Framingham
Given a land grant in 1660, Thomas Danforth accumulated 15,000 acres known as Danforth’s Farm before it was incorporated into the town of Framingham in 1700. A former deputy governor, Danforth (1623-1699) was not part of the Court of Oyer and Terminer but he was a judge for the Superior Court of Judicature in 1693 that handled the remaining Salem witch trial cases. An opponent of the earlier court, Danforth provided part of his lands for refugees who arrived from the Salem witch trials. The area was known as Salem End. Some of these families were related to Sarah (Towne) (Bridges) Cloyce (1638-1703), who escaped the gallows, unlike her sisters Rebecca (Towne) Nurse (1621-1692) and Mary (Towne) Esty (1634-1692).
Orientation
Salem End: village made up of Salem witch trials refugees who built houses along Salem End Road, from Oregon Road in Ashland up to the edges of Framingham State University.
Explore
Caleb Bridges house, 31 Gates Road. (c. 1700) Private.
Church Hill Cemetery (aka Old Burying Ground), Main Street. Established 1698, earliest headstone from 1704.
Clayes house, 657 Salem End Road. Although called the Sarah Clayes house, dendrology dates the structure after her death. Private. Archipedia data with photos.
Framingham History Center. Edgell Memorial Library at 3 Oak Street has staff office, museum gift shop, permanent Civil War exhibit and revolving exhibits. Old Academy at 16 Vernon Street is the research library, open by appointment.
Nurse house, 890 Salem End Road. (c. 1694, MHC #514). Private.
Israel Towne house, 67 Salem End Road. Private.
John Towne house, 225 Maple Street. (c. 1704, MHC #119) Private.
Witch Caves (map): purported hiding place of accused witch Sarah Cloyce (Cloyse, Clayes, etc.), who escaped jail. You’ll find rock formations while walking the trails of Ashland Town Forest and Sudbury Valley Trustees’ Cowassock Woods. Expect to walk about a mile or so and look for a network of small boulder caves (Witch Caves) in a steep cliff face (called Witch Cliffs) on the Framingham-Ashland line. The trail map claims the caves are just south of the water tower. Not all the websites agree with its location, however, and some say the caves have caved in or weren’t big enough for more than sleeping. The area became a quarry before becoming a conservation area.
Research
Framingham History: links to historical timeline, images, profiles of famous folks, postcards, more.
Framingham Public Library, 49 Lexington Street. Check the local history collection and family genealogies.
Online Books & Records
History of Framingham, Early Known as Danforth’s Farm, 1640-1880, with a Genealogical Register by J.H. Temple (1887)
History of Framingham, Massachusetts, including the Plantation, from 1640 to the present time, with an appendix, containing a notice of Sudbury and its first proprietors; also, a register of the inhabitants of Framingham before 1800, with genealogical sketches by William Barry (1847)
Howe family gathering, at Harmony Grove, South Framingham, Thursday, August 31, 1871 by Elias Nason (1871)
Memorial of the bi-centennial celebration of the incorporation of the town of Framingham, Massachusetts, June, 1900
Sketch of the history of Framingham by William Ballard (1827)
Vital records of Framingham, Massachusetts, to the year 1850