Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 16.

One Sunday in October, 1738, among the worshipers in Rev. Mr. Turell's congregation was Gov. Jonathan Belcher. As he was one of the royal governors we may imagine he came with some show of pomp, but not enough, we hope, to distract attention from the minister and his discourse.

A touch of the romantic was given our staid little town when Sir Henry Frankland and Agnes Surriage (between 1745 and 1775) came on horseback to call on the Royalls at their fine mansion, then in the height of its splendor. How little did the fair maid from Marblehead then dream that a hundred and fifty years later she would be a beautiful heroine, a figure of interest in prose and poetry, and that a tangible evidence of herself would be exhibited in that house, in the same room, perchance, where she was being received. A fan, with finely carved sticks, and picturing in brilliant colors the coronation of George the Second, that once belonged to Agnes Surriage, was shown at the Sarah Bradlee-Fulton Chapter, D. A. R., Loan Exhibit at the Royall House, April, 1899, and is an heirloom in a well-known family of this city. Nor did the gallant with her that pleasant afternoon think that a Medford minister (Rev. Elias Nason) would one day write a most interesting and accurate account of the life of Sir Charles Henry Frankland, Baronet.

We have a still further connection with Agnes Surriage, since her sister, Mrs. Mary Swain, who inherited the Hopkinton estate and the great mansion in Boston that belonged to Lady Frankland, lived the latter part of her life in Medford; and it is not improbable that Mrs. Mary Swain, who died here in 1800 and whose gravestone may be seen in the Salem Street Burying Ground, and the first mentioned are one and the same. A will of Daniel McClester, son of Mrs. Swain by a former marriage, dated August 1, 1807, bequeathing to his uncle, Isaac Surriage, of Hopkinton, the property above-mentioned which he