The History of Stow Acres Country Club

Stow, Massachusetts is a place that most people now regard as a great place to play golf. To many others it is a place to come and pick apples, take a nature walk, or a drive in the country. Regardless of the reasons that bring people to this town in the present, it has been inhabited, and no doubt appreciated, for its many merits since prehistory.

Like many New England towns there was a substantial Native American population here when Matthew Boon, Stow's first European settler, came to make a home for himself and his family. In the early years of settlement, the natives were friendly, and some attribute the eventual success of Stow's early colonists to their initial good will. However the Native Americans in and around Stow, like those in many New England towns, experienced the effects of King Phillip's War and the devastation of epidemic disease. The combination of these factors ultimately resulted in a decline of the native population and its replacement by European settlers. From the rocky land these early proprietors managed to sustain a small but nonetheless growing population.

Being an agriculturally difficult area, the real lure of Stow lay in the potential to tap the water power of it's several rivers and many streams. The Assabet River and other smaller waterways provided energy over the years for various cotton, woolen, grist, and saw mills. In fact, according to Stow historian Ethel B. Childs, "Wherever there was a sufficient flow of water one could expect to find a mill". One pioneering family, the Randalls, found success not only in the milling business, but in other spheres as well. The Randalls are central to the history of Stow , and specifically to the origins of Stow Acres Country Club.

The first Randall to settle in town was a man named Stephen. He was granted a thirty acre parcel by the town proprietors in 1685, and the land remained in the family, through the male line, for over two hundred years. In the beginning, the property was primarily used for farming. Through the successive generations however, the family came to use their land as more of a retreat than a source of livelihood. John Randall, the great grandson of Stephen, had become a prominent physician in Boston . Prominent in his own right, he married Elizabeth Wells, the granddaughter of Samuel Adams, a signer of the Declaration and an important figure in the American Revolution.

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