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Subject: [MAWORCES] Ships 1718: Rev McGregor in Dracut/Dracutt
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 08:05:55 EST

The book: Scotch Irish in Ulster and North America talks about McGregor and
Dracut in Chapter XI The winter in Dracut and Casco Bay


"The village of Dracut had built a little meeting house three years earlier
on the river road, now Varnum Avenue. It was thirty feet long and twenty
feet wide, and to this house of worship after listening to some fifteen
candidates the people decided to summon Mr. McGregor, "the peace-maker." The town
evidently hoped that he would, if acceptable, settle down after the admirable
custom of the time to be the father of his flock through life. The record of
the town (there are no church records until 1788) reads:

"Dracutt, Oct. ye 15, 1718.


"Mad choice of Mr. Mackgreggor to settel in Dracutt to prech the Gospel and
to do the Whole Work of a Settled minister; and likewise Voted to give to Mr
Macgreger Sixty five pounds a year for his salary for the first four years, and
then Seaventy pound a year till there Be fifty families in the town of
Dracutt, and then it Shall Be eighty pounds a yeare; and likewise voted for a
settlement sixty pounds the one half the Next June inseying, and the other half the
next June, in the year 1720"1

The Rev. James McGregor spent the winter of 1718-19 in Dracut on the banks of
Beaver Brook, a little north of the present city of Lowell, and south of the
future Nutfield; but there is no evidence that the Scotch Irish people
followed him to Dracut. In addition to his work as the village pastor he taught the
school.

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