Interior House Painter Wrentham MA

Wrentham, Massachusetts
Town
South Street
Seal
Location in Norfolk County in Massachusetts
Coordinates: 42°04′00″N 71°19′43″W / 42.06667°N 71.32861°W / 42.06667; -71.32861Coordinates: 42°04′00″N 71°19′43″W / 42.06667°N 71.32861°W / 42.06667; -71.32861
Country	United States
State	Massachusetts
County	Norfolk
Settled	1660
Incorporated	October 17, 1673
Government
• Type	Open town meeting
Area
• Total	59.4 km (22.9 sq mi)
• Land	57.5 km2 (22.2 sq mi)
• Water	1.9 km (0.7 sq mi)
Elevation	77 m (253 ft)
Population  (2020)
• Total	12,178
• Density	211.8/km2 (548.6/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC-5 (Eastern)
• Summer (DST)	UTC-4 (Eastern)
ZIP code	02093 02070 (Sheldonville)
Area code	508 / 774
FIPS code	25-82315
GNIS feature ID	0618334
Website	http://wrentham.ma.us/

Wrentham ( REN-thəm) is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 12,178 at the 2020 census.

History

In 1660, five men from Dedham were sent to explore the lakes near George Indian’s wigwam and to report back to the selectmen what they found. The report of those men, Daniel Fisher, Anthony Fisher, Sgt. Fuller, Richard Ellis, and Richard Wheeler, was received with such enthusiasm that in March 1661 it was voted to start a new settlement there. The Town then voted to send Ellis and Timothy Dwight to go negotiate with King Phillip to purchase the title to the area known as Wollomonopoag.

They purchased 600 acres of land for £24, 6s. The money was paid out of pocket by Captain Willett, who accompanied Ellis and Dwight. The Town voted to assess a tax upon the cow commons to repay him, but some thought the money should be paid by those who would be moving to the new village. The dispute resulted in Willet not being paid back for several years.

After the boundaries of the new community were set, the Town voted to give up all rights to the land in return for the proprietors paying Dedham £160 over four years, beginning in 1661. By January 1663, however, little progress had been made towards establishing a new village. A meeting was called, and the 10 men who volunteered to go raised several concerns about their ability to move forward.

After much discussion, it was decided not to give the 600 acres to the group of pre-selected men, but rather to lay out lots and then award them by lottery. Those who already began to improve their lots were allowed to keep them, and land for a church, burial ground, training ground, roads, and officer lots were not included. All were free to buy and sell their lots.

Not much happened at Wollomonopoag until 1668, at which time a report arrived of native peoples planting corn and cutting down trees on the land that Dedham had purchased. Eleazer Lusher was charged with sending the illiterate Indians a letter warning them to “depart from that place and trespass no further.” Samuel Fisher then took it to them and read it aloud, at which point they replied that they had every intention of remaining on the land. Though they had still not paid him back for the land in question, the Town then asked Willett to speak with King Phillip and ask that he intervene.

There is no record of Phillip’s response to that entreaty but, in August 1669, the Town Fathers received an odd letter from him offering to negotiate for more land if they would quickly send him a “holland shirt.” Dwight and four others were appointed to negotiate with him again, provided Phillip could prove he, and not another sachem, had the rights to the land. In November, an agreement was reached to clear the title for £17 0s 8d. There is no record of whether a shirt was traded.

Samuel Sheares lived alone at Wollomonopoag for some time before a new attempt at a settlement was undertaken in 1671. Five men, John Thurston, Thomas Thurston, Robert Weare, John Weare, and Joseph Cheeney moved there with him, followed the next year by Rev. Samuel Man, a one-time teacher in the Dedham Public Schools. Robert Crossman was employed at the same time to construct a corn mill.

Those who moved there were drawn from the middle class of Dedham. They were primarily people from outside of Dedham who had purchased land there, and second generation Dedhamites who moved without their parents. Without the outsides, it is questionable whether the new community would have survived.

Soon, however, the Wollomonopoag settlers complained that those in the village center were keeping them in a state of colonial dependency. They were upset about absentee landlords whose land values were going up thanks to the labor of the inhabitants and who refused to pay taxes to support the community. They also complained that with the seat of the town government being so far away that they were disenfranchised and best by a lack of capital. Constables refused to travel to Wollomonopoag to make collections, assessments, and social judgement.