[234] preached an appropriate sermon. Thus died a clergyman and pastor who had preached in all the meeting-houses which had been built in Medford, from the first settlement of the town to the year 1824! He kept no record of deaths. He baptized 1,037 persons; married 220 couple; and admitted to the church 323 communicants. Some further light may be shed on the character of Mr. Turell by a few extracts from his wills. One will is dated Oct. 8, 1758; another, in 1762; and a third, in 1764. He shows sound judgment, kind affections, and Christian justice, in his bequests. His dwelling-house, which is now owned and occupied by Jonathan Porter, Esq., he gave to the church in Medford, “for the use of the ministry for ever.” He gave his “largest silver tankard, and a silver spoon, which has a lion's head engraved on it, to the church in Medford.” He gave “to Madam Elizabeth Royal, and Peter Chardon, Esq., each a mourning ring.”
I give to Mrs. Lucy Tufts her aunt Turell's picture. I give to Mr. Faneuil, and Mrs. Hatch, their grandfather's and grandmother's pictures. I give to Harvard College the learned Dr. Isaac Barrow's work, in three vols., folio; my fine loadstone, set in silver; and my bunch or brush of spun glass. Item. My good servant Worcester,--I give him his freedom, and discharge him from any demands of my heirs or executors on account of his being a slave; and order my executor to reserve in his hands £ 50, sterling, to and for the use of my said servant, if he should be unable to support himself; the same to be given him at the discretion of my said executor.When the town determined to set the meeting-house where it was built in 1769, Mr. Turell remonstrated. He wished it placed beside the old one. He accordingly erased from his will the section in which he had given his dwelling-house to the town! The system of “exchanges,” by which neighboring ministers preached in each other's pulpits, was in full activity during Mr. Turell's ministry; and the Medford church was instructed occasionally by Rev. Messrs. Colman, Cooper, Gardner, and Byles, of Boston; Prince, Warren, and Clapp, of Cambridge; Stimson, of Charlestown; Coolidge, of Watertown; Flagg, of Woburn; Lowell and Tufts, of Newbury; Parkman, of Westbury; Parsons, of Bradford; and many
