Henchman Street
From Worcester Activist wiki
Capt. Daniel Henchman, one of Worcester’s earliest settlers, was a sturdy pioneer who could follow an Indian by a bent blade of grass.
During King Philip’s War he led a company to the bank of Neponset river on the way to Mt. Hope in pursuit of hostile redskins. As the soldiers reached the river, the moon was rising.
It was a queer moon with a dark spot that looked like a scalp. That night the soldiers posted extra guards.
When he arrived in Hassanemisco, now Grafton, he rescued a youth whom the Indians had captured a week before in Marlboro. The Indians fled as the soldiers approached, were chased to Pacachoug, now Worcester, but still eluded Henchman. He decided to return to Mendon and surprise the Indians there.
Something went wrong as the attack started. Five men supposed to follow the captain deserted, leaving a lieutenant, Philip Curtis, to bear the brunt.
Firing from cover, the Indians shot down Curtis and one of his men. The soldiers retreated, leaving their dead, but recovered the bodies in the morning when the Indians slipped away during the night.
“Philip Curtice of Roxbury, a stout man,” wrote a historian.
Henchman settled in Worcester, but later became involved in a bitter land controversy that left him with few friends.
Judge Sewell wrote in his diary on Monday, Oct. 19, 1685:
“About nine o’clock at night, News comes to Town of Capt. Henchman’s Death at Worcester last Thursday; buried on Friday; very few at his Funeral, his own Servants, a white and black, carried him to, and put him in his Grave. His Wife and children following and no more, or but one or two more.”
Henchman street first appeared in 1847.
The core of this article comes from A History of Your City Streets.
