Dear Uncle, Taunton Octr. 22d. 1777

I know you want much to hear from your family else I would not write this evening being very tired. Docter Gardiner called here just at dark. We could not Perswade him to lodge with us, but he says he will carry any thing to you. We have done nicely since you left us, untill last night. Aunt was very ill; we sent for Mrs. Dennis1 about day. She gave her something that eased her; & if she could have rest would be finely again. The little stranger2 is very well; what must we call him? He will have some name or another soon. A maid is what we stand in the greatest need off, of any thing, at all. I dont know what we shall do without; but Providence will take care of us I make no doubt. I have been very spry; but cant long hold out I am afraid. I am surprised to think how much I have done. This day Lucy must needs go to the Ordination,3 so I was baulked. We could get no Person to be in the kitchen, not for this forenoon only. Aunts Sister Crocker4 came and sit with her; & I dressed dinner &c., & entertained Company myself. There was a vast deal of Company upon the green yesterday. Seth & I made the shrub here was 4 quarts of very rich juice to which I added 1 part of rum beside 3 pint which I made into jelly. Mr. Leam came & took the hogsheads for the cyder will bring that & the winter apples this week.

Aunt sends love to you. The Children are very good indeed.

Please to give my Duty & Love to Papa Mamma & Sisters. I am too much tired to write to them.

I hope Sir you will excuse the writing. Tis the best Pen I can find, & I have no knife.

Let us hear from you Sir if you dont return this week & believe me Sir yr. Dutifull & obliged Neice

Abigail Greenleaf

RC ; addressed: “The honle. R. T. Paine Esqr. Boston favd. by Docr. Gardiner”; endorsed.

1.

Probably nurse or midwife Sarah “Granne” Dennis, wife of Abraham Dennis of Newport. They were likely among the refugees in Taunton, where he died in 1782 and she in 1794 in her 73rd year (Vital Records of Taunton, Massachusetts [Boston, 1929], 3:73).

2.

Henry Paine (1777–1814), the fifth child and fourth son in the Paine family, was born Oct. 20, 1777. He became a merchant and traded in the Indies. In 1805 he married Olive Lyman, and they had a daughter, but Olive died in 1811. Shortly after that Henry became bankrupt and then mortally ill. He died a few weeks after his father, on June 8, 1814, and was buried in the family tomb in the Granary Burying Ground, Boston.

3.

Elias Jones was ordained as minister of the Taunton church on Oct. 22, as successor to Caleb Barnum who died the previous year while serving as an army chaplain. Jones came to Taunton from a church in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but his history is otherwise unknown although he may have been the 1767 Yale graduate of that name. His tenure in the church was brief. On July 10, 1779, RTP noted in his diary: “rode to Taunton & found that Mr. Elias Jones was dismissed from his Office” (Emery, Ministry of Taunton, 2:30–33).

4.

Hannah (Cobb) Crocker (d. 1817), the widow of Rev. Josiah Crocker (1719–1774), a former minister of Taunton.