In 1778, the act of proscription and banishment included Abel Willard's name. His health gave way under accumulated trouble, and he died in England in 1781. The estates of Abijah and Abel Willard were confiscated. In the Massachusetts Archives (cliv, 10) is preserved the anxious inquiry of the town authorities respecting the proper disposal of the wealth they abandoned. _To the Honourable Provincial Congress now holden at Watertown in the Proviance of the Massachusetts Bay._ We the subscribers do request and desire that you would be pleased to direct or Inform this proviance in General or the town of Lancaster in Partickeler what is best to be done with the Estates of those men which are Gone from their Estates to General Gage and to whose use they shall Improve them whether for the proviance or the town where s'd Estate is. EBENEZER ALLEN, CYRUS FAIRBANK, SAMLL THURSTON, The Selectmen of Lancaster. Lancaster June 7 day 1775. The Provincial Congress placed the property in question in the hands of the selectmen and Committee of Safety to improve, and instructed them to report to future legislatures. Finally, Cyrus Fairbank is found acting as the local agent for confiscated estates of royalists in Lancaster, and his annual statements are among the archives of the State. His accounts embrace the estates of "Abijah Willard, Esq., Abel Willard, Esq., Solomon Houghton, Yeoman, and Joseph Moore Gent." The final settlement of Abel Willard's estate, October 26, 1785, netted his creditors but ten shillings, eleven pence to the pound. The claimants and improvers probably swallowed even the larger estate of Abijah Willard, leaving nothing to the Commonwealth.