town officers, but there is no evidence that it ever had a school-house, meeting house, or a "learned orthodox " or other minister. The only public structure ever owned by the town was a pound built for the con- finement of disorderly cattle. At the first town-meeting held in May, 1 746, it was voted to build a pound and also buy a suitable " book to record votes in, and other things as the town shall see fit." The people of Monson, however, like their neighbors of HoUis do not at anytime seem to have been well con- tent with their chartered boundries. Several expedients in different years came before the annual meetings proposing changes in the chartered limits, some of them favoring additions to its territory, others a division of it in various ways. Among the rest was a proposal adopted at the March meeting in 1760, to annex the land on the south side of Monson to HoUis, and to petition the governor and council for such part of Souhegan west, to be added to Monson as would be sufficient to maintain the Gospel and other incidental charges. Again in I 76 1, the town voted to set off a mile and a half on the south to Hollis. This last was passed to favor a petition of Hollis to the General Court for the like purpose After this date all questions looking to a change in the boundaries of the town seems to have rested until 1770, when the people of Monson having abandoned all hope of maintaining preaching, or of "settling the Gospel among them," petitioned the General Court to put a final end to their unhappy and troubled corporate life by a repeal of their charter. In this peti- tion they gave as a reason the barreness of the soil about the centre of the town, and their inability to establish the gospel or even to build a meeting- house. The consent of Hollis to accept of two miles in width of the south side of the suppliant town, and of Amherst, all the residue, having been obtain- ed, an Act was passed by the General Court in 1770, dividing Monson by a line extending east and west passing very near its centre, annexing the south part to Hollis and the north to Amherst.

In 1 794, the town of Milford was incorporated, the Act chartering it being entitled : "An act to incorporate the south-westerly part of Amherst, the north- westerly part of Hollis, the Mile Slip and Duxbuy school farm into a town. Milford as incorporated included a small part of Amherst, north of the Souhegan, much the largest portion of that part of the old town of Monson, which was ceded to Amherst in 1770, all of the Mile Slip not included in Raby, with the Duxbuy school farm, and an area of one thousand acres taken from Hollis. Thus it will be seen that Monson after having been carved into many slices and served up in a variety of ways, was finally collected, moulded into a different form, given another name, and in its new dress graces one of the most beautiful spots on the Souhegan river.

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