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Greetings:
You are in his Majesty's name Required to Levy^ and collect^ of the Inhabitants and Estate as they are Set Down in this list of Rates^ Delivered to you the total to the amount of said^ Inhabitants and Estates^ in Labor at two Shillings per Day which you are to lay out on the Main Road from Tiftonborough Line to Birch Camp so called^ and if any of the Inhabitants Shall Neglect or Refuse to Pay the Above Sum or Sums given to you in the^ List you are to Distraint on the goods Chattels^ or Estates^ and them safely Keep^ the Space of Four^ Days at the charge of the owner or owners of the^ goods or chattels^ and if the owner or owners Shall not Pay the^ sum or sums within the^ Four^ days, you are to expose and sell at Public Vendor to pay the sum or sums with Incidental charges as the Law Directs and Return the Over Plush money if any there be, immediately^ to the owner or owners.
Dated at Wo1fborough this 2 Day of September 1773 and in the thirteenth year of His Majesty’s Reign.
Selectmen:
Benjamin Folsom Thomas Taylor James Connor
There is no way of knowing who wrote this warrant. It might have been one of the Selectmen or the town clerk. It might have been a circuit judge riding through on his way to court. All used the same prolonged sentence structure with no punctuation. They seem to have had no rule about which word to capitalize. The strange part is that they misspelled some words, and yet they knew how to spell a more difficult one.
The first season at Wolfborough was spent house-raising, with neighbor assisting neighbor, until all were housed against the six and eight-foot snows and raging blizzards. Benjamin managed to cut some timber on his homestead in 1771 and 1772. Shortly after the road work was shut down for the winter of 1773 he set about at clearing more land. Since his son Benjamin Jr. was but eight years old, Benjamin had to perform this task alone or sometimes find a neighbor to assist him. It was in December 1773 that he was caught under a falling tree and fatally injured. He was but thirty-three years old and had given little thought to the possibility of death, let along the making of a will. In his last few hours of life, he requested that his friend and relative, Winthrop Gilman, of Gilmanton, act as administrator of his estate. A will might have named Benjamin and Betty's children, but since there was no will, we have a record of only Benjamin Jr. and a daughter, Hannah, born 1772 at Wolfborough. The history of Wolfborough states that the town lost a valuable citizen, and then says that Benjamin left a widow and seven or eight daughters. Well, that could have been possible.
Betty had thought little of needing the "mourning gown" which her father bequeathed her as she put it in the bottom of her wooden chest. It was terribly wrinkled when she brought it forth, but she was pleased to have it for Ben's funeral.