and to conferences with the neighboring towns to run boundary lines. In 1699, so broad was their territory, I find the selectmen running the lines with Chelmsford, Cambridge and Watertown.1Open page Some interesting peculiarities in the manners and customs of the time appear in the town's books. Proposals of marriage were made by the parents of the parties, and minutes of such private agreements sometimes entered on the clerk's records.2Open page The public charity seems to have been bestowed in a manner now obsolete. The town lends its commons as pastures, to poor men; and "being informed of the great present want of Thomas Pellit, gave order to Stephen Hosmer to deliver a town cow, of a black color, with a white face, unto said Pellit, for his present supply."3Open page
From the beginning to the middle of the eighteenth century, our records indicate no interruption of the tranquillity of the inhabitants, either in church or in civil affairs. After the death of Rev. Mr. Estabrook, in 1711, it was propounded at the town-meeting, "whether one of the three gentlemen lately improved here in preaching, namely, Mr. John Whiting, Mr. Holyoke and Mr. Prescott, shall be now chosen in the work of the ministry? Voted affirmatively."4Open page Mr. Whiting, who was chosen, was, we are told in
