ANOTHER PORTION OF THE COMMONS DIVIDED
Their report was presented about five weeks afterward, and in accordance with one of their recommendations, the commoners agreed to survey, and divide among the proprietors, another portion of the commons, lying within, or towards the town from the First North and the First West Division. The first eighty rods within each of these divisions, they reserved as a common for future convenience, and they voted to lay out within this reserved portion two divisions, each a mile in width, one towards the north and the other towards the west part of the town; the former, to end on the east one mile from the sea, and the latter, to extend southward no farther than to the old line of Salisbury and the line then parting the provinces, the committee reserved for the new divisions was reserved as a free common, till a different arrangement should be made by the commoners.
The commoners appointed Lieut. James Philbrick, Joseph Swett, Joseph Cass, Ephraim Marston, Samuel Marston, Samuel Robey and Jonathan Moulton a committee, for lay out these two divisions.
At another meeting of the commoners, holden three weeks later, Lieut. John Smith, Lieut. Joseph Swett and Samuel Dow were chosen, to ascertain who were then the rightful owners of the 147 shares of the cow-common, and to cause a record to be made of such owners and their rights, in the Town Book.
At this meeting, Lieut. John Smith offered to be at the whole charge of laying out the north and west divisions, and also to relinquish forty acres of his right in them, on condition that the commoners would allow him forty acres, where his son John Smith was living. This officer was accepted by the commoners, and Lieutenant Smith laid out the divisions on the terms proposed.