Hardwick

Geographic position

42.3500° N, 72.2000° W

Sources

http://www.townofhardwick.com/History.html

General note

Hardwick is a town in central Massachusetts. Arrowheads found in Hardwick fields suggest that Native Americans were at least hunting in this area prior to Metacom’s War. At the end of the War, some Nipmuc Indians settled in this area and made a claim to the land, which the English recognized. In 1687, John Magnus and other sachems sold a 12-by-eight-mile tract of land to eight inhabitants of Roxbury. In 1739, town inhabitants petitioned for incorporation, which they were granted, and named their town Hardwick after Lord Hardwicke, an English nobleman. Hardwick was a market-based and prosperous town in the mid-18th century. In a 1769 letter to Wheelock, David Crosby writes that he would like his brother to attend Wheelock’s school, and he offers to go to Hardwick, where his mother lives, to fulfill any business Wheelock might think necessary.