On the 13th of January of this year a patent was granted to William Bradford and Associates. This enlarged the original grant and included territory on the Kennebec river where a trading post had already been established. This patent, bearing the signature of the Earl of Warwick, was later transferred to the Colony and is now in the Registry of Deeds at Plymouth. The First Settled Minister The first settled minister was Ralph Smith, a graduate of Cambridge University, England, who had come with his family to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He arrived in Plymouth in 1629 and served as minister until 1636. He was succeeded by John Rayner, a graduate of Magdalen College, who continued his ministry until 1654. During Mr. Smith’s incumbency it is probable that services were held in both the Fort on Burial Hill and the Common House on what is now Leyden Street as the first meeting-house which faced Town Square was not built until 1637. [Sidenote: 1630] In May, 1630, the colony was further augmented by the arrival of “16 or 18” more of their Leyden brethren who had come to Boston with John Winthrop and his company. These arrivals, while welcome, increased the financial burden now resting heavily upon the shoulders of those who had assumed the obligations. First Capital Offence This year John Billington, the elder who had before been charged with minor offences, was tried and executed for murder. “He was arraigned by both grand and petit jury” and “found guilty of willful murder by plain and notorious evidence.” Their Obligations Increase Having become dissatisfied with the way the affairs of the colony were being conducted in England, Mr. Winslow was sent over to effect an accounting while Mr. Allerton was discharged. It developed that while the indebtedness of 1800 pounds previously assumed had been reduced to 1000 pounds, subsequent transactions engaged in by Mr. Allerton had increased their obligations by 4700 pounds. While it appears that Allerton had used the opportunity he enjoyed for his personal gain, the attitude of the Plymouth Colony toward him was one of generosity as shown by the following: “It is like, though Mr. Allerton might think not to wrong the plantation in the main, yet his own gain and private ends led him aside in these things; for it came to be known, and I have it in a letter under Mr. Sherley’s hand, that in the first 2 or 3 years of his employment, he had cleared up 400 pounds and put it in a brewhouse in London, at first under Mr. Shirley’s name, etc.” [Sidenote: 1632]