Mr. Daniel H. Felton, who has an intimate knowledge of the history of
all the lands about Felton's Hill, and is himself a descendant of John
Procter, informs me that Mrs. Hannah B. Mansfield some years since
related to him "that she went berrying at the Jacobs farm when she was
a child and that older persons said that John Procter was buried on
the opposite side of the way (among the rocks) from where they turned
off from Lowell Street to go to the Jacobs farm." Mrs. Mansfield lived
when a child on the Newburyport Turnpike opposite the Needham
homestead. It was, I understand, her "aunt Betsey Gardner" who, when
picking blackberries "on a rocky hill" pointed out to her the place
"among birch trees and rocks" where John Procter was buried.
To reconcile these traditions with the known facts, we may suppose,
as related by Mrs. Jacobs and Mrs. Mansfield, that the place of burial
was pointed out to them from the high land on the Jacobs place south
of Lowell Street, where the "rocky hill" and the bars leading into the
Marsh pasture on the north side of Lowell Street could be plainly
seen. Subsequently Mrs. Mansfield's aunt took her to the rocky hill
itself and pointed out the exact spot, probably close to where the
bars lead into the Marsh pasture, now the Saunders place. In going
home from the Jacobs farm they would turn into Lowell Street at the
old way near the house marked "White" on my map, and some ten rods
westerly from the way above mentioned leading from the opposite side
of Lowell Street to the Saunders place. This way from the Jacobs place
is a very old way. Mr. Felton tells me: "I recollect that my father
said over forty years ago that the gate posts of locust were nearly
one hundred years old then."
Two hundred years ago the Saunders place, formerly the Marsh pasture,
was part of the large tract of homestead land owned by Anthony
Needham. This Needham land included eight acres of land conveyed by
Anthony Needham to his son-in-law, Thomas Gould, 26 Sept., 1705, and
conveyed to Thomas Gardner 27 Jan., 1743, by George Gould, the son of
Thomas Gould. The eight acre lot descended to John Gardner and from
him to John Gardner Walcott, and is where John G. Walcott, Jun., now
lives.
The land which I find to be identical with the fifteen acre lot owned
by John Procter is on the north side of Lowell Street between the
above mentioned eight acre lot, now the home of John G. Walcott, Jun.,
and the lot marked "Flint Pasture" on my map, the Procter lot being
enclosed by heavy black lines. The westerly part of the Flint Pasture
was conveyed, 17 Sept., 1898, to John D. Dennis, who lives there now.
The uniform family tradition that John Procter was buried in the
locality I have thus described, is confirmed in my mind from a
consideration of certain facts, bearing with more or less definiteness
upon the question, which I will endeavor briefly to recite.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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