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“ [281] sometimes above forty loads.” 1 A reasonable allowance was made, also, for the depreciation of values, during the Revolutionary War. Provision was made which resulted in the creation of a fund for the maintenance of the ministry. June 28, 1680, “Voted and agreed, that five hundred acres of the remote lands, lying between Oburne, Concord, and our head-line, shall be laid out for the use and benefit of the ministry of this town and place, and to remain to that use forever.” In 1718, this land was sold, and of the proceeds one hundred and thirty pounds were expended on the Parsonage, and the remainder was invested in a fund, whereof two thirds of the interest should be paid annually to the pastor of the church, and the remaining third part should be added to the principal. It is understood that this fund recently amounted to more than twenty thousand dollars.

It was Mr. Gookin's lot to witness another division of his parish. In 1682, the “Farmers,” as those were called who dwelt in what is now the town of Lexington, petitioned to be set off as a separate parish, “in order to provide for themselves a person that may be meet and able to dispense unto them the word of God;” representing that they were “seated at a great distance, the nearest of them above five miles (some of them six, some eight, some nine, if not ten miles), from the public place of meeting to worship God in the town that we appertain unto.” This petition was opposed by Cambridge, and was not granted by the General Court. It was renewed in 1684, when it met a similar fate. The request was finally granted, Dec. 15, 1691; and although a church was not organized, separate from the mother church, until nearly five years later, Rev. Benjamin Estabrook was engaged to preach one year in the parish, commencing May 1, 1692. He was ordained Oct. 21, 1696, and died July 22, 1697.

After the death of Mr. Gookin, more than four years elapsed before the ordination of his successor. In the meantime more than thirty ministers preached in the Cambridge pulpit, of whom Samuel Angier, William Brattle, and Increase Mather, preached more frequently than any other. The compensation to the preachers was ten shillings for each sermon; and generally one person preached in the forenoon, and another in the afternoon. The commendable generosity of one eminent preacher is recorded by Deacon Hastings: “Mr. Increase Mather preached. ”

1 Church Record.

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