Historic leaves, volume 7, April, 1908 - January, 1909

[89] of the will, although no deed of the property is recorded. In 1695 the farm on the Rocks figures in the suit brought by the children of Thomas Brigham to recover, apparently, all the property which the overseers of their father's will had sold. In the formal ceremony of claiming the ‘Brigham Farm,’ as quaintly attested the witnesses in the chapter on ‘Thomas Brigham the Emigrant,’ it will be noted that the ‘ffarne’ is described as ‘upon the Rocks within the bounds of Cambridge.’

Settlement was reached apparently in 703, when on February 26 Thomas2, Samuel2, and John2 Brigham quitclaimed ‘that tract or prcell of land commonly called or known by ye name of Brighams farme: Scituate, lying and being on ye Rocks neer Oburn line within the Township of Cambridge . . . containing by Estimation Seventy Two acres be the same more or less. . . .,’ to Francis Foxcroft, Esq., Samuel Sparhawk, and Daniel Champney, joint executors of the will of Hon. Thomas Danforth. This deed was given ‘in consideration of the Sum of Sixteen Pounds pd to ye Children of Thomas Brigham late of Cambridge Dece'd by Thomas Danforth Esq. and Thomas Fox called Overseers of ve Estate of sd Thomas Brigham Dece's: and Thirty pounds in money to us in land etc.’ From tins document, and others affecting the other properties, it might be inferred that the suits grew out of the dissatisfaction of the children of Thomas, now of age, with the disposition of their property while they were yet minors.

In 1706 the property was bought by Thomas3 Prentice for £ 68. It was then bounded ‘N. E. by Charlestown line, N. W. by Nathaniel Patten Senor and John Carter of Oburn, W. by Walter3 Russell E. and S. E. by the land of Jason Russell.’ Thomas3 Prentice was a brickmaker, and resided on what is now the west side of Garden Street, opposite the Botanical Garden. He died December 7, 1709 and the inventory shows: ‘72 acres, Brigham's Farm, £ 68.’ In the distribution of his property, the Brigham Farm went to his son, Rev. Thomas4 Prentice (b. 1702, H. C. 1726, d. 1782), who made his first sale, of nine acres, in 1724, as if to aid him through Harvard, to Andrew Mallet, whose relative, John Mallet, built the Old Powder