This past Tuesday I got out on the Concord River for a "what if" paddle. By that I mean trying to imagine what if an elaborate plan proposed to the Massachusetts Bay Colony on March 23, 1676 at the height of King Philip's War had been enacted. I recently came across mention of the plan in the book Groton During the Indian Wars by Samuel Abbott Green, M.D. (1883). It was something I'd never heard of before and returned to the book for more details. The plan was developed by "several considerable persons" (though unnamed) during a most dark and desperate time when many of the Colony's outlying towns were being raided by Native Americans. The Colony was at wit's end as to how or if they could protect the many outlying towns. The plan detailed creating a defensive line utilizing the Charles, Concord, and Merrimack rivers as a water barrier composing the majority of the line. What complicated matters was how to connect over land from a point on the Charles River in Watertown to a point on the Concord River at Billerica. The proposal called for a 12-mile long, 8-foot high stockade fence or stonewall "extending from Charles River, where it is navigable, unto Concord River not far from George Farley's house, (living in Billerica)". The stockade would incorporate several unnamed ponds to help reduce the length. Those ponds may have been Fresh Pond, Spy Pond, Mystic Lakes, Horn Pond, and Nutting Pond. The stockade would end in Billerica where it would give way to the Concord River. Oddly, George Farley's house is the only location specifically mentioned by name in the plan leading me to wonder if he may have been one of the plan's proponents. "This line (stockade) in connection with the Concord and the Merrimack Rivers, it was thought would form a barrier against the savages and protect all the towns lying within the district. This complicated system of defence was favored by the Council...." They listed 20 towns within the district: Salem, Charlestown, Cambridge, Watertown, Ipswich, Newbury, Rowley, Lynn, Andover, Topsfield, Reading, Woburn, Malden, Billerica, Gloucester, Beverly, Wenham, Manchester, Bradford, and Medford.
Another map of the New England Colonies 1677 showing the locations of the Native American Praying Towns as well as many of the outlying towns...
Note that most of the Praying Villages, with the possible exception of Wamesit, would have been outside the defensive line.So I started my paddling trip from outside of the Colony's defensive line in the wilds of present-day Bedford and headed downriver towards Billerica. Made my first stop a half mile downriver at Two Brothers Rocks...
From Two Brothers Rocks I continued downriver passing Jug Island...
...and the very busy Route 3 bridge......until reaching a point near the bridge abutments for the old Middlesex Turnpike...
While I could find no historical marker related to the Farley Garrison House there was a marker for the Middlesex Turnpike which reached roughly the same spot in the early 1800's...