Documentary History of American Water-works

South Lancaster

South Lancaster, Massachusetts

The area known as South Lancaster was settled in the mid-17th Century and was known as the Village of New Boston until some time in the 19th Century.

The New Boston Aqueduct Company was organized March 11, 1826 to convey water in leaden pipes from the springs on George Hill to the dwellings of the inhabitants of New Boston Village, in the town of Lancaster. This system operated until 1900, when it was sold to the town of Lancaster on October 1, 1900, and the company was dissolved in October 1901.

The Town of Lancaster currently supplies water to this community.

References
1826 Topographical and Historical Sketches of the Town of Lancaster, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts: Furnished for the Worcester Magazine and Historical Journal, by Joseph Willard
Page 8: There are various springs in town; from three of them on George hill, the village situated a mile south west from the church, is bountifully supplied with later, by means of an aqueduct consisting of leaden pipes that extend in different directions and branches, more than two miles. A company was organized last winter by virtue of Stat. 1798, Chap. 59. The whole expense of the work, was not far from $2000.

1889 The Military Annals of Lancaster, Massachusetts. 1740-1865: Including Lists of Soldiers Serving in the Colonial and Revolutionary Wars, for the Lancastrian Towns: Berlin, Bolton, Harvard, Leominster, and Sterling, by Henry Stedman Nourse
Page 279: It was many years later that the use of lead or iron pipe for conducting water into dwellings became common here ; but two acqueduct companies, one incorporated as early as 1797, utilized the famous springs of Quasaponikin and George Hills, bringing water to the inhabitants of the Neck and the village of New Boston in bored logs, specimens of which in perfect preservation occasionally even yet come to the surface.

1901 Worcester Daily Spy, July 12, 1901, Page 10.
Dissolution of a corporation asked for. Herbert Parker and Henry H. Fuller, counsel for the New Boston Aqueduct Company of Lancaster, filed in the Supreme Court yesterday a petition for the dissolution of the corporation. The company was organized March 11, 1826, to convey water in leaden pipes from the springs on George Hill to the dwellings of the inhabitants of New Boston Village, in the town of Lancaster. The corporation has disposed of its property to the town and the petition set forth there is no reason for its further existence.