Recommendation from the Massachusetts General Court for a Grant of Land to the Widow of Thomas Starr
To the Honored General Court Assembled at Boston
Whereas Mr. Thomas Starr, now deceased, having left a desolate widow and eight small children, was the surgeon of one of our companies1 that went against the Pequots. May it please His Honored Court to grant his relict widow and children four hundred acres of land to be laid out in any place not otherwise disposed of by this Court.2
And your petitioners shall remain obliged, etc.,
|
Legislative Action: |
The Deputies think meet to grant this petition of four hundred acres of land according as is desired and do hereby empower the Treasurer and Captain Norton to make sale or otherwise to dispose of the said lands so as may best conduce to the benefit of the widow and children as they shall see meet, and all with reference to the consent of our Honored Magistrates hereto. William Torrey, Clerk, October 26, 1658. Consented to by the Magistrates, Richard Bellingham, Deputy Governor. / Richard Russell, Edward Collins, Thomas Danforth |
|
Notation: |
Widow Starr’s grant / 17 Entered 1658 |
|
Cataloguing: |
71 |
- 1. Starr served in Captain Daniel Patrick’s Company. He was appointed surgeon on May 17, 1637.
- 2. Editorial Note: There is no evidence that the grant was laid out to Rachel Starr or her children. In 1734, Benjamin Starr of New London, Connecticut, one of her descendants, successfully petitioned the Court on behalf of the rest of the family to do so. Four hundred acres of Province land on the north side of Narragansett Town Number Two (Ashburnham and Westminster) was surveyed for the Starrs’ benefit. The property was subsequently sold to Boston merchant, Thomas Green. Ezra Stearns, History of Ashburnham, Massachusetts, from the Grant of Dorchester Canada to the Present Time (Ashburnham, MA: Town of Ashburnham, 1887), 29-31.