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Updated: June 20, 2025
In 1640 he landed in Boston, and immediately selected his home in Watertown, where he became the possessor of six lots of land, aggregating one hundred and twenty-six acres. In 1643, his name is found in association with Thomas King of Watertown, Henry Symonds of Boston, and others, the first proprietors of the Nashaway purchase.
For two years the old man lived with his eldest son, seeing the Nashaway Valley blooming with the fruits of civilized labor; seeing new families filling the woeful gaps made in the old by Philip's warriors; seeing children and grandchildren grasping the implements that had fallen from the nerveless hold of the earliest bread-winners, with hopeful and pertinacious purpose to extend the paternal domain; seeing too, may we not trust, from the Pisgah height of prophetic vision the glorious promise awaiting this his Canaan; these softly rounded hills and broad valleys dotted with the winsome homes of thousands of freemen; churches and schools, shops of artisans, and busy marts of trade clustered about his mill site; and, above all, seeing the assertion of political freedom and liberty of conscience which Governor John Winthrop had reproached him for favoring in the petition of Robert Child, become the corner stone of a giant republic.
With the privilege of first choice therefore, it is not strange that Prescott and his sturdy sons-in-law grasped the rich intervales, and warm easily tilled slopes, stretching along the Nashaway south branch from the "meeting of the waters" to "John's jump" on the east, and extending west to the crown of George Hill; lands now covered by the village of South Lancaster.
And James Sawyer his granchild and Servant it is his will that he haue the sixtie acres of vpland aformentioned and the two peices of medow at bare hill one being part of his second deuision the upermost peic on the brook and the other being part of his third deuision lying vpon Nashaway River purchased of goodman Allin.
In 1645, an earnest petition went up to the council from Prescott and his associates, complaining that much time and means had been spent in discovering Nashaway and preparing for the settlement there, and that on account of the lack of bridge and causeway at the Sudbury River, the proprietors could not pass to and from the bay towns "without exposing our persons to perill and our cattell and goods to losse and spoyle; as yo'r petitioners are able to make prooffe of by sad experience of what wee suffered there within these few dayes."
One remarkable character of this kind seems, however, to have escaped the vigilance of our modern Doctors of the Mosaic Law. Dr. Robert Child came to this country about the year 1644, and took up his residence in the Massachusetts colony. He was a man of wealth, and owned plantations at Nashaway, now Lancaster, and at Saco, in Maine.
Between 1759 and 1761, the proceeds of special lotteries amounting to twelve hundred and twenty seven pounds were expended in the improvement of the crossing. Prescott, at least, was chargeable with no delay. By June 1645, he and his family had become permanent residents on the Nashaway.
This report was approved. James Wiser alias Quanapaug, the Christian Nashaway Chief, who appears as grantor of the land, was a warrior whose bravery had been tested in the contest between the Nipmucks and the Mohawks; and was so firm a friend of his white neighbors at Lancaster, that when Philip persuaded the tribe with its Sagamore Sam, to go upon the war path, James refused to join them.
The plantation, ten miles in length and eight in breadth, had been purchased of the Nashaway Indians, with the stipulation that the English should not molest the Indians in their hunting, fishing, or planting places. For several years the colonists and the Indians lived together in entire harmony, mutually benefiting each other.
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