The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, No. VI. June, 1884 | Page 9

Merrimack is southerly, for a long distance from where it is formed by the union of the Winnepeseogee and the Pemigewasset Rivers, and then it turns and runs twenty-five or thirty miles in a northeasterly direction to its mouth; and this deflexion in the current caused the dispute. The difference between the actual and the supposed direction was a matter of little practical importance so long as the neighboring territory remained unsettled, or so long as the two provinces were essentially under one government; but as the population increased it became an exciting and vexatious question. Towns were chartered by Massachusetts in territory claimed by New Hampshire, and this action led to bitter feeling and provoking legislation. Massachusetts contended for the land "nominated in the bond," which would carry the line fifty miles northward into the very heart of New Hampshire; and on the other hand that province strenuously opposed this view of the case, and claimed that the line should run, east and west, three miles north of the mouth of the river. At one time, a royal commission was appointed to consider the subject, but their labors produced no satisfactory result. At last the matter was carried to England for a decision, which was rendered by the king on March 5, 1739-40. His judgment was final, and in favor of New Hampshire. It gave that province not only all the territory in dispute, but a strip of land fourteen miles in width, lying along her southern border, mostly west of the Merrimack, which she had never claimed. This strip was the tract of land between the line running east and west, three miles north of the southernmost trend of the river, and a similar line three miles north of its mouth. By the decision twenty-eight townships were taken from Massachusetts and transferred to New Hampshire. The settlement of this disputed question was undoubtedly a public benefit, although it caused, at the time, a great deal of hard feeling. In establishing 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 officially 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, leaving 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 Tyngsborough 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 _Jonas Prescot, Ebenezer Prescot, Abner Kent_, and _Ebenezer Townsend_, Inhabitants of the Town of _Groton_, praying, That they and their Estates, contained 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 township 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 _Jonas Houghton, Simon Stone, Jonathan Whitney_, and _Thomas 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