56 FACTS RELATING TO GROTON, MASSACHUSETTS. 



farm, — where Jonas Prescott, of Groton, the grandfather of 

 Colonel William Prescott, the American commander at Bunker 

 Hill, had his grist-mill. John Prescott, of Lancaster, in his 

 will, dated October 8, 1673, and on file in the Middlesex 

 County Probate Office at East Cambridge, says in reference 

 to his third son Jonas, named above, that " he hath Re- 

 ceiued a full Childs portion at nonecoicus in a Corne mill 

 and Lands and other goods." After the death of Major 

 Willard, Nonacoicus farm passed into the hands of Hezekiah 

 Usher, and the deed speaks of the place as " Nonaicoicus 

 farme"; and in Sewall's Diary there are many allusions both 

 to Usher and his wife. Usher's will is dated at Nonacoicus, 

 on August 17, 1689. The judge himself was a member of 

 the Third Church of Christ in Boston, now known as the 

 " Old South," where he was a constant attendant on Sun- 

 days ; and the minister at the time of the writing on the fly- 

 leaf, was the Reverend Samuel Willard, a former preacher at 

 Groton, and son of the first owner of the farm. All these 

 circumstances, trivial in themselves, tend to show that the 

 Indian name of the place was familiar to Sewall. The farm 

 was situated on the banks of the Nashua River, in a neigh- 

 borhood full of Indian traditions and associations. Major 

 Willard's house was the first dwelling burned by the savages, 

 when the town of Groton was destroyed in the spring of 

 1676. 



My friend George J. Burns, Esq., a lawyer of Ayer, who 

 has passed his whole life in the neighborhood of Nonacoicus, 

 and is withal an accurate antiquary, thinks that the name was 

 owing to the natural conformation of the land. The following 

 letter, written by him in answer to one from me, gives a high 

 degree of plausibility to his theory in the matter: 



Ayer, Mass., May 10, 1893. 

 Hon. Samuel A. Green, 



30 Tremont St., Boston : 



My dear Dr. Green, — Upon the west side of the Nashua River, 

 near the mouth of Nonacoicus Brook, there is a very peculiar natural 

 formation that could not have escaped the attention of the Indians ; 

 and it was of sufficient importance, both as a landmark, and as a post 



