History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts - citizen hylbom blog

270
HISTOEY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
READING,
BY HIRAM BAKUUS AND CARROLL D. WRIGHT.
HE town of Reading, which formerly
included the present
towns of Reading, Wakefield,
and North Reading, was once
the domain and hunting-ground
of the Saugus tribe of Indians.
They cultivated the lands bordering
upon the Great Pond
(now Lake Quaiiapowitt), and
the proofs of their residence
here ire se n ni the numerous implements of stone not for some years exist. The different officials
still found n the vicinity.^
were created from time to time as the exigencies
The colonial records show that in September, of the situation seemed to require. No provision
1639, the inhabitants of Lymi petitioned " for a
place for an inland plantation at the head of their
bounds." A tract of land four miles square was
granted, with the condition " that the petitioners
shall, within two years, make some good proceed-
ing in planting, so as it may be a village fit to
contain a convenient number of inhabitants, which
may, in due time, have a cliurch there."
was incorporated May 29, 1644', by the name of
" Redding," in honor of Reading in England,
whence, it is said, some of the first settlers of Lynn
Village came. The four miles square included
nearly the same territory now constituting Reading
and Wakefield. The first settlements were made
near the southern part of the Great Pond. The
names of the earliest settlers are in doubt, the
first records of Lynn and Reading being imperfect.
It is believed that the following nanred persons,
with their families, were residents about the
time of incorporation : Nicholas Brown, Tiiomas
Clark, Jolm Damon, William Cowdrey, George
Davis, Robert and Samuel Dunton, Josiali Dustin,
Jonas Eaton, William Eaton, Zachariah Fitch, Isaac
I Mr. James H. Carter of Wakefield has a very fine eoUectioii
of arrow-heads, stone pestles, hatehct-hcads, and other Indian
relies found hire.
Hart, Thomas Hartshorn, William Hooper, Tliomas
Kendall, John Laukin, Thomas ^larshall, William
Martin, John Pearson, John Poole, Thomas Par-
ker, Francis Smith, John Smith, Jeremy Swayne,
Thomas and Edward Taylor, Richard and Samuel
Walker, John Wiley.
Tliose who have had occasion to examine the
early records of the town assume that portions have
been lost, but they seem to forget that the boards of
town officers, common enough at the present, did
appears to have been made for some years for call-
ing town-meetings, or for keeping records of their
doings.2
The earliest entry in the records of this town is
dated the 6tli of the eleventli month, 1644, when
land was given John Poole. An agreement was
made with him to build a water-mill for the use of
the town. lie was to keep it in repair at his own
In 1640 the court ordered that "Lynn Village," expense, and attend to grinding corn two or three
the name first given to the new settlement, should days of the week unless more days were required.
be exempted from taxes " as soon as seven houses The town gave him control of the river and such
be built and seven families settled." The town land as should be needful for tlie mill. It agreed
neither to set up, nor to allow to be set up, any other
mill within the bounds of Reading to hinder the
custom of said mill, so long as said Poole, his heirs,
etc., should well and sufficiently grind for the town's
use. The mill was built near the present site of
the Rattan Works in Wakefield.
Several grants of land were made at the same
date to other persons who appear to have been resi-
dents.
The first chvjrch was organized in 1644 or 1645,
being tiic twenty-fourth in the colony. A house
of worship was probably built about the same time.
The absence of records indicates that it was done
* Meapirc records seem to have been a cause of general com-
plaint. In 1639 the court, referring to the imperfect records kept
in civil suits, decree that fuller records be kept, as they might be
of good use as precedent for posterity. The loss of early town
records, so often lamented, may be largely dnc to the fact that