 Salem Cross Inn West Brookfield, Worcester Co, MA Pictured Left: The old portion of the house Today it is called the Salem Cross
Inn, a restaurant and banquet
facility sitting outside West Brookfield, MA. Listed on the National
Historic Register, the front door latch holds a witch-mark designed to protect
the inhabitants. It began as the home of the
John White family. Sergt. John White was listed as a Brookfield, MA
resident on the October 30, 1706 roster. The History of North Brookfield, Mass
states, "To insure (standing guards for the inhabitants) and to hold out
inducements to the sons of the first planters to remain, the Committee, at the
meeting held Mar. 8, 1710, granted to Sergt. John White, 42 acres of upland and
20 of meadow, provided he live in the place four years after he is wholly
disbanded, and pay rates." John White then began construction of a
John White's widow eventually remarried and moved to Connecticut. Their posthumous son Cornelius White and his wife spent their lifetime in the house as did generations of descendants. Although the property is not currently owned by the family, John White's descendants can be heartened by the fact that his home has stood strong throughout time and faces the 21st century with a continuing vitality. |
home
for himself, his wife Prudence Hayward and their firstborn son John. The
construction of the main house was not completed during John White's lifetime.
Only months after receiving his land grant and with a wife pregnant with his
second son, John White was killed by Indians. The History of North
Brookfield, Mass reports the killing as follows. "The most distressing
disaster on our frontiers this year, happened at Brookfield. July 22 (1710) six
men, viz. Ebenezer Hayward, John White, Stephen Jennings, Benjamin Jennings,
John Grosvenor and Joseph Kellogg were making hay in the meadows, when the
Indians, who had been watching an opportunity to surprise them, sprang suddenly
upon them, despatched five of them, and took the other (John White) prisoner.
White, spying a small company of our people at some distance, jumped from the
Indians that held him and ran to join his friends; but the Indian fired after
him and wounded him in the thigh, by which he fell; but soon recovering and
running again, he was again fired at and received his death wound." A
monument to the event sits in Old Indian Cemetery in West Brookfield.
