WacJmsett Mountain and Princeton.
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��first sight, of this mountain, or of any portion of the region now comprised in Worcester County, is recorded in Governor Winthrop's journal, in which, under the date of January 27, 1632, is written : " The Governour and some company with him, went up by Charles Ri\er about eight miles above Water- town." The party after climbing an eminence in the vicinity of their halt- ing-place saw " a very high hill, due west about forty miles off, and to the N. W. the high hills by Merrimack, above sixty miles off." The " very high hill " seen by them for the first time was unquestionably Wachusett.
"On the 20th of October, 1759, the General Court of Massachusetts, passed an act for incorporating the east wing, so called, of Rutland, together with sundry farms and some publick lands contiguous thereto," as a district under the name of Prince Town, " to perpetuate the name and memory of the late Rev. Thomas Prince, colleague pastor of the Old South church in Boston, and a large proprietor of this tract of land." The district thus in- corporated contained about nineteen thousand acres ; but on April 24, 1771, its inhabitants petitioned the General Court, that it, " with all the lands ad- joining said District, not included in any other town or District," be incor- porated into a town by the name of Princeton ; and by the granting of this petition, the area of the town was increased to twenty-two thousand acres.
The principal citizen of Princeton at this period was the Honorable Moses Gill, who married the daughter of the Reverend Thomas Prince. He was a man of considerable note in the county also, holding office as one of the judges of the court of common pleas for the
��county of Worcester, and being " for several years Counsellor of this Com- monwealth." His country-seat, located at Princeton, was a very extensive es- tate, comprising nearly three thousand acres. Mr. Whitney appears to have been personally familiar with this place, and his description of it is so graphic and enthusiastic, that it may be inter- esting to quote a portion of it.
" His noble and elegant seat is about one mile and a quarter from the meet- ing-house, to the south. The mansion- house is large, being fifty by fifty feet, with four stacks of chimneys. The farmhouse is forty feet by thirty-six. In a line with this stands the coach and chaise house, fifty feet by thirty-six. This is joined to the barn by a shed seventy feet in length — the bam is two hundred feet by thirty-two. Very elegant fences are erected around the mansion-house, the outhouses, and the garden. When we view this seat, these buildings, and this farm of so many hundred acres under a high degree of profitable cultivation, and are told that in the year 1776 it was a perfect wilderness, we are struck with wonder, admiration, and astonishment. Upon the whole, the seat of Judge Gill, all the agreeable circumstances respecting it being attentively considered, is not paralleled by any in the New England States : perhaps not by any this side the Delaware."
Judge Gill was a very benevolent and enterprising man, and did much to advance the welfare of the town in its infancy. During the first thirty years of its existence, it increased rapidly in wealth and population, having in 1 790 one thousand and sixteen inhabitants. For the next half-century it increased slowly, having in 1840 thirteen hun- dred and forty-seven inhabitants. Since
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