north of its mouth. By the decision twenty-eight townships were taken
from Massachusetts and transferred to New Hampshire. The settlement of
this disputed question was undoubtedly a public benefit, although it
caused, at the time, a great deal of hard feeling. In establishing the
new boundary Pawtucket Falls, situated now in the city of Lowell, and
near the most southern portion of the river's course, was taken as the
starting-place; and the line which now separates the two States was run
west, three miles north of this point. It was surveyed officially in the
spring of 1741.

The new boundary passed through the original Groton grant, and cut off a
triangular portion of its territory, now within the limits of Nashua,
and went to the southward of Groton Gore, leaving that tract of land
wholly in New Hampshire.

A few years previously to this time the original grant had undergone
other dismemberment, when a slice of its territory was given to
Westford. It was a long and narrow tract of land, triangular in shape,
with its base resting on Stony Brook Pond, now known as Forge Pond, and
coming to a point near Millstone Hill, where the boundary lines of
Groton, Westford, and Tyngsborough intersect. The Reverend Edwin R.
Hodgman, in his History of Westford, says:--

Probably there was no computation of the area of this triangle at
any time. Only four men are named as the owners of it, but they, it
is supposed, held titles to only a portion, and the remainder was
wild, or "common," land, (Page 25.)

In the Journal of the House of Representatives (page 9), September 10,
1730, there is recorded:--