God's Ten Acres (Worcester Massachusetts) Entry #6

God's Ten Acres, or Deed Rock, is the story of God, the end of the world, sincere ambition, and a deep desire for peace. It is the story of Solomon Parsons and the idealism that lived in our country at the turn of the 19th century. (It's also a pretty cool place to find, buried in the woods of Worcester Massachusetts.)

Solomon Parsons Sr. (the father of our protagonist) served in the Revolutionary war. He was also the first Puritan Pastor in Leicester Massachusetts. In 1812, Solomon Sr. moved his family to Valley Falls (an area that now encompasses South High), Worcester after some dispute about his theology among the Puritans. Unswayed in his religious beliefs, Solomon Sr. became a founding member of the First Baptist Church in Worcester (now located by the campus of WPI). He settled and had children.

Solomon Jr. (the focus of this article) was born to a peaceful and religious family. He served in the

Worcester Light Infantry as an officer (something that may have lead to his later pacifism) and married the granddaughter of a Hessian soldier. He had several children, 2 sons and 3 daughters. He became a focused, successful and happy farmer. Solomon left his father's baptist church and was a founder of the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Worcester. Up until this point, his recorded life is void of larger conflict. His father may have had some upheaval in  leaving Leicster, but he landed squarely on his feet, and Solomon Jr seems to have had a special knack for farming. Accounts of his success were known throughout the region. Unseen by Solomon Jr., all of this success was about to be sidelined by a divine force by the name of William Miller, or as some have called him, the Prophet of Doom.

William Miller was born in 1782. He lived in Vermont as a farmer and privately, and adamantly studied the scriptures. Miller was a Deist (followed the belief that God created the world and then abandoned it to natural laws), but during his service in the war of 1812, saw evidence that indeed God did still intervene on humanity's behalf. Miller began to focus strongly on the Book of Daniel and all of its eschatological (end-of-the-world) depths. Using a system of translating dates, counting one day for one year, he derived that Daniel 8:13-14
 (13 Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?14 And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.) pointed to Christ's second coming (second advent), and using a year to day ratio saw the subsequent, violent, ending of the world happening sometime in the year of 1843. He struggled privately with this news. According to his private writings, he spoke aloud his frustrations to God for years. Finally, after eating breakfast one Saturday, he felt God impress upon him strongly to "Go and tell it to the world." His immediate response was that he couldn't. He felt God respond, "why not?" Through a large amount of inner turmoil at this calling, Miller made a pact with God. If he would "open the way," (specifically open up places for him to publicly speak, something that had never happened before) he would announce his revelation to the world. Within half an hour, he was told by a friend that a church 16 miles distant would be vacant of a preacher the coming Sunday, and that he was requested specifically to preach about the coming of the Lord. William Miller held true to his word, and thus began a movement that spread like wild fire up the eastern coast of the United States. Miller was soon preaching nonstop, and continued to do so for the next 13 years. His records indicate that he preached at 3200 occasions, an average of 266 times a year. His followers gained the title of "Millerites" and they numbered in the 100,000's, a massive amount for that time in American History. 

Solomon Parsons, the son of a religious revisionist,  felt the pull. Many Millerites prepared for the coming armageddon by selling off their property. Solomon did more than this, he bought the eastern slope of Tetasset Hill (renamed Rattlesnake Hill by the colonists due to the massive amount of tumbled boulders lining the steep slopes, a perfect location for Timber Rattlers. It contained, in fact,

the last bastion of Rattlers in Worcester county before they were completely eradicated) from William G. Hall for $125 in 1840. In a move that still confounds the law today, Solomon Parsons did not deed the land to himself, but instead payed a lawyer to deed all of the ten acres to God Himself. To make sure that this was known and recorded beyond the leather covers of the law books, he payed Sylvester Ellis to carve it meticulously into a flat boulder at the entrance of his land. This engraving was so well done, that it is still visible, and plainly legible in most places hundreds of years later. He also built a temple to worship God in while the Millerites, and any other God-fearing Christians were awaiting Christ's second coming (second Advent). Indeed, many people (hundreds according to records) came to worship there. The land was imbued with a peace and natural beauty that can still be felt today. 

Solomon had adopted a strict adherence to pacifism, possibly due to the violence that he had witnessed in the war as well as the death of one of his sons in service. He also began to follow a vegetarian dietary code that flowed over to an early form of Veganism, he refused to use animal based products such as leather. Although his religious beliefs and earthly practices could be seen as severe, especially for the time, Solomon Parsons was still regarded as solid and trustworthy individual. The temple he made was made of stone and sheet metal and was designed to be solid enough to survive the coming cataclysm. Five pillars lined the front of the building and emblazoned across the stone lintel of the front door were the words "Thou Shalt Not Kill." Subsequent scriptures were chiseled into the entrance pillars: "Peace on earth." "Good will to men." 

The "Second Coming" never came, and thus came a time in American history known as "The Great Disappointment." The Millerites reacted to this by stating that the math was off and some of his followers quickly set a subsequent date for Oct 22, 1844 as the true date. This date also came and passed and the disillusioned Millerites quietly disbanded. Two great churches were born from Miller's teachings however. The Adventist and Seventh Day Adventist churches find their roots in Miller's "Second Advent" teachings. The latter of these came to be through the subsequent efforts and

teachings of Ellen G. White, a Millerite and follower. Her writings regarding Miller find him to be something of lasting hero. She found hope and instruction in Miller's post-dissapointment writings. Miller never gave up hope, and reacted fairly well to his misinterpretation of scripture. Instead of despairing and scratching around for retributive reasoning, Miller simply retracted and allowed for his misunderstanding to pass. He states in his final writings: "I have fixed my mind upon another time, and here I mean to stand until God gives me more light, and that is today, TODAY and TODAY until he comes and I see for whom my soul yearns." Solomon Parsons seemed to have persevered much the same way. 

Solomon continued to open his Temple to the public. His farms were massive and successful  in fact Parson's Cider Mill survived for years in Worcester as an Inn.  Solomon's surviving son dammed up the brooks that cut through the propriety and built several mills grist, saw etc and some of these were later equipped with electricity and made into successful businesses. Even Robert Goddard, of rocket science fame used part of Parson's land to test his rockets. Solomon Parsons Jr. survived to 93 years of age, a fact that he adamantly contributed to his avoidance of meat. He finally got to see the God of peace he served so devotedly on December 16, 1893. 

His land, "God's Ten Acres" now is something of an interesting predicament. The land was indeed trusted to God, but the lawyer that filed deed never engraved his name on the boulder to which the deep writing still remains. God has also never come to claim his land. The city of Worcester instead has held the land in something of a trust. The Worcester Airport owns all of the remaining surrounding land, and I am sure would be loathe to sell it. So Solomon Parson's "God's Ten Acres" sits, much as it was, in the hands of no one but God. 

The land presently is crisscrossed with trails. It is very beautiful. Tetasset Hill is a wonderful tumble of huge stones. Ben clamored his way through these for a while, while we were searching for the deed stone, and came out saying that it would take some serious scrambling to get to the top. We followed spray painted markers all over the place. There is a rainbow of colors marking the tangle of trails that cut through this land: orange dots, red stripes, blue stripes, red and blue stripes, light blue rectangles, white triangles.... on and on. One official marker stated that we were on a "East-West Trail" that we followed on a snipe hunt forever. Near the apex of our confusion, we found this little

beauty of a warning. "Life can end in a minute, so enjoy now." This, hinting at the fact that there have

been several recorded suicides on this property, did throw a bit of an anxious shadow on our being lost in the woods looking for the Deed Stone. One of the advantages of being lost was that we found many other things that we would never have located if we had found the inscription (our chief goal on this adventure) earlier. We saw (dried up) fishing ponds that were obviously channeled for the flow and overflow of water. Culverts, now exposed, created by lining the path with stone slabs, that redirected water into irrigation funnels. If these were indeed created by Solomon, it was still readily obvious that he had a knack for land management. We also found several foundations, one of which seemed a bit more modern, because of the inclusion of mortar. One foundation though, I believe to be the original foundation of the temple, was laid out strongly with walls that were still sharp and well formed. 

The Deed Stone itself is actually very easy to find, if you know what to look for. Our couple of hours, and miles, of exploration was really just misfiring because we didn't know where to look. The road, Swan Drive, to the trail head, is winding, pitted and dirt. (good for my jeep). It doesn't actually seem like the Worcester that I know of. It seemed very rural and backwoods. Actually, a bit isolated and

kind of scary to be caught on your own in. I did, and would, go with friends. If you are paying attention to the right hand side of the road, you will see several trails break into the woods just beyond a pull off. This is where I parked and entered. The road ahead, seems like it dead-ends into a house. I mistakenly thought that this whole road ended in a type of private driveway. It does, in fact, turn sharply there and if you continue to drive around the corner, there is another pull off with two steel gates. The main trail system starts here as well as the foundations and fish pools. If you want to shorten your trip and just hit the crux of the thing right away, walk up the road a tiny bit and look for as sign carved into a wooden plank on the right hand side stating Deed Rock.

Just a tiny walk will lead you to a beautiful little grotto set against the wall of Rattlesnake ledge. It still has that abandoned look and words are still quite visible on the stone. Maybe it was the hours of searching, or maybe it was just that this land, possibly beyond any other land that I have ever been on, belongs to God, but there is a peace there. It is a beautiful place, in remembrance of, by all recorded instances, a beautiful and sincere man whose final wish still holds place in the sanctuary he created: God's Ten Acres.