RUFUS HAZARD. 93 



vote, or fallen into disuse, at a date now unknown to me. A 

 peculiarity of this highway was that the road lay wholly in 

 Groton, while the land abutting on the north side was in 

 Pepperell. The few scattered houses along this road were all 

 on the north side, so that it had been kept open by the town 

 for the accommodation of non-residents. Some surprise has 

 been expressed that it was ever laid out in this manner ; but 

 the explanation of the anomaly goes back to the time when 

 Pepperell was set off, on November 26, 1742, as the West 

 Precinct of Groton. The incorporation of a precinct car- 

 ried with it only the right to manage their own ecclesiastical 

 affairs, but not the right to lay out roads or to levy taxes for 

 that purpose; so that a precinct was still obliged to share 

 the general expenses of the parent town. In answer to the 

 petition for the West or Second Precinct of Groton, which is 

 dated May 26, 1742, the General Court established the Town- 

 send road as the southern boundary of the precinct, and the 

 northern side of the road was taken rather than the middle. 

 At that time the expense of supporting it came equally on 

 the town and on the new precinct; and the exact line of 

 division was of no practical importance. When the precinct 

 became the town of Pepperell, the condition of affairs was al- 

 tered, but the change does not seem to have been then recog- 

 nized. The old Townsend road went over Fitch's Bridge, or 

 rather over the bridge in that immediate neighborhood, which 

 was of an earlier date than the one half a mile below at what 

 is now called Paper Mill Village, though the latter was built 

 very soon afterward. 



RUFUS HAZARD. 



To Rufus Hazard, a colored person, for extraordinary exertions 

 and hazard, in attempting to save Samuel Williams, who had sunk in 

 Squamcook [Sqiiannacook] River. $10. 



From " History of the Humane Society of tlie Commonwealth of Massachu- 

 setts," Boston, 1876, p. 58. 



