Back to previous section -- Forward to next section -- Return to Table of Contents

UNAUTHORIZED RETURNS NOT TO BE RECORDED

Towards the close of the year, at a meeting of the proprietors of the undivided lands known as the cow commons, a vote was passed, forbidding the town clerk to record any return of land laid out by James Jaffreys, or any other lot-layer, unless of land which the person making the return had laid out by order of the proprietors or commoners, and the return accepted by them. The occasion for this prohibition is not mentioned, but it may be inferred from the language of the record, though we should hardly have conjectured that any lot-layer would take the responsibility of laying out, and making a return of any lot without being duly authorized.

At the same meeting, on the 5th of December, 1720, John Redman, Ephraim Marston and Capt. Jabez Dow are chosen as a committee "to hear the demand, proposal, or complaint, of those men that had lost their shares in the North Division, and to make their report at the next meeting of the commoners." What was done by this committee does not appear from any entry on the records; but about fifteen months afterward, at a meeting of the proprietors of the common lands, it appearing that some persons had said that they had lost all their land in the First North Division, it was voted to choose a committee of five men "to take, in behalf of the commoners, a quitclaim from these men of all their rights in that Division, so lost, and then to lay out in way of exchange, one third of the number of acres, which they said that they had lost," if on examining their claims they should find them to be just.

The committee chosen for this purpose were Capt. Jabez Dow, Dea. Nathaniel Weare, Capt. Joshua Wingate, Sergt. Ephraim Marston and Christopher Page. The time allowed them for doing their work was from the 10th of May to the last day of July following. On the 9th day of July, 1722, the committee made their report; having laid out about one hundred sixty acres of land to more than twenty men, in lots varying from two to twenty acres.

Back to previous section -- Forward to next section -- Return to Table of Contents