154
��Wachusett Mountain and Pi'inceton.
��then, like all our beautiful New-Eng- land farming- towns, it has fallen off in population, having at the present time but little over one thousand people dwelling within its limits. Yet neither the town nor the character of the peo- ple has degenerated in the last cen- tury. Persevering industry has brought into existence in this town some of the most beautiful farms in New England, and in 1875 the value of farm products was nearly a quarter of a million dollars. Manufacturing has never been carried on to any great extent in this town. " In Princeton there are four grist mills, five saw mills, and one fulling mill and clothiers' works," says Whitney in 1793. Now lumber and chair-stock are the prin- cipal manufactured products, and in 1875 the value of these, together with the products of other smaller manufac- turing industries, was nearly seventy thousand dollars.
Princeton is the birthplace of several men who have become well known, among whom may be mentioned Ed- ward Savage (1761-181 7), noted as a skilful portrait-painter ; David Everett (i 770-1813), the journahst, and author of those famihar schoolboy verses be- ginning : —
"You'd scarce expect one of my age To speak in public on the stage";
and Leonard Woods, d.d., the eminent theologian.
This locality derives additional in- terest from the fact that Mrs. Row- landson, in her book entitled Twenty Removes, designates it as the place where King Philip released her from captivity in the spring of 1676. Tra- dition still points out the spot where this release took place, in a meadow near a large bowlder at the eastern base of the mountain. The bowlder is
��known to this day as " Redemption Rock." It is quite near the margin of Wachusett Lake, a beautiful sheet of water covering over one hundred acres. This is a favorite place for picnic par- ties from neighboring towns, and the several excellent hotels and boarding- houses in the immediate vicinity afford accommodations for summer visitors, who frequent this locality in large numbers.
The Indian history of this region is brief, but what there is of it is interest- ing to us on account of King Philip's connection with it. At the outbreak of the Narragansett War, in 1675, ^^^ Wachusetts, in spite of their solemn compact with the colonists, joined King Philip, and, after his defeat, " the lands about the Wachusetts" became one of his headquarters, and he was frequently in that region. For many years their wigwams were scattered about the base of the mountain and along the border of the lake, and tradition informs us that on a large fiat rock near the lake their council-fires were often hghted.
Until 1 75 1, but three families had settled in the Wachusett tract. In May of that year Robert Keyes, a noted hunter, settled there with his family, upon the eastern slope of the mountain, near where the present carriage-road to the summit begins. On April 14, 1755, a child of his named Lucy, about five years old, strayed away, presumably to follow her sisters wh -) had gone to the lake, about a mile distant. She was never heard of again, though the woods were diligently searched for weeks. Whitney speaks of this incident, and concludes that " she was taken by the Indians and carried into their countrv, and soon forgot her relations, lost her native language, and became as one of the aborigines." In 1765 Keyes peti-
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