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Hogpen Farm

Sometime in the early part of Mr. Cotton's ministry--the date not known--the town agreed that he should have 200 acres of land granted to him for a farm. In the autumn of 1663, it was voted that this land should be laid out, and a committee was appointed for that purpose. The farm was not laid out, however, till five or six years afterward, and then, as appears by the return, March 19, 1669, not by the committee first chosen, but by John Sanborn, Thomas Marston and Henry Roby.

According to the return of the committee, the farm was located at a place called Hogpen Plain--in the present town of Kensington. They "laid out a meadow near that plain, having a brook in the meadow running northward out of it." About the middle of the meadow was a hill, and to the southeastward of the meadow was upland where they laid out a tract ninescore rods broad and ninescore rods long to make up the complement of the said grant.

Three years later, the town voted to maintain their grant of two hundred acres of land to o^r Reuered Pastor, Mr. Seaborn Cotton, according to the appointment of it and as it is laid out.

The town several times voted to increase Mr. Cotton's salary. On the 10th of January, 1668, it was increased to £80.

In 1665, agreeably to the request of the inhabitants living near the Falls river, and remote from the town, liberty was given for them to build a house at their own charge, "near the old Pound," for shelter and relief upon the Lord's day and other days, to be used by them at all times when there should be occasion for it.

Near the close of the year, the selectmen having made a bargain with some person to repair the meeting-house, the town voted that it should be "prosecuted with effect," and that the selectmen should "take further care to repaire the Roof & to daube up the Gable Ends, & whatt else is nessisary for to make the Meeting-house comfortable," and assess the whole charge upon the inhabitants.

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