previous next
[p. 32]

The records at this time show a list of the charges for various things, among them charges for the ordination and for the expenses of the fast, from which I quote the the following:—

    Jnsi John Bradshoe
for Jntertaining mr aron porter from the five & twentieth of may to ye last of Nouember being twenty eight Sabaths at two shillings pr sabath
02-16-00
for jntertainment of ye minister at ye fast01-02-00
Capt Peter for veall at ye fast00-06-3
Eben Brooks for neats toong & chese at ye fast00-03-6

In May, 1714, the first step was taken toward increasing the territory of the town, by appointing a committee to consult with the Selectmen of Charlestown and obtain consent to a part of the same being set off to Medford.

The remainder of the book contains accounts of frequent town meetings, at which most of the actions taken were relative to repairing the meeting-house, building pews, defining where the people should be seated, and voting to assess for the various expenses; page after page consisting of the lists of the persons assessed, and the amounts. It seemed to be the custom to spend money before it was raised and then vote to lay a rate to meet the charge or reimburse for the expenditure. The consequence was that at the town meetings, which were very frequent, action to raise money for some purpose was almost invariably taken, and consequently the almost continual payment of taxes.

The last entry in the book was written by Rev. Aaron Porter, and reads as follows:—

August 20, 1718
This may certify that J have received the whole of Sallery from June ye first to December ye first 1717 hereby J discharge the Town from any further Payment of it or any Part of it viz 38l-10S-0d J say Received pr me


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

hide People (automatically extracted)
Sort people alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
Aaron Porter (2)
Peter (1)
Eben Brooks (1)
Jnsi John Bradshoe (1)
hide Dates (automatically extracted)
Sort dates alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a date to search for it in this document.
August 20th, 1718 AD (1)
1717 AD (1)
May, 1714 AD (1)
December (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: