Ebook Monumental Inscriptions in the Old Cemetery at Rutland, Worcester County, Mass

Rutland, which has aptly been called the "Cradle of Ohio," is situated in the center of the state of Massachusetts. Its scenery is picturesque and beautiful, abounding in hills and vales, brooks and natural lakes. Its principal street (or road) one and one-half miles long and ten rods in width, begins at the "Old Putnam house" and ascends the hill 1250 feet above the level of the sea to the center village, from which may be seen the towns and villages in every direction. Mountains nearly one hundred miles distant are visible. The blue hills of Milton, near the Atlantic, the Highlands on the Connecticut, Wachusett rises close at hand in the adjacent town of Princeton, while old Monadnock rears his rugged outline against the northern sky.

The territory embracing this town was purchased from the Indians December 22, 1686, settled 1713, incorporated May 30, 1722. Its situation has protected it against the encroachments of modern life, although its pure air and fine scenery has of late given it quite wide celebrity as a health resort.

Rutland is rich in historic reminiscence. Its first called minister, together with two or three members of one of its first families, fell victims of the tomahawk of the savage. During the Indian troubles, 1723-30, Capt. Samuel Wright, one of its first proprietors and foremost citizens, led the scouts who patroled the settlements from Brookfield to Lancaster and Sudbury. From 1744 to 1760, in the French and Indian war, her young men did valiant and effective service. It was a war of races, the Latin against the Anglo-Saxon, for supremacy on this soil. Not less than eight companies, under their own officers, marched from these hills to the frontiers on the Hudson, and Lakes George and Champlain.