I’ve Just returned from a trip into the 17th century. I followed the Hale family west from Concord Massachusetts, through West Concord, Maynard to Stow where our line spent two generations before going west again to Leominster, Massachusetts.
I notice from the Historical Marker it was Pompositticut Plantation, a Wampanogue place name. I will have to ask Jessie Little Doe what it means. 1630 was early! Before King Phillips War. I think the Hales waited until that war was over to move west. They only got to Concord in about 1641.
Fourth generation Hales stayed in Leominster, again, for two generations before picking up and going to Windsor, Vermont. Four of the Hale boys returned from fighting in the Revolution went together to take up farms in Windsor.
I’m wondering what these frequent moves to new pastures says about the economic status, restlessness of the Hale Clan. They didn’t stay anywhere long enough to build a financial success that might have entailed an enterprise or a notable house.
I gather they were subsistence farmers. They built wooden houses that for the most part have not survived to present day.
I did see a banner announcing a concert at the Hale School in Stow.
Mostly I was seeking the grave sites of ancestors I knew had lived and died in Stow. I did find quite a few Hales. Fourteen Hale/Healds in the “Lower Village Cemetery,”
It was identified as the oldest Cemetery in Stow.
The second Cemetery I visited was “Hillside Cemetery”. I found four Hales there. One marker resting against a monument gave me pause. It was the head stone for Sally Wetherbee Hale, who died Feb. 26, 1885, AE 74 years 9 mo.. Sally, what was your life like? Did you initial documents, notes, “S.W. H.”?
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