The following is an excerpt from the A History of North Reading, published in 1944 by Rev. Samuel LePage. Please keep in mind that LePage’s characterizations of the area’s indigenous inhabitants are offensive by modern standards and one-sided.

It is not certain as to who was the first to settle in the part of ancient Redding which lay north of the Bear Meadow swamp. Of this we are certain. The town records for 1677 state that the right of having a saw mill on the Ipswich River was granted to John Upton. This would indicate that he was already established in this section. Sergeant George Flint must also have moved in at about the same time. Tradition has it that the original Flint house was a garrison house. This could hardly have been the case for before King Philip’s War in 1675, there was no particular fear of the Indian. Then, too, a garrison house had a stockade which hardly existed in North Reading. It is likely, however, that the new house of Sergeant Flint [pictured below] was made durable enough to repel the attack of a maurauding band of Red Men. John Eaton who was a neighbor also had a house of the same construction. As a reflection from this war with the Indians there was a petition for additional inhabitants in 1676. Only the hardy ones heard the petition, but they came and by 1685 the following families are known to have been living in North Reading: John Upton, Sr., John Upton, Jr., George Flint, Thomas Burt, Philip Mclntire, John Phelps, Richard Harnden, Francis Hutchinson, and John Eaton.

Today we can hardly appreciate the task that lay before these early settlers. The land had to be cleared of trees and stones. Somehow the logs had to be hauled to the saw mill and the lumber for the new house hauled back again. Even though it might be a simple log structure this required labor. Then there were the wild animals. The meadow land separating these pioneers from their neighbors to the South was not without purpose called Bear Meadow. In 1685 a bounty of fifteen shillings was offered to anyone who killed a bear, and thereafter there were many who claimed this bounty. Then as though that were not enough there were the enraged Indians still roving about. As late as 1706 a group fell upon the Harnden household in the western part of the Parish while the father was away. The mother and three children were killed and the remaining five children carried away.

There was also confusion in the matter of land titles. During the confusion of the times there were squatters here and there. Sometimes they claimed the land by right of possession and again they, in one way or another, secured some title or bill of sale from the Indians. It is said that John Upton first secured title to land in North Reading in the following interesting fashion. Arrayed in a pair of bright red riding breeches he, with his wife one autumn day, rode across the river and were met by Indians who had left their summer camping grounds in New Hampshire and had come to camp near the Ipswich for the Winter. The chief of the tribe was very much intrigued by the flashing wearing apparel and wanted them for himself. He and Mr. Upton bargained and it was finally agreed that the breeches were to be exchanged for land. Mr. Upton wanted to return home and change, but the chief was afraid the bargain might escape him, so he demanded that the trousers be handed over then and there. In order to oblige, Mr. Upton and his wife retired to the brush where Mrs.Upton removed one of her six petticoats and her doughty husband, minus his pants, appeared in kilts after the fashion of his ancestors.

The General Court had assumed ownership and had granted title deeds, but there still lingered in the minds of some of the Puritans the thought that the Indians had some claim to the land. More than one timid settler who fled in the face of the danger lost his home to some one claiming an Indian title. So when in 1684, Wenepoykin, the last of the Saugus Sachems, died, the residents of Reading thought it time to protect their claims. They hunted up David Kunkshamooshaw and some others who might be assumed to have some claim to the land because they were descended from a former Sachem, and for the sum of sixteen pounds they persuaded said David and friends to put their mark to a document which purported to deed all rights and privileges formerly held by them to the two Nahants, Wakefield, Reading and North Reading. And the payment was made in hard money for there was a rate made for the purpose.

William Wood's 1634 map of New England, showing areas inhabited by the indigenous Naumkeag people, whose leaders maintained permanent settlements near Saugus. The Merrimack River runs across the middle of the map.

Eventually the General Court stepped in and called a halt to this practice. In 1698 there was a law saying that not without an orderly allowance should any title secured from the Indians be presumed to be valid. Then in 1701 the practice was entirely prohibited under the penalty of a fine and imprisonment. Perhaps the law was not always obeyed. No law ever was even in the days of the Puritans.

In spite of unproductive land, bears, Indians and land sharks, these intrepid Uptons, Flints, Eatons and Maclntires made a beginning. That they lived an isolated life goes without saying. There was not even a bridle path across the Ipswich and the Bear Meadow Swamp. When they desired to attend church on a Sabbath morning, it was necessary for those in the eastern part of the new settlement to make their way to Danvers, while those of the western part made their way up the river to where there was a ford and thence back and down to the mother church in the southern end of the town. To those who had no social outlet and who desired to attend divine services this seemed like an intolerable situation. So the ones concerned, in 1696, inspired the town to vote that, “as soon as there was a suitable and competent number of inhabitants (north of the river), they might call, settle and maintain a godly, learned and orthodox minister of their own' When this was accomplished they would be free from paying rates for the support of the ministry in the southern part of the town. And not only so, but a little later the town expressed a willingness to contribute in money towards the new enterprise.

This was a rather large undertaking, for there were less than fifty families living in the north part. As late as 1714 there were but forty-eight. For this small group to support and maintain a godly and learned man was no small task. Perhaps the town realized this when they refused a direct petition for a church and parish in 1711. Finally, however, the petition was granted, and in 1713 it was voted to set off the territory north of the Ipswich River, together with Saddler’s Neck as a distinct Parish, to bear the name of North Reading, or as it was sometimes called, Second Parish.

A Snapshot of Colonial North Reading

From Northern Japan to North Reading: Remembering Raitaro Okuro

Lost in the Woods