Set-off of Tewksbury

Tewksbury was set off from Billerica by an act passed December 17, 1734, and was the only one of Billerica's daughter towns taken wholly from it. It comprised the northerly and northeasterly part of the town between the Concord River, the Merrimack, the Andover line and the Wilmington line, including the Winthrop farm and the part of the old Wamesit lands east of the Concord River.

The movement began among the dwellers on the Wamesit Purchase and the Winthrop farm. On December 4, 1725, Jonathan Bowers, Samuel Hunt and others petitioned the General Court to be erected into a separate town. Nothing came of it, and on June 13, 1726, Chelmsford secured the annexation of the larger part of the Wamesit Purchase, on the west side of the Concord River. A bill of 1729 to establish a Wamesit precinct, reaching from the Concord River at the line between John Rogers Jr. and Enoch Kidder to Prospect Hill and the Andover line, was approved by both houses in December, but it required the precinct to build a meeting-house and settle a minister within three years, and it lapsed when that was not done.

After Bedford's success the people of the north part renewed the effort. In 1731 they laid before the town a draft of a road they wanted and received a favorable answer. On May 13, 1733, they asked the town to "erect a meeting house in the center of the town, or so as to accommodate the northerly part of the town, upon the Town's cost, or set them off, so that they may maintain preaching among themselves." At a town meeting on December 19, 1733, the request was renewed, with the alternative that the town set them off "with two-thirds of the land lying between Andover and Billerica meeting house, from Wilmington line to Concord River, for a Township," while others preferred a precinct. The town appointed Samuel Danforth, Lieutenant Daniel Kittredge, Lieutenant Joseph Hill, Samuel Hunt Jr. and Lieutenant Joseph Kidder to view the land. On their report, January 9, 1734, the town voted that the northerly and northeasterly part be set off as a township, granting two-thirds of the land from the Andover line to the meeting-house by a line parallel with the Andover line from the Concord River to the Wilmington line, "if the inhabitants on the southeasterly side of Shawshin River be willing to join with them."

That condition could not be met, since the families east of the Shawshin were then seeking annexation to Wilmington, and Samuel Hunt and others petitioned the General Court for "an absolute grant of this Court for their being made a Towne" within the voted bounds, or for a committee to view them. A committee appointed June 7, 1734, viewed the land, heard the parties and advised a separate town on the voted bounds, its inhabitants to pay their share of the Province taxes already laid on Billerica. The act was passed December 17, 1734, and published January 4, 1735; Hazen and Farmer give the date of incorporation as December 23, 1734. The act set off the northerly and northeasterly part of Billerica with its inhabitants, two-thirds of the land from the Andover line to the Billerica meeting-house by a line parallel with the Andover line from the Concord River to the Wilmington line, and required the new town to build a meeting-house and settle a minister within two years.

Tewksbury received in round numbers nine thousand of the twenty-five thousand acres that had remained to Billerica after Bedford's separation. Hazen prints an imperfect list of forty-seven heads of families, among them Browns, Farmers, Frenches, Frosts, Halls, Haseltines, Hunts, Kittredges, Levestones, Mannings, Marshalls, Needhams, Osgoods, Pattens, Richardsons, Rogers, Sheds, Stickneys, Trulls and Whitings, and thought the true number nearer sixty; Pride's history of Tewksbury counts fifty-two families. The separation took every Hall, Haseltine, Hunt and Kittredge then on Billerica's list, "a loss too serious not to be felt." Samuel Hunt, whose garrison house near Wamesit is remembered in the name of Hunt's Falls, was active in securing the incorporation and is called the father of the town. Daniel Kittredge, who had served on Billerica's viewing committee, moderated Tewksbury's first town meeting on January 14, 1735.

The new town's first business, on January 31, 1735, was to choose a committee to settle the line with Billerica, and Pride records that the line was agreed only after long deliberation with a reluctant Billerica. The court's committee had provided only that Tewksbury pay its share of taxes already assessed, and Pride notes a first town rate of £30 to be levied by the last Billerica assessment. In 1756 Billerica told the General Court that its polls had been reduced to 240 and its territory diminished by about half of Bedford, all of Tewksbury, and several hundred acres given to Wilmington.

People

• Samuel Hunt: Petitioner of 1725 and leader of the 1734 petition; called the father of Tewksbury
• Samuel Hunt: Member of Billerica's 1733 committee to view the land
• Daniel Kittredge: Lieutenant on Billerica's 1733 viewing committee; moderator of Tewksbury's first town meeting

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 217: 1725 Wamesit petition of Jonathan Bowers and Samuel Hunt; Chelmsford's 1726 annexation; 1729 Wamesit precinct.
2. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 220: Tewksbury movement, requests of May 13 and December 19, 1733, viewing committee.
3. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 221: Billerica vote of January 9, 1734, Hunt petition, incorporation, 9,000 acres, list of families.
4. Acts and Resolves of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, vol. 2, p. 749: act dividing Billerica and erecting Tewksbury, with bounds.
5. Acts and Resolves, vol. 2, p. 750: Tewksbury act, meeting-house and minister within two years; passed December 17, 1734, published January 4, 1735.
6. Acts and Resolves, vol. 11, p. 317: 1725 petition of Samuel Hunt and Samuel Hunt Jr. and others far from the Billerica meeting-house; committee to view.
7. Acts and Resolves, vol. 11, p. 774: petition of the northerly and northeasterly inhabitants of Billerica; town's consent on uncertain conditions.
8. Acts and Resolves, vol. 12, p. 22: Samuel Hunt and others ask an absolute grant or a viewing committee; condition about inhabitants east of the Shawshin.
9. Acts and Resolves, vol. 12, p. 55: report of the committee appointed June 7, 1734, recommending the new town on the voted bounds.
10. Historical Data Relating to Counties, Cities and Towns in Massachusetts (1920), p. 42: Billerica entry, part established as Tewksbury Dec. 17, 1734.
11. Farmer, Historical Memoir of Billerica (1816), p. 17: northerly part set off, vote quoted, Tewksbury incorporated 23 December 1734.
12. Pride, Tewksbury: A Short History (1888): Samuel Hunt as father of the town, families, first town meeting, Billerica line committee, later Lowell annexations.
13. Tewksbury Historical Society, founding handout: 1725 and 1729 efforts, 1733 petition, act signed December 23, 1734, Hunt's Falls to Lowell 1834.