One of the Oldest Houses
(Perry Place, Corner of Prospect and Pleasant Streets.)
Town — conducting it for more than twenty years, and then bequeathing it to the Clapp family, his relatives, who continued it a hundred years. It was a homelike, old-time tavern, and stood on the slope just south of Mr. William Gordon's present residence, until it was taken down about twenty-five years ago. Most of the travel from Hartford and New Haven passed northward through this locality, in consequence of which there came to it very liberal patronage.
Landlord Bartlett was evidently a man who looked ahead, and somewhat expectantly so, respecting what might come after him here, for, dying in 1755, he gave a certain tract of land to his three brothers, on condition that they give from it "£100 (old tenor), to the first church of Christ that should be erected and celebrate divine ordinances within a mile of his house," and payment of this sum was made to the first church society, upon its organization in 1786, the bequest anticipating the existence of the recipient by thirty years. It was expended for a communion service.
In 1699, Northampton granted "home lots" to five different families at Pascommuck, and that hamlet was begun. These families were those of Moses Hutchinson, John Searle, Benoni Jones, and Samuel and Benjamin Janes, and it is with these families that there is connected the saddest chapter in the town's annals. The Indians who had lived hereabouts were friendly to the white man, and for twenty years after their sale of the lands had dwelt here in perfect peace with the settlers; but they had long since quitted this region, and fears of Indian troubles were much allayed and precautions concerning them somewhat lessened, when on the 24th of May 1704, there fell upon Pascommuck a terrible disaster, even its complete destruction.
A party of non-resident Indians roaming over this region, disappointed in a foraging tour they had
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