. Leading business men of Spencer, Brookfield and vicinity;. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE BROOKFIELDS. house was besieged by the Indians continuously until the close of the 4th of August,when the garrison was relieved by a force of forty-eight horsemen, under thecommand of Major Simon Willard. The besiegers reluctantly retired on the arrivalof this Providential help, after setting fire to the meeting house and the only othei-structure which had escaped thus far. Two of the ringleaders among the Indianswere afterwards captured, and after legal trial, were hung on Boston brave defenders o
. Leading business men of Spencer, Brookfield and vicinity;. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE BROOKFIELDS. house was besieged by the Indians continuously until the close of the 4th of August,when the garrison was relieved by a force of forty-eight horsemen, under thecommand of Major Simon Willard. The besiegers reluctantly retired on the arrivalof this Providential help, after setting fire to the meeting house and the only othei-structure which had escaped thus far. Two of the ringleaders among the Indianswere afterwards captured, and after legal trial, were hung on Boston brave defenders of the house escaped comparatively unharmed, but one of theirnumber being killed and one wounded, but it was more than ten years before thesettlement regained its former prosperity. As nearly as can be estimated in theabsence of accepted records, the first settlers came to Brookfield in 1660, and on the10th of October, 16G5, purchased the land from an Indian, who claimed to be thesole and proper owner. Eight years later, or in 1673, the town of Quaboag was. North Brookfield in 1889, incorporated, but was not given full powers of self-government, being placed undera committee made up of the residents of other towns. Affairs were thus administereduntil 1718, when the town of Brookfield alias Quaboag, became freed from thenecessity of submitting to outside control. The first meeting-house was built onFosters Hill, and forty-one years after its destruction by the Indians in the mannerwe have mentioned, it was replaced by another on the original site, worship beingcarried on here until the erection of a third meeting-house in the village of WestBrookfield, in 1755. The first appropriation made for educational purposes Avas in1731, and in 1733 the sum of £50 was devoted to the same object. Brookfield wasof course deeply interested in the events preceding and attending the Kevolution,and furnished her full complement of men to the Continental armies, it beingestimated that every able-
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