Vertical file collection on law and lawyers

Scope and Contents

Receipt from attorney and politican Asaph Churchill (1765-1841; Harvard AB 1789) of Dorchester, Massachusetts, for two notes of hand from Mary Taylor, dated 1799.

Scope and Contents

Contains a decision and articles of agreement with the administrators of the estate of John Bacon, of Dedham, Massachusetts, related to property willed to his wife and children, dated 1684.

Scope and Contents Contains Massachusetts county probate records, dated 1758-1799, including a grant of probate to James Wales of Raynham for the estate of his wife, Mary, from George Leonard (1729-1819), judge of the probate of wills for Bristol County in Norton; grant of probate to Salisbury blacksmith Ezra Morrill for the estate of his father, Elijah, by Nathaniel Roper, judge of probate for Essex County in Ipswich; and a grant of probate to Sibel Ware for her part of her husband Josiah's estate in Needham,...

Scope and Contents

Account of the estate of Loyalist Boston probate judge Foster Hutchinson with Pico & Aves of Boston, presumably attorneys, related to confiscation of his property by Massachusetts in 1779. Hutchinson left Massachusetts for Halifax, Nova Scotia, after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War.

Scope and Contents

Account of Abijah Sumner with expenses related to administering the estate of Samuel Sumner, of Milton, Massachusetts, signed by a probate judge and dated 1786.

Scope and Contents

1711 bond of indenture of two-year-old Lydall Buck from Boston shopkeeper Seth Dwight to Mendon cordwainer Stephen Ports. Lydall Buck’s mother, Jane Buck, was herself indentured to Dwight.

Scope and Contents Contains Massachusetts estate documents, dated 1666-1777, including an agreement to pay the legacy from the estate of Elizabeth Lyon, the will of Boston brazier Henry Shrimpton, and notes of the division of property of Thomas Harlock, which included land in Chappaquiddick, possibly written by the executor of the estate; on the verso are words of “caution and advice to young beginners”, promoting sobriety, industriousness, and other virtues. There is also a probate document for James...

Scope and Contents

Contains copies of deeds from Boston brewer Edward Tyng to Henry Webb for waterfront property near Boston Harbor, dated 1646, and to shoemaker James Everill for his wharf, dated 1651.

Scope and Contents Contains original and copies of records related to the development of the Boston Town Dock, also called Bendall's Dock, dated 1651-1684. Included are copies of deeds to Edward, Eliakim, and Richard Hutchinson from William Phillips and Thomas Clarke, granting them each one-eighth of the dock. There is also an deed to shoemaker James Everill for property and permission to construct a new wharf in the harbor, and copies of records of permits from the Boston selectman for development of Boston...

Scope and Contents

Copy of a deed transferring a house and marsh land on Drakes Island, in Wells, Maine (then Massachusetts), from Stephen Batson (1610-1676) to John Wakefield, dated 1652.

Scope and Contents

Contains copies of deeds to land and buildings in Boston, dated 1653-1668, including a deed of land and a house from farmer John Grover of Boston to his widowed daughter-in-law, Hannah Grover; deed of property comprising a shop, wharf, dwelling home, and other lands, from Boston cooper James Mattocks to his newly married son, Samuel; and deed of land and a warehouse from James Nash of Weymouth, Massachusetts, to Boston merchant Thomas Dean.

Scope and Contents Contains copies of deeds to land and buildings in Boston, dated 1669-1685, including a deed from Boston soap boiler Christopher Gibson of land and his soap house to Hopestill Foster, as well as three furnaces and other professional instruments; deed of land and a warehouse from Boston merchant John Pole to merchants Thomas Thacher, Jr., (circa 1644-1686) and Phesant Eastwick; and and deed of a warehouse called Cottons Slaughter house, and the part of the wharf it occupied, from butcher...

Scope and Contents

Copies of deeds from Boston tanner Henry Faine to cooper Richard Way for land and a dwelling house, dated 1659, and to cooper Henry Cooley for a shop in the North End of Boston, dated 1672.

Scope and Contents

Deed of land in Boston from Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations Deputy Governor William Brenton of Newport, to Boston shipwright Thomas Peck, dated 1665. The land abutted waterfront property already owned by Peck.

Scope and Contents

Includes a 1666 copy of deed of property in Charlestown and Malden, Massachusetts, including a dwelling house and barn, from Casco, Maine, mason George Felt and Boston yeoman John Phillips, signed in 1664. The document includes information on how the division of land among property owners including Felt was marked on trees. Also contains an original deed of land, a dwelling house, and a barn, from Samuel Pitty of Weymouth to his brother, William Pitty, dated 1691.

Scope and Contents

Contains copies of deeds of land from Boston felt maker Theodore Atkinson to his children, Ebenezer and Abigail, and to Harvard College Librarian and Resident Tutor Daniel Gookin (1650-1718; Harvard AB 1669) of Cambridge, Massachusetts, dated 1671. The land sold to Gookins was near Fort Hill in Roxbury, abutting property Atkinson had sold to John and Nathaniel Green of Cambridge and Cotton Mather.

Scope and Contents

Deed of a land in Charlestown, Massachusetts, from Samuel Nowel of Boston to Woburn carpenter Eleazer Bateman, dated 1685. Nowell and his mother were granted the property at the time of the division of common land of Charlestown; his father, Increase Nowell, was a founder of the town.

Scope and Contents

Deed of land in Boston from bricklayer Jonathan Browne to merchant John Charnock, dated 1716.

Scope and Contents

Deed of land in Newbury, Massachusetts, from Thomas Moody (1668-1737) to joiner Samuel Rolf, dated 1727.

Scope and Contents

Copies of a record of land granted by the town of Wells, Maine, to John Storer (1694-1768), dated 1729/30, and record of the grant of the same land to Benjamin Storer in 1670. The records were copied from the Wells Town Book.

Scope and Contents

Copies of deeds to land in Boston, including Boston cutler Michael Willis' deed to tobacconist Thomas Watkins granting passage from the street over Willis' property to land belonging to Watkins; deed of land in Boston from Mary Dennison (1701-1756), of Ispwich, Massachusetts, to shipwright William Lee; and a deed from William Hickling to Job Prince for a brick home on King Street in Boston and a distillery.

Scope and Contents

Deed of a salt marsh in the Pullen Point section of Boston from farmer John Grover (active 1746) to farmer Joseph Belcher (died 1739). Both men were landowners in Pullen Point, in what is now Winthrop, Massachusetts.

Scope and Contents

Indenture from the Trustees of the Charity of Edward Hopkins to Peter How, dated 1742, granting permission to cut cedar and pine in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. How signed a 99-year lease of 100 acres of Hopkinton land with the Trustees in 1720.

Scope and Contents Deeds to property in Hingham, Bridgewater, Sudbury, and other Massachusetts towns. Included is a deed of a joiner's shop on King Wharf in Newburyport from mariner Hezekiah Goodhew to blacksmith Joseph Noyes, dated 1773. There is also a bond from Elijah Beal (1750-1798), of Hingham to his relative, Jacob Beal (1742-1819), for 500 pounds, dated 1791. Conditions of the obligation related to the distribution of land owned by their father-in-law, George Lewis (1721-1795), who was in debt, and his...

Scope and Contents

Deed of land in Perkiomen and Skippack Township, near Philadelphia, from Gertude (alias Catherine) Johnson and farmer John Ryder, dated 1746.