Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 1

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From Abigail Paine

Paine, Abigail RTP

Boston June. 12. 1747 Dear Brother,

We are all in usual health as I hope you are. I Send these lines with a Malencholy peice of news the death of John Maylem1 who died yesterday, of a fever.

Mr. Bracket & his Wife2 desire you to Come down and be a Bearrer, & they desire you to Send the Revd. Mr. Foxcroft's Son3 who they Suppose to be at Cambridg and desire him to be a Bearrer a Sabath day Evening and bring word with you wether he will attend. They design Wm. Watson4 & the widdow Fairweather son Wm.5 and the other to be Tradmens sons.

Father desires you to Come home with Cato round. Pray bring your dirty Linin with you & your Green jackcoat if it wants mending.

Dear brother this is a Loud Call to us to be also ready for we know not how soon it must be our turn. I Remain your Loving Sisster,

ABIGAIL PAINE

PS, Brother if you Can easily direct Cato to get me about a Quart of Green Grapes to turn vinegar I shou'd be glad.

RC ; addressed: "To Mr. Robert Treat Paine att Cambridg"; endorsed.

John Maylem (ca. 1730–1747) was buried in Kings Chapel graveyard (Thomas Bridgman, Memorials of the Dead in Boston [Boston, 1853], 75). RTP was a bearer at his funeral on June 14, 1747. Maylem was the son of Mark and Elizabeth Maylem and nephew of the John Maylem (1695–1742), from whom Thomas Paine rented his house on School Street.

Anthony Brackett (1708–1764) and his wife, Elizabeth (——) (Maylem) Brackett (d. 1768), the step-father and mother of the deceased (Herbert I. Brackett, Brackett Genealogy [Washington, D.C., 1907], 102–106).

Rev. Thomas Foxcroft (1696/7–1769) was minister of the First Church of Boston ( Sibley's Harvard Graduates , 6:47–58). The son, Thomas Foxcroft (b. 1732), was at this time a student at Harvard in the Class of 1750. He did not complete his degree, and his later history is obscure, but he appears to have predeceased his father (ibid., 12:557).

William Watson (1730–1798) was a member of the Class of 1751 at Harvard College. Watson served in various town offices in his native Plymouth, Mass., and later served as a justice of the county court ( Sibley's Harvard Graduates , 13:149–153).

Hannah (Waldo) Fayerweather was the widow of Thomas Fayerweather (1692–1733), merchant of Boston. Their son William (1728–1763) died in Cuba, "at the Havannah" ( NEHGR 144[1990]: 233).