Lands in either of the said Townships

In Council, Read & Concur'd,
Consented to Sam'll Shute

[General Court Records (x, 216), February 11, 1717, in the office of the
secretary of state.]

The proprietors of Groton felt sore at the loss of their territory along
the Nashobah line in the year 1714, although it would seem without
reason. They had neglected to have the plan of their grant confirmed by
the proper authorities at the proper time; and no one was to blame for
this oversight but themselves. In the autumn of 1734 they represented to
the General Court that in the laying out of the original plantation no
allowance had been made for prior grants in the same territory, and that
in settling the line with Littleton they had lost more than four
thousand acres of land; and in consideration of these facts they
petitioned for an unappropriated gore of land lying between Dunstable
and Townsend.

The necessary steps for bringing the matter before the General Court at
this time were taken at a town meeting, held on July 25, 1734. It was
then stated that the town had lost more than twenty-seven hundred and
eighty-eight acres by the encroachment of Littleton line; and that two
farms had been laid out within the plantation before it was granted to
the proprietors. Under these circumstances Benjamin Prescott was
authorized to present the petition to the General Court, setting forth
the true state of the case and all the facts connected with it. The two
farms alluded to were Major Simon Willard's, situated at Nonacoicus or
Coicus, now within the limits of Ayer, and Ralph Reed's, in the
neighborhood of the Ridges; so Mr. Butler told me several years before
his death, giving Judge James Prescott as his authority, and I carefully
wrote it down at the time. The statement is confirmed by the report of a
committee on the petition of Josiah Sartell, made to the House of
Representatives, on June 13, 1771. Willard's farm, however, was not laid
out before the original plantation was granted, but in the spring of
1658, three years after the grant. At this time Danforth had not made
his plan of the plantation, which fact may have given rise to the
misapprehension. Ralph Reed was one of the original proprietors of the
town, and owned a fifteen-acre right; but I do not find that any land
was granted him by the General Court.

It has been incorrectly supposed, and more than once so stated in print,
that the gore of land, petitione