n fair damsel who had
recently come to live in a farm-house near their home. Of course the
anvil missed Jonas for the next day, and the next, and the next, while
he experienced the hospitalities of his new-found friends--and their
neighbors. It was time for a recognition of the inevitable by all
concerned, but when, and with what grace Mary's stubborn parents
yielded, if at all, is not recorded. But what mattered that? Old John
Prescott installed Jonas at the Nonacoicus Mill, and endowed him with
all his Groton lands, and in Lancaster, December 14, 1672, Jonas and
Mary were married. For over fifty years fortunes railed upon their
union. Four sons and eight daughters graced their fireside, and the
father was trusted and clothed with local dignities. In after time the
memory of Jonas and Mary has been honored by many worthy descendants,
and especially by the gallant services of Colonel William Prescott at
Bunker Hill, and the literary renown of William Hickling Prescott, the
historian.

In 1669, John Prescott was proclaimed a Freeman. He may have been long a
Church member, or may not even at this date have yielded the
conscientious scruples that had a quarter of a century earlier subjected
him to the reproach of an ecclesiastical oligarchy. The laws concerning
Freemen, in reluctant obedience to the letter of Charles II., were so
changed in 1665 that those not Church members could become Freemen, if
freeholders of a sufficient estate, and guaranteed by the local minister
"to be Orthodox and not vicious in their lives." Prescott had the true
Englishman's love of landed possessions, and about this time added a
large tract to his acreage by purchase from his Indian neighbors. This
transaction gave cause for the following petition:

_To the honorable the Gov'r the Deputy Gov'r mag'tr & Deputy es
assembled in the gen'rall Court_:

The Petition of Jno Prescott of Lanchaster, In most humble wise
sheweth. Whereas ye Petition'r hath purchased an Indian right to a
small parcell of Land, occasioned and circumstanced for quantity &
quality according to the deed of sale herevnto annexed and a pt.
thereof not being legally setled vpon piee vnlesse I may obteyne
the favor of this Court for the Confirmation thereof, These are
humbly to request the Court's favor for that end, the Lord hauing
dealt graciously with mee in giueing mee many children I account it
my duty to endeauor thei