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THE NEW PLANTATION

About this time, a new enterprise of considerable magnitude was undertaken. The western portion of the township being still unsettled, on the 9th of June, 1663, it was ordered and agreed, that a tract of land in that part should be surveyed and laid out, to contain several thousand acres, (The leaf of the Records on which this order was entered, is somewhat mutilated, but the quantity of land named appears to be four thousand acres, yet the quantity actually laid out must have been larger) if the persons sent to examine it should consider it expedient. The men appointed for this purpose were John Sanborn, Thomas Marston, Christopher Palmer, John Redman, Abraham Drake, William Sanborn, snd Morris Hobbs. If these men, after viewing the land, should decide to lay it out, they were instructed to begin at the western boundary, and extend their survey eastward, taking the full breadth of the town, till the number of acres designated should be included. This tract was to be laid out to the lawful inhabitants, according to the town's will and pleasure. Anthony Stanyan alone voted in the negative.

The committee appear to have attended to the duty assigned them immediately, so far as related to viewing the tract, and to have reported favorably. At another town meeting a week later, Capt. Christopher Hussey, Dea. Robert Page, John Sanborn, John Redman, and the town clerk [Samuel Dalton], instead of the former committee, were appointed to lay out the land. They were directed "to consider of a way of division, and make return to the town, in the evening after training, to which time" the meeting was then adjourned. At that time, date not given, the report, read, approved and adopted, was as follows:
"Concerning the matter committed to us, we judge it meet that the land be divided into two divisions; the first division to be one hundred acres to every inhabitant that hath two shares of commonage, or upwards, and those that have but one share, to have each eighty acres; and what meadows should be found, to be [divided] according to each man's right, in proportion with the [rest]."

The survey and division of this land appear to have occupied about three months, for a little more than that length of time had elapsed when, on the 23d of September, the result was laid before the town. The lots were then drawn for by those inhabitants entitled to them--Dea. Robert Page having been chosen to draw for persons absent and not represented. This tract was usually styled THE NEW PLANTATION, though sometimes designated as "the land laid out by the pond in our township." The pond here mentioned is Kingston pond, and a considerable portion of this tract of land fell within the limits of Kingston, when, thirty years later, their town was incorporated. This gave rise to several lawsuits, which will be noticed in another chapter.

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