MOUNT WACHUSETT. IOI 



MOUNT WACHUSETT. 



It may seem somewhat out of place to put Wachusett in 

 this list of Groton names, but the mountain, though miles 

 away, is so conspicuous an object and so familiar to every 

 resident of the town, that I include it in my scheme. 



The earliest allusion to the Wachusett Mountain is found 

 in Governor John Winthrop's Journal, — usually called his 

 History of New England, — where the writer gives an account 

 of a reconnoitring trip made by himself and some others, on 

 January 27, 163 1-2. The party followed up the banks of 

 the Charles River to a distance of about " eight miles above 

 Watertown," which brought them within the present limits 

 of Waltham. The Governor describes with some minuteness 

 the main features of the country, and mentions the names 

 given by them to several places and points of interest along 

 the way. Beaver Brook in Waltham was christened at that 

 time, and the name has clung to the stream for nearly three 

 hundred years. Mount Feake, standing near the Charles 

 River, then also received the name which it still bears. 

 Winthrop says : — 



On the west side of Mount Feake, they went up a very high rock, 

 from whence they might see all over Neipnett, and a very high hill 

 due west, about forty miles off, and to the N. \V. the high hills by 

 Merrimack, above sixty miles off. 



Without question the " very high hill " seen from this point 

 was the Wachusett Mountain, the highest elevation in Massa- 

 chusetts, east of the Connecticut River, and at that time, not 

 known to the English by any name. " Neipnett " was another 

 form of Nipmuck, which embraced a large territory lying in 

 the southern part of Central Massachusetts, and extending 

 even into the present limits of Connecticut. The " Nipmuck 

 country " is an expression often found in the early history of 

 New England, but its boundaries were necessarily very indefi- 

 nite. " The high hills by Merrimack " were perhaps those, east 

 of the Grand Monadnock, now situated in the townships of New 

 Ipswich, Temple, Peterborough, Lyndeborough, and Goffs- 



