Estate / Collection: The Victor Gulotta Collection

RAWSON, EDWARD

Manuscript signed. Boston: circa 1640-72. One page manuscript on a long sheet of watermarked laid paper fully in Rawson's hand and with three original signatures, the document providing true copies of earlier Boston Generall Court records with internal dates of cases from 1640-1672. 13 x 8 inches (32 x 20 cm); not framed. Some unobtrusive tape and tissue repairs to folds on verso, some chips to edges costing a few words, well preserved overall.

Edward Rawson (1615-93) arrived in Massachusetts and settled at Newbury in 1637, graduated from Harvard in 1653, served as Notary Public for Newbury from 1638-47, and was the first Secretary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1650-86. This is an interesting and long sheet in Rawson's hand, about 50 lines, offering reports from the Generall Court. The top report dated March 1640 is "The petition of the Inhabitants of Salem, for some of their church to have Jefferyes Creek & land to erect a village there ... what land & in largement may be convenient & is not granted to any other plantation is granted them, and it is reffered to Mr. John WInthrop Junr & Mr. Symond Bradstreet, to settle the bounds of the sd. village. This is a true copie taken out of the court book of records by Edward Rawson / vera copia of yt copie attest Hilliard Devin Clerk." this report also names six men who had come in on the Higginson Fleet in 1629 who ten were later sought their own land. The following report, dated May 3rd 1642, relates again to the land at Jeffereyes Creek, this time with a mention of William Hathorne and Edward Holioke. The final report is dated much later, 1672, but appears contemporaneous with the other manuscripts, relates to land at Gloucester. This document represents an early effort to copy the earlier records of the Boston Generall Court which surely had grown voluminous by the 1670s, and there is a note on the verso of the sheet that reads: "Old and now coppied to be compared."

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