Massachusetts, and a portion of Nashua, New Hampshire. The grant was
taken out of the very wilderness, relatively far from any other town,
and standing like a sentinel on the frontiers. Lancaster, fourteen miles
away, was its nearest neighbor in the southwesterly direction on the one
side; and Andover and Haverhill, twenty and twenty-five miles distant,
more or less, in the northeasterly direction on the other. No settlement
on the north stood between it and the settlements in Canada. Chelmsford
and Billerica were each incorporated about the same time, though a few
days later.

When the grant was made, it was expressly stipulated that Mr. Jonathan
Danforth, of Cambridge, with such others as he might desire, should lay
it out with all convenient speed in order to encourage the prompt
settlement of a minister; and furthermore that the selectmen of the town
should pay a fair amount for his services. During the next year a
petition, signed by Deane Winthrop and seven others, was presented to
the General Court asking for certain changes in the conditions, and
among them the privilege to employ another "artist" in the place of Mr.
Danforth, as he was overrun with business. The petition was referred to
a committee who reported favorably upon it, and the request was duly
granted. Formerly a surveyor was called an artist, and in old records
the word is often found with that meaning.

Ensign Peter Noyes, of Sudbury, was then engaged by the grantees and he
began the survey; but his death, on September 23, 1657, delayed the
speedy accomplishment of the work. It is known that there was some
trouble in the early settlement of the place, growing out of the
question of lands, but its exact character is not recorded; perhaps it
was owing to the delay which now occurred. Ensign Noyes was a noted
surveyor, but not so famous as Jonathan Danforth, whose name is often