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Subject: [GM-L] BEERS - Bond's Watertown (town discovers 100 yrs later, owed 2000 acres!)
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 17:58:57 EDT
Subject: BEERS Part 2
Source: Source: Source: Genealogies of the Families and Descendants of the
Early Settlers of Watertown, Massachusetts, Includes Waltham and Weston - by
Henry Bond, M.D., Boston,
1860.
p.198
Elizabeth Dix b. May 6, 1700 dau of John Dix & his wife, Martha Lawrence
(married Nov 29,
1697). Elizabeth Dix m. May 21, 1718, Richard Beers.
p.619
Samuel Ward of Marlboro m. in Watertown, May 25, 1710, Elizabeth Beers.
p.596-597
Sarah Tainter b. Nov 20, 1657; dau of Joseph Tainter (who arrived on the ship
Confidence
out of Southampton in 1638, John Jobson, Master, as a servant to Nicholas
Guy) and his wife
Mary, dau of Deacon Nicholas Guy. Joseph Tainter's Will dated Feb. 18,
1689/90 mentions his wife Mary, sons Joseph, Benjamin, Jonathan and Simon
Tainter, dau. Mary Pollard; sons-in-law Elnathan Beers and John Taylor. His
children were born in Watertown. Sarah Tainter m. about 1681, Elnathan
Beers.
p.673
Feb. 1, 1711/12 the widow Judith Allen of Boston, dau of Capt. Richard Beers,
for £36, sold
to William Bond, William Shattuck and Nathaniel Bright (trustees for the
purchase of lands
for Rev. Mr. Gibbs), 14-1/2 acres of pasture, bounded north by other pasture
of Judith Allen; east by David Stone and Benjamim Chadwick; south by Bank
lane; west by William Bond.
Also 3-1/2 acres bounded north by highways; east by B. Chadwick; south by B.
Chadwick; west
by Richard Beers.
Henry Allen and family moved from Boston to Watertown in July 1722 and dwelt
in a house of
Jabez Beers. He (Henry Allen) was prob. a grandson of Captain Richard Beers.
p.989
Two early grants of land were made to Watertown by the General Court - the
second of which
was in compensation for land taken off by Concord. It is not improbable that
the first grant was made with the same intention, and that the 2nd was made
because the first grant
failed. On this point we are left to conjecture and to inference not
entirely clear.
In November, 1637, by the Court, "Watertown is granted one thousand five
hundred acres of
meadow, if it be there convenient, at the new plantation, Sudbury, upon the
river [that]
Concord is upon." The reason for this grant is not given in the record, but
the date and
the location of it render it probable that it was in compensation for the
land taken off by
Concord. Sudbury was soon afterwards incorporated and this conditional grant
to Watertown
being within its limits, it would not be "convenient" to allow Watertown to
have it. It is
observed that Sudbury was a Watertown settlement and granted to Watertown
petitioners, and
this large grant might be deemed to supersede, and more than make good the
lesser grant. But
it is probable that it was not so viewed and that the second grant was made
in lieu of the
first.
We find in the town records no mention of this first grant of one thousand
five hundred acres until after the lapse of more than seventy-five years,
when the town may have lost
sight of the relation between this first and a subsequent grant. A committee
was apptd. to
search the Colonial Records wherein were found mentioned two grants of land
to Watertown,
neither of which had been made good by location and survey; and on Jan. 14,
1722/3, the
town chose Col. Jonas Bond, Nathaniel Bright and William Shattuck to address
the General
Court, to obtain two thousand acres of upland and one thousand five hundred
acres of meadow
formerly granted to Watertown and not yet taken up and to see whether it
should be divided
between Watertown & Weston.
This, we think, the only reference in the records to those one thousand five
hundred acres of meadow, subsequent to the following second grant. In May,
1651, at the same time that the boundary between Watertown and Sudbury was
finally settled, the General Court ordered "that Watertown shall have two
thousand acres of land laid out near Assabet River, adjoining to the bounds
of Sudbury in respect of such land as was wanting to them, which was granted
to them formerly by this Court to be the bounds of their towns and Capt.
Willard and Lieut.
Goodenow are appointed to see this done and performed and to make return
thereof to this
Court at their next session provided it be not prejudicial to any former
grants."
This committee did not perform this service, probably on account of the terms
of the proviso. The reason for this grant is more distinctly shown in the
town records. At a
town meeting held March 12th, 1660/1, Capt. Mason, Lieut. Beers and Serg.
Wincoll were
appointed to find out where to have laide out the two thousand acred granted
by the General
Court in recompense of some land taken off by Concord." The "bounds of the
town," referred
to in the preceding order of the Court, was undoubtedly the line before
referred to at
Fresh Pond and running west, north-west straight into the country.
Committees were apptd
very numerous times in order to obtain of the Court the location and survery
this grant,
but without success until after the lapse of more than one hundred years.
After this great
delay, exceeding in duration unending chancery suits, the grant was located
at "Wachusett
Hill," and divided between Watertown, Waltham, and Weston. Waltham & Weston
sold their
shares in 1756, each £267. 6s. 8d. = £2005. O.T. Watertown sold her share of
it about the
same time.
To be continued - Beers - Part 3
Transcribed by Janice Farnsworth
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