THE TOWN OF BEDFORD. 63 



leads to Musscoota and thence runs westward on the said path in length one 

 hundred rods, south in breadth at each end one hundred and ten rods amounting 

 to three hundred acres be it more or less, being bounded eastward by the great 

 Indian path, southward by the Town's new purchase, so called, and on the east- 

 ward and northward by the pond of the river also one sixth one 

 and thirtieth part or one head right in the new purchase of Bedford, so called, 

 and also one head right of land in new purchase, so called, which John Samp- 

 son formerly purchased from Richard Holmes and conveyed or assigned after- 

 ward to the said Zachariah Roberts together with all woods and underwoods, 

 etc., etc. 



Sealed and delivered \ 

 in presence of ) 



JOSEPH PIJRDY, ZACHARIAH ROBERTS, 



RICHARD STANTON.** MART M ROBERTS. 



Mark. 



The Rev. George Muirson in one of his earliest reports to the venera- 

 ble Propagation Society says : — " Rye is a large parish, the towns are 

 far distant, the people were some Quakers, but chiefly Presbyterians and 

 Independents. They were violently set against our Church ; but now, 

 blessed be God, they comply heartily. I find that catechising on the 

 week days in the remote towns and frequent visiting is of great service." 



The quota furnished by this division towards the rector's tax in 1725, 

 was ;£i6, S2. Mr. Wetmore writing to the Society in February, 1728, 

 says : — " That there are three meeting houses in the parish, one at Bed- 

 ford, built for and used by the Presbyterians, &c. They have had a 

 Presbyterian minister, they gave him a house and farm to work upon, 

 and ^40 per annum ; but finding it not sufficient to support him with a 

 numerous family, he has left them, and they have now settled another 

 young man to whom they give the same allowance. There are at Bed- 

 ford about eight or ten families of the Church, and the rest Presbyterians 

 or Independents." 



"The Dissenting" teachers "officiate without qualifying themselves 

 according to the Act of Toleration, so that the people are supposed to 

 do and say what they please about religion, under a notion, that the laws 

 of England relating to religion don't extend to the Plantations." In 

 1 73 1, he writes : — " That the people of Bedford, who are most rigid and 

 severe of all, came very generally to Church, when I was last among 

 them, and many that never before were at Church." Again in 1744, he 

 informs the Society : — " That at Bedford and North Castle there were 

 four hundred families belonging to the cure, &c. " The same year the 

 parishioners addressed the following letter to the Society : — 



a No. 4 of Bedford Town Books, p. 495. 



