[48:4] Sheldon, "Deerfield," i, p. 189.
[48:5] Massachusetts Archives, lxxi, 46-48, 131, 134, 135 et passim.
[50:1] Massachusetts Archives, lxxi, p. 107: cf. Metcalf, "Mendon," p. 130; Sheldon, "Deerfield," i, p. 288. The frontier of Virginia in 1755 and 1774 showed similar conditions: see, for example, the citations to Washington's Writings in Thwaites, "France in America," pp. 193-195; and frontier letters in Thwaites and Kellogg, "Dunmore's War," pp. 227, 228 et passim. The following petition to Governor Gooch of Virginia, dated July 30, 1742, affords a basis for comparison with a Scotch-Irish frontier:
We your pettionours humbly sheweth that we your Honours Loly and Dutifull Subganckes hath ventred our Lives & all that we have In settling ye back parts of Virginia which was a veri Great Hassirt & Dengrous, for it is the Hathins [heathens] Road to ware, which has proved hortfull to severil of ous that were ye first settlers of these back woods & wee your Honibill pettionors some time a goo petitioned your Honnour for to have Commisioned men amungst ous which we your Honnours most Duttifull subjects thought properist men & men that had Hart and Curidg to hed us yn time of [war] & to defend your Contray & your poor Sogbacks Intrist from ye voilince of ye Haithen—But yet agine we Humbly persume to poot your Honnour yn mind of our Great want of them in hopes that your Honner will Grant a Captins' Commission to John McDowell, with follring ofishers, and your Honnours' Complyence in this will be Great settisfiction to your most Duttifull and Humbil pettioners—and we as in Duty bond shall Ever pray . . . (Calendar of Virginia State Papers, i, p. 235).
[51:1] But there is a note of deference in Southern frontier petitions to the Continental Congress—to be discounted, however, by the remoteness of that body. See F. J. Turner, "Western State-Making in the Revolutionary Era" (American Historical Review, i, pp. 70, 251). The demand for remission of taxes is a common feature of the petitions there quoted.
[51:2] Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, xliii, pp. 506 ff.
[51:3] Ibid., xliii, p. 518.
[52:1] Connecticut Colonial Records, iv, p. 67.
[52:2] In a petition of February 22, 1693-4, Deerfield calls itself the "most Utmost Frontere Town in the County of West Hampshire" (Massachusetts Archives, cxiii, p. 57 a).
[52:3] Judd, "Hadley," p. 249.