These research notes are provided as-is and contain supplementary working research.
Finding
Finding: Billerica proprietorship (house-lot surrendered; Dudley-Farm share + meadow lots persist); never removed there
John Gurney was admitted a proprietor of the new town of Billerica in 1659 - a standing carrying a personal ten-acre house-lot (granted 15 August 1659 on condition he inhabit it, his son Richard accepted as fellow inhabitant), a rate-paying share in the communal Dudley Farm purchase, and two great-meadow lots. He surrendered the house-lot within four months, handed back through his son-in-law Daniel Shed, and never removed to Billerica; the meadow and upland allocations appear in the records independently of the surrendered house-lot, but no Billerica parcel is shown passing to or occupied by a Gurney.
Why this conclusion
- Supported by Evidence Billerica town book - 1659 grant-on-condition & surrenderThe manuscript grant-on-condition and the 26 December 1659 surrender via Daniel Shed are the direct evidence that John took up and gave back the Billerica lot.
- Supported by Evidence Hazen Billerica - Dudley-Farm rate & absentee upland shareHazen's rate assessment and the November 1659 upland division (his 'right' held in common by Brackett and Thompson) establish the proprietary standing and its absentee character.
- Synthesized by Analysis Analysis: proprietary right, not residence (the 1659-1663 frontier pattern)The Billerica absentee-share finding is one leg of the proprietary-right-not-residence pattern.
Sources
- Braintree (Mass.). Records of the Town of Braintree, 1640 to 1793. Edited by Samuel A. Bates. Randolph, Mass.: D. H. Huxford, printer, 1886., Bates ed. 1886; the seven Daniel-Mary (Gurney) Shed births, 1 Oct 1647-30 Oct 1658
- Shedd, Frank Edson, Hubert C. Shedd, and J. Gardner Bartlett. Daniel Shed Genealogy: Ancestry and Descendants of Daniel Shed of Braintree, Massachusetts, 1327-1920. Boston: Shedd Family Association, 1920., Daniel Shed Genealogy (1920): Daniel Shed married Mary Gurney 1647 (John's son-in-law)
Appears in
- John Gurney fact sheet — Land highlight 'Land in town after town': John 'held close to a dozen New England parcels ... and frontier allotments at Billerica and Mendon.'
Topic file location: Colonial frontier rights
Technical details
- Research item:
G13-RI-000029 - Graph revision:
244 - Machine-readable JSON:
/assets/g13-graph/findings/G13-RI-000029.json
This is one research item from the John Gurney research graph; the fuller narrative treatment is in the linked topic above and the research library.