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��The Boundary Lines of Old Groton. — /.
��[May,
��THE BOUNDARY LINES OF OLD GROTON. — L
By the Hon. Samuel Abbott Green, M.D.
��The original grant of the township of Groton was made by the General Court, on May 25, 1655, and gave to the proprietors a tract of land eight miles square ; though during the next year this was modified so that its shape varied somewhat from the first plan. It comprised all of what is now Groton and Ayer, nearly all of Pepper- ell and Shirley, large parts of Dunstable and Littleton, smaller parts of Harvard and Westford, Massachusetts, and a por- tion of Nashua, New Hampshire. The grant was taken out of the very wilder- ness, relatively far from an}^ other town, and standing like a sentinel on the frontiers. Lancaster, fourteen miles away, was its nearest neighbor in the southwesterly direction on the one side ; and Andover and Haverhill, twenty and twenty-five miles distant, more or less, in the northeasterly direction on the other. No settlement on the north stood between it and the settlements in Canada. Chelmsford and Billerica were each incorporated about the same time, though a few days later.
When the grant was made, it was expressly stipulated that Mr. Jonathan Danforth, of Cambridge, with such others as he might desire, should lay it out with all convenient speed in order to encourage the prompt settlement of a minister; and furthermore that the selectmen of the town should pay a fair amount for his services. During the next year a petition, signed by Deane Winthrop and seven others, was pre- sented to the General Court asking for certain changes in the conditions, and among them the privilege to employ
��another "artist" in the place of Mr. Danforth, as he was overrun with busi- ness. The petition was referred to a committee who reported favorably upon it, and the request was duly granted. Formerly a surveyor was called an artist, and in old records the word is often found with that meaning.
Ensign Peter Noyes, of Sudbury, was then engaged by the grantees and he began the survey; but his death, on September 23, 1657, delayed the speedy accomplishment of the work. It is known that there was some trouble in the early settlement of the place, grow- ing out of the question of lands, but its exact character is not recorded ; per- haps it was owing to the delay which now occurred. Ensign Noyes was a noted surveyor, but not so famous as Jonathan Danforth, whose name is often mentioned in the General Court records, in connection with the laying out of lands and towns, and many of whose plans are still preserved among the Archives in the State House. Dan- fordi was the man wanted at first for the undertaking ; and after Noyes's death he took charge of it, and his elder brother, Thomas, was associated with him. The plat or plan of the land, however, does not appear to have been completed until April, 1668. The sur\'ey was made during the preceding year. At a meeting of the selectmen of the town, held on November 23, 1667, it is recorded that a rate should be levied in order to pay " the Artest and the men that attended him and his diet for him- self and his horse, and for two sheets of parchment, for him to make two platts
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