When the alarm was sounded for the battles of Lexington and Concord, present day Auburn was known as “the South Parish of Worcester” and was just about to finish its second year as that. The parish was made up of sections of Worcester, Leicester, Oxford, and Sutton. The reason for the formation of the South Parish of Worcester was that the landowners in this area found the distance to travel for church services in Worcester too far with poor roads hampering the travel. In 1773, the General Court of Massachusetts granted the petition for the area and a committee was appointed to select a location for a meeting house. The Drurys were part of the 24 people from Worcester whose land was part of the petition. There were also landowners from Sutton, Oxford and Leicester. The warrant for the first meeting was signed by John Chandler, who was the Justice of the Peace in Worcester. The meeting was held at the home of Thomas Drury, Innholder, on July 6, 1773, and officers were elected. Until the new meeting house was built, town meetings and church services were held at the Drury Tavern. According to the “Historic Houses of Auburn,” the inn is now located at 129 Central Street although back then there were no streets only dirt roads. The house was built between 1763-1768 and became the first inn in the town. It served as a stagecoach stop on a route from Worcester to Hartford.

Though the parish was small, about 50 men were credited in answering the alarm on April 18, 1775, but not all were living within the parish boundaries. This article will focus on the Thomas Drury family, of which there were five generations with Thomas as a first name. The third and fourth generations were instrumental in the formation of the town as well as serving in the military and in the government of the town during and after the Revolutionary War. 

According to the “Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors Who Fought in the Revolutionary War,” Thomas [4th] was a private in the Capt. Timothy Bigelow’s Company of Minutemen which was part of the Colonel Artemas Ward regiment which marched on the alarm of April 19, 1777. He served 19 days. It also seems that he was part of the Capt. Jesse Stone 9th South Parish of Worcester Co. as a 2nd Lieut. March 28, 1776, was also listed with Capt. David Prouty’s Co. list of officers enlisted or drafted from Worcester Co. Brigade. 

Thomas [4th] came from a line of military men with great, great grandfather, John, being a lieutenant and his great grandfather, Thomas [1st] was a captain. 

The Drury family can be traced back to Hugh Drury who was born about 1616 in England. He migrated to the Mass Bay Colony in 1641 and married Lydia Rice in 1646. They had a son, John, in 1646.

John stayed In the Boston area and married Mary Weare in 1668 and had 4 children, the oldest being Thomas [1st] who was born in 1668. 

Thomas married Rachel Rice in Dec.1867 in Sudbury. They eventually moved to Framingham and were living there when Thomas died in 1723. Thomas and Rachel had 7 children, including Thomas [2nd] born in 1690.

Thomas Jr.  married Sarah Clarke in 1719 in Framingham, but sometime after that they moved to Grafton where they stayed until he died in 1783 at the age of 93 and was buried in Grafton. There were 9 children with the oldest being Thomas [3rd] born in 1721. 

Thomas III married Elizabeth Brooks in 1746 in Grafton and had four children. He died 1778 in Grafton but was buried in Auburn. He was a lieutenant in the town militia. Thomas was the tavern/ inn owner which was located near the First Congregational Church on Central St.in Auburn. He officially donated the land for the church and burial ground around 1871. There was also a sawmill and grist mill not far from the inn that had the Drury name. It was on a tributary of the French River called Ramshorn Brook. The mill was passed until his great grandson Alvah inherited it. 

Thomas Drury [4th] was born in 1747 in Grafton. He married Experience Butler in 1796 in Auburn and had 5 children with Thomas (5th) being born in 1777 in Auburn. 

Thomas 5th married Mehitable Baird and had a son, Alvah. Alvah died in April 1846 after an accident at the grist mill and was buried in Brimfield. Alvah was the last Drury to own the family mill that was in the area that is now known as Drury Square at Auburn and Southbridge Streets. The mill was sold to Henry Dunn of Ashford MA. There is another house that is at 27 Auburn St. that was built by a John Drury c. 1820. 

It seemed from 1774 on, the underlying aim of the town fathers was to make the “Parish” a fully-fledged town and so petitioned the General Court of Worcester to make South Parish a town apart from Worcester.  This petition and every other petition after it were denied until 1777, when Worcester, under conditions, allowed for the incorporation on April 10, 1778, and called it Ward.  

From 1774 to 1786, the Drury father and son team held various positions in town government. Lieutenant Thomas was selectman, hog-reeves (which was a town officer responsible for the impounding of stray hogs), moderator, assessor, examiner for school squadron district #3 and Bogachoag (Pakachoag), a member of the school committee, warden, and was a delegate to the Worcester County convention after the war to work on a state constitution, and a tythingman which was a general law enforcement officers that made sure people attended public worship, arrest those who didn’t keep the Sabbath day; often called “sleep banishers,”  they saw to it that members of the church kept awake during services,

Thomas’ son was a selectman, moderator, fence viewer, sexton, school committee member, sealer of weights and measures, tax collector, burial ground overseer, pew building/assigning, preaching (finding a minister) and sexton. 

 The Drury family served their fledgling country and their town with distinction.

This article is made possible by the Auburn Historical Society & Museum, 41 South Street. The museum is open Tuesday and Saturday mornings 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. visit auburnhistoricalmuseum.org or follow us on Facebook at Auburn Historical.