that it might be well, before dignifying this busy blacksmith so much as
to name a town for him, to see if he could pass examination in the
catechism deemed orthodox at that date in Massachusetts Bay. Alas! John
Prescott was not a freeman. Having a conscience of his own, he had never
given public adhesion to the established church covenant and was
therefore debarred from holding any civil office, and even from the
privilege of voting for the magistrates. There was a year's delay, and,
in 1653, "Prescott" was expunged and _Lancaster_ began its history.

As in the broad area of the township various centres of population grew
into villages and were one by one excised and made towns, it would be
supposed that each of them would have been eager to honor itself by
adopting so euphonious and appropriate a name as _Prescott_. But no! The
first candidate for a new designation, in 1732, chose the name of the
generous Charlestown clergyman, _Harvard_, for no appropriate local
reason now discoverable. Six years later another body corporate imported
the name--_Bolton_. Two years passed and a third district sought across
the ocean for its title _Leominster_. Then Woonksechocksett forgetful of
its benefactors and of the grand Indian names of its hills and waters
borrowed the title of a putative Scotch lord, who bravely fought for our
Independence, and, in adopting, paid him the poor compliment of
misspelling it--_Sterling_. The next seceder ambitiously chose the name
of a Prussian city--_Berlin_. The sixth perpetuated its early admiration
of the great small-pox inoculator, _Boylston_; and the last was
named--for a hotel. None so poor as to do Prescott reverence. But
surely, it would be thought, banks and manufactories, halls or at least
a fire engine, might with tardy respect have paid cheap tribute to his
name by bearing it. Is there any example! Yes, at last a short street
having little connection sentimental or real with the pioneer, bears his
name--this only in the aspiring town, almost a city, of which John