rts and garrison-houses. Major Henchman had command of
the fortification at the Falls. August 1, 1682, a hostile raid was made
into Billerica and eight of the inhabitants were killed. August 5, 1695,
fourteen inhabitants of Tewksbury were massacred. Colonel Joseph Lynde,
from whom Lynde Hill in Belvidere derives its name, was in command of a
force of three hundred men who ranged through the neighboring country to
protect the frontier.

The town of Dracut was incorporated in 1701. It contained twenty-five
families, and was set off from Chelmsford.

The Wamesit purchase was divided into small parcels of land and sold to
settlers. Samuel Pierce, who had his domicile on the Indian reservation,
was elected a member of the General Court, in 1725, but was refused his
seat on the ground that he was not an inhabitant of Chelmsford.
Accordingly the people of the reservation refused to pay taxes to the
town of Chelmsford until an act was passed legally annexing them to the
town. The place was afterward known as East Chelmsford.

The year 1729 is memorable for the great earthquake which occurred on
October 29, and did considerable damage in the Merrimack valley.

Tewksbury was incorporated in 1734, its territory before having been
included in Billerica.

At the battle of Bunker Hill two companies of Chelmsford men were
present, one under command of Captain John Ford, the other under Captain
Benjamin Walker; and one company composed largely of Dracut men was
under Captain Peter Colburn.

[Illustration: FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, 1840.]

Captain Ford had served previously at the siege and capture of
Louisburg, in 1745. When the first man in his company fell at Bunker
Hill, an officer prevented a panic by singing Old Hundred. When closely
pressed by the British, and the ammunition had been exhausted, Captain
Colburn, on the point of retreating, threw a stone at the advancing
enemy and saw an officer fall from the blow.

Colonel Simeon Spaulding, of Chelmsford, was an active patriot during
the Revolution and did good service in the Provincial Congress.

During Shays' Rebellion, in 1786, a body of Chelmsford militia under
command of General Lincoln served in the western counties.

The people of Chelmsford, from the earliest settlement, gave every
encouragement to millers, lumbermen, mechanics, and traders, making
grants of land, and temporary exemption from taxation, to such as would
settle in their town. It became distingu