left to their own election should be very far from desiring it in any manner whatever: Yet since the opposite Party seem resolved to please their own humor at the expense of your Petitioners' ruin, Your Petitioners most humbly pray your Excellency and Honors to interpose for their relief, by allowing them, whose interests and sentiments are united, to be a corporation and Parish by themselves in the middle of Amherst, enjoying all privileges, and being liable to all duties of a Parochial nature that are incumbent on the District of Amherst, leaving our Opponents their election to remain with us on reasonable terms: or be incorporated together among themselves as their remote situations will best permit or join to be incorporated with some adjacent towns or Parishes, as they can obtain consent for admittance there, And if the granting your Petitioners prayer herein, should seem to throw their opponents into much calamity, which your petitioners by no means desire, if it may be avoided: Yet since our opponents which are now the Major Party will be content with nothing short of Division and Division to be effected by such violent means, your Petitioners humbly pray your Excellency and Honors to make such a Division as will save and protect an injured and innocent Party: and suffer our opponents rather to be ruined alone, than leave them the Power of involving your Petitioners with them: Otherwise that your Excellency and Honors would provide for our safety by passing an Act or Order for depriving the District of Amherst of the power of raising or assessing any monies on the Inhabitants for the building of such Meeting Houses, or for excusing y petitioners from contributing any proportion of any Taxes raised for such purpose; or grant relief to your Petitioners in any other way or manner as you in y' great wisdom shall think fit. And for the preventing any contention or disturbances that might arise in the District between the Parties in the mean time, yr Petitioners most humbly pray that an Order may be passed for staying all proceedings.either in erecting said Meeting Houses, or in Demolishing the present Meeting House until the final Determination of y' Excellency & Honors hereon. They also pray that a committee of the General Court may be appointed to repair to Amherst, to examine into the Matters alleged in this Petition if yr Excellency & Honors think fit: And that all the costs arising by this application may be ordered to be paid by the District of Amherst, And as in duty bound shall pray

Noah Dickinson

Simeon Pomeroy
Joseph Dickinson
David Hawley
Thomas Bascom
Eph Kellogg Jr.
Jonathan Smith
Jona Nash Jr.
Martin Smith
Joel Billings

Thomas Hastings Jr.
Nathaniel Smith

Gideon Dickinson

Barnabas Sabin

Edward Elmer
John Morton Jr.
David Stockbridge
Josiah Moody

I do hereby certify that the whole Rateable Estate of Amherst as footed by the Assessors on their last List amounts to

And of that sum what belongs to one of the Anabaptist persuasion, and others not Inhabitants of Amherst amounts to

£7800: 0

£202: 15

And that the Estate of the above named Petitioners on the List amounts

to

£4220: 13

Seth Coleman
District Clerk.

This petition seems to have had the desired effect so far as any immediate division was concerned; on June 18, the General Court passed an order staying all proceedings relative to building any new meeting-house in the District excepting on or near where the house then stood. Jan. 26, 1774. Amherst appointed Reuben and Moses Dickinson agents to present a petition to the General Court for a division, and also to answer the Court's citation, issued on account of the petition printed above. At a meeting held June 3, it had been voted by a large majority to divide the District by an east and west line from the center of the meeting-house; these agents were to secure, if possible, the authority of the General Court for carrying out the provisions of this vote. After a hearing, the General Court ordered that a committee consisting of Artemas Ward, Esq. of the Council and Mr. Pickering and Col. Bacon of the House "repair to the District of Amherst, view the same, hear the parties on the spot, and make report what they think proper for the Court to do thereon: and that the Inhabitants of s'd District in the mean time wholly surcease & forbear all proceedings relative to the building any new Meeting House or Houses in said District. " March 14, Amherst appointed a committee to meet the General Court's committee to consult with them concerning the division of the District. There is no record of the committee's report to the General Court, but there is reason to believe that it was adverse to those who favored division; the following entry is found in the Province Laws, Vol. V.: p. 411:

"Upon the petition of Josiah Chauncey and others, inhabitants of the district of Amherst, it was, on the 10th of June, 1774,

Ordered that the Inhabitants of the said District pay into the original Petitioners for their costs and charges in and about prosecuting and supporting their said Petition the sums of twenty eight pounds, fifteen shillings and eight pence, and that the Treasurer of the said District be and hereby is impowered and directed to pay the same out of the Treasury accordingly and that the sum of thirty

pounds, nine shillings and two pence be paid out of the Province Treasury to the Committee appointed at the last Session of the General Court to repair to Amherst, for their time and expence in the affair, and that the same be laid on the said District in the next Province Tax."

This action of the General Court, and the outbreak of the Revolutionary war, appear to have put an end to the plan for dividing the town.

CHAPTER XV.

CONTROVERSY CONCERNING A NEW MINISTER.-DR. DAVID PARSONS.ACTION BY CHURCH AND PARISH.-ECCLESIASTICAL COUNCILS. -SECOND PARISH ORGANIZED.

The Rev. David Parsons died Jan. 1, 1781. His will was not admitted to probate until May, 1786. His son David and Simeon Strong, Esq. were made executors. He gave to his son Gideon the "Tavern house

and other property. This tavern-house stood on the site now occupied by the Amherst house; a man named Trowbridge had first kept a tavern there. When Mr. Parsons died the District was considerably indebted to him for salary due and unpaid. March 19, 1781, the District appointed a committee to settle with his heirs. This committee failed to effect a settlement, and July 6, 1781, the District voted to pay his executors all the salaries due him, in gold or silver, and also to pay interest on the amount. Before this settlement was effected, the question as to who should succeed Mr. Parsons in the ministry became prominent in district affairs. The parties who sought in 1772 to divide the District were dissatisfied with the result of their efforts and cherished little love for those who had brought their plans to naught. There was also a political question involved. Rev. David Parsons was a tory, and while during his life there had been no open rupture between himself and members of his congregation, he had not from many the high esteem with which in the early times ministers of the gospel were wont to be regarded by their parishioners. Now that a new minister was to be engaged, the matter of his political preferences was felt to be of importance. May 18, 1781, the selectmen were appointed a committee to provide a preacher: June 25 of the same year, a committee was appointed to join with the church committee "to procure a settlement of the Gospel Ordinances in the Town." This committee was instructed to employ Mr. David Parsons to supply the pulpit for the present.