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Monday, December 14, 2015

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2015 WEEK 49: ISAAC STEARNS OF WATERTOWN, MA. PT3

The images for the inventory of Isaac Stearns are a little easier to read than his will:


Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)21239 page4

Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)21239 page5

And there was a transcription of it in The Stearns Genealogy and Memoirs by Avis
Sterns Van Wagenen:

A true inventory of the lands, goods and chattels of Isaac Sternes, Sen'r., taken the 28th, of 4th., 1671, who deceased the 16th of 4th, 1671, prized and taken by us, whose names are here underwritten:
Housen and homestall of twelve acres of land.... £100 00
Four acres of upland and two acres of meadow. ... 18 00
Eight acres of upland........................................... 26 00
Six acres of meadow........................................... 30 00
Three acres of marshe .........................................15 00
Fourscore acres of upland.................................... 60 00
Twelve acres of upland ........................................12 00
Nine acres of upland..............................................5 00
Sixty acres of upland.............................................15 00
Fifteen acres of upland ...........................................8 00
Foure acres of meadow land................................... 8 00
Twenty-five acres of meadow land ........................60 00
One hundred and ninety acres of meadow land.......40 00
One hundred and five acres of upland.................... 10 00
Two horses.......................................................... 10 00
Foure oxen.......................................................... 16 00
Six cowes............................................................ 18 00
Two heffers.......................................................... 4 00
Three yearlings ......................................................3 00
Seven sheep and five lambs.................................... 4 00
Wearing clothes, linning and wooling....................... 4 00
Beding and tabell linning......................................... 4 10
New Cloath............................................................4 10
Swine, to the value of............................................. 4 00
Beding and bedstead in the parlor............................ 4 10
Cubbord, stooles and table..................................... 3 00
Beding and bedstead in the hall............................... 3 00
One Moose skin .....................................................0 10
One old bed and other lumber in the old chamber..... 1 00
Sheep's wool......................................................... 0 08
Two old chests, two spinning wheels, a chese
press, and other lumber in ye low chamber ............. 1 00
Beame and scales, waites and measures.................. 1 00
One payer of quarnes and other lumber in the
quarne house.........................................................0 10
Brass putter and iron and other utensils in the
chimne................................................................. 6 10
Beer barrels, pondering tubbs and other small
utensils................................................................. 1 00
Corne and mealle................................................... 1 00
Mault and pease.................................................... .2 10
Lumber in the parlor chamber.................................. 0 10
Two bags of hopes.................................................. 3 00
Cart, plow, chains and other husbandry instruments... 3 00
Salt, meall and chees, other provisions...................... 3 00
Corne growing in the ground..................................... 6 00
Tobacco in the rowle and leafe................................. 0 06 08
Two muskets, one fowling peace, one sword..............2 00
To one cart rope...................................................... 0 05
To sacks and hay in the barns.................................... 0 15
Not footed in original. I make.................................. £524 04 08
(Signed) WILLIAM BOND. SEN'R.
JOHN BISCOE, SEN'R.
HENRY FREEMAN,
"That this is a true coppie of ye orriginall attested in Oct., 1671, and yn put upon Record, and burned in ye fireing of ye court house, is sworn by Isaac Sternes and Samuel Sternes, 1, 8, 72, in open court, at Cambridge."
(From Vol. 4, pp. 129-130.)

 pp18-20


Stearns Genealogy and Memoirs, Volume 1 Courier Press Company, Syracuse, New York 1901

A few things struck me:
- The moose skin was only worth 10 shillings. Was this an indication that moose were plentiful in Massachusetts in the time Isaac was living in Massachusetts Bay colony?

- The "one payer of quarnes" puzzled me as to what that might be, so I googled and discovered it
was probably a mispelling of quernes, which were hand operated mills used to grind corn, which
was a crop Isaac grew. The pronunciation may have sounded the way it is spelled though in the inventory.

- Likewise, I think the "two bags of hopes" refers to hoops. But "bags of hopes" is something that
makes me smile.


Update: Fellow genealogist Michael John Neill pointed out that "hopes" was probably a mispelling
of "hops" which is indeed much more logical for Isaac to have than "hoops". "

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