Plympton warning-out of George Ellis and family

Read from the image. Margin: “Plimton George Ellis & family.”

“You are hereby required to Warn George Ellis and his Wife Phebe and seven Children viz. Sarah, Phebe, Molly, George, Matthias, Nancy & Stevens forthwith to depart this Town. They came into Town some time in the Month of May in the year one Thousand Seven Hundred and eighty four, and were last from the Town of Plymouth.” Given “at Plimton this Twenty eighth Day of March Anno Domini 1785,” signed by Thomas Gannett and Isaac Churchill, selectmen. On 19 April 1785 constable Gideon Bradford Jr. returned that he had warned “George Ellis & his Wife Phebe & seven Children” to depart “to the Town they were last from.”

Warning out was the routine step by which a Massachusetts town avoided taking on a newcomer’s poor relief. It did not mean the family was destitute or was actually removed.