Prior to the area's European settlements in the mid-17th century, Dracut and the surrounding area was known as "Augumtoocooke", and was the site of important Pennacook Indian settlements, due to the fishing grounds at Pawtucket Falls on the Merrimack River and the abundant hunting game in the surrounding marsh areas. From the late 16th to mid-17th centuries, the powerful sachem Passaconaway and his family spent much of their lives on this land.

Europeans began to settle in the "Augumtoocooke" area around 1653, and established the town of Chelmsford, incorporated in 1655, on the opposite side of the Merrimack River from modern Dracut. Ten years later, in October 1665, Bess, wife of Nobb How and daughter of Passaconaway, sold the land called Augumtoocooke to Captain John Evered, also known as Webb of Draucutt of Norfolk County (the Webb family is associated closely with the town of Dreycott Folliott in Wiltshire, England, for the sum of four yards of Duffill and one pound of tobacco. Webb then sold tracts of land to the Richard Shatswell and Samuel Varnum. Before owning it himself, Webb had already sold 11,000 acres (45 km²) of the land months earlier to Samuel Varnum, as the deed for "Drawcutt upon Mirrimack" was dated 1664, for 400£ (four hundred pounds). Richard Shatswell then took his Dracut land and exchanged it with Edward Colburn (also spelled "Coburn" or "Colborne") for his home and land in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Edward Colburn and his family were probably the first settlers in Dracut who owned land with the intention of permanently living on it (since the owners of the Webb farm had bought it as an investment, rather than to settle, and Samuel Varnum lived on the Chelmsford side of the Merrimack River).

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