Thanks to two books by William Richard Cutter I was able to find out more about the two
petitions I mentioned in the last blogpost. The first excerpt concerns John Wyman's request
that his servant be released from military service:
The records show that he had bought the time of one Simpson, a Scotchman, one of the soldiers of Charles II, captured by Cromwell and sold into servitude in New England. A petition of John Wyman to the governor and council gives an illuminating picture of life in 1676:
"Humbly Shcweth that yore Petitioner Haith beene often out in the service of ye Country against the Indians; his sone also was ont and slaine by the enemy; and his servants hath been long out in the warrs and now being reduced to greate wants for clotheing: desires liberty to come downe from Hadley where he now remains a garrison soldier; and he is a taner by traid and yore Petitioner bought him on purpose for the management of his tanyard: and himselfe being inexperienced in that calling doth humbly request that favore of your honors to consider the premisses and to grant his said servant Robert Simpson a dismission from this present service that so his lether now in vatts may not by spyled but yore Petitioner be ever engaged to pray, &c. JNO. WYMAN." p160
New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of Commonwealths and the Founding of a Nation, Volume 1 (Google eBook) Lewis Historical Publishing Company, New York, New York, 1915
The second one is about the complaint of John Seers against John Wyman and his daughter
Bathsheba Wyman over a horse:
In the case of John Seers versus Lieutenant John Wyman, before the council in 1676, Daniel
Baldwin, aged seventeen years, testified about the impressment of two horses, and that while pressing a horse belonging to John Wyman, who resisted the constable, said Wyman “suffered his negro servant to beat me with a great stick, and reproved him not.” In the same case, on the testimony of several witnesses, Daniel Baldwin is callet “grandchild to John Seers,” and came with him to Lieutenant Wman’s garrison. The witnesses say Daniel Baldwin abused James Carringbone, negro servant of said W yman, “both in words and deeds,” calling him “Black Roag,” and struck him with his gun across his back, and said he would “shute’ him. Seers stated that Baldwin was a “solger” who came to Wyman’s with him, and that one of Wyman’s household struck said Baldwin with a “great stick.” The particulars of this interesting case are published in “Woburn Men in the Indian and Other Wars,” pp. 11-14 (editions of 1897 and 1903).-p62
Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Families of Boston and Eastern Massachusetts, Volume 1 (Google eBook) Lewis historical Publishing Company, 1908 - Boston (Mass.)
That doesn't mention my 7x great grandmother Bathsheba's part in the scuffle. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a free ebook edition of Woburn Men in the Indian and Other Wars online, but I did find an account on the website of the Burlington Historical Commission. My ancestress Bathsheba was
right in the thick of it, at one point tripping John Seers so that he fell. You can read the whole story
there at this link.
I'll have some thoughts about all this in the next post.
To be continuied
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