Read and nonconcur’d, and Ordered, That the Petitioner serve the Town of Lunenburg with a Copy of this Petition, that they shew Cause, if any they have, on the second Wednesday of the next Sitting of this Court, why the Prayer thereof should not be granted.

     Sent up for Concurrence.

     [Journal of the House of Representatives (page 93), October 9,
     1750.]

A Memorial of John Whitney and others of the Southwesterly Part of Groton, praying that their Petition exhibited in November 1749 may be revived, and the Papers prefer’d at that Time again considered, for the Reasons mentioned.

     Read and Ordered, That the Petition lie on the Table.

     [Journal of the House of Representatives (page 64), October 9,
     1751.]

     Ordered, That the Petition of John Whitney and others of the
     Southwesterly Part of Groton, lie upon the Table.

     [Journal of the House of Representatives (page 81), January 3,
     1752.]

The Memorial of John Whitney and others, as entred October 9th 1751, Inhabitants of the Southwesterly Part of Groton and the Eastwardly Part of Lunenberg, setting forth that in November 1749, they preferred a Petition to this Court, praying to be set off from the Towns to which they belong, and made into a distant [distinct?] and seperate Town and Parish, for the Reasons therein mentioned; praying that the aforesaid Memorial and Petition, with the Report of the said Committee thereon, and all the Papers thereto belonging, may be revived, and again taken into consideration.

     Read again, and the Question was put, Whether the Prayer of the
     Petition should be so far granted as that the petition and Papers
     accompanying it should be revived?

     It pass’d in the Negative.  And Voted, That the Memorial be
     dismiss’d.

     [Journal of the House of Representatives (page 92), January 9,
     1753.]

The discussion in regard to the division of the town resulted in setting off the district of Shirley, on January 5, 1753, three months before the district of Pepperell was formed.  In the Act of Incorporation the name was left blank, as it was in the one incorporating Pepperell, and “Shirley” was filled in at the time of its engrossment.  It was so named after William Shirley, the governor of the province at that period.  It never was incorporated specifically as a town, but became one by a general Act of the Legislature, passed on March 23, 1786.  It was represented, while a district, in the session of the General Court which met at Watertown, on July 19, 1775, as well as in the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, and thus tacitly acquired the powers and privileges of a town, which were afterward confirmed by the act just mentioned.