Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 2
Agreeable to your request yesterday I now inclose an Extract from my Fathers1 will by wch. I hold the Lands near the Cedar Swamp which Lands my Father came to by his Wife,2 & they joyntly sold them to a Certain person & my Father purchas'd said Lands from the person again, which may be seen at the registers office in Taunton, which method was521taken by the advice of old Mr. Aucthmuty, to ennable my Father to sell or otherways dispose of said Lands as he might think best. I likewise inclose you an Extract from my Grandfather's3 will by which you'll see how my son4 is interrested. I cannot say whether the Land Sued for be his or mine. I think Shaw told me it was my sons Land tho' I may be mistaken, if it be the Land granted in 1692 to Mrs. Pool I think it must be mine, as Shaw if I remember right said they were in that Deed. I did fully design to have waited on you to Day but my Son is so ill I cannot leave Home. I beg the favor of your consulting Mr. Williams who is better Quallified to inform you concerning this matter than I am, & if by Inttelligence from him you could prevent their Suit which he told me could be done as he look'd on them not to be a company, & that if they could be baulk'd in this they would not bring another action I should Esteem myself much oblig'd to you & would pay you to your Satisfaction. I inclose a Letter to Mr. Williams & one to Mr. Shaw, which please deliver them. Your care in this Bussiness will greatly oblige Sir Your most humle. Servant
P.S. I believe Mr. Shaw has what papers you may want, if not he will gett them.
Francis Borland (1691–1763), a wealthy merchant of Boston (Sibley's Harvard Graduates, 5:558–561).
Jane (Lindall) Borland (1707–1749), the second wife of Francis Borland and mother of his children. She was the daughter of Timothy Lindall by his wife Jane Pool, from whom the Taunton lands were inherited (NEHGR 7[1853]: 19).
Timothy Lindall (1677–1760), merchant of Boston and Salem, served several terms in the House of Representatives and on the Council and also on the Court of Inferior Pleas for Essex County (Sibley's Harvard Graduates, 4:245–248).
John Lindall Borland (1753–1825) served in the British Army during the Revolution and thereafter (Jones, Loyalists of Massachusetts, 42–43). The lands inherited from his great-grandfather were among those confiscated by the revolutionary government in 1779. In Bristol County alone, the property included about 1000 acres of land in Freetown valued at £100,000 and smaller lots in Dighton and Raynham (Suffolk Co. Probate, file 17023).