Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/72

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��The Boundary Lines of Old Groton. — //.

��a similar line three miles north of its mouth. By the decision twenty-eight townships were taken from Massachu- setts and transferred to New Hamp- shire. The settlement of this disputed question was undoubtedly a public ben- efit, although it caused, at the time, a great deal of hard feeling. In estab- lishing the new boundary Pawtucket Falls, situated now in the city of Lowell, and near the most southern portion of the river's course, was taken as the starting-place ; and the line which now separates the two States was run west, three miles north of this point. It was surveyed ofificially in the spring of 1741.

The new boundary passed through the original Groton grant, and cut off a triangular portion of its territory, now within the limits of Nashua, and went to the southward of Groton Gore, leav- ing that tract of land wholly in New Hampshire.

A few years previously to this time the original grant had undergone other dismemberment, when a slice of its territory was given to Westford. It was a long and narrow tract of land, triangular in shape, with its base resting on Stony Brook Pond, now known as Forge Pond, and coming to a point near Millstone Hill, where the boundary lines of Groton, Westford, and Tyngs- borough intersect. The Reverend Edwin R. Hodgman, in his History of Westford, says : —

Probably there was no computation of the area of this triangle at any time. Only four men are named as the owners of it, but they, it is supposed, held titles to only a portion, and the remainder was wild, or " common," land. (Page 25.)

In the Journal of the House of Representatives (page 9), September 10, 1730, there is recorded: —

��A petition of Jojias Prescoi, Ebenezer Prescot, Abner Kejit, and Ebenezer Town- send, Inhabitants of the Town of Groton, praying. That they and their Estates, con- tained in the following Boundaries, viz. beginning at the Northwesterly Corner of Stony Brook Pond, from thence extending to the Northwesterly Corner of Westford, commonly called Tyng^s Corner, and so bound Southerly by said Pond, may be set off to the Town of Westford, for Reasons mentioned. Read and Ordered, That the Petitioners within named, with their Estates, according to the Bounds before recited, be and hereby are to all Intents and Purposes set off from the Town of Groton, and annexed to the said Town

of Westford.

Sent up for Concurrence.

This order received the concurrence of the council, and was signed by the governor, on the same day that it passed the House.

During this period the town of Harvard was incorporated. It was made up from portions of Groton, Lancaster, and Stow, and the engrossed act signed by the governor, on June 29, 1732. The petition for the town- ship was presented to the General Court nearly two years before the date of incorporation. In the Journal of the House of Representatives (pages 84, 85), October 9, 1730, it is recorded : —

A Petition of Jorias Houghton, Simon Stotte, Jonathan Whitney, and Thotnas Wheeler, on behalf of themselves, and on behalf and at the desire of sundry of the Inhabitants on the extream parts of the Towns of Lancaster, Groton and Stow, named in the Schedule thereunto annexed ; praying, That a Tract of Land (with the Inhabitants thereon, particularly described and bounded in said Petition) belonging to the Towns above-mentioned, may be incorporated and erected into a distinct Township, agreeable to said Bounds, for Reasons mentioned. Read, together with

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