Taunton Feby. 5th. 1781 Sr.,

Here with I send you some eight libels against absentees Estates in yr. Co. if any more Estate in your Co. of those Persons has come to knowledge please to add them, please to ask Col. Porter for the bounds of the Estate of Benjn. Pickman1 & put it into the blank herewith sent, by the Col. return it consists of a house & 200 acre in N Salem in possn. of David Boyce also a Gristmill & Sawmill in possn. of Elihu Ketchum also a Lott in Greenwich; I also send another Blank if any new Estate should came to light please to file those with the Court & move the Court that Notification be put into 3 News Papers according to the Act in Addition to the Confiscating Act. I have enclosed a form for the notification, please to deliver it to the clerk having amended it if you think it is not right, the shorter it is the better if it answer the purposes. I think one should be sent to Worcester paper one to Edes & one to Gill. I expect Genl. Danielson will bring the sd. additional acts wch. provides that the notification shall be by publishing in three news Papers instead of Service by a Sherriff &—before another Court I hope to see you mean while I

am yr. h. RTP

Dft. on same sheet as Notice to Hampshire Court of Common Pleas, Feb. 1781; internal address: “honble. Caleb Strong Esq.”

1.

Benjamin Pickman (1740–1819), a 1759 Harvard graduate, was a successful merchant in Salem before the Revolution. A loyalist, Pickman left for England at the start of the conflict, but his wife retained the estate in Salem until he returned in 1785. He shortly after repossessed the limited portion of his lands that had been sequestered and reestablished himself as a leading Salem citizen (Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, 14:485–491).