a will, it would be never the worse for thee; thyself would have the more.”  It is not difficult to understand the case as it probably stood in the mind of Captain Lothrop.  Whenever the subject of making a will, and doing kind things for the Beverly parish, and the individuals in whose behalf his wife was so anxious, was brought up, he felt the force, as he expressed it, “of the duty which God required of a master of a family to set his house in order;” and he was no doubt strongly moved, and sometimes almost resolved, to gratify her wishes:  but he remembered the solemn promise he had made to his mother, as he parted from her for ever, and received his sister from her hands, and every sentiment of honor, and of filial and fraternal love, restrained him; and his mind settled into a conviction that it was his duty to allow his sister the benefit of the final inheritance of his property.  As the particular persons to whom his wife wished him to make bequests were her relatives, and the law would give her an ample allowance in the use, for life, of his large landed property, she would be able to provide for them after his death, as he had been in the habit of doing.

The General Court took a just view of the case, and decided that she should have the whole movable estate for her own “use and dispose,” and the “use and benefit” for life of the houses and lands, “making no strip nor waste;” after her death, the same to go to Ellen, the wife of Ezekiel Cheever.  The widow was to pay all debts due from the estate, and also twenty pounds to the children of her brother, Joshua Rea.  The Court seemed to think, that, if any expectations had been excited in that quarter, she was fully as responsible for it as her late husband; and, as the Cheevers were to get nothing, while she lived, out of the estate, the Court required her to pay the sum just named to her nephews and nieces.  They ordered Ezekiel Cheever to pay five pounds as costs for their hearing the case, which he did on the spot.

It may be mentioned, by the way, that the widow of Captain Lothrop was married again within eight months of his death; but that was quite usual in those days.  She and her new husband concluded that it would be troublesome to take care of Captain Lothrop’s several farms.  They preferred to live in the town.  She was probably over sixty years of age.  The conclusion of the whole matter was, that, in consideration of sixty pounds paid down, they surrendered all claim whatever to the “houseing and lands” left by Captain Lothrop, to Cheever and his wife.  They conveyed them “free and clear of and from all debts owing from the estate of said Lothrop, and gifts or bequests pretended to be made by him, or by any ways or means to be had, claimed, or challenged therefrom by any person or persons whomsoever.”  The relict of Captain Lothrop died in 1688.