122 NATURAL HISTORY AND TOPOGRAPHY OF GROTON, MASS. 



One hundred & Sixty acres more or less Improv' 1 Thirty acres more or 

 less oi mill pond Swamp & upland with a three quarter part of an old 

 Saw mill thereupon [the Italics are mine] now standing and it is 

 Bound Northwardly upon a high way that leadeth to a farm that is 

 called by the Name of Coycus ffarm Eastwardly with the Lands of 

 Josiah Farnsworth Southerly upon Davis's Land & Westerly upon 

 Saw mill Lands &c. 



Here we have a distinct reference to this very mill, which 

 identifies it beyond doubt; and it is interesting to note that 

 even then, nearly two hundred years ago, it was called " an 

 Old Saw mill." " Coycus ffarm " is the abbreviated spelling 

 of Nonacoicus farm, which had previously belonged to Major 

 Simon Willard. The highway, mentioned in the description, 

 is the present road from Groton to Ayer. A record of John 

 Farnsworth's lands in the Middlesex Registry of Deeds (XIII. 

 336), on May 10, 1700, refers to his " Saw Mill Land," which 

 was without question this parcel, showing that he owned it at 

 that time. 



Going back to a still earlier date, in a description of Farns- 

 worth's lands, on December 9, 1680, as found in "The Early 

 Records of Groton" (p. 182), reference is made to "a pece of 

 swamp land, lyeing betwixt the pond at John Page's saw-mill 

 and the bridg that goe to Nonicoycus, bounded round by 

 the town's comon land." Undoubtedly Page's saw-mill, here 

 mentioned, was the same as Farnsworth's, as the sites of the 

 two appear to be identical; and "the bridg that goe to 

 Nonicoycus " is still standing over James's Brook, very near 

 the bed of the old mill-pond. Page's mill was built probably 

 soon after the re-settlement of the town in the year 1678; 

 and this dam furnishes, perhaps, the earliest trace of man's 

 work that can be identified within the limits of Groton or its 

 neighborhood. 



Many years ago John Chamberlain had a saw-mill on Mar- 

 tin's Pond Brook, near the foot of Brown Loaf on its northerly 

 side. He was known about here as " Paugus John," from the 

 fact of his killing the Indian chief Paugus, in Lovewell's Fight 

 at Pequawket, on May 8, 1725. An account of this action 



