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178, negroes 1.
Valuation in 1747, £ 4,223 6s. 0d.; polls 144, horses 111, oxen 121, cows 435, swine 174, sheep 281; no slaves mentioned, but 3 were returned in 1752; in 1756, 1 to Thomas Wellington, 1 to Samuel Livermore, 2 to Captain John Cutting.
In 1764 there were 13 slaves.
In 1753 the number of polls was 147. ‘Quick-stock,’ viz.: 3 slaves, 299 sheep, 188 swine, 111 horses, 455 cows, 118 oxen, 9 chairs, and 1 chaise.
The chair being ‘a sort of open chaise.’
February 1, 1730 Rev. Warham Williams baptized Peter, an infant negro belonging to Joseph and Margaret Priest.
In 1790, there were 10 colored persons in the town; 6 in 1800, 5 in 1810.
In 1753 one Prince Jonah, a slave of Abraham Bigelow of Weston, found a leather pocket case with tickets of land lying in Gardner, Canada, east of Northfield, belonging to Joe Williams, also one dollar, one pistareen, and two coppers, and an empty money bag. This was so extraordinary an occurrence that it was entered upon the town records, and there stands a witness to the sterling honesty and integrity of the fathers.
February 3, 1752, before the settlement of Mr. Cushing, the church and town invited Mr. Eli Forbush to become pastor.
March 16th he declined the call, but asked further time to consider it. March 27th he wrote stating that he had once decided to accept, but learning of opposition to his settlement on the part of some, he had finally concluded not to accept their call.
Captain Jonathan Brown, of Watertown, commanded a company of troops in what is called ‘The Old French War,’ on the Canadian frontier.
A writer who carefully examined some of the ‘Brown Papers,’ dated at Lake George in 1758, gives a list of 51 names of soldiers who served in his command, and judges from the names that a majority of them were from ‘Watertown, Waltham, and contiguous towns.’
Probably all of these, with the exception of one named Cuffe Peacock, who signed his name by a mark, and was doubtless a negro, were ‘Native Americans, and all live Yankees.’
In 1759 a body of English troops under Lord Amherst arrived
Thomas Lewis, Landscape Photographs, 1879.
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