Otis History - The Irregular History of the Connecticut Massachusetts Border
By Peter Cameron
April 2025
Do I have a bizarre tale for you. Ever look at the southern Massachusetts state border and wonder why it is not a straight line? It was supposed to be. This is a true story of malfeasance by government employees leading to a 184-year border dispute between Massachusetts and Connecticut.
The charter for the Massachusetts Bay Colony was granted in 1629 and it laid out a straight-line, southern border of the colony. In 1642, with settlements moving westward and interest in what would become Connecticut Colony to the south growing, Massachusetts decided to finally survey/mark its southern border. It commissioned Nathaniel Woodward and Solomen Saffery, both of Massachusetts, to survey it.
They began by correctly locating the eastern most border point. But this was 1642. The route west was wilderness filled with wild animals, a hostile native population and rugged terrain. They balked at continuing west on foot. Instead, they hired a ship, sailed around Cape Cod, into Long Island Sound and up the Connecticut River, marking a point they believed to be the border. Predictably, their calculation at the river was wrong, as much as seven miles south of the actual line. They filed the flawed survey with Massachusetts authorities.
In 1695, Connecticut, now a colony itself, sensing a mistake, resurveyed and came up with a totally different result. They informed Massachusetts who in turn insisted Connecticut was incorrect. In 1702 a joint Massachusetts-Connecticut survey reaffirmed the 1695 survey. The Massachusetts General Court denied the survey’s authority, sticking with the 1642 survey line. Finally, in 1713, the two colonies, to avoid English interference, agreed to the 1695 survey. Connecticut then sold the land it had gained back to Massachusetts.
Towns in contested border areas, excluded from these agreements, became pawns. Many objected to being forced to pay higher Massachusetts taxes. In 1749 the towns of Enfield, Somers, Suffield and Woodstock petitioned Connecticut for admission. Massachusetts immediately objected but Connecticut voted to accept them. Massachusetts refused to give them up and a legal battle raged for years with the inhabitants being caught in the middle. Residents in the disputed areas often received tax bills or election summonses from both states.
In 1793, the two states agreed that their boundary line from Union, west to the New York boundary would be an uninterrupted straight line. That didn’t last long. In 1803, to settle survey errors, a portion of Southwick, east of Congamond Lake, was given to Connecticut while west of the lake, including the town of Southwick, went to Massachusetts. This is the 2.5 square mile notch or the so-called Southwick Jog we still see on the border. Another disputed section that was between Enfield and Longmeadow was included in this settlement.
In 1826 the final part of the dispute was settled when a small correction took place in the Woodstock/Union area. The border was now set as we see it today, a bunch of irregularities rather than the straight line originally set out in the Massachusetts Bay Charter.
Many settlers in these disputed areas lost land due to the corrections and applied for relief to the Massachusetts General Court. The court awarded them equivalent lands in then sparsely settled western Massachusetts. During this time the Tyringham Equivalent, made up of replacement land for other reasons, was established, so it made sense to attach the border dispute and replacement grants to it. The makeup of this forerunner of Otis included the Wolcott, Rand and Taylor grants, all originating from the border dispute. Ultimately the border dispute heavily impacted how the town boundaries of modern-day Otis were determined.
Peter Cameron is an Otis, MA resident and a retired policeman. He is a graduate of Central Connecticut State University with a B.S. in History with a concentration in U.S. Colonial History.
