John Endicott, Jr., died in February, 1668, without issue; leaving his whole estate to his widow, “her heirs and assigns for ever.”  His will is dated Jan. 27, 1668, and was offered to Probate on the 29th of February, 1668.  His widow married, Aug. 31, 1668, the Rev. James Allen, one of the ministers of the First Church in Boston, whose previous wife, Hannah Dummer, by whom he received five hundred acres of land, had died in March, 1668.  His Endicott wife died April 5, 1673, leaving the Townsend-Bishop farm and all her other property to him; and on the 11th of September, of the same year, he married Sarah Hawlins.  By his two preceding wives he received twelve hundred acres of land.  How much he got by the last-mentioned, we have no information.  Besides these matrimonial accumulations, the accounts seem to indicate that he was rich before.

It may well be imagined, that it could not have been very agreeable to the family at the Orchard Farm to see this choice and extensive portion of their estate, which was within full view from their windows, swept into the hands of utter strangers in so rapid and extraordinary a manner, by a series of circumstances most distasteful and provoking.  But this was but the beginning of their trouble.

On the 29th of April, 1678, Allen sold the Bishop farm to Francis Nurse, of the town of Salem, for four hundred pounds.  Nurse was an early settler, and, before this purchase, had lived, for some forty years, “near Skerry’s,” on the North River, between the main part of the settlement in the town of Salem and the ferry to Beverly.  He is described as a “tray-maker.”  The making of these articles, and similar objects of domestic use, was an important employment in a new country remote from foreign supply.  He appears to have been a very respectable person, of great stability and energy of character, whose judgment was much relied on by his neighbors.  No one is mentioned more frequently as umpire to settle disputes, or arbitrator to adjust conflicting claims.  He was often on committees to determine boundaries or estimate valuations, or on local juries to lay out highways and assess damages.  The fact that he was willing to encounter the difficulties connected with such a heavy transaction as the purchase of the Bishop farm at such a price at his time of life proves that he had a spirit equal to a bold undertaking.  He was then fifty-eight years of age.  His wife Rebecca was fifty-seven years of age.  We shall meet her again.

They had four sons,—­Samuel, John, Francis, and Benjamin; and four daughters,—­Rebecca, married to Thomas Preston, Mary to John Tarbell, Elizabeth to William Russell, and Sarah, who remained unmarried until after the death of her mother.  With this strong force of stalwart sons and sons-in-law, and their industrious wives, Francis Nurse took hold of the farm.  The terms of the purchase were so judicious and ingenious, that they are worthy of being related, and show in what manner energetic and able-bodied