At the time the Europeans arrived around 1630, the Southborough area was populated by Nipmucs, a non-nomadic Algonkian tribe. Nipmuc translates to “people of the fresh water.” While there are no confirmed native settlement sites, the local people would have utilized the knolls and hills adjacent to the brooks in the center and north part of town, and there would have been considerable activity along the Sudbury at the south. It is likely that any camps associated with fishing, hunting, or gathering were small, and of short duration. An area adjoining the Old Burial Ground at the town center had long been a Nipmuc burial site before the European settlement. A large, high rock in the east part of town, later called Indian Rock, is believed to have been a native site, associated with a nearby Nipmuc smokehouse and fishing area.

As the European colonists began to populate the area between 1630 – 1675, they first used the existing native trails as highways. Still, the Indians of the region, their numbers much reduced by epidemics and regional tribal warfare, continued to range throughout Southborough in the course of their hunting and fishing activities. At times there were threats of Indian attack to the English colonists and there was apparently no permanent English settlement in “Stony Brook” for several decades of the late 1600s. As large sections of Southborough were converted to pasture land for meadow hay for the colonists, seasonal use by the Nipmucs diminished. Those who remained in the area, however, engaged in some trade with the colonists.

The Nipmuc Nation currently has 600 members and continues to be one of New England’s most historic and largest native communities

Sources: Southborough Town Clerk’s Office Municipal Archive and The Tribal Government of Nipmuc Nation.

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