on custom, after the election of selectmen or assessors, to vote to add to the number from one to three more, also to vote each year whether or not to choose a representative to the General Court, and frequently the vote was not to do so. Evidently competition for this office was not as great as it is at the present day. Among the most important offices were those of constable (to which position, if a man was elected, he was obliged to serve or pay an amount to be excused
At March meeting, 1733, Andrew Hall chosen constable and paid £ 5 to be excused from serving.); tithing-man (whose duty it was to keep order in the church and not allow any one to snore loud enough to disturb the meeting); and hogreeve, who had charge of the hogs that ran at large to see that they did not trespass or do damage, and to yoke, or ring them through the nose to prevent it.
But I am straying away from the subject a little—that is, telling you what is in Volume II of our records.
On August 18, 1718
may be devoutly thankful that there was a peaceful ending to this episode.
We admire the bravery of the man, once a Medford school boy, who even then showed his mettle, but our feeling, perhaps, wanes a little when we recall his later naval career.
He was commander of a Confederate iron-clad in Charleston harbor in our Civil war, and is said to have been more than necessarily active.
His death was chronicled a few years ago in the Boston Transcript.
Mrs. Ingraham's brother, Willis Hall (1733-1812), had a daughter Mary (1772-1853) who married Dr. Luther Stearns, December 20, 1798.
His daughter Elizabeth (1801-1862) married George W. Porter, February 17, 1824.
They were the parents of the late Helen Porter, who died in 1899 at the age of seventy.
While serving as pastor of the Mystic Church in this town Rev. Elias Nason wrote the life of Sir Charles Henry Frankland.
In it he stated that the Agnes Surriage fan came through the Porter family, and that it bore the original owne
In the interest of accuracy.
The writer of the article in the July number of the Register, 1915, on Turell Tufts and His Family Connections, desires the following corrections to be made in the interests of accuracy, and begs her readers to recall that oft-quoted line,
To err is human, to forgive divine, as an adjustment of the matter.
Page 54. High and Forest streets, instead of Main, etc.
Page 55. . . . the late Dudley C. Hall, whose father Dudley Hall named a child of his, who died young, for this distant relative.
Page 59. Willis Hall (1733-1812), had a daughter Mary (1772-1853) who married Dr. Luther Stearns, December 20, 1798, and a son George H. who married Sarah Chandler of Brattleboro, Vt. Elizabeth (1801-1862) daughter of George H. Hall and his wife Sarah, married George W. Porter, February 17, 1824.
They were the parents, etc.
shall Pray.
We quote also the following from the Massachusetts Archives:—
From Province Laws, p. 210, Chap.
194 (first Session).
A petition of Richard Sprague, late constable of Medford in county of Middlesex.
Showing that in the year 1733 Mathew Ellis of that Town was assessed Forty shillings as a part of a Tax for the support of the Minister there which the said Ellis Refusing to pay, the Memorialist, Agreeably to his Warrant, Committed him to his Majesty's Goal in said County; wh5 to hear the appeal.
As on May 6, 1737, Ellis is styled as late of Medford, husbandman, it is presumable that he had then removed.
Though he was taxed for real estate, we have been unable to find where in Medford he resided.
We find that in 1733-34
John Whitmore, Jonathan Hall and Jona Bradshaw be Depeud [deputed?] to vew the Highways by Matthew Ellises and make Report to the Town what they Judg Mr. Ellis should have allowed him for moving Som Large Rocks in the Country Road nearby hi
distil-house, and so the way came to be called Distil-house lane.
It will be seen that the house stands on a corner lot. The other way is probably as short a street as there is in Medford—River street. Extending to Salem street, it adjoins (even covers a part of) the earliest burial place, and was long known as Dead-man's alley.
This old house had been erected sixty-eight years when its brick neighbor was built.
Its owner was a man of some note in Medford, and constable of the town in 1733.
Mention is made of him elsewhere in this issue of the Register.
From out this comfortable mansion, Constable Richard Sprague sallied forth one day, perhaps with his staff of office, but clothed with the majesty of the law, and backed by the warrant of the selectmen, to lay hold on the body of one Matthew Ellis, a delinquent tax payer, and trouble of years' duration began.
But to return to the view, which, though made twenty-five years ago, and with a few changes, holds good today.
Th
