Roxbury Land and Church Records (Boston Record Commissioners, Report vol. 6)

Printed transcripts of the Roxbury land records and of the Roxbury church records kept by Rev. John Eliot, read in the archive.org full text. Used for the Lamb and Hawley families:

• Eliot’s record of Thomas Lamb: “Thomas Lambe, he came into this land in the yeare 1630 he brought his wife & 2 Children Thomas & John: Samuel his 3d son was borne about the 8th month of the same yeare 1630 & baptized in the church at Dorchester.” It adds Abel, “his 4th son,” born at Roxbury about the 6th month 1633, and Decline, “his first daughter,” born in the 2nd month 1637. Of Benjamin, “his 6th child,” born about the 8th month 1639, “his wife died & the child lived but few hours.” Then “afterwards married Dorothy Harbitle …: Caleb his first borne by her, & his 7th child was borne about the midle of the 2d month 1641.” Part of the entry “has been cut out by some mutilator.”
• His death: “Bro. Lambe dyed of a Calenture, by a great could” (1646).
• Land: in 1644 “Isaac Heath, Joshua Hewes, Thomas Lambe” signed a fence agreement, and a 1641 deed bounds marsh “adioyning to Joshua Hewes and Thomas Lambe.” A survey made after his death lists “The heires of Thomas Lamb, his dwelling-house, barne, and house lot,” about 18 3/4 acres by the meeting-house hill and Stony River, “through which lyeth a cart way reserued for the use of the towne for euer,” with about 19 3/4 acres by the dead swamp, 9 acres of salt marsh on the Boston line, 70 acres in the last division and 37 acres in “the thousand accres next Deddam.” In a later division of lots entered “by order of the selectmen” on 26 Feb 169- (last digit damaged in the print), lot no. 129 is assigned to “Caleb Lamb’s heires.”
• Church: on 3.2m.1670 “Mary, wife to Caleb Lamb solemnly owned the Covenant”; Caleb, with Joshua Lamb and Richard Davis, was later “received to take hold on the covenant.” About 1649/50 “an infant of a sojourner at sister Lamb’s dyed of the small pox.” About 1674 the baptism of “Harbottle the son of Abiel Lambe,” and “Elizabeth Hawley, Dorothy Hawley, daughters of our Sister Hawley” took hold of the covenant. Later “Joseph Hawly dismissed to the church at Northampton.” Baptisms of Joseph (1654), Elizabeth and Dorothy, children of Thomas Hawley.

Used also for Giles Payson and Elizabeth Dowell (page numbers from the copy at https://archive.org/details/reportofrecordco06bost): Eliot’s list of church members, “Giles Paison, a single man. he maried or sister Elizabeth Dowell” and “Elizabeth Dowell a maide servant, she was maried to or bro. Giles Paison” (p. 82); the survey entry “Giles Pason his house barnes, and lott fiue accers,” with lots in the great lots, on the Dorchester bounds and in the salt marsh (Roxbury Land Records no. 37, p. 31); the agreement with Thomas Cheney over a highway, in which “with a great dale of loue and condeseadaney … the said Deacon Payson doth freely giue throw his land” a way to Cheney’s lot, dated 10 Jan 1672/3 and acknowledged 21 Aug 1677 (pp. 7-8); and Danforth’s record of 14 and 21 Jan 1671/2, “or brother Giles Pason was elected & called to ye office of a Deacon & ye Sabbath following he was solemnly ordained by prayer and impositio[n] of ye hands of ye Elders” (p. 210).