Time Farrar, the fourth and youngest son, and

seventh child of Dea. Samuel, was born June 28, 1747, old style. He passed the years of his childhood and youth on his father's farm and at the schools in Concord, till the year 1763, when he entered Harvard College, where he was graduated in 1787. The two following years he passed in teaching schools in Concord and Lincoln, which had now become a separate town, and Framingham. The Hon. John Locke, late member of Congress from Middlesex, now of Boston, says he went to school to him in Framingham in 1769. In the same capacity of school teacher, he came to this town in 1770, and his name first appears on the tax list in October of that year. The next spring the town voted to employ an English schoolmaster for nine months of the year, and to raise money to build school-houses in the several districts. When this was done, the practice was to dispense with a central Grammar school, and employ him to teach in all the districts in succession, allowing all the Grammar scholars to follow him into them. In this manner the English scholars com

a See Shattuck's Hist. Concord; Mr. Clary's Centennial Discourse, 1847; Rev. Mr. Lee's Funeral Sermon; Gen. Reg. 1850.

pleted their education, and those intended for college pursued their preparatory studies. In 1771 he became a freeholder, and in 1773 the owner of the entire farm on which he lived, including part of No. 1 in the 7th range, the whole of No. 1 in the 8th range, and part of No. 1 in the 9th range, or the Jo. Kidder lot, as it was called.

The farm and the schools divided his attention, till the change of government at the Revolution threw him into wider and more public responsibilities, to the exclusion of the latter. He never received an appointment of any sort from the King's government, nor is it known that he ever came directly in contact with it, till, in 1773, he was appointed by the town Chairman of a Committee to inquire into certain proceedings of the magistrates, sitting in the Court of Sessions for the county, in the case of John Holland, a deputy sheriff or jailor, who had suffered the escape of Joseph Kelley, a prisoner in his custody; and the Court of Sessions, which included all the King's justices of the peace in the county, had undertaken to charge the damages upon the county, and apportioned the amount to the several towns. The claim against this town was £78.3.2; and in August this Committee was appointed and instructed "to inquire into the cause of the grant," and to confer with similar committees from other towns. In October following, the same Committee were further directed to petition the General Court on the subject. No redress, however, was obtained, and the controversy went on, till, on March 13th, 1775, the town voted that they would not pay it; and the matter was consequently merged and decided with the other controversies of the Revolution.

From March 1774 to March 1775, he was first Selectman and Town Clerk. During this year, several other important measures were adopted. In regard to representation in the legislature, which they had assiduously sought for several years, they voted not to petition for the privilege any longer, but in December they passed the following Resolution :

"That it is the opinion of this town that Representation is absolutely necessary to legal taxation, or legislation; and this town has for a number of years been taxed to the Province, and has had no voice in legislation, which is a great griev

ance; and, in order to obtain redress, that the Selectmen do forward a petition and remonstrance to his Excellency our Governor, that we may enjoy those privileges which are essential to the British Constitution; and that they call upon the adjacent towns to adopt the like measures, and endeavor that the unrepresented towns come into similar measures throughout the Province." In January they chose a Delegate to the Provincial Congress, to meet at Exeter on the 25th, and elect Delegates for the Province to the Continental Congress, to meet at Philadelphia May 10th; and at the same time instructed their Delegate "to use his endeavors that the Province be put in a state of defence."

On the memorable 19th of April, 1775, when the alarm was given that the British had marched out of Boston towards Concord, he, with his neighbors, seized his musket and marched to meet them. They were without commissions, and without military organization, for all military as well as civil authority was then in the hands of the King's officers. Hearing, before they arrived at Concord, that the British had returned to Boston, well pursued, he returned home. In this town, the last precept issued "In His Majesty's Name," was the one calling the annual meeting in March 1775; and after taking up arms, the last vestige of royal authority soon ceased throughout the Province.

During this year Mr. F. received two commissions on the same day, one that of a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, and the other that of Major of the forces to be raised for the defence of the Province, with an urgent request that he would accept the civil office, that being the most difficult to fill, mainly on account of the lack of compensation, and of chances for promotion. This he did, and in a letter to a friend, under date of Nov. 27, 1834, he writes: "In the autumn of 1775, a Court of Common Pleas, and Court of General Sessions of the Peace, was organized, (of which I was a member'); and held their sessions at Amherst at the times appointed by law, from that time to the present. Some of the Courts were held with

b Both Courts were held in the same week, Thursday being Sessions day; and the usage was for the Common Pleas judges to sit as magistrates in the Sessions Court.-ED.

out the attendance of any one member of the Bar, at others two or three would attend. But as business was as scarce as attorneys, there was little or no suffering for want of advocates to plead their causes, by any who had either occasion or inclination to litigation." Under what authority this was done, does not appear. The Provincial Congress at Exeter, and the Committee of Safety, who in the recess exercised the same powers, made both military and civil appointments during this year; and a county congress for Hillsborough, which convened at Amherst May 24th, and in which this town was represented till October 27th, may have done the same thing. The Provincial Congress early applied to the Continental Congress for advice in regard to the "mode of civil government." This, however, was not obtained till Nov. 3d. The elections, in conformity to it, were made early in December, and the new Convention met at Exeter Dec. 21. They adopted the temporary Constitution Jan. 5th, 1776, resolved themselves into a "House of Representatives," and chose twelve persons to constitute a distinct branch of the Legislature, under the name of a ፡፡ Council." After this all public officers were appointed by the two Houses; and on the 24th of the same month they made one hundred and fifty-three civila appointments, including twenty-nine judges; and among them, and probably the youngest on the list, was Mr. F., then twentyeight years of age, appointed or confirmed as Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, under the temporary Constitution. This judicial appointment, accompanied probably with a commission of the Peace, carried with it all the duties of a local magistracy for that part of the county, in both civil and criminal cases. The following letter, from a Judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, may indicate something of the manner of doing this kind of business during the war.

GROTON, 15th July, 1780. SIR-You have now in custody in your place one J. D., of this town, who is suspected of having been concerned in passing counterfeit money, and as his being sent into this Government may be

Only three, Atherton, Champney, and Claggett, resided in the county, two of whom were Tories.-ED.

And no military?

conducive of detecting others more attrociously guilty than himself, I shall take it as a favor that he may be sent by the person who delivers this. He shall be so well secured here, that he shall be liable to the justice of your State at any time.

I am, Sir, your very humble servant,

Timothy Farrar, Esq.

JAMES SULLIVAN.

From April 1778 to May 20, 1782, when he resigned, he was a member of the Convention for forming a new Constitution, and one of the committee to draft the instrument; and from 1779 he was one of the memorable thirty-two councillors, till the new Constitution went into operation, in June 1784, by which Judges were excluded from the Legislature.

In the midst of the war, Oct. 14, 1779, he married Anna Bancroft, daughter of Capt. Edmund Bancroft of Pepperell, and sister of the late Dr. Amos Bancroft of Groton. This connection was altogether respectable, appropriate and happy.

Capt. Bancroft was an independent and successful farmer, and also, like Dea. F., had been a member of the famous Middlesex Convention of August 30, 1774, of the Provincial Congress of 1776, and held divers other offices evincing the confidence of his fellow-citizens; while the daughter possessed all those personal attractions and accomplishments necessary for an affectionate and confiding wife, and a faithful and devoted mother.

A heavy affliction, however, awaited them in the loss of their first child, a lovely daughter of near five years of age. She was born March 1, 1785, and died on Saturday, Oct. 17, 1789. Notwithstanding the crushing severity of this discipline, they did not shut themselves up to inordinate grief, but rather, on the morrow, being the first day of the week, followed the submissive example of God's ancient servant, who, in similar circumstances, "arose and washed himself, and changed his apparel, and came unto the house of God, and worshipped." The stone that marks her resting-place, by the side of her uncle James, in the Hill burying-ground, bears this sorrowful, but hopeful inscription :