ity must have been great, his mental
capacity and business energy remarkable, for we find him not only a
farmer, trader, blacksmith and hunter, but a surveyor and builder of
roads, bridges and mills. The records of the town show that he was
seldom free from the conduct of some public labor. The greatest of his
benefactions to his neighbors were: His corn-mill erected in 1654, and
his saw-mill in 1659. The arrival of the first millstone in Lancaster
must have been an event of matchless interest to every man, woman and
child in the plantation. Till that began its tireless turning, the grain
for every loaf of bread had to be carried to Watertown mill, or ground
laboriously in a hand quern, or parched and brayed in a mortar, Indian
fashion. Before the starting of his saw-mill, the rude houses must have
been of logs, stone, and clay, for it was an impossibility to bring from
the lower towns on the existing "Bay road" and with the primitive
tumbril any large amount of sawn lumber.

Of Prescott's wife we know only her name: Mary Platts. But her daughters
were sought for in marriage by men of whom we learn nothing that is not
praiseworthy, and her sons all honored their mother's memory, by useful
and unblemished lives. John Prescott was the youngest son of Ralph and
Ellen of Shevington, Lancashire, England. He was baptized in the Parish
of Standish in 1604-5 and married Mary Platts at Wigan, Lancashire,
January 21, 1629. He was a land owner in Shevington, but sold his
possessions there and took up his residence in Halifax Parish, Sowerby,
in Yorkshire. Leaving England to avoid religions persecutions, his first
haven was Barbadoes, where he is found a land owner in 1638. In 1640 he
landed in Boston, and immediately selected his home in Watertown, where
he became the possessor of six lots of land, aggregating one hundred and
twenty-six acres. In 1643, his name is found in association with Thomas
King of Watertown, Henry Symonds of Boston, and others, the first
proprietors of the Nashaway purchase. His children were eight in number
and all were married in due season. They were as follows:

1. Mary, baptized at Halifax Parish February 24, 1630, married Thomas
Sawyer in 1648. The young couple selected their home lot adjoining
Prescott's in Lancaster and there eleven sons and daughters were born to
them.

2. Martha, baptized at Halifax Parish March 11, 1632, married John Rugg
in 1655; and these twain began life together in sight of