Stories of Concord

The history of Concord, Massachusetts from the sachems of the ancient Nashawtuc clan to the first Puritan settlers.

In 1637, the leaders of the ancient Nashawtuc clan of the Musketaquid River valley met with recently arrived English Puritan settlers to settle a dispute over the destruction of a fish weir. The results remain unclear . . . but they were to change the course of history of what would soon become known as Concord, Massachusetts.

Within the course of three generations, the Nashawtuc clan was extinct within the Musketaquid River Valley. But at that fateful meeting, Tahattawan, the sachem—together with his son, John, and daughter, Tasun; his overlord (and perhaps sister), Saunkskwa of Mysticke; her second husband, the wisdom teacher Wibbacowet; and Waban, Wibbacowet’s son—sought to protect and preserve the Nashawtuc homeland.

Tahattawan’s daughter, Tasun, married Wibbacowet’s son, Waban, who became an evangelical Christian minister named Thomas. We can follow them for four generations through Thomas II, a colonial Indigenous scout, Thomas III, a Newton town clerk, and Thomas Ward, who perhaps escaped to work as a sailor on a whaling ship.

The two Puritan leaders at that gathering were Rev. Peter Bulkeley and Major Simon Willard. Bulkeley’s descendants were the most important of Concord’s founding families over the next fourteen generations, and Willard’s descendants held positions of influence in Concord over ten generations. These lineages were influenced by friendships, diseases, ambitions, greed, prejudice, and war.

In this sweeping historical account, Jim Sherblom uses comprehensive research to share the lives of the people who shaped the history of Concord, Massachusetts over hundreds of years. These are their stories.