USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Chelsea > Documentary history of Chelsea : including the Boston precincts of Winnisimmet, Rumney Marsh, and Pullen Point, 1624-1824, vol 1 > Part 33
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November, 1881.
B. P. Shillaber.
The Rice,24 Eustis, or Shurtleff Farm
This farm of two hundred acres, which passed out of the Bellingham family within a few years after the governor's death, was sold by Richard Wharton of Boston to Robert
24 " Reseiued of Nicolas Rice for the years 1667 1668 1669 1670 for his Rent each yeare ten pounds for halfe the farm I say reseiued 26. 11 : 1670 by mee Ri. Bellingham." (Mass. Archives, c. 128.) Who had the other half does not appear. [See infra, pp. 365-368.]
304
HISTORY OF CHELSEA
ICHAP. VII
Thompson of London, March 15, 1685/6, for £300 eurrent money of New England.25 Its yearly value about 1700 was estimated at £20; and in 1687 Eustis, the tenant, was taxed for thirty acres of arable land and meadow and seventy acres of pasture.26 The history of this estate, as one of the four great farms at Winnisimmet, devised by Governor Bellingham for pious uses, is unique, since it was that on which the long contest of one hundred and fifteen years over the governor's will was decided in 1787, as will be duly related.
On the slope bounded by Shurtleff, Shawmut, and Marginal streets, some years since, stood an old house supposed to have been the "Great Farm House," the rent of which, with the farm, was given by the governor's will to Penelope Belling- ham, his widow. This house, though not destroyed, has been removed from its original site, and is no longer recognizable.27
March 10, 1803, Thomas Corbett of Darnhall, County of Chester, England, and Elizabeth, his wife, devisee of Robert Thompson, sold this farm to Thomas Dawes, trustee, for $5000,28 and he, to Benjamin Shurtleff, for $10,000, August 2, 1813.29 July 1, 1825, the United States purchased five acres of Shurtleff for $2000,30 and ereeted the old Marine Hospital
25 Suff. Deeds, L. 15, f. 6.
20 [Infra, pp. 321, 322. In 1685 Wharton conveyed 2011% aeres. By actual survey, August 17, 1829, there were 214 acres 1 quarter 7 rods, - 144 aeres of upland and 70 acres of marsh, - and five aeres had been sold to the United States in 1825. For the plat, see Suff. Deeds, L. 393, f. 186.] 27 [The site is marked on the map of Chelsea showing the location of the Bellingham farms, supra, p. 294. For Mrs. Bellingham, see ehap. x.]
23 Suff. Deeds, L. 205, f. 109. [Elizabeth Thompson Corbett was the nieee of Robert Thompson of Elsham, Lineolnshire, England, who recovered possession of the farm in 1787 as related in ehap. xviii. He appears to have been a great-grandson of Robert Thompson, who bought the farm of Richard Wharton. Thomas Dawes made this purchase in his own right. The grantor to Benjamin Shurtleff, in the next eonveyanee eited in the text, was the son, also named Thomas, as trustee for his twelve ehildren, legatees of their grandfather, Thomas Dawes, Sr., the grantee in the deed from Corbett.]
20 Ibid., L. 242, f. 205.
80 Ibid., L. 301, f. 145. Same to Same, $46.25, 181/2 rods, September 9, 1830. L. 351, f. 76. The Hospital Lot on Shearer's Plan is ten aeres thirty-one rods; where did the United States get the other five? [July 6, 1825, Thomas Williams, owner of the Ferry farm, sold the United States, also for $2000, five aeres, the western half of this Hospital Lot. (L. 302, f. 161.) Infra, p. 362.]
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CHAP. VII] GOVERNOR BELLINGHAM'S ESTATES 305
on it in 1827.31 Benjamin Shurtleff sold the remainder of this farm to the Winnisimmet Company July 31, 1835, for $15,000.32
The Townsend or Cary Farm
The boundaries of the Townsend farm were those of the modern Cary, comprising about 365 acres. Who occupied it between 1635 and 1663 is not now known; but from 1663 Samuel Townsend was tenant until his death in 1704.33
Samuel Townsend of Winnisimmet, who occupied the Cary farm, and Thomas Townsend of Rumney Marsh, who occupied part of the Vane allotment (the modern Fenno farm), their holdings separated only by Chelsea Creek, were sons of Thomas of Lynn, where Samuel was born about 1638. He joined the Boston church 34 September 18, 1681; was freeman in 1683 ; married Abigail, daughter of Samuel Davis 35 (inn- keeper at Winnisimmet, and at one time tenant of part of the
31 April 25, 1867, sold with 43,416 feet of land to the city of Chelsea, and since used as a schoolhouse. (Ibid., L. 900, f. 309.) In 1852-53, Hon. Francis B. Fay, then in the House of Representatives, carried through Congress a bill for opening Congress Avenue across the hospital grounds. .
2 Ibid., L. 394, f. 116. See L. 449, f. 291; L. 475, f. 73; L 517, f. 25. [May 8, 1835, Benjamin Shurtleff signed an agreement to sell to Thomas G. Cary et al .; July 10, 1835, he executed a conveyance of the same, the con- sideration being $50,000, - $10,000 in cash, and a mortgage secured on the land. On the same day Thomas G. Cary et al. transferred their title to the Winnisimmet Company. (L. 393, f. 185. A plat of the farm, dated August 17, 1829, is recorded with this deed.) For the mortgage see L. 405, f. 43. The conveyance of July 31, 1835, cited in the text, was a release by Benj. Shurtleff, for $15,000, of a portion of the lands mort- gaged. The citations which follow it refer also to partial releases.]
33 June 1, 1677, the General Court ordered that Penelope Bellingham, the governor's widow, among other things, should have "the farme now occupied by Samuell Townsend, during her naturall life." Mass. Col. Rec., v. 142. 1685, " Friday, May the first, Mother Sewall goes to Salem; mny Wife and I go with her to visit Mrs. Bellingham, and so to the Ferry Boat in which met with a Hampshire Man that had been well acquainted with Mr. Cox." (Sewall, Diary, i. 71.) I should like to read in Sewall that he and his wife accompanied his mother on her way to Salem as far as Win- nisimmet, and there called on Madam Bellingham; but the Diary admits, perhaps requires, a different construction. [Mrs. Penelope Bellingham held a life lease of Governor Bellingham's mansion house in Boston.]
2 [It was the Second or North Church.]
85 Wyman.
VOL. I .- 20
.
306
HISTORY OF CHELSEA
[CHAP. VII
Vane allotment), held various town offices, and died December 21, 1704. His gravestone is in the Revere churchyard. His family may have been connected with the Bellingham and Goodrick families. His widow died January 2, 1728/9, aged eighty-seven years and eight months, and was buried in Copp's Hill Cemetery. Their children were nine, sons and daugh- ters, some of whose descendants have been of note. In the State Archives 36 are several of his accounts, as tenant of Governor Bellingham. One is as follows:
li
8 d
ffor : 14 deayes : Carting : In the Yeer : 63 04 - 16 - 00
ffor : Wintring & Sumering : of 4 horses 04 - 15-00
ffor : Wintring of 2 Oxen 01-00-00
10 - 11 - 00
for : 4 dayes : Carting of fensinstuf to the Baackside of : Pouderhornehill : In : the yere : 64 . 01 -08 - 00
for : 1 : dayes : Carting of Clay and : Bricks 00 - 01-00
for : 1 : dayes : Carting : of : Boords : & Shingels : from the waterside 00-01-00
for : 1 : dayes : Carting of Cordwoud to the watterside 00 - 01 -00
for : 3 : dayes : Carting of fensin stuf : to : Wenesemit: 01-01-00 for : wintring & Sumering of 6 horsis . 06- 00 - 00
for : wintring & Sumering of 2 : Oxen & And 3 Steers 03 - 11-00
for : wintring : & Sumering : of : a hefer 00 - 15 - 00
for : a : Hefer Sold to : Mr Bellengem 02 - 00 - 00
for the : tearking In of a : nu feld . wheareof : you : Eare : to : beare half Which the half Is 04 - 00-00
19 - 16 - 00
This shows that the clay pit northerly of Powder Horn Hill was worked in 1664,37 and also opens to us Governor Bell- ingham's dealings with his tenants.38 Samuel Townsend's inventory, January 9, 1704/5, is that of a prosperous tenant- farmer near Boston in 1700. As he died intestate, by family
36 Mass. Archives, c. 169-173.
37 [In 1683 clay pits are mentioned, situated on 11/2 acres of land between the Eustace farm and "Ltt. Smith's corne ffields," that is south- east of Powder Horn Hill. Chamberlain MSS., i. 55.]
$8 [This account, with others for the years 1667 to 1671, is printed in C. H. Townshend, The Townshend Family (ed. 1884). They show that the rent was paid almost entirely in farm produce and labor, in Indian corn, rye, wheat, oats, malt, turnips, peas, butter and cheese, eggs, wool, lambs, hogs; the carting of timber, driving of cattle to Boston and the like. At the time of Governor Bellingham's death the rent of the farm was £40 a year; in 1667 the account footed £36 14s .; in 1668, £40 5s. 5d .; in 1669, £43 11s. 9d., etc.]
-
307
GOVERNOR BELLINGHAM'S ESTATES
CHAP. VII]
arrangement May 17, 1708, two of his sons, Jonathan and Abram, took his assets, paying debts and stipulated sums to the widow and to the other children.39
As will be seen in the following chapters Governor Belling- ham's estates at Winnisimmet became those of Edward and Rebecca Watts, in her right; and on her death passed by her will, March 16, 1714/5, to her sons, to Edward, the eldest, one undivided half, and to the younger, Samuel and Daniel, each one quarter. During the life of Edward they were held in common, Edward occupying the Ferry farm, of about 220 acres; Samuel, the Townsend farm of about 300 acres; and Daniel, the Senter or Carter farm, of about 160 acres. These estimates are of 1728. When Rebecca Watts died, March 25, 1715, her sons were respectively about twenty-one, seventeen and eleven years old. Edward at once assumed the manifold business, ferriage, innkeeping, store-keeping, and
39 [When the estate was settled May 17, 1708, seven children were living, - Samuel (born 1661, settled in Charlestown, on the edge of Malden. See Wyman and Corey) ; Jonathan (b. 1668) ; Solomon (b. 1676, lived in Boston, married for a second wife, in 1714, Esther Sugars, daughter of the Captain Gregory Sugars who commanded in 1690 the naval forces against Quebec) ; Elias (b. 1678, lived in Boston) ; Abra- ham (b. 1682) ; Isaac (twin brother of the latter, married a daughter of Captain Edmund Ranger, one of the witnesses to Governor Bellingham's will, and bought property on Winter Street, in Boston, adjoining that of Colonel Penn Townsend) ; and Anna (b. 1672). Jonathan Townsend married Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Waltham and granddaughter of Rev. Wm. Waltham of Marblehead, March 22, 1695. He was taxed at Rumney Marsh in 1701, was chosen constable in 1702, and fenceviewer in 1704 and 1707; apparently he was living on the farm in 1705, when the sheriff attached the dwelling-house of Abigail Townsend, widow, and that of Jonathan Townsend, husbandman. (Infra, chap. xiv.) At his death he was of Lynn, where his widow was appointed administratrix, April 16, 1718. His eldest son, Jonathan, born in 1698, graduated from Harvard College in 1716, and became pastor of the church at Needham. Abraham Townsend was mentioned as tenant on the farm in May, 1716, in conveyances between Edward Watts and William Antram. (Suff. Deeds, L. 30, f. 160.) June 12, 1728, the farm was described as lately in the possession of Abraham Townsend, but then of Samuel Watts. (Ibid., L. 42, f. 215.) Abraham Townsend married Mary Eustace, daughter of William Eustace of the adjoining farm, November 30, 1708. She died January 28, 1718. He removed to Maine and died in 1746. (See papers filed in the suit of Mary Eustace of Chelsea vs. Abraham Townsend of Little Falls, York County, on a bond of October 25, 1750, given by Abraham Townsend of Biddeford, York County, Inf. Court of Common Pleas for Suff. Co., November, 1773; also Townshend Family, 51-53.) ]
308
IHISTORY OF CHELSEA
[CHAP. VII
farming at the Ferry farm, and carried it on until his death in 1727; but it does not appear when the minors, Samuel and Daniel, occupied their farms. Edward Watts died September 17, 1727. His widow, Anne Antram Watts, June 12, 1728, conveyed to Thomas Greaves of Charlestown for £3000 all her interest in these farmns, being nineteen thirtieths thereof; 40 and he in contemplation of their marriage made an indenture June 21, 1728, with Dr. Timothy Cutler of Christ Church, Boston (who published a sermon on liis death, 1747), by which in case of their marriage he was to stand seized of this interest to their use for life with remainder, one half to the respective heirs of each. 41
40 Suff. Deeds, L. 42, f. 215. How she acquired an interest greater than her dower does not clearly appear; but sec Antram's decds, ibid., L. 30, f. 160. [May 1, 1716, " Edward Watts of Winisimet Gentn and Anne his wife " conveyed to " William Antram of Boston Shopkeeper," for £3000 nineteen thirtieths of the three farms at Winnisimmet and of the ferry rights. May 22, the latter conveyed the same to " Edward Watts and Anne his Wife their heirs and assignes forever." The deeds were recorded May 24 and May 25, respectively. (Suff. Dceds, L. 30, ff. 160, 161.) As Edward Watts left no child, nineteen thirtieths of the farmns at Win- nisimmet belonged at his death to his wife. How Edward Watts in 1716 came to own more than the half of the farms willed him by his mother in 1715 is not known, but presumably by payment of legacies or by im- provements on the estate. At his death his personal estate, valued at £2878 18s. lld., was divided according to law among his widow, his two brothers, Samuel and Daniel, and his sister Rebecca, wife of John Muzzcy. The conveyance from the widow Ann Watts to Thomas Greaves was dated five days before she filed the inventory of the personal cstate of Edward Watts, and eleven days before her marriage, June 23, 1728, to Thomas Greaves by the rector of Christ Church. It was acknowledged on the same day, June 22, as the conveyance from Thomas Greaves to Dr. Cutler mentioned in the text; both were recorded July 16, 1728. (Suff. Deeds, L. 42, ff. 215, 216.) ]
41 Ibid., L. 42, f. 216. [lf Mrs. Ann Watts survived Thomas Greaves, one half was to belong to herself and her heirs and assigns forever, and one half was to pass to his heirs after her death; if he survived her, one third was to pass to her heirs after his death, and two thirds was to be- long to him, his heirs and assigns forever. Mrs. Ann Greaves dicd in March, 1738, aged 49; he survived until June, 1747. Thomas Greaves was a graduate of Harvard College (1703), a physician, a representative to the General Court, and from 1733 until his death a Judge of the Mid- dlesex Court of Common Pleas. He was the first warden of Christ Church, where Edward Watts was a vestryman, and though he lived in Charles- town, was a constant attendant.] A son was born to Edward and Anne (Antram) Watts, May 27, 1718 (Boston Records), but on the division of his father's estate, as above, no provision was made for any 'child, and it may be assumed that none was then living. [The child died July 17, 1718, aged seven weeks. Boston Records.]
309
GOVERNOR BELLINGHAM'S ESTATES
CHAP. VII]
By tripartite indenture of June 25, 1728, Samuel Watts became sole owner of the Ferry farm, Thomas Greaves and Anne his wife of the Cary farm, and Daniel Watts of the Carter farm.42
Anne Watts Greaves devised 43 the Cary farm to her step- daughter, Margaret Greaves, wife of Captain Samuel Cary, whose heirs sold it for $150,000 to the Cary Improvement Company May 1, 1852.44 Those recently living remembered two old farm houses, besides the Cary mansion, standing on the farm, one not far from Slade's Mill, and the other on the eastern side of Eastern Avenue, near its junction with Broadway.45
This farm has an interesting history. It is the largest and most favorably situated of the Bellingham farms. Fairly divided into upland and meadow, it was the most productive. The descendants of Samuel Townsend and Samuel Cary, sometime tenants or occupants of this farm, have filled public stations. Unlike many of the great Chelsea farms, in its earlier and later days it was occupied by its proprietors, and four generations of Carys were born or have lived on it.
Thomas Greaves,46 father of Margaret Greaves Cary, mar- ried, first, Sybil Avery, the mother of his children; secondly, Anne Antram, widow of Edward Watts the younger, of Chel- sea ; and thirdly, Phoebe, widow of Leonard Vassall of Boston, who survived him. Samuel Cary, son of Samuel and Mary Foster Cary of Charlestown, where he was born November 29, 1713, graduated at Harvard College in 1731. He followed the seas, and was known as Captain Cary. It is not cer- tainly known at what time he began to reside at Chelsea, where his death is recorded in the Church Records December 7, 1769, though Wyman gives it as on the fourth and his burial on the seventh, from his brother Richard's house in Charlestown.47
42 Suff. Deeds, L. 42, f. 297, given infra, pp. 331-333.
43 [See infra, p. 369.]
44 Suff. Deeds, L. 625, f. 180; L. 632, f. 198. [See infra, p. 371.]
45 [According to the assessor's list for the direct tax of 1798, two houses
stood on the farm, the mansion house and a one-story cottage 28 X 13 feet.]
46 ' As he wrote his name, and as his great-grandson, Thomas Greaves Cary was baptized.
47 Gen. and Estates of Charlestown, 179, 433.
310
HISTORY OF CHELSEA
[CHAP. VII
IIon. Samuel Watts' memorandum book says, "Capt. Cary Dyed betwen the 3d. & fourth of December, 1769." 48 The family genealogy enters it as December 8. He married, De- eember 24, 1741, Margaret Greaves, who was born July 19, 1719, and died October 8, 1762, presumably at Charlestown, as her death is not recorded at Chelsea. She is deseribed as " small in person, plain, being pitted with the smallpox, but very intelligent and aetive, and assisted her father frequently in his apotheeary's shop." 49 They had four children : Samuel, born September 20, 1742; Thomas, October 7, 1745; Jona- than, October 21, 1749; and Abigail Coit.
Samuel Cary was educated to business and went to St. Kitts, on the island of Grenada, where for many years he was engaged in buying and selling eargoes, and finally became a planter. On one of his home visits he became acquainted with Sarah, only daughter of Ellis Gray of Boston, born in 1753, whom he married November 5, 1772. They began their new life in the old mansion house at Chelsea, which had been suitably furnished for them.50 The next summer Mr. Cary returned
48 [The Massachusetts Gazette and News-Letter of Thursday, December 7, 1769, records: "Last Monday Morning died at his Seat in Chelsea, after a few Days Illness, Samuel Cary, Esq; in the 58th [sic] Year of his Age. - A Gentleman of superiour Abilities, and polite Accomplishments. His Remains are to be interred this Afternoon from Richard Cary, Esq; in Charlestown." So many discrepancies of this nature between the church records of deaths, and records found elsewhere, have been noted, that it is open to question whether the former may not be a list of the funerals at which the Rev. Phillips Payson was present or officiated. It seems to have been a custom of the proprietors of the Cary farm in the eighteenth century, as of Captain Keayne in the seventeenth, to retain certain rooms for their own use in the farmhouse at Chelsea, where the tenant farmer lived. Evidence of this is given by Mrs. Cary in 1791 and 1801. (Cary Letters, 90, 164.) It is noticeable that Flora, servant of Captain Cary, owned the covenant at Rumney Marsh October 29, 1769, and her son Hamblett was baptized there on the same day. This is the first reference to the family in the church records. After this date an almost constant occupation of these rooms can be traced. The presumption is that the custom did not exist before the death of Mrs. Samuel Cary in 1762, the purchase from the heirs of Mrs. Ann Greaves in 1763, and the division in 1765 of the estates till then held in common by Samuel Cary and James Russell, and the assignment to Captain Cary of this farm, as described infra, pp. 369-372. Tradition says that the " house was what is called an L-house, till [Captain Cary] had the northeast corner built." (Cary Letters, 5.) ]
1º The Cary Letters, 3: An interesting collection to which I am much indebted for the history of the family.
50 Cary Letters, 15.
the and Mas Lamust Carry Punted By Copley 1722
311
GOVERNOR BELLINGHAM'S ESTATES
CHAP. VII]
to Grenada, leaving his wife with her mother presumably at Chelsea; for there she joined the church August 1, 1773, and there, according to the family genealogy (though the Chelsea records make no mention of it), their son Samuel was born October 17 of the same year. The next winter reluc- tantly leaving her infant son with her mother at Chelsea, as I suppose, she joined her husband at Grenada, which was her home for eighteen years. She died at Chelsea August 26, 1825.51
Both Captain Samuel Cary, seaman, and his son, the West India planter and merchant, were much abroad, and for many years the Cary farm was without resident proprietor.52 I have inquired with some diligence, but with little success, as to the tenants who lived on this farm between 1742 and 1792.53 I find no memorandum, public or private, that it was taxed to the family before 1784; and as leases were seldom recorded, it is not easy in the absence of family papers to learn the name of the tenants. But Captain Samuel Sprague may have occupied it from 1755 (and perhaps earlier) until his death in 1783. But it does not follow that the tenant of the farm occupied the principal mansion, as there were two
51 They had thirteen children: Samuel, b. at Chelsea, Oct. 17, 1773, d. at sea, 1810, unmarried. There were born at Grenada: Margaret, 1775, d. single at Chelsea, 1868; Charles Spooner, 1778, d. at Chelsea, 1866; Lucius, 1782, d. single in England, 1826; Sarah, 1783, m. Rev. Joseph Tuckerman, d. at Boston, 1838; Henry, 1785 ( ?), d. in Florence, 1857; Anne Montagu, 1787, d. at Chelsea, 1882; Edward, 1789, d. 1808; Har- riet, 1790, d. 1873. Besides Samuel, there were born at Chelsea: Thomas Greaves, 1791, d. at Nahant, 1859 (Town Treasurer 1817) ; George Blankern, 1792, d. 1880; Robert Howard, 1794, d. 1867; William Ferdinand, 1795, d. 1881.
I find no evidence that Captain Cary resided on his farm before 1768. In that year his name is on the tax list; but was erased, probably because the assessors learned that, as theretofore, the estate was to be taxed to the tenant. From Wyman one might infer that his death, as well as his funeral, was at Charlestown; but the Cary Letters leave little doubt on this point. They say that " the old gentleman passed the last few years of his life at Chelsea," and that in his last sickness, " old Mrs. Daniel Pratt, who lived in the Pratt neighborhood, was called in to nurse him." (Letters, 5, 6.) [See supra, note 48.]
63 [In the division of 1728, this farm was assigned to Thomas and Ann Greaves; their home was in Charlestown. In conveyances dated March, 1737/8, and September, 1749, Stephen Kent is mentioned as the tenant of the farm, and Joseph Gould, of the house near the mills (Suff. Deeds, L. 67, ff. 76, 77; L. 105, ff. 66-72; L. 78, ff. 235, 236). Infra, pp. 374-377.]
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HISTORY OF CHELSEA
[CHAP. VII
farm houses on the estate, either of which was nearer the eentre of town affairs than the Cary house.5+ It was not uncommon in those days for an enterprising farmer to carry on a farm be- sides his own, and Capt. Sprague's taxes during this period indicate that he paid for an estate much larger than his own, according to the records in Rumney Marsh, one as large as the Keayne, or the Newgate, or the Williams farm; but on his death his executors paid for one only about a third as large.55 That he was in possession of the Cary farm in 1773 perhaps may be inferred from a letter of John Tudor, who speaks of meeting him at Mr. Cary's. Samuel Cary's name appears on the tax list of December, 1772, but no tax is against it. When Mr. and Mrs. Cary went to Grenada in 1773, they left their son with his grandmother, Mrs. Gray, who appears to have lived on the farm until her death in 1791.56 Captain Sprague died in 1783. At one time James Low, son of John and Abigail, born September 22, 1777, and father of the late Hon. John Low, carried on the farm and occupied part of the mansion house; but it does not appear at what time his ten- ancy began. October 17, 1802, Mrs. Cary wrote to her son Samuel, then in Grenada, " this is the last harvest while Mr. Low is here. He, poor fellow, quits us because his earnings are too small to maintain a growing family. Your father has engaged another family to come to the house and take the farm at the halves." 57 In the winter of 1775-6, during the siege of Boston, some of Washington's troops occupied the Cary mansion as barracks; and the tradition is that the furniture and pictures eould seareely have fared worse had they belonged to a tory family instead of to one patriotic.58
Mr. Cary, having acquired what he considered a competent
54 [Apparently Captain Sprague lived in the mansion house, certain rooms therein being reserved, from about the year 1768, for the use of Captain Cary and his descendants. See supra, notes 45, 48; infra, Appen- dixes 8, 9.]
55 [Infra, p. 375.]
56 Cary Letters, 24, 27, 43; [also 65, 69, 70, 71, 79, 86].
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