By Carla Charter

John Erving, in approximately 1752 -1753, bought 16,000 acres of land from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, then Massachusetts Bay Colony. This land included all of what is now Erving, half of Wendell, and parts of Orange and New Salem.

“He was at one time called ‘the richest man in Boston,’” according to Sara Campbell a local researcher, lecturer, author, editor and Erving resident. Campbell will be giving a talk sponsored by the Wendell Historical Society on his son, Major William Erving, at the Wendell Library on Thursday, Aug. 24, at 6:30 p.m.

“I started doing research on the Erving family about one and a half years ago with my friend Phil Johnson,” Campbell said. “We didn’t know much beyond the fact that his name (John Erving) was in the town history, and his portrait hangs at Smith College in their art museum.”

Campbell said the first thing they did was put together a basic family tree from vital records (births, marriages, and deaths) and Boston records. This gave them a skeleton of the family’s history, which they dug deeper to flesh out.

“John Erving was born in the Orkney Islands of Scotland and rose from a sailor to ship’s captain to powerful merchant. He served on the British Governor’s Council for 20 years. John and his wife Abigail’s children married like Colonial royalty, with his oldest son John marrying Governor Shirley’s daughter, oldest daughter Elizabeth marrying James Bowdoin, future governor, “she stated.

Campbell said she was surprised that John Erving was such a big deal in history. “I shouldn’t have been. I just had no idea how big.”

William was John and Abigail Erving’s second son, born in 1732. He studied at the Boston Latin School and received two degrees from Harvard, when the school served what then was called high school-aged boys, who went on to get their ‘second’ degree, according to Campbell. He spent 20 years in the British Army, fighting at Crown Point, Louisberg, Quebec, and Havana. He reportedly resigned from the Army at the start of the Revolution, Campbell said. He was later “naturalized” by an act of the legislature in 1785, so he was not considered a patriot until that time. William Erving went on to be introduced to George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and become a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

John bought the land from the government and William inherited it from his father, Campbell said. This land included approximately the north half of the town of Wendell. All of the siblings inherited part of the 11,000 acres from their father upon his death. When he acquired the land it was mainly woods, although people from Lancaster began settling in the center.

“When I read his second son, William’s will, I thought it would be fun to bring his story to Wendell, Campbell said. “That will is a wonderful document, with two codicils, and seems to show his personality.”

William was concerned about the residents in the area who were uneducated, stating “the people [of Wendell] might relapse into a state of barbarism” without support for learning, according to a library press release about the event.

“William never married, so he wanted his inheritance to do some good after his father died in 1786. He gave two lots to the Town of Wendell for the support of a minister and a school. He died in 1791 at only 59,” Campbell stated.

Another interesting fact is in the naming of the towns. Erving was named after John Erving. Oliver Wendell, who Wendell was named after, was associated with the Ervings, and was an executor of both of their wills, Campbell said.

Carla Charter is a freelance writer from Phillipston. Her writing focuses on the history of the North Quabbin area. Contact her at cjfreelancewriter@earthlink.net.

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