Prescott’s Grant, the nucleus of the town, appears as a large quadrilateral, containing more than a thousand acres in the north and west part of the town.  Who the Prescott was to whom the grant was made is not known, further than that he must have been some one who had rendered military or other services to the State.  That he was the Prescott who commanded at Bunker Hill is, indeed, possible; but, as the grant was probably made before the Revolutionary War, that supposition seems hardly tenable. (Page 15.)

By an act of the General Court, passed February 25, 1793, a large section of territory was taken from Groton and annexed to Dunstable.  This change produced a very irregular boundary between the two towns, and made, according to Butler’s History of Groton (page 66), more than eighty angles in the line, causing much inconvenience.  The following copy from the “Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts” gives the names of the families thus transferred:—­

     An Act to set off Caleb Woods, and others, from Groton, and to
     annex them to Dunstable.

BE it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives, in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, That Caleb Woods, Silas Blood, Amaziah Swallow, Nathaniel Cummings, Ebenezer Procter, Silas Blood, jun. Silas Marshall, Levi Parker, Amos Woods, Isaac Lawrence, Peter Blood, Caleb Blood, jun. Henry Blood, Caleb Woods, jun. and Silas Marshall, jun., together with their families and estates, and also the estates of Doctor Jonas Marshall, the heirs of Captain Solomon Woods, deceased, and Joseph Parkhurst, which they now own in said Groton, be, and they are hereby set off from the town of Groton, in the county of Middlesex, and annexed to Dunstable, in said county, and shall hereafter be considered a part of the same, there to do duty and receive privileges, as the other inhabitants of said Dunstable.  Provided, nevertheless, That the persons above-mentioned shall pay all taxes that have been legally assessed on them by said Groton, in the same manner as if this Act had never been passed.

     [This act passed February 25, 1793.]

The zigzag line caused by this act was somewhat modified by the two following ones, passed at different times a few years later.  I think that the very irregular boundary between the two towns, with its eighty-six angles, as mentioned by Mr. Butler, was produced by the subsequent annexations to Dunstable.

     An Act to set of Nathaniel Lawrence with his Estate, from the
     Town of Groton, and annex them to the Town of Dunstable.