94 NATURAL HISTORY AND TOPOGRAPHY OF GROTON, MASS. 



times would obtain a little ready money. This foundry is the 

 forerunner of the Chelmsford Foundry Company, which is 

 still doing business. 



A BAPTISTERY. 



A Baptist Society was organized at Groton on Decem- 

 ber 5, 1832, and the Reverend Amasa Sanderson was the first 

 minister. Captain Josiah Clark, one of the members, gener- 

 ously gave them the use of a commodious hall in the third 

 story of a house at the south corner of Main Street and Broad 

 Meadow Road. About this time a baptistery was made by 

 <^'gg'"g out and damming up a small brook, which was used 

 during a few years by the Society for baptismal purposes. It 

 was in the neighborhood of Captain Clark's dwelling, and on 

 his land, situated within five rods of the Break-Neck Road 

 and just south of that highway. The little stream soon crosses 

 Common Street and finds its way into Nod Brook. The use 

 of this place was given up by the Society many years ago, 

 when they went, as occasion required, to the Nashua River to 

 perform the rite, and until a baptistery was made in their 

 church. The remains of the dam and excavation at this site 

 are distinctly visible, though there is now much undergrowth 

 in the immediate vicinity ; and a good-sized elm marks the 

 spot. 



A place so hallowed in former years by the affections of 

 even a small body of Christians, deserves the record of these 

 few lines. 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF GROTON. 



In the " Transactions of the Massachusetts Society for Pro- 

 moting Agriculture " (New Series, Volume I., Part II.), 

 published in the year 1859, there appears an "Agricultural 

 Survey of Middlesex County," which contains a few items of 

 sufficient local interest to be reprinted. The paper, written 

 by Dr. Joseph Reynolds, a son-in-law of Dr. Olivier Prescott, 



