"On the 20th of October, 1759, the General Court of Massachusetts, passed an act for incorporating the east wing, so called, of Rutland, together with sundry farms and some publick lands contiguous thereto," as a district under the name of Prince Town, "to perpetuate the name and memory of the late Rev. Thomas Prince, colleague pastor of the Old South church in Boston, and a large proprietor of this tract of land." The district thus incorporated contained about nineteen thousand acres; but on April 24, 1771, its inhabitants petitioned the General Court, that it, "with all the lands adjoining said District, not included in any other town or District," be incorporated into a town by the name of Princeton; and by the granting of this petition, the area of the town was increased to twenty-two thousand acres.
The principal citizen of Princeton at this period was the Honorable Moses Gill, who married the daughter of the Reverend Thomas Prince. He was a man of considerable note in the county also, holding office as one of the judges of the court of common pleas for the county of Worcester, and being "for several years Counsellor of this Commonwealth." His country-seat, located at Princeton, was a very extensive estate, comprising nearly three thousand acres. Mr. Whitney appears to have been personally familiar with this place, and his description of it is so graphic and enthusiastic, that it may be interesting to quote a portion of it.
"His noble and elegant seat is about one mile and a quarter from the meeting-house, to the south. The mansion-house is large, being fifty by fifty feet, with four stacks of chimneys. The farmhouse is forty feet by thirty-six. In a line with this stands the coach and chaise house, fifty feet by thirty-six. This is joined to the barn by a shed seventy feet in length—the barn is two hundred feet by thirty-two. Very elegant fences are erected around the mansion-house, the outhouses, and the garden. When we view this seat, these buildings, and this farm of so many hundred acres under a high degree of profitable cultivation, and are told that in the year 1776 it was a perfect wilderness, we are struck with wonder, admiration, and astonishment. Upon the whole, the seat of Judge Gill, all the agreeable circumstances respecting it being attentively considered, is not paralleled by any in the New England States: perhaps not by any this side the Delaware."
Judge Gill was a very benevolent and enterprising man, and did much to advance the welfare of the town in its infancy. During the first thirty years of its existence, it increased rapidly in wealth and population, having in 1790 one thousand and sixteen inhabitants. For the next half-century it increased slowly, having in 1840 thirteen hundred and forty-seven inhabitants. Since then, like all our beautiful New-England farming-towns, it has fallen off in population, having at the present time but little over one thousand people dwelling within its limits. Yet neither the town nor the character of the people has degenerated in the last century. Persevering industry has brought into existence in this town some of the most beautiful farms in New England, and in 1875 the value of farm products was nearly a quarter of a million dollars. Manufacturing has never been carried on to any great extent in this town. "In Princeton there are four grist mills, five saw mills, and one fulling mill and clothiers' works," says Whitney in 1793. Now lumber and chair-stock are the principal manufactured products, and in 1875 the value of these, together with the products of other smaller manufacturing industries, was nearly seventy thousand dollars.
Princeton is the birthplace of several men who have become well known, among whom may be mentioned Edward Savage (1761-1817), noted as a skilful portrait-painter; David Everett (1770-1813), the journalist, and author of those familiar schoolboy verses beginning:—
"You'd scarce expect one of my age
To speak in public on the stage";
and Leonard Woods, D.D., the eminent theologian.
This locality derives additional interest from the fact that Mrs. Rowlandson, in her book entitled Twenty Removes, designates it as the place where King Philip released her from captivity in the spring of 1676. Tradition still points out the spot where this release took place, in a meadow near a large bowlder at the eastern base of the mountain. The bowlder is known to this day as "Redemption Rock." It is quite near the margin of Wachusett Lake, a beautiful sheet of water covering over one hundred acres. This is a favorite place for picnic parties from neighboring towns, and the several excellent hotels and boarding-houses in the immediate vicinity afford accommodations for summer visitors, who frequent this locality in large numbers.
The Indian history of this region is brief, but what there is of it is interesting to us on account of King Philip's connection with it. At the outbreak of the Narragansett War, in 1675, the Wachusetts, in spite of their solemn compact with the colonists, joined King Philip, and, after his defeat, "the lands about the Wachusetts" became one of his headquarters, and he was frequently in that region. For many years their wigwams were scattered about the base of the mountain and along the border of the lake, and tradition informs us that on a large flat rock near the lake their council-fires were often lighted.