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Browsing named entities in Historic leaves, volume 3, April, 1904 - January, 1905. You can also browse the collection for 1639 AD or search for 1639 AD in all documents.

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Historic leaves, volume 3, April, 1904 - January, 1905, Thomas Brigham the Puritan—an original settler (search)
in Cambridge, is on this land. With Saltonstall, Dudley, Nicholas Danforth, and other chief men for his neighbors and associates, Thomas Brigham lived on his comfortable homestead until 1648. Having been admitted to the freeman's oath, he, in 1639, was chosen a member of the board of townsmen, who exercised supreme authority in municipal matters, and had the distribution of the public lands. He served as townsman or selectman in 1640, 1642, and 1647, and as constable in 1639 and 1642. Suc1639 and 1642. Such honors as these at that period cannot be lightly esteemed now. He was the proprietor of many animals, and in 1647, when the town contained ninety houses, 135 ratable citizens, and had been settled seventeen years, he owned nearly one-third of all the swine. Morse argued, also, from this honorable, but unpoetic, fact that he must have possessed a mill, from the toll of which he could easily feed so large a number. The proud possession of these hogs is not also without its sad feature for