Groton

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Groton MA is located in northwestern Middlesex County, Massachusetts with a population of about 11 thousand people. Official Website. Groton Schools.

The Groton Story

The area surrounding modern-day Groton has, for thousands of years, been the territory of various cultures of indigenous peoples. They settled along the rivers, which they used for domestic tasks, fishing and transportation. Historic tribes were the Algonquian-speaking Nipmuc and Nashaway Indians.

Lithograph of Groton from 1886 by L.R. Burleigh with list of landmarks

The Anglo-American Groton started with the trading post of John Tinker, who conducted business there with the Nashaway at the confluence of Nod Brook and the Nashua River. The Nashaway called the area Petapawag, meaning “swampy land.” As Tinker had, other pioneers followed the Algonquian trails from Massachusetts Bay. They found the region productive for fishing and farming.

The town was officially settled and incorporated in 1655, named for Groton in Suffolk, England. Called The Plantation of Groton, it included all of present-day Groton and Ayer, almost all of Pepperell and Shirley, large parts of Dunstable, Littleton, and Tyngsborough, plus smaller parts of Harvard and Westford in Massachusetts, as well as Nashua and Hollis, New Hampshire.

During King Philip’s War, on March 13, 1676, Native Americans burned all buildings except for four Groton garrisons. Among those killed was John Nutting, a Selectman at Groton. Survivors fled to Concord and other safe havens, but two years later returned to rebuild.^] Native Americans attacked the town again during the Raid on Groton in 1694 (during King William’s War).

In 1704 during Queen Anne’s War, a French-Abenaki raid captured three children of Thomas Tarbell and his wife, among others, taking them overland about 300 miles to the Mohawk village of Kahnewake south of Montreal, where they would be held for ransom or adopted into the tribe by individual Mohawk families. The trade in captives was a thriving business between the opposing colonies of the English and French. The two Tarbell boys, John and Zachariah, were adopted by Mohawk families and became fully assimilated, later marrying into the tribe, having families, and becoming chiefs. They were among the founders in the 1740s of Akwesasne, after moving up the St. Lawrence River from Kahnewake. The brothers’ older sister Sarah Tarbell was ransomed by a French family, and converted to Catholicism. She joined a Catholic teaching/nursing religious order in Montreal and served with them for the rest of her life. There are Tarbell-named descendants among Mohawk of Kahnewake and Akwesasne in the 21st century.

In 1775, the common in front of the First Parish Church was an assembly area for Minutemen who fought in the Battle of Lexington and Concord.^]

Groton Photos

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