11 



the town now known as Burlington. His grandfather was a 

 deacon of the first Woburn church ; a man of some prominence 

 in the colony and a member of the convention of the people 

 called after the deposition of Sir Edmund Andross from the 

 high position which he had disgraced. His great grandfather 

 who had been born in England, emigrated to Reading, Mass., 

 and thence to Woburn about 1757? where he was a maltster and 

 early tavern keeper, holding for twenty years responsible town 

 offices. His great great grandfather came to this country from 

 England and settled in Lynn, Mass., in 1630. He was made a 

 freeman in 1634, anc ^ was f° r more than fifty years quite active 

 in town and colony affairs. He had a military turn of mind, 

 was an officer of the Lvnn troops and one of the founders of the 

 Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts. 

 Like some others, before coming to this country he had been a 

 member of the Honorable Artillery Company of England which 

 he had joined May 28, 1622. 



Having graduated at Harvard College in 1 7 2 5"» t° recruit his 

 slender finances, he had taught school for a time at Woburn, in 

 1726, and at Andover, in 172S. 1 At both places, he made ac- 

 quaintances with some of the Pennycook proprietors, a large 

 number of whom were from those towns. At some time pre- 

 vious to 1 730, he had studied theology and been licensed to 

 preach. During the summer of this year, he conducted relig- 

 ious worship at Pennycook as had Rev. Enoch Coffin and Rev. 

 Bezaleel Toppan, during those portions of the preceding years 

 in which the proprietors were erecting buildings and prepar- 

 ing fields preparatory to the advent of their families. 



In the autumn of 1730, as before intimated, the Plantation 

 was ready for the formation of a Church of Christ and the settle- 

 ment of a permanent minister. Accordingly, on the 14th day 

 of October, it was 



"' Voted by the admitted settlers that, they will have a minis- 

 forenoon, then and there to choose a minister for, and settling him in the said 

 town ; and upon his acceptance of the choice to agree upon a time for his or- 

 dination." — Order of Massachusetts General Court Committee, 23d Septem. 

 ber, 1730. 



1 Sewell's History of Woburn, pp. 236-239. Bailey's History of Andover, 

 p. 149. 



