Annexation of the Wamesit Purchase to Chelmsford

On June 13, 1726, the General Court ordered "That the Tract of Land called Wamaset & ye Inhabitants thereon be & hereby are Annexed to & accompted as part of ye Town of Chelmsford." The tract was the Wamesit Purchase, the old Indian lands at the junction of the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Hazen treats the order in his chapter on the dismemberment of Billerica because Chelmsford's successful opposition probably ended the first movement to make a new town of the Indian lands and the adjoining north part of Billerica, and because it settled that the part of the Purchase west of the Concord River would belong to Chelmsford. Hazen describes the whole Purchase as nearly coextensive with Lowell south of the Merrimack. Strictly, the land annexed had never been part of Billerica: the petitioners described it as lying "adjacent to Billerica," and Chelmsford's historians say it belonged to no town before 1726.

The Pawtucket Indians had their chief seat at Wamesit, on both sides of the mouth of the Concord River. When Chelmsford was granted in the 1650s, land west of the river was reserved for them, and Chelmsford's line with the Indian plantation at Pawtucket was fixed on May 31, 1660. East of the river the General Court set aside five hundred acres, which a committee of Simon Willard, John Parker and Jonathan Danforth, surveyor, laid out in April 1664, running about a mile and three quarters up the Concord River to Bacon Brook and along the Merrimack. The tract was taken out of the three thousand acres earlier laid out to Mrs. Margaret Winthrop, whose heirs were given six hundred acres elsewhere. In 1679 Wait Winthrop petitioned that the land, left "in statu quo prius" by the departure of the Indians, be restored to his family, but the Court did not favor the claim.

After King Philip's War the Indians sold their lands. Major Thomas Hinchman of Chelmsford bought Wannalancet's old planting field on November 18, 1685, and by a sale of September 6, 1686, the Wamesit Indians conveyed the lands west of the Concord River to Jonathan Tyng of Dunstable and Hinchman. On December 14, 1686, Tyng and Hinchman deeded the tract to about fifty proprietors living in Chelmsford, who drew their lots on May 13, 1687, kept much of the land as a common field, and built a wall on its south side from the Merrimack to the Concord River. Jerathmeel Bowers bought the Indian field at the east end of the Purchase. East of the river, "Wanalanset, Sachem," and others sold Tyng two parcels on December 2, 1687, one of them "the old Planting ground" of 212 acres, bounded west by the Concord River and taking in the greater part of Fort Hill; Tyng asked the Governor for a confirming grant, and Hazen says he later sold the title to Borland.

Although never formally annexed to any town, the settlers on the Purchase attended meeting in Chelmsford and paid Chelmsford taxes. The arrangement broke down in 1725, when the House refused to seat Chelmsford's representative, Deacon Stephen Pierce, because he lived at Wamesit and so was not an inhabitant of Chelmsford; the people of Wamesit then refused to pay the taxes assessed on them. On December 4, 1725, "Jonathan Bowers, Samuel Hunt & divers others Dwellers on the Land called Wameseck Purchase & Winthrops Farm, Lands ly adjacent to Billerica, between Pantucket & Chelmsford Line," petitioned to be "erected into a separate & distinct Town." The petition joined the Purchase with the Winthrop farm east of the river, which lay within Billerica. Samuel Hunt had bought a fifth part of the Winthrop farm in 1691-2, and his house near Wamesit was a garrison; Jonathan Bowers, a son of Jerathmeel, had his children born in Chelmsford and removed to Billerica before 1729. The Court referred the petition to the next May session.

Chelmsford answered with a petition of its selectmen, "in Behalf of ye Said Town," praying that "a certain Tract of Land called Wemasset, with the Inhabitants thereon" be annexed to the town and made to pay its rates and taxes like other inhabitants. The Court granted it in the session begun May 25, 1726, and the Province Laws record the order as passed June 13, 1726; Waters's History of Chelmsford gives the date of the order as June 10. The order named no bounds. Allen says it took in both the Concord River neck, between River Meadow Brook and the Concord River, and the great neck, the whole Indian plantation northeast of old Chelmsford between the two rivers. Hazen and Waters describe it as the annexation of the greater part of the Purchase, the part west of the Concord River.

The land east of the river, including the Winthrop farm, Fort Hill and Hunt's garrison, stayed with Billerica, and its people renewed their efforts. In 1729 the Court considered a Wamesit parish whose bounds crossed the Concord River and included "Wamasset or the Whole Indian Purchase," and in December it voted a Wamesit precinct, "the former order of this Court referring to Wamasset Purchase Lands notwithstanding." Hazen thought this proviso was meant to undo the annexation to Chelmsford, but the precinct failed to build a meeting-house and settle a minister within three years, and the annexation stood. The east side went with the north part of Billerica into Tewksbury in 1734. The Chelmsford part of the Purchase became the village of East Chelmsford and was incorporated as the town of Lowell on March 1, 1826, and Lowell took the Belvidere district at Hunt's Falls from Tewksbury in 1834, so that nearly all of the old Wamesit lands came to lie within one city.

People

• Samuel Hunt: Petitioner of Dec. 4, 1725 for a separate town of the Wamesit Purchase and Winthrop's farm; owner of part of the Winthrop farm, garrison near Hunt's Falls
• Capt. Jonathan Bowers: First-named petitioner of Dec. 4, 1725; son of Jerathmeel Bowers of Chelmsford, removed to Billerica before 1729
• Jonathan Danforth: Surveyor who laid out the 500-acre Wamesit Indian reservation east of the Concord River in April 1664

References

1. Acts and Resolves of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, vol. 11, p. 28, chap. 62: Chelmsford selectmen's petition and order annexing Wamaset to Chelmsford, passed June 13, 1726.
2. Acts and Resolves, vol. 10, p. 696: petition of Jonathan Bowers, Samuel Hunt and others, dwellers on Wameseck Purchase and Winthrop's farm, to be a separate town (Dec. 1725).
3. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 217: Dec. 4, 1725 petition; Chelmsford's annexation of the larger part of the Wamesit Purchase west of the Concord River, June 13, 1726.
4. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 218: 1729 Wamesit parish bounds including the whole Indian Purchase; precinct proviso and its failure.
5. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 103: Danforth's April 1664 survey of 500 acres for the Wamesit Indians east of the Concord River, out of Mrs. Winthrop's farm.
6. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 104: Winthrop heirs granted 600 acres elsewhere; Bacon Brook bound; Lowell line east of the river near the Indian survey.
7. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 124: Wannalancet's sale to Jonathan Tyng, Dec. 2, 1687, of 212 acres east of the Concord River at Fort Hill; Tyng's petition.
8. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 125: Wait Winthrop's 1679 petition to recover Wamesit; Tyng secured the title and sold to Borland.
9. Waters, History of Chelmsford (1917), p. 511: start of H. S. Perham's paper The Wamesit Purchase; Chelmsford moves to buy the Indian title in 1685.
10. Waters, History of Chelmsford (1917), p. 512: purchase by Jonathan Tyng and Maj. Thomas Hinchman, conveyed to about fifty Chelmsford proprietors.
11. Waters, History of Chelmsford (1917), p. 516: Hinchman's 1685 planting field; Jerathmel Bowers buys the Indian field at the east end; acreage estimates.
12. Waters, History of Chelmsford (1917), p. 524: Wamesit never formally annexed; Stephen Pierce refused his seat in 1725; Wamesit people refuse Chelmsford taxes.
13. Waters, History of Chelmsford (1917), p. 525: 1725 petition for a separate town, Chelmsford's counter-petition, and the order annexing Wameset (dated there June 10, 1726).
14. Waters, History of Chelmsford (1917), p. 474: Chelmsford opposed the separate town and secured annexation of the greater part of the Wamesit purchase, June 13, 1726.
15. Waters, History of Chelmsford (1917), p. 468: Chelmsford chronology: 1660 Pawtucket line, Wameset annexed June 13, 1726, part established as Lowell Mar. 1, 1826.
16. Allen, History of Chelmsford (1820), p. 27: Wamesit Purchase of 1686 sold to Tyng and Hinchman, 46 proprietors, wall and common pasture, annexed to Chelmsford 1726.
17. Allen, History of Chelmsford (1820), p. 45: Stephen Pierce refused his seat, Wamesit refuses taxes, Concord River neck and great neck annexed by act of Court 1726.
18. Tewksbury Historical Society, founding handout: 1725 and 1729 Wamesit efforts, Tewksbury's 1734 founding, Hunt's Falls area taken by Lowell in 1834.