CHAPTER VII
STURBRIDGE

ELIOT'S INDIAN GRANT.--EASTERN BOUNDS.--GOV. SALTONSTALL'S TWO THOUSAND ACRES.--TANTASKWEE PASS.--THE OLD CAMPING-GROUND.--OLD OXFORD PATH

No. 23. This point is the southeast corner of the Eliot 1000 acres; being identical also with a similarly described corner of a farm owned by the late S. F. Bemis.

Following the path westward about a hundred rods or so, there may be seen a house of the same style and appearance of the oldest Adams house in Quincy. It was erected facing the old path, and is mentioned in a deed of 1752, thirteen years before the town road was laid out, which ran diagonally back of the house.

No. 24. May be found back of the Baptist Church in Fiskdale; or perhaps more easterly toward the short street east of the Post Office. The record is:--

   "leaving the old path to the south of a yellow oak tree in or near the westerly edge of Mr. Brattle's land;" that being the western half of Gov. Salstonstall's 2000 acres.

No. 25. The road by the Fair Grounds of the Worcester South Agricultural Society.

   The "old path" is mentioned here in the record of laying out the road "from the meeting house to the Brimfield line" in 1738.

No. 26. Leaving Main St., near the southeast corner of the Fair Grounds, and following a foot-path, to the old Brookfield road, the path may be seen continuing eastward to a place where the record is:

   "The place where the road from Brookfield to Woodstock unites with the road from Brimfield to Oxford." This record is dated April 1730, before there was any individual ownership of the land.

In 1738, the town laid out a road from the meeting-house to the County Gore.

Beginning at the meeting-house, they marked trees "thru the woods northward to the path." (No. 27.) And then about 50 rds. easterly along the path, "left the old path south of a small swamp" (No. 28).

A field enclosed in pasture land, in the northwest part of the farm formerly owned by the late Mr. S. F. Marsh,--now Mr. Reno, was, in the days of the old paths, a noted place of acall and camping for the hunter and those on a journey.

And it is the place where the path from Brookfield to Woodstock leaves the path from Brimfield to Oxford; having followed in the Old Bay Path, about a mile and a half. The record here is dated April 1730, which antidates the formation of Worcester County. The surveyor's record of Lot No. 6, which cornered exactly at the junction of roads, calls Woodstock path a "County Road."

The record is No. 29, and the place has been called "The old camp-ground."

Perambulation of the line between Sturbridge and Oxford, Apr. 24, 1740

"Beginning at a heap of stones, the southwest corner of Oxford, which heap of stones is the northwest corner of Mr. Winthrop's thousand acres, which thousand acres lyeth and is situated in the west end of a tract called and is commonly known by the name of Dudley's great log." The monuments were trees marked and numbered.

Running N. 4^o W. the Quinebaug River was crossed at the 17th. marked tree. The 40th. marked tree was a white oak, north of Oxford Path. A red oak southerly of Cutleg Meadow, the 43d. A stake and stones marked the northwest corner of Oxford.

"Cutleg Meadow," still called so, is a landmark; and from there southerly, along the old town line, it is about three fourths of a mile to the old path where it crossed the brook.

In both directions from the fording place there are very distinct traces of the old road.

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