NATICK, a township of S.E.
The township's largest village, also named Natick, lying 18 m.
In the village of South Natick is the Bacon Free Library (1880), in which is housed the Historical, Natural History and Library Society.
Natick is the Indian name, signifying " our land," or " hilly land," of the site (originally part of Dedham) granted in 1650 to John Eliot, for the praying " Indians.
There was an Indian church in Natick, at what is now called South Natick or " Oldtown," from 1660 to 1716; and for some years the community was governed, in accordance with the eighteenth chapter of Exodus, by " rulers of tens," " rulers of fifties," and " rulers of hundreds."
Henry Wilson learned to make shoes here, and in the presidential campaign in 1840 gained the sobriquet of the " Natick cobbler."
By the colonial authorities Natick was considered as a " plantation " until the establishment of the church; in 1762 the parish (erected in 1745) became a district, and in 1781 this was incorporated as a town.
See " Natick," by S.
Bacon, History of the Town of Natick (Boston, 1856).
At Natick, Massachusetts, whither he travelled on foot, he learned the trade of shoemaker, and during his leisure hours studied much and read with avidity.
In Newton, the most prominent of these villages, is a stone terrace monument to John Eliot, erected on the site of Waban's wigwam near Nonantum Hill, where Eliot founded the first Indian Church on the 28th of October 1646 - the Nonantum Indians, under their chief Waban, removed to Natick in 1651.
