FOREWARD
It was in 1880 or thereabouts, while coming home in a train, that I happened to be seated with a friend of congenial historic instincts, and the conversation drifted to the subject of the first comers in the settlement of our town.
An interesting thought came to my mind and I said, "Where, do you suppose, is the location of the way, road or path used by those who came first from Medfield, and other eastern towns, into this then unoccupied territory?"
The answer was not forthcoming at that time, but the conversation initiated the buzzing of a bee which has led to the finding of the "Bay Path"; a hobby, and also a recreation during all these years of labor.
Delving among the Archives of the town for genealogical data, I cam upon the old book of "Proprietors' Records." I copied the verbal description of the first surveys of land grants, found in the old volume, and with those copies at home, in course of time had a map, with all the lots in their relative positions.
Among the many facts revealed by that reconstruction was the location of the "Brimfield and Oxford Path" and the "Brookfield and Woodstock Path" found here before the settlement of the town, date of April 1730, before there was any individual ownership of land here, and before Worcester County was formed.
April 2, 1895, I read a paper before the Worcester Society of Antiquity entitled "Early Indian Trails Thru Tantiusque" which was published by the Society in their "Proceedings" and reprinted in the Quinebaug Historical Society Leaflets, Vol. I, No. 6.
It was there suggested that the Brimfield and Oxford Path was a section of the old "Bay Path" and previous to that was a connecting link between converging lines of paths of the aborigines.
That article in the Proceedings of the Worcester Society of Antiquity attracted the attention of the late Rev. Edward G. Porter of Boston, then president of the N. E. Historic Genealogical Society.
Mr. Porter came to see me several times. We rode from Brimfield to Millbury and got a general view of the route.
During one of his visits we went over to the "Leadmine." He told me that Mr. Robert C. Winthrop had the old deeds and other papers about the "Leadmine" and suggested that with my local knowledge I might make good use of them.
I expressed a desire to obtain copies and then would see what I could do. Upon Mr. Porter's application, Mr. Winthrop decided that he could not let the papers go out of a fire-proof building, but would gladly make arrangements for me to have the use of them.
He caused a suitable blank-book to be prepared, in which he secured all the papers in the order of their dates.
I was invited to make use of the book at the Boston Atheneum, and the privilege was gratefully accepted.
In March, 1898, I, with my daughter, Nellie M. Chase, spent four or five days, carefully tracing maps and copying old deeds and records pertaining to the early days at Tantiusque.
Mr. Porter was deeply interested in the search for the "Bay Path" at that time.
After his death, I prepared and read before the N. E. Historic Genealogical Society, "The Interpretation of Woodward and Saffery's Map of 1642," illustrated by a map, in two colors.
That was printed in the "Register" for April 1901, and reprinted with additions and corrections in the Quinebaug Historical Society's Leaflets, Vol. I, No. 7.
In that work, the question of the location of the "Bay Path" was removed from the field of conjecture to the plane of historic fact.
Replotting the Proprietors' land grants of Sturbridge revealed the location of Rev. John Elliot's thousand acres, conveyed to him by the Indians in 1655. A part of the tract extends into the town of Brimfield, and I found a stone monument, evidently erected by the Indians, for the western bounds.
The Quinebaug Historical Society had a field day and visited the monument. That attracted the attention of Mr. C. S. Allen of Brimfield, who, during the decade following the publication of the "Interpretation of Woodward and Saffery's Map," aided me very much in my tracing of the path thru Brimfield and Monson, by furnishing me copies of land grants for observation, and also by accompanying me on some of my excursions.
By 1910 the "Bay Path" was located on my maps and personally investigated thru a large part of its actual location.
Early in the spring of 1911, Rev. William DeLoss Love of Hartford came to my house and said that he had been appointed to deliver an address on the 31st of May, the anniversary of the departure from Cambridge of the party of founders of Hartford, led by Rev. Thomas Hooker, and that he proposed to take them over the road.
He said that his expectation had been to pass by the way of the old Connecticut road thru Woodstock, being prejudiced in favor of that way. He had seen my leaflets and wished to talk with me. We looked over my work, we walked along the path to the old camping-ground, whence we could view the general course of the old path either way for many miles.
Correspondence and interchange of facts followed the interview.
In 1914 Mr. Love published his valuable "Colonial History of Hartford," in which he adopted the "Bay Path" as the route of the "Pilgrimage of Thomas Hooker." And it was about that time that, in the "History of Springfield," by H. M. Burt, I found in the records of the establishment of the eastern line of that town the complete identification of my work as the location of "The Bay Path."
I have taken a great deal of pleasure in compiling the Indian history of Tantaskwee in Nipnet, along the way of
"THE BAY PATH."
STURBRIDGE, MASS.
January 24, 1919.
Transcribed by Kathy Leigh
from original book pgs. vii-xiii
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