THE RECORD BOOKS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY SUPERIOR COURT OF JUDICATURE: ca. 1690 – ca. 1780

Transcription of the volume for 1725–1730

We are pleased to be able add to the volumes of transcriptions already published, one from about a generation earlier than the annual valume for 1760–1762. This one is from July of 1725 to August of 1730, 11 George I to 4 George II, not inclusive at either end. The layout and formatting are the same as those for the later volumes and are described below in Introduction – Part 1. The contents of the volume are, however, incomplete for the years covered. What it contains and what is missing are described below in Introduction – Part 2.

Katerina Rexing has joined the list of workers on this volume, and Nathanael K. Grimes, a long-time worker, has become assistant editor. To both thanks are owed. Thanks are also owing to the Burnham-Macmillan Endowment Fund of Western Michigan University, which provided a grant that allowed this volume to see the light of day.

Transcription of the volume for 1760–1762

Transcription of the volume of maritime cases, 1779–1783, 1788

Introduction – Part 1

The record books of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature begin in the late 17th century and continue, virtually uninterrupted, until the creation of the court’s successor, the current Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, in 1780.1 They are large-folio bound volumes, written for the most part in a quite legible 18th-century script. They seem to record all the business that came before the court. What they do record is recorded in considerable detail.

¹ The maritime volume runs to 1783, with one set of entries from 1788. The change of name of the court is noted in the headings in it.

The books are in the custody of the current Supreme Judicial Court. Access to them is possible but difficult, and photographing them is particularly difficult because of their size. For this reason they have not been much used by legal historians, though they contain a mine of information for legal historians. In the 1970s, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints in Utah microfilmed the records. Digital versions of these films are available on the website FamilySearch, but are difficult to use for legal-historical purposes.

With this in mind, and through the kindness of the Genealogical Society of Utah and FamilySearch, the Foundation obtained digital copies of these films. The Supreme Judicial Court gave us permission to publish them. The Foundation commissioned Digital Data Divide Ventures, Inc., to create baseline transcriptions of each volume. Professor Sally Hadden, of Western Michigan University and a director of the Foundation, has been supervising a team of research assistants who have been verifying the transcriptions, tandem-reading them to correct errors, and indexing them. Much work remains to be done, but we have reached the point where we can publish online a transcription of the volume that covers main business of the court in the years 1760–1762 and that which contains admiralty cases from 1779–1783, and 1788. Others will follow, as will, eventually, a proper introduction and indexing.

The transcriptions strive to be diplomatic. Original spelling, capitalization, and punctuation have been retained, as have the original line breaks. Rather than trying to mimic the layout of the originals, we have indicated it with the following symbols as seen in this example:

Each new page begins with:
NP
Image 547-Right = The image number on the microfilm, and whether it is the left or right side of the image. We plan to hyperlink these to the images.2
451 = The folio number if the clerk put it in.
[451r] = Our folio number.

In the text:
<< = The beginning of any marginalia.
>> = The end of any marginalia.
<_> = A wide underline that the clerk put in to separate entries.
[^ TEXT ^] = Text that is interlined.3
} = Bracketing so that any text following is flushed to the right.
TEXT = Text that is struck through.4
<TEXT> = Something that we have added.
[TEXT] = Something in the text that is questionable.
[ill] = One or more illegible characters in the text.
(TEXT) = Parentheses in the original text.
[-] One or more dashes to indicate, it would seem, that nothing belongs in the space so filled.
[x] One or more x’s or flourishes used by the clerk to indicate that nothing else should be inserted or was missing from the original record.
Any blank space in the text that is larger than a single space is indicated in the document underlying the PDF with a tab. Right now these tabs only approximate the spacing in the text. Improvements are planned.
Carry-over words are flushed left; in the text they are normally flushed right.

² The image numbers are sequential, but they contain a number of skips. Where the photographer duplicated an image this is indicated by <duplicates following> and <duplicates previous>. In a few places the skip in the image number is greater than one, where the photographer included material unrelated to SCJ.

The first seven images on every reel are housekeeping items that serve to identify what is in the reel: the reel number, an identification of the contents using an earlier numbering system, etc. The end of every reel also contains a series of housekeeping images, repeating, in some cases, what is at the beginning, and in some cases not. There are usually fewer such images than there are at the beginning. Occasionally images like those at the end occur before the end of the reel. They usually indicate that what follows is from a different series of Massachusetts records or that a photographer picked up with the same record where he or another photographer had left off.

A list of all the microfilms that we are using and the approximate dates of what they contain may be found in Introduction – Part 2.

³ Occasionally (e.g., 1760–1762, fol. 453r near end) an interlineation will stream out into the margin. If this happens, the line of text will not fit in the margins of the transcription but will carry over to the next physical line.

⁴ ‘vs.’ in case names seems regularly to have been struck through.

Each volume contains a manuscript table of cases, alphabetical by the first party’s surname. The tables were probably compiled when the volume was bound. References are to the folio numbers in the volume. They have not been checked for errors.

The volumes are arranged by formal sessions of the court in chronological order. The tables of contents found below and again with annotations at the beginning of the PDFs list those sessions. The sessions are also found in the right running head of the PDF. The left running head gives the name of the volume. Both running heads have the page numbers in the PDF. We do not recommend that these numbers be used for reference purposes, because they are likely to change. Better for reference purposes is the folio number despite the fact that it gives the user of the reference more to search through.

Search engines will eventually be provided for the texts, though that will not happen until the all the transcriptions are done. In the meantime the search engine of the PDF (if you download the text) or that of the browser can be used, though the irregular spelling is something of a challenge. Similarly, we plan to incorporate links to the images themselves. That is also a longer term project. In the meantime, if there is a particular image that you want to see, email us. We will do our best.

Thanks are owing, in particular, to the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, which is providing some of the funding that makes this project possible and which shares with us the rights in the project. The Burnham-Macmillan Endowment Fund of Western Michigan University provided us with a key grant early in the process that helped us to get going.

The following also deserve our thanks: Lynn Turner, Dan Peay, and Jeff Svare of the Utah Genealogical Society and Family Search were instrumental in getting us the digital copies of the microfilms. Professor Ryan Rowberry of the Georgia State College of Law put us in touch with the Society. The former president of the Foundation, Professor Annette Gordon-Reed, has been continually supportive. Jamie Moncrief has helped us with photographic and metadata work

Workers on the project include: Alex Bowman, Eric Dobberteen, Richard Drooyan, Anita Dymant, Tre Michael Goodhue, Nathan Grimes, Patricia Gunter, Nora Hafez, Alisa Heskin, Arthur D. Kamya, Hannah Renee Keller, Robert Olsen, Kylie Owens, Austin Setter, Joshua Douglas Simon, Jane E. Ward, Emily Yurkus. To all of these we are most grateful.

Session		Folio
Charlestown, 29 January 1760		1r
Boston, 19 February 1760		10r
Plimouth, 29 April 1760		32r
Barnstable, 6 May 1760		42r
Ipswich, 24 June 1760		52r
York, 1 July 1760		65r
Cambridge, 5 August 1760		79r
Boston, 19 August 1760		93r
Worcester, 16 September 1760		114r
Springfield, 23 September 1760		124r
Taunton, 15 October 1760		144r
Salem, 21 October 1760		154r
Charlestown, 27 January 1761		161r
Boston, 17 February 1761		166v
Plymouth, 12 May 1761		181v
Barnstable, 7 May 1761		188r
Ipswich, 9 June 1761		192r
York, 16 June 1761		198v
Falmouth, 23 June 1761		208r
Cambridge, 4 August 1761		210v
Boston, 18 August 1761		221r
Worcester, 15 September 1761		239v
Springfield, 22 September 1761		250r
Taunton, 18 October 1761		264r
Salem, 24 October 1761		272r
Charlestown, 26 January 1762		278r
Boston, 16 February 1762		288r
Plimouth, 27 April 1762		323r
Barnstable, 4 May 1762		330r
Ipswich, 8 June 1762		337r
York, 15 June 1762		348r
Falmouth, 22 June 1762		361r
Cambridge, 3 August 1762		369r
Boston, 17 August 1762		380r
Worcester, 21 September 1762		402r
Springfield, 28 September 1762		416r
Taunton, 12 October 1762		437r
Salem, 19 October 1762		452r

MARITIME CASES 1779–1783, 1788

Session		Folio
Ipswich, 15 June 1779		1r
Boston, 31 August 1779		16r
Boston, 15 February 1780		26r
York, 27 June 1780		31r
Boston, 29 August 1780		32r
Cambridge, 14 November 1780		35r
Concord, 10 April 1781		38r
Ipswich, 18 June 1781		42r
Falmouth, 3 July 1781		45r
Boston, 28 August 1781		47r
Taunton, 16 October 1781		52r
Cambridge, 30 October 1781		52v
Salem, 6 November 1781		53r
Boston, 19 February 1782		56r
Barnstable, 16 May 1782		61r
York, 25 June 1782		62v
Falmouth, 2 July 1782		64r
Boston, 19 November 1782		66v
Cambridge, 10 December 1782		69r
Boston, 18 February 1783		71r
Concord, 8 April 1783		73r
Plymouth, 20 May 1783		76v
Ipswich, 17 June 1783		82v
Boston, 26 August 1783		84v
Taunton, 25 November 1783		90v
Concord, 13 April 1783		95v
Taunton, 23 October 1788		100r

Introduction – Part 2

For purposes of the 1725–1730 volume that we publish here, the main point of what follows is that what we publish here does not contain all the records of the sessions from those years. To get to that point requires a survey of the dates of all the volumes that we have and specific discussion of the contents of those volumes clustered around 1725–1730.

As noted above, the transcriptions that we are making of the surviving records of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature are being made from microfilms. The following table lists the films with their reel numbers, the first and last visible dates on the reel, and an estimate of the number of years missing between the last date mentioned, and the first date in what seems to be the next volume chronologically.

Reel no.5	Start	End	Missing
7943507	1686	1694	5
7943508	1700	1714	4
7943509	1719	1720	0
7943510	1721	1729	0
7943511	1725	1730	0
7943512	1728	1734	0
7943513	1733	1738	0
7943514	1738	1740	0
7942984	1740	1745	0
7942985	1743	1750	0
7942986	1750	1753	0
7942987	1753	1754	0
7939671	1755	1759	0
7942988	1760	1762	0
7942989	1763	1765	0
7939672	1766	1769	0
7942990	1769	1770	0
7942991	1771	1772	0
7942992	1773	1774	3
7942993	1778	1780	0
7942994	1781	1782	0
7942995	1779	1788	maritime6

⁵The reels are numbered in three consecutive series: 7939671–7939672, 7939684–7939695, and 7943507–7943514. As already noted above and published on this site, reel no. 7942995 is unique. It contains maritime cases from the late 18th century. The remaining 21 reels contain annual volumes or pieces of them.

⁶See note 5.

The starting and ending dates are, for the most part, taken from the headings of the sessions. In eight cases, they seem to proceed in chronological order, with the next volume picking up at the beginning of the next calendar year. In five cases, they seem proceed in chronological order, and end in mid-year, with the next volume picking up in the second half of the same year. There are five years that seem to be missing at the end of 17th century, four between 1714 and 1719, and three between 1774 and 1778. The last named are the easiest to explain. It is quite possible that no such records were compiled during the years of the British occupation. The missing years at the end of the 17th century and near the beginning of the 18th could be explained by the fact that the decision to make up bound volumes of the records of the sessions of the court was taken sometime in 1720s or early1730s. At that point nine years’ worth of earlier sessions could not be found.

That binding the volumes of the records of the sessions was a new idea in 1720s or early1730s might also explain the peculiar chronology of reel nos. 7943510 through 7943513. 7943511 seems to overlap at the beginning with 7943510 and at the end with 7943512. 7943513 seems to overlap with 7943512 at the beginning. With this idea in mind we explored the session headings on all four reels, beginning with a table of contents found in 7943511, the volume published here in PDF. Immediately below is an image of what appears in the manuscript (image 009), followed by our edition of it. That edition is repeated in the PDF with annotations.

No.	Session		Folio
1	Cambridge, 27 July, 1725		1r
2	Bristol, 14 September, 1725		6r
3	Springfield, 28 September, 1725		15v
4	Salem, 26 October, 1725		20r
5	Plymouth, 6 April, 1726		27r
6	York, 11 May, 1726		39r
7	Ipswich, 17 May, 1726		42v
8	Boston, 9 August, 1726		50v
9	Charlestown, 31 January, 1727		63v
10	Boston, 14 February, 1727		70v
11	Cambridge, 5 July, 1727		89v
12	Bristol, 12 September, 1727		99r
13	Springfield, 26 September, 1727		108r
14	Salem, 31 October, 1727		115v
15	Barnstable, 23 April, 1728		122r
16	Plymouth, 30 April, 1728		128v
17	York, 15 May, 1728		136v
18	Ipswich, 21 May, 1728		142v
19	Boston, 13 August, 1728		152r
20	Boston, 5 September, 1728		184r
21	Charlestown, 8 January, 1729		185v
22	Boston, 11 February, 1729		196r
23	Cambridge, July., 1729		226v
24	Bristol, 9 September, 1729		236v
25	Springfield, 3 September, 1729		251r
26	Salem, 28 October, 1729		259v
27	Barnstable, 21 April, 1730		275r
28	Plymouth, 28 April, 1730		285v
29	York, 13 May, 1730		306v
30	Ipswich, 19 May, 1730		323r
31	Boston, 11 August, 1730		334v

The 18th-century clerk did a good job. He got all the headings, and the only error that he made was in session 8 where the folio number should be 50 not 52.

Reel no. 7943510 has a contemporary table of contents (image no. 009) entitled, as was the one for 7943511, ‘Judgments recorded in this Book of the Courts Underwritten’:

As can be seen from the image, the sessions end with a session in Plymouth in April of 1725 before the 1725–1730 volume starts. That session begins on fol. 264 and ends on fol. 269. There follows an image of the spine of a new volume, a series of unfoliated housekeeping images, and a new table of contents without a heading other than penciled dates at the top which are probably much later (image 345):

As can be seen from the image, the months, places, and accompanying years are entirely different from those in the 1725–1730 volume, and so are the following contents. They are, however, from years that correspond to the years in the 1725–1730 volume. We suspect that the recording of these sessions is the work of a clerk different from the one who wrote up the sessions in the 1725–1730 volume, but further analysis of the handwriting is called for.

Reel no. 7943512, unfortunately, does not begin with a table of contents, it is also missing an image of fol. 1r, though that folio clearly exists, because we have an image of fol. 1v.⁷ The first case on that page tells us that it concerns an appeal from the Court of Common Pleas held in Charlestown on the second Tuesday of March (11 March) in 1728/9. There does not seem to be a record of the adjournment of this session of the Superior Court. We will suggest below that this is the record of a session held in Cambridge in July of 1730.

⁷ There may be a table of contents on the left side of fol. 1r, which the photographer seems to have skipped.

The first heading that we have found in 7943512 is on fol. 20r, following a blank fol. 19v. It begins a session of the court at Bristol on 8 September 1730, hence after the last date in the 1725–1730 volume.

Fol. 304v, has a heading for a session held at Worcester, 16 September 1733, said to be the Wednesday immediately before the session ‘appointed by law’ to be held at Springfield. (Worcester is 57 miles from Springfield. The county of Worcester was established in 1731.) The day appointed by law had previously been the fourth Tuesday in the month. The bottom of fol. 311v records the adjournment sine die of the Worcester session on 24 September. If that is correct, the justices did not make it to Springfield for the day appointed by law, but that day may have been changed when the Worceester session was added. Fol. 312r also has a heading for a session in Worcester, dated 17 September 1734. Fol. 318v, the last folio in the reel that has original writing on it, records the adjournment of this session at Worcester on 29 September 1734.⁸

⁸ The matching of the days of the week and the days of month recorded in both headings does not seem to correspond to the actual ones in those years. That fact raises a problem that requires further exploration.

Reel no. 7943513, the volume for 1733–1736, has a table of contents (image 011), which follows:

Hence, the second of the two Worcester sessions recorded in reel no. 7943512 overlaps chronologically with the sessions recorded here. The first, however, does not. It occurred just before the first session in this volume.

Turning specifically to years 1725–1730, the following table gives the year, month, and place of the session, followed by the number of the reel on which is found, and the folio number where it begins. (In the case of reel no. 7943510, the folio numbers for the first two are from the first volume on the reel; those that follow are from the second.) The table is in chronological order from 1 January 1725 n.s. to 31 December 1730.

No.	Year	Month	Place	Reel	Folio
1	1725	January	Charlestown	510	246
2	1725	February	Boston	510	264
3	1725	April	Plymouth	510	1
4	1725	May	York	510	16
5	1725	May	Ipswich	510	20
6	1725	July	Cambridge	511	1
7	1725	August	Boston	510	5
8	1725	September	Bristol	511	6
9	1725	September	Springfield	511	15
10	1725	October	Salem	511	20
11	1726	January	Charlestown	510	40
12	1726	February	Boston	510	47
13	1726	April	Plymouth	511	27
14	1726	May	York	511	39
15	1726	May	Ipswich	511	42
16	1726	July	Cambridge	510	70
17	1726	August	Boston	511	50
18	1726	September	Bristol	510	76
19	1726	September	Springfield	510	86
20	1726	October	Salem	510	91
21	1727	January	Charlestown	511	63
22	1727	February	Boston	511	70
23	1727	April	Plymouth	510	101
24	1727	May	York	510	113
25	1727	May	Ipswich	510	118
26	1727	July	Cambridge	511	89
27	1727	August	Boston	510	132
28	1727	September	Bristol	511	99
29	1727	September	Springfield	511	108
30	1727	October	Salem	511	115
31	1728	January	Charlestown	510	157
32	1728	February	Boston	510	166
33	1728	April	Barnstable	511	122
34	1728	April	Plymouth	511	128
35	1728	May	York	511	136
36	1728	May	Ipswich	511	142
37	1728	July	Cambridge	510	190
38	1728	August	Boston	511	152
39	1728	September	Boston	511	184
40	1728	September	Bristol	510	202
41	1728	September	Springfield	510	215
42	1728	October	Salem	510	227
43	1729	January	Charlestown	511	185
44	1729	February	Boston	511	196
45	1729	April	Barnstable	510	241
46	1729	April	Plymouth	510	252
47	1729	May	York	510	264
48	1729	May	Ipswich	510	273
49	1729	July	Cambridge	511	226
50	1729	August	Boston	510	286
51	1729	September	Bristol	511	236
52	1729	September	Springfield	511	251
53	1729	October	Salem	511	259
54	1730	January	Charlestown	510	319
55	1730	February	Boston	510	336
56	1730	April	Barnstable	511	275
57	1730	April	Salem	511	285
58	1730	May	York	511	306
59	1730	May	Ipswich	511	323
60	1730	July	Cambridge	512	1
61	1730	August	Boston	511	334
62	1730	September	Bristol	512	20
63	1730	September	Springfield	512	41
64	1730	October	Salem	512	51

When all the sessions for which we have records are included, the pattern that emerges is quite regular: In 1725, there were two sessions in Middlesex County (Charlestown in January, Cambridge in July), two in Suffolk County (Boston in February and August), two in Essex County (Ipswich in May, Salem in October), and one each in Plymouth, York (now in Maine), Bristol, and Hampshire counties, held at Plymouth, York, Bristol (now in Rhode Island), and Springfield, respectively. The headings tell us that these sessions were scheduled for a particular day of the week within the month, e.g., the second Tuesday of September, the day of the month being that on which that day of the week fell.

The chronological order of the sessions in 1725 is repeated in the following five years. In 1728, a session in Barnstable and Dukes County was added at Barnstable before the session at Plymouth.⁹ (Previously, these counties had been combined with the session at Plymouth.) What looks like an extra session for Boston in 1728 really is not. The heading explains that the court picked up again in the first week of September when it had adjourned cum die at the end of August.

⁹ The justices probably went to Barnstable by boat from Boston, and visited Plymouth, also by boat, on their return. The same means of transportation was probably used for the existing York-Ipswich pattern.

The problematic session at the beginning of reel 512, which lacks a heading, can be assigned with some confidence to Cambridge in July of 1730. That follows the pattern of the previous five years. That session also begins with an appeal from the county court in Charlestown. Charlestown, like Cambridge, was in Middlesex County at the time, and having the appeal heard in Middlesex County would be essential if a jury were to be called in the appeal case.

The question then becomes why there are so many sessions that are chronologically within the years 1725–1730 not found in the volume that is so labelled? The difference is substantial. There were 64 sessions between 1 January 1730 and 31 December 1735, and only 31 of them are found in the 1725–1730 volume. An explanation may be found in session no. 7, the first one that should have been added to 511, assuming that 511 was to begin with the July session in Cambridge. Here is where the Boston session in July should have been added, before the Bristol session in September. The Bristol session, however begins in mid-page. The Boston session could not have been added to it without breaking up Bristol. Rather than doing that, the binders put it in a different volume. They were aware of what they had done. The presence of tables of contents in these volumes (which are not found elsewhere) can probably be explained by the fact that these volumes contain records of sessions that are not strictly in chronological order.

Charles Donahue, Jr.