AN OLD WALL. JONAS PRESCOTT, the progenitor of the numerous families. of the name in this neighborhood, was a blacksmith by trade, and owned the mill in the south part of Groton, now within the limits of Harvard. It is said that a grant of land, made in the spring of 1678, by the town when it was much in need. of a blacksmith, induced him to remove nearer to the village. He built a house and shop on the lot, which was situated on the easterly side of James's Brook, perhaps a third of a mile south of Lawrence Academy. He bought lands, until he became one of the largest owners of real estate in the town. In the year 1876 a piece of stone wall was removed, which separated a part of his house-lot from the highway,— near where it forks from the Boston road, and which contained a small boulder, bearing this inscription: I P 1680 Rebuilt by 1784 rebuilt by S. J. Park The initials I. P. are those of Jonas Prescott, rudely cut, undoubtedly by himself, and O. P. are those of his grandson, Dr. Oliver Prescott. Three years after this part of the wall was taken away, I endeavored to find the stone, then to all intents and purposes lost, and it was a long while before I got any trace of it. Willard H. Giles, the owner of the farm at that time, knew nothing about it, and in fact had never seen it. I was told, however, that it might have been used in stoning up the cellar of a barn built in 1876, and here I directed my attention. With Mr. Giles's permission I employed two men for two days to take out and replace various stones, until the missing one was found. Subsequently I gave the memorial to James Lawrence, a lineal descendant of Jonas Prescott, who has had it set in the wall on the north side of his front gate, where it is likely to remain for many years. "THE NECK." In the town-records, as early as February 17, 1670, a reference is made "to the neck vpon the riuer." This is an allusion to a peninsula that once belonged to Amos Farnsworth's farm. It was formed by a long bend in the Nashua River, — perhaps a hundred and thirty rods around, and joined to the main land by a neck, probably not more than thirty rods wide. At a period near the middle of the last century, very likely during a spring freshet, it was entirely severed from the farm, by the river's breaking through the neck, thus leaving an island of several acres, now partially covered with a growth of pines. The Honorable Claudius Buchanan Farnsworth, of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, who was born and passed his early life in the immediate neighborhood of this particular place, tells me that, during his boyhood, his grandfather, Major Amos Farnsworth, used to relate how the affair happened, though it was before his grandfather's recollection, and he was born on April 28, 1754. The Major's father, Amos, Senior, had previously owned the neck or peninsula, and it was during his ownership that the new channel was formed. He continued to hold it, until the day of his death, which occurred on December 5, 1775, by the upsetting of a boat, in which he and his youngest son, Benjamin, were crossing over the river to this very island, when both were drowned. |