HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF MEDFORD, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT, IN 1630, TO THE PRESENT TIME, 1855.
Charles Brooks, Ed.

[181] and should have the same force and effect, as though the same were made, executed, and acknowledged by Charles Henry Hutton, the eldest son of the said Henry Hutton and Elizabeth Royal, his wife, when of full age and in possession of the said premises.

And that, for and notwithstanding any act, matter, or thing done by them, or either of them, they have good right and lawful authority to sell and convey the said houses, lands, tenements, pew, and hereditaments, with their appurtenances, unto and to the use of the said Robert Fletcher, his heirs and assigns.

The deed was for “five hundred acres of land, on the west side of Mystic River, with the mansion-house;” for all which Mr. Fletcher agreed to pay £ 16,000.

These legislative acts and public documents show that Colonel Royal's property in Medford was dealt with at last after the manner of other absentees; that it came into legal possession of the State, and was put under the care of the Medford “Committee of Inspection,” and all the rents and incomes paid into the treasury of the State. For twenty-seven years it continued in this situation, when a petition or claim of the heirs of Colonel Royal was preferred. The records of these details we have not been able to find; but the final results are seen in the legislative grants of 1805.

We take leave of our townsman with the remark, that he was so generous a benefactor, so true a friend, so useful a citizen, and so good a Christian, that we forget he was a Tory,--if he was one. Happy would it be for the world, if at death every man could strike, as well as he did, the balance of this world's accounts.