[92]
I married 25 Nov. 1762, Mrs. Lucy, relict of the late Rev. Nicholas Bowes, of Bedford, and daughter of the late Rev. John and Elizabeth Hancock, of Lexington.
On Sept. 21, 1768, my wife Lucy died, aged 56, after years of sore distress from the gravel.
My daughter Rebecca died 2 Feb. 1778, aged 19—after eight months distress from the effects of the small-pox, which she bare with inimitable patience and even surprising calmness.
She seldom from her birth was out of temper, and rarely cried but from tenderness for others.
Few families have met with more and greater change by Death in equal time.
But let us not tarry then—it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed—the father is continued, and lives parted in old also ready.1
Feb. 12, 1778, it was voted to mess the inhabitants of the Parish into fifteen messes in proportion to their valuation.
It was also voted that ‘every mess shall stand by the head of his mess;’ and that ‘the parish shall stand by the head of his mess.’
This may be a method of enlisting men for the army, or for the payment of a war tax. All the taxable inhabitants of a place were distributed into as many classes as the quota required of it deemed necessary, each class being assessed for the support of a man for the military service, the several members of each class paying their just proportion of the expense.
A page of the
Precinct Book is devoted to the ‘Officers chosen on account of the
War for the year 1778.’
Committee for the War.—Nehemiah Cutter, Patten.
Russell, Thomas Cutter.
The same were also chosen assessors on account of the war, for the ensuing year, and sworn to said office by the clerk of the meeting.
