Aunt Deming was Sarah, the oldest child of John Winslow and Sarah Peirce, and therefore sister of Joshua Winslow, Anna Green Winslow's father. She was born August 2, 1722, died March 10, 1788. She married John West, and after his death married, on February 27, 1752, John Deming. He was a respectable and intelligent Boston citizen, but not a wealthy man. He was an ensign in the Ancient and Honorable Artillery in 1771, and a deacon of the Old South Church in 1769, both of which offices were patents of nobility in provincial Boston. They lived in Central Court, leading out of Washington Street, just south of Summer Street. Aunt Deming eked out a limited income in a manner dear to Boston gentlewomen in those and in later days; she took young ladies to board while they attended Boston schools. Advertisements in colonial newspapers of "Board and half-board for young ladies" were not rare, and many good old New England names are seen in these advertisements. Aunt Deming was a woman of much judgment, as is shown in the pages of this diary; of much power of graphic description, as is
proved by a short journal written for her niece, Sally Coverly, and letters of hers which are still preserved. She died childless.
Cumberland was the home in Nova Scotia of Anna Green Winslow's parents, where her father held the position of commissary to the British regiments stationed there. George Green, Anna's uncle, writing to Joseph Green, at Paramaribo, on July 23, 1770, said: "Mr. Winslow & wife still remain at Cumberland, have one son & one daughter, the last now at Boston for schooling, &c." So, at the date of the first entry in the diary, Anna had been in Boston probably about a year and a half.
Anna Green Winslow had doubtless heard much talk about this Rev. John Bacon, the new minister at the Old South Church, for much had been said about him in the weekly press: whether he should have an ordination dinner or not, and he did not; accounts of his ordination; and then notice of the sale of his sermons in the Boston Gazette.
All Mr. Bacon's parishioners did not share Anna's liking for him; he found himself at the Old South in sorely troubled waters. He made a most unpropitious and trying entrance at best, through succeeding the beloved Joseph Sewall, who had preached to Old South listeners for fifty-six years. He came to town a stranger. When, a month later, Governor Hutchinson
issued his annual Thanksgiving Proclamation, there was placed therein an "exceptionable clause" that was very offensive to Boston patriots, relating to the continuance of civil and religious liberties. It had always been the custom to have the Proclamation read by the ministers in the Boston churches for the two Sundays previous to Thanksgiving Day, but the ruling governor very cannily managed to get two Boston clergymen to read his proclamation the third Sunday before the appointed day, when all the church members, being unsuspectingly present, had to listen to the unwelcome words. One of these clerical instruments of gubernatorial diplomacy and craft was John Bacon. Samuel Adams wrote bitterly of him, saying, "He performed this servile task a week before the time, when the people were not aware of it." The Boston Gazette of November 11 commented severely on Mr. Bacon's action, and many of his congregation were disgusted with him, and remained after the service to talk the Proclamation and their unfortunate new minister over.