The Lincoln Squirrel – News, features and photos from Lincoln, Mass.

Stanley won’t be Lincoln’s representative after January 2023

As the dust settles from redistricting after the U.S. census, one thing is clear: Lincoln will no longer be represented on Beacon Hill by Waltham resident Rep. Thomas Stanley after January 2023.

Rep. Thomas Stanley

Stanley (D-Waltham) has been the state representative for the 9th Middlesex district, which comprises Lincoln and part of Waltham, since 2001. But the new House maps split Lincoln between two districts along the town’s voting precinct line: the 13th Middlesex (Precinct 1 in the western part of town) and the 14th Norfolk (eastern Lincoln). The precinct line within Lincoln is not changing because the population in town did not shift enough to warrant an adjustment.

In the state Senate, Lincoln will still be in the 3rd Middlesex Senate district (now represented by Sen. Michael Barrett), but that district has shrunk a bit geographically — it will no longer include part of Sudbury.

“I was very disappointed that I’m going to lose Lincoln in my district. I’ve made a lot of great relationships and really enjoyed representing the town and working with the elected and appointed people there,” he said in an interview with the Lincoln Squirrel. “Unfortunately for me, combinations had to be made to address other redistricting issues around the state, and they did a great job as a body with the majority-minority districts. But whenever you change one district, there’s ripple effects.”

The portion of the new House district map showing how Lincoln will be split between the 13th Middlesex (lighter green) and the 9th Norfolk (darker green). Click here to see the full Massachusetts map.

If the change happened today, Lincoln’s Precinct 1 would be represented by Rep. Carmine Gentile (D-13th Middlesex), who lives in Sudbury, and and Precinct 2 by Rep. Alice Peisch (D-14th Norfolk), a Wellesley resident. Before the next election in November 2022, voters will know whether they and other incumbent representatives decide to run again and whether they win their party’s nomination in the primary.

As for Lincoln being split between two districts starting in 2023, “a lot of towns might look at that as a negative, but I don’t,” Stanley said. “The fear is that [being] such a small part of a district means they won’t get attention, but it’s in the representative’s interest to treat every precinct as if they lived there. And just from a purely political perspective, it only helps the incumbent if they’re responsive to small towns.”

Stanley also noted that during the run-up to the next election, “Lincoln will have three representatives looking out for their interests” as Peisch and Gentile (assuming they run for reelection) learn about and meet people in town. “I think Lincoln will be very happy with Alice and Carmine,” he added.

Carol “Cici” Caswell, 1929–2021

Carol Caswell

Carol Bradley Caswell passed away on December 13 in Lincoln at the age of 92. Born Carolyn Fontaine Bradley in Washington, D.C., she attended the Potomac School, the Madeira School and Briarcliff Jr. College. After marrying John Caswell, also of Washington, they lived in Cambridge, Mass.for a short period and then moved to southern California for five years. She and John also spent two years on Kwajalein atoll in the South Pacific while John managed the Raytheon installation there.

Carol and John moved back to the East Coast and settled into Lincoln, where they raised their five children. Carol was active in the Junior League of Boston, loved her plants, and enjoyed playing and watching tennis. Her grandchildren love seeing the picture published from time to time in the Boston Globe of Carol hiding out of sight behind Julia Child on the kitchen set of WGBH, where she volunteered collecting and cleaning her cooking utensils.

She loved staying connected to her family both near and far, and for many years she and John spent a part of their winters on Longboat Key, Fla. As a child, she treasured her time at Rockywold-Deephaven Camps on Squam Lake, N.H., a tradition that has continued with her own family and her brother’s family ever since. The house in Westport Island, Maine, where she and John loved to visit, continues to nurture and grow the bonds of family.

As a volunteer, she was the assistant tax collector for the town of Lincoln for several years and volunteered for a number of other town organizations. She was an active member of the St. Anne’s Church Altar Guild and chair of the Commission of Trust Funds. Upon becoming one of the first residents of The Commons in Lincoln, she was active on the Residents Committee, continuing her tie to the town that lasted more than 64 years. 

“Cici” cherished her children and grandchildren above all else. Her greatest desire was to spend time with them and hear about their adventures and achievements. She was so gracious that she always asked about you and how you were rather than telling you about herself. Her self-deprecating humor and wry wit could catch you by surprise until you saw the mischievous twinkle in her eye. Her lasting legacy and one of the greatest joys of her life was annually hosting her family together for a week away, building a bond of love and caring throughout the generations.

She was predeceased by her younger brother Frederick Bradley and her husband of 60 years, John Ross Caswell. She leaves her dear friend Dr. Jerome Perry and his family ,who have added years to her life and life to her years after the passing of her husband John.

Carol is survived by her brother Thomas Bradley and his wife Anna (Washington, D.C.); her children Brad and Fran (Pennington, N.J.), Chris and Patricia (Sarasota, Fla.), Fred and Pam (South Freeport, Maine), Wally and Brenda (Randolph, Vt.), Carolyn and Jonathan Dwyer (Lincoln); 14 grandchildren and two great-children; niece Christina Bradley and her husband Larry Sampas; and nephews Tom Bradley and Philip Bradley and his wife Susan Bradley.

Donations can be made in her memory to the Friends of the Lincoln Council on Aging & Human Services, PO Box 143, Lincoln MA 01773. Services will be held at a later date. Arrangements are under the care of Concord Funeral Home. To share a memory or offer a condolence, click here.

Obituaries

Margaret Boyer, 85

Polaroid employee and Historical Society member. Full obituary.

Michael Maddox, 74

There will be a memorial gathering Michael Maddox, who died in Jacksonville, FL on December 8, at the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square on Jan. 9 from 2-4 p.m. Full obituary.

Melvin L. Stone, 96

Longtime electrical engineering at MIT Lincoln Lab. Full obituary.

Christopher “Cricker” Williams, 58

Lincoln native who was a truck driver and peace officer in Palestine, TX. Full obituary.

Editor’s note: Whenever possible, the Lincoln Squirrel contacts the funeral home and offers to run full obituaries (with photo when available) as a paid service. In other cases we post a link to obituaries on Legacy.com. 

Eagle Scout builds birdhouses for hospice house

Nancy Zheng, Care Dimensions Hospice House clinical director, and Richard Kelleher with one of the birdhouses he built and installed on a patio post outside a patient room.

Patients, visitors and staff at the Care Dimensions Hospice House on Winter Street should soon see some new winged wildlife thanks to Lincoln Boy Scout Richard Kelleher.

For his Eagle Scout project, Richard (a sophomore at Lawrence Academy in Groton) built and installed five birdhouses on the property. With help from other Scouts, Richard developed the project in memory of his grandmother, Nancy Dickinson, who passed away at the Care Dimensions Hospice House in 2019.

“She was very into nature, and we saw a lot of birds around when we visited her” at the hospice house, said Richard, adding that she had a bird book on her bedside table. “So I thought building and donating birdhouses for the hospice house would be perfect.”

“It’s a wonderful memorial for his grandmother and an attraction for patients, their families and our employees to enjoy the birds on the property,” said Nancy Zheng, Care Dimensions Hospice House clinical director. “We’re grateful for Richard’s thoughtful donation.”

The Commons to be sold; town seeks assurance on tax payments

The Commons in Lincoln

Lincoln’s biggest taxpayer is changing hands for the second time, but the new owners have agreed in principle to negotiate an arrangement for paying property taxes or a PILOT agreement (payment in lieu of taxes).

The Commons in Lincoln is currently owned by Benchmark Senior Living and a private equity firm. The Groves in Lincoln, as it was called when it opened in 2010, was owned by the New England Deaconess Association and Masonic Health Systems of Massachusetts but had an occupancy rate of only 59% in 2013, when it filed for bankruptcy after defaulting on payment of $88.4 million in tax-exempt bonds.

After the sale goes through, the new owner and Benchmark will sign a long-term contract to retain Benchmark as the manager of The Commons, said David Levesque, Benchmark’s Senior Director of Corporate Communications, in an email to the Lincoln Squirrel. “This ensures that The Commons’ residents continue to receive the same level of care and services provided by current Benchmark employees.”

According to the terms of the project’s original approval from the town, the Select Board must sign off on any sale of the property, but that process hit a snag this week over the question of whether the new owners would continue to pay property tax. As a nonprofit entity, they would legally’ be exempt from paying any taxes on the property.

“You may well lose the tax revenues you’ve been benefiting from the last several years,” attorney Shirin Everett told the Select Board on December 13. Everett works with the KP Law, the town counsel.

Benchmark, a for-profit entity, has a fiscal 2022 property tax bill of $1.38 million on an assessed value of $9 million, or about 4% of Lincoln’s $34.57 million in total assessed property, according to the Assessor’s Office.

At Monday’s meeting, Town Administrator Tim Higgins noted that New England Deaconess was also nonprofit but voluntarily paid property taxes,” so there’s a precedent.” Select Board member James Craig made a motion to approve the sale contingent on restrictions in the current agreement (specifically, that the 30 units in the Flint building will continue to be designated as affordable, “and that the town and buyer enter into an agreement for PILOT if property is not otherwise taxable.”

But Benchmark representative Melissa Solomon objected, saying she was “very concerned” with that wording. The stipulation was not part of the original agreement language, which was silent on the tax issue but said that the town’s approval for a sale couldn’t be “unreasonably withheld.”

“We want to memorialize somehow that the new owner will be willing to enter in negotiations to make voluntary payments if they’re operating under a not-for-profit status,” Craig said, adding that it was the town’s fiduciary responsibility to try to maintain the revenue from The Commons. “Verbal assurances are great but mean nothing.”

“We are happy to sit down and discuss this property tax dilemma but the regulatory agreement can’t be not granted because of a a property tax question,” said Sarah Laffey, Managing Director for Capital, Strategy and New Initiatives at OnePoint Partners, which is advising and representing the buyers (NELP-Commons LLC).

The motion’s wording was suggested by town counsel, Craig said, although Everett had to leave the meeting before that discussion took place.

Temporarily at an impasse, the board decided to defer its vote until a special meeting on the morning of December 16. In the interim, town officials asked the buyer to declare its intentions in writing. Laffey accordingly emailed Higgins saying that “immediately following the closing, the buyer intends to enter into good-faith negotiations” for a PILOT agreement (something that most universities and other large nonprofits have with their host communities). The board then voted to approve the sale without the PILOT language in the motion.

A map showing the assisted living and skilled nursing facilities built at The Commons by Benchmark on the northeast side of the campus (click to enlarge).

“The sale of The Commons by its current owners — a private equity group and a Benchmark Senior Living affiliate — is not unexpected. The investors’ business plan was to stabilize the then-bankrupt community and help the community meet its full potential, and that was accomplished,” said Levesque, who declined to disclose the sale price.

After taking over in 2013, Benchmark built a health center with memory care and skilled nursing units, upgrading The Commons to a full continuing-care retirement community (CCRC) in addition to the independent living it already offered. After the bankruptcy and sale in 2013, the town approved a plan to build those facilities on part of the campus that was originally intended for second-phase construction of more independent living units, complementing the 168 units in two apartment-style main buildings and 38 cottages.

“Within one year of opening the full campus, The Commons was over 90% occupied and has sustained that occupancy since. The Commons is now positioned for a new ownership structure that is more consistent with its industry peers, said Levesque, adding that “the vast majority of CCRCs throughout the country and in Massachusetts are not-for-profit.”

Lincoln’s newest firefighter wins top award from academy

Thomas Pianka with Richard N. Bangs, former chair of the fire training council for whom Pianka’s award is named, and State Fire Marshal Peter Ostroskey. (Photo by Jake Wark, Mass. Department of Fire Services)

Thomas Pianka, Lincoln’s newest full-time firefighter, received the Richard N. Bangs Award upon his recent graduation from the Massachusetts Fire Academy. More recently, he and his family got something even better — a baby boy.

Pianka, a Hudson resident with Lincoln roots, had been working as a per diem probationary firefighter in town since July 2020. He’s the third generation in his family to serve in the profession — his father Jaime, who grew up in Lincoln, worked as firefighter here until he got a position in Sudbury, and his great-great uncle was a Boston firefighter.

Tom had some basic training and experience as an on-call firefighter in Vermont that qualified him for the Lincoln per diem position until he graduated and was hired full-time. The Lincoln Fire Department had had a vacancy since Brian Young was promoted to fire chief in August 2020.

The MFA program is a high-intensity program that teaches essentials of fire and non-fire conditions, life safety, search and rescue, ladder operations, water supply, hazmat, confined space, and pump operation. The Department of Fire Services offers this class free of charge to all Massachusetts fire departments. Every career firefighter must complete the career recruit class. The Bangs award is given to the top recruit in each class.

Most towns including Lincoln require firefighters to be certified EMTs as well. This is actually a big part of the job, since both fire and police personnel respond when there’s a call for a medical issue. Structure fires are fortunately few and far between in Lincoln since the advent in recent years of various successful fire prevention measures.

“I was always interested in firefighting growing up — it seemed like a natural course,” Pianka said in phone call with the Lincoln Squirrel. Asked what he enjoyed most about the job, he said simply, “Service to the community. I like meeting everyone and there are lots of opportunities to help out.”

It’ll be a few years yet before we know if a fourth Pianka generation will go into firefighting. The newest family member, a boy named Kai, was born on December 12, joining his six-year-old stepsister.

News acorns

Barn Buddies on Wednesday for kids age 5-7

There are still a few spots available for Codman Community Farms’ Barn Buddies Holiday Special on Wednesday, Dec. 15 from 2:30–4 p.m. in the farm greenhouse. Kids age 5–7 can meet some familiar farm friends, make some festive decorations, and enjoy a seasonal farm snack as they spend an afternoon with our experienced older farm buddies. Participants should wear warm clothes and closed-toe shoes. Click here to sign up.

More Boy Scout Christmas trees available

The Lincoln Boy Scouts Troop 127 were able to obtain an additional shipment of fresh-cut trees. The tree lot at the corner of Lincoln and Codman Roads will be open on Wednesday, Dec. 15 from 6:30–8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 18-19 from 9 a.m.–5:30 p.m., or until sold out.

Watch talk by National Book Award winner

The Lincoln Public Library will host a Zoom screening of the talk given at the Concord Museum in June by Harvard Professor Tiya Miles on her book, All She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, on Thursday, Dec. 16 at 7 p.m. Lincoln author Ray Shepard will introduce the talk. All That She Carried is a National Book Award winner for 2021 and has been selected as one of the best books of 2021 by Time, Washington Post and New York Times. The sack — created by an enslaved woman named Rose for her daughter, who at age nine was sold by their owner — was inherited by her great-granddaughter Ruth, who embroidered the story into the sack. Click here to join the Zoom meeting (passcode: 125443).

Holiday drive for SVdP food pantry

The Lincoln Family Association and a Lincoln high school student are collecting donations for the Lincoln food pantry run by the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Lincoln and Weston. Residents can drop off nonperishable food items from this wish list at the following times and locations:

Friday, Dec. 17

    • 9:30–1 a.m. at the Lincoln School blue playground
    • 3–4:30 p.m. behind St. Joseph’s Church (142 Lincoln Rd.)

Saturday, Dec. 18

    • 10:30-11:30 a.m. at the Lincoln School blue playground

Through Sunday, Dec. 19

    • The bin at Lincoln Middle School (items are being collected at this location for the second year in a row by tenth-grader Devon Das).

The SVdP food pantry has been dealing with sharp increases in need for assistance in recent years, as seen in their 2019-20 fiscal year summary. Total expenses and the amount of emergency assistance funds disbursed all went up by at least 30% over the preceding year, while the number of clients served has more than quadrupled since 2016. Click here if you or someone you know needs food or emergency financial assistance.

L-S teachers, School Committee agree on three-year deal

The Lincoln-Sudbury Regional School Committee announced that it has reached an agreement in principle on a new three-year contract with the Lincoln-Sudbury Teachers’ Association. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) provides for annual sequential cost-of-living (COLA) increases of 3%, 2%, and 2%, representing an aggregate COLA increase over three years totaling 7%. This agreement follows a 0% COLA for 2021-22 and agreement to transition to a single healthcare provider, which resulted in significant savings for the school district. There was an aggregate increase of 6.5% over the 2018-2021 period. The MOU will be incorporated into a collective bargaining agreement for the 2022-2025 academic years that is expected to be finalized in the coming weeks.

The terms reflect the aligned objectives of the School Committee and the Teachers’ Association to strengthen the educational and extracurricular program for students, provide opportunities for innovation in teaching, and manage compensation growth in a responsible manner, according to the committee’s statement.

“We are pleased to have achieved the key goals established by the School Committee at the outset of negotiations, and that we reached resolution on terms quickly and collaboratively,” said Cara Endyke-Doran, chair of the Lincoln-Sudbury School Committee. “The shared priorities of the School Committee and Teachers’ Association – providing a rigorous and purposeful education to all students – were evident throughout our negotiations.” The School Committee further appreciates and extends its sincerest gratitude for the dedication of the faculty to the best interest of the students of the district, especially during these challenging times caused by the ongoing pandemic’s impact on our community’s collective social and financial well-being.

Once the definitive agreement is finalized, a copy of it may be found on this L-S School Committee web page. For more information, contact committee chair Cara Endyke-Doran at Cara_endykedoran@lsrhs.net.

Thank teachers through HATS program

The Lincoln School Foundation’s Honor A Teacher & Staff (HATS) program gives you an opportunity to recognize specific Lincoln Public Schools teachers and other staff members while supporting the LSF. For a small donation, the LSF will prepare a certificate of appreciation with your personalized message to be delivered to the recipient. In addition to your child’s learning coach/teacher, consider celebrating the hard work of teaching assistants, specialists (art, music, drama, science, wellness), support specialists, office staff, nurses, custodians, METCO staff — anyone who works in Lincoln schools. Visit the HATS web page to participate, and click here to see grants that the LSF has made to teachers using donations.

Police log for December 6–12, 2021

December 6

Carroll School, Baker Bridge Road (3:43 p.m.) — Fire Department assisted with a reported problem with an outdoor pellet stove.

December 7

St. Anne’s Church (12:27 a.m.) — Officer checking the parking lot noticed a parked vehicle with two people inside. He spoke to them; everything was fine and they left the area.

Indian Camp Lane (12:43 p.m.) — A family member requested a well-being check on the residents. Officer responded and found that they are staying at Hanscom due to a mechanical problem at the residence.

Wheeler Road (2:05 p.m.) — Officer driving by saw a motorist who appeared to be sick on the side of the road. The officer checked on the individual, who was nauseous but otherwise OK.

Donelan’s Supermarket (2:12 p.m.) — Caller reported a customer was yelling and causing a disturbance inside Donelan’s. Officer responded but the party left the area and they were unable to locate or identify them.

December 8

Sandy Pond Road (1:44 p.m.) — Caller reported an outside odor of natural gas. Fire Department checked the area with negative readings. National Grid notified.

Doherty’s Garage (2”17 p.m.) — Gas station owner reported a party appeared to have driven off without paying for gas, perhaps unintentionally. An officer responded and was able to locate the party via their registration plate. The officer followed up with the resident, who was unaware that the payment process did not go through electronically. They returned to the gas station to pay.

Concord Road (3:06 p.m.) — Resident called complaining about where a landscaping crew was parked. The caller said they’ll speak to the crew and call back if there’s an issue.

South Great Road (3:57 p.m.) — Watertown police called to report they found a purse in their town that belongs to a Lincoln resident. A message was delivered to the resident.

December 9

South Great Road (9:56 a.m.) — Watertown police called again regarding the purse. An officer went to the Watertown Police Department to pick up the purse as the resident was unable to retrieve it and delivered it to the resident.

December 10

Lincoln Road (8:49 a.m.) — Caller reported finding a dog near the railroad tracks. Attempts were made to contact the owner, who lives out of town. A party brought the dog home, awaiting contact from the owner. The owner called back and made arrangements to pick up the dog.

Laurel Drive (9:25 a.m.) — Report of an outside odor of natural gas. Fire Department found no readings. National Grid notified.

December 11

Tower Road (12:23 a.m.) — Officer located a parked vehicle with the interior lights on. Officer spoke to the homeowner.

December 12

Nothing of note.

Addendum

After the story headlined “Did you know…” who the first inhabitants of Lincoln were? story was published on December 9, town historian Jack MacLean offered this additional information abut the map that was included:

The map here shows Massachuset territories extending further north than was the case at the time of contact. Along the coast, lands associated with the Pawtucket Confederation extended down to Charlestown, which was purchased from Pawtucket leaders. Boston (Shawmut) was associated with the Massachuset, with the Charles River providing a divide. Watertown and Cambridge south of the river were also Massachuset. However, Lincoln’s primary parent community of Concord was purchased from local leaders (Tahattawan) and from Squaw Sachem, along with her second husband, who lived at Mistick (Medford). Squaw Sachem had succeeded her first husband (Nanepashemet) as the leader of the Pawtucket Confederation. While Concord was formally seen as being under Squaw Sachem and the Pawtucket Confederation, the close proximity of the two “tribal” groups in this area indeed suggests much fluidity and interconnectedness.

David, it should be noted, is the coauthor with his mother of The First Peoples of the Northeast.

“Did you know…” who the first inhabitants of Lincoln were?

By David P. Braun

When people ask, “who were the first inhabitants of Lincoln,” they often mean, “what tribe lived here?” The short answer is, probably Massachuset.

But as best we can tell, most Native American “tribes” were somewhat fluid. They did not have rigid boundaries or a concept of land as property in the way that the European invaders did. With some exceptions, they were more like loose confederacies of local communities that sometimes acted together as larger groups. They had territories based upon their traditional uses of the landscape, their shared history, and their shared history of alliances and disputes with neighboring groups. They spoke related, mutually intelligible Algonquian languages and were descendants of Algonquian-speaking communities that had lived and evolved together for thousands of years.

The exact tribes known from the historic record may not have had that much antiquity. Social relationships and identities likely evolved over those thousands of years, as lifeways changed and as populations grew and shifted over time. But the incorporation of agriculture into their lifeways starting around 1000 A.D. likely brought considerable changes. Populations grew faster, and areas with good soils for farming would have become valuable resources.

Occasionally, where the edges of tribal territories met or overlapped, the communities would have worked out rules for sharing. There is a lake in Webster, Massachusetts, famously named (or at least so recorded), as

“Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg”

If my memory serves, this native name is usually translated literally as something like “you fish on your side of the lake, we fish on our side of the lake, and nobody fishes in the middle.” However, Algonquian languages are very figurative. The local communities might have thought of the lake simply as “Border Treaty Lake.”

Places such as Lincoln, which is mostly upland terrain, may have been part of some native communities’ identities and hunting territories before Europeans arrived, but not the site of winter or even seasonal villages. That was not how the indigenous communities lived. Instead, the adjacent Sudbury/Concord/Merrimack River valley and its wetlands would have been far more important as dwelling places. The rivers were avenues of travel and sources of food, and the floodplains would have provided productive farmland near to their villages.

The arrival of the Europeans in the early 1600s and the fatal diseases they brought caused havoc, disrupting the indigenous peoples’ lives, locations, and connections with each other. Many communities became mixtures of local natives and refugees from neighboring areas that had suffered worse. And the written records we have of these communities post-date the start of that havoc. They do not necessarily record how the people lived beforehand. The historic records, biased though they may be (after all, who wrote them? Not the natives…), suggest that the natives did their best to maintain their sense of identity and their identification with their traditional home landscapes. But the European diseases killed their elders fast. As the native communities lost their elders (with their unwritten stores of history and traditional knowledge), they lost much of their collective cultural memories.

It is wrenching to think of the thousands of years of tradition and knowledge that were lost with the erasure of these communities.

For those who wish to read more, I recommend Charles Mann’s book, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (2011). It is grim reading but also important and fascinating. Also valuable is Nathaniel Philbrick’s book, Mayflower (2006). This also is grim and specific to southeastern New England, but an excellent treatment of how the natives and early European settlers in the Massachusetts Bay area perceived and treated each other.

Addendum — After this story was published, town historian Jack MacLean offered this additional information abut the map:

The map here shows Massachuset territories extending further north than was the case at the time of contact. Along the coast, lands associated with the Pawtucket Confederation extended down to Charlestown, which was purchased from Pawtucket leaders. Boston (Shawmut) was associated with the Massachuset, with the Charles River providing a divide. Watertown and Cambridge south of the river were also Massachuset. However, Lincoln’s primary parent community of Concord was purchased from local leaders (Tahattawan) and from Squaw Sachem, along with her second husband, who lived at Mistick (Medford). Squaw Sachem had succeeded her first husband (Nanepashemet) as the leader of the Pawtucket Confederation. While Concord was formally seen as being under Squaw Sachem and the Pawtucket Confederation, the close proximity of the two “tribal” groups in this area indeed suggests much fluidity and interconnectedness.

David, it should be noted, is the coauthor with his mother of The First Peoples of the Northeast.

“Lincoln’s History” is an occasional column by members of the Lincoln Historical Society.