Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 2

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From Eunice Paine

From Levi Willard

Willard, Levi RTP

Lancaster April 17, 1758 Brother Treat,

I am alive, but are Uncertain whether you are or not, for I have scarce heard of you this 5 Mo. but had a hint the other day, you were seen in Boston, & hope this will find you in good Buyseness & half an hour leisure, so that I may have a line from you to Mrs. Willard to comfort her in her poor state of health. She made a boy about 2 mo. ago,1 & Remains very weak, & a line from Bob will be the best of Cordials. News plenty the fleet is ariv'd the Distination of all the forcess known &c.

Pray send me Gilt. Thornton's Note. I hear he is at Springfield or Give it to Colo. Worthington2 so that the Busyness may be done at. I am your Sincear friend

LEVI WILLARD 89

RC ; no address or endorsement. Notes in RTP's hand: "of the 5 acres. No Grant, but Cmmtte. Say 4 1/4 to make up Pools land & 3/4 or 60 acre Div. and they were appointed 1695 as by copy to lay out land to those who had Grants they producing the Grant. NB to be presumed they Acted according to their Authority, & wn. it appeared to them that Pools Land took 4 1/4 they then laid it out else where on the same Grant it was first laid out upon, according to the direction of Prop:

of the 54 Acres

the Select were appt. to lay out wt. land was due & the Prop. thinking the place at Pole Plain would afford but 15 Acres made their Grant so tho they knew 30 was due & the Selectmen finding the place would afford 30 laid it out.

Mem. of the Depositions. Quære if the Originals must not be got from Supr. Clks. office

they are to prove the Reputation of the Land in 1702."

John Willard (1758–1775).

John Worthington (1719–1800) graduated from Yale in 1740 and following a tutorship there, studied law under Phineas Lyman. Worthington began his practice in Springfield in 1744 and soon became prominent at the bar holding such offices as high sheriff and kings attorney for Hampshire County. He was appointed one of the five commissioners to the Albany Congress in 1754 and later in 1757 was made a colonel in the militia. A member of the Massachusetts General Court for Springfield, he was active there for much of the period 1747 to 1774 serving on the Governor's Council from 1767 to 1769. Worthington's increasing conservatism turned the more radical element against him and when he was appointed a mandamus councillor in 1774 "a mob forced him to recant his Loyalism." He remained in Springfield but devoted himself largely to local affairs for the remainder of his life (Franklin Bowditch Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, 6 vols. [New York, 1885–1912], 1:658–660; DAB).