[p. 44] The condition of Sale is as follows viz The said Commite to take good Security for the Money at Interest at £ 6 p cent for two years and . . . give a Quitclaim of said Farm according to the Grant of the General Court with the House and Fences with all the Emprovements and Utensils thereon and said Purchasers are to pay down the sum of Fifty Pounds Old Tenor to be deducted out of said Sum sold for and none to bid less than £ 5 Old Tenor at a time.
Voted in the affirmative.
We are unable to find any record of any vendue at
Mrs. Floyd's tavern in the old Medford market-place a week later, and have grave doubt thereof: because on January 23, 1748-9, a warrant was issued, calling a town meeting at 6 o'clock in the afternoon of that day, at the house of
Mrs. Sarah Floyd,
inasmuch as we find that it may be of great service to ye town as to their Farm at Piscataquogge (so called) that some person or persons should be forthwith sent to Portsmouth in the Province of New Hampshire in order to discourse with the Gentlemen that have purchased Mason's Right or Patent and to determine what will be best for the Town to do with Respect to said Farm.
And here again we are left with our curiosity unsatisfied.
But on May 1 the town voted to sell, and immediately after voted ‘to sell their Farm at Piscataquogge within twelve months.’
As to what the result of the discourse
forthwith with the ‘Gentlemen’ at
Portsmouth was, and whether a sale was made or not, we are not informed, but the town's vote a year later
July 31, 1750 Selectmen sell the utensils of the Town Farm
certainly has an ominous look.
Historian
Brooks says the vote to sell at auction was reconsidered, and that May 15, 1749, ‘Andrew Hall,
Capt. Saml
Brooks, and
Richard Sprague were chosen to manage the affairs for selling the
Town's farm,’ and adds his own statement, ‘It was sold soon after.’
Our own opinion is, that as the grant of the provincial legislature was, ‘provided that it does not interfere with any former grant,’ the
Mason grant was valid, and the ‘discourse’ at
Portsmouth convinced the
Medford committee
