Lunenburgh
lies in the southeastern part of the county, in lat. 44º 28' and long.
5º 15' and is bounded northeast by Guildhall, southeast by the Connecticut
river, southwest by Concord, and northwest by Victory, containing an area
of forty-six square miles. It was chartered by Benning Wentworth to David
Page and sixty-eight others, in seventy-four shares, July 5, 1763.
The
surface, of the township is diversified by a succession of swells running
back from the Connecticut to the west, where it rises in a range of hills
near the Victory line. The most noted elevation is Mount Tug, a name probably
derived from the difficulty in going over it. The soil is generally good
and productive, though in some localities quite stony. The timber of the
highlands is generally hard wood; of the low lands mostly hemlock and spruce.
On the intervals and plains of the Connecticut the timber was originally
a valuable white pine. The town is well watered, for in addition to the
Connecticut there are Neal's pond and several brooks. The pond is a beautiful
sheet of water about a mile long and half a mile wide. Neals brook, Catspaw
brook and Mink brook are considerable mill streams.
South
Lunenburgh (p. o.) is a hamlet in the south part of the Connecticut river.
Silsby's lumber mills, on the outlet of Neal's pond, were built by Joshua
Silsby in 1867. They give employment to thirty hands and turn out about
2,000,000 feet of lumber per year.
The
first settlement was made in what was supposed to be the northeastern part
of the town, in 1764, by David Page, Timothy Nash and George Wheeler. It
was subsequently ascertained, however, that these settlements were located
over the line in Guildhall. They brought their grain and provisions from
Northfield, Mass., in canoes, a distance of more than 150 miles; and during
the Revolutionary war they were in a continual state of alarm, and frequently
annoyed by the Indians and Tories, who killed their cattle, flooded their
houses and carried a number of their inhabitants into captivity, as we
have detailed in the earlier pages of this work.
(Source:
Gazetteer
of Caledonia and Essex Counties, VT.; 1764-1887,
Compiled and Published by Hamilton Child; May 1887) |