"Whereas Aaron Jaquese, a single prson liuing in our towne, who hath for sometime liued from vnder family gouernment contrary to Court Order, being su[=m]uned by ye Constable to appear before this Honored Court: These are to enforme ... that ... Aaron Jaquese hath bin much complained of by seuerall of our inhabitants, for negligence in his calling, hauing obserued him much giuen to idleness; also shifting from house to house, & vnfaithfull to his Couenants & promises with such prsons, with whom he has engaged service, vpon which Complaints the selectmen haue endeauered acording to law, to place him foorth in service, but ca[=n]ot effect it. Our Humble request to this Hon'd Court is, that they would please to despose of ... Aaron to service, or otherwise to order something concering the same as may be effectuall to render him to a more regular Course of life, as ye wisdome of this Court shall judg best. So shall we pray &c.
Your humble seruants."
The MSS. Files of the County Court for Middlesex, April, 1669, also contain a certificate of the selectmen of Charlestown to the effect that John Swain had given satisfaction for orderly behavior.
[471] Thus Judge Sewall went home with Widow Denison from her husband's funeral and "prayed God to keep house" with her: Diary, in 5 Mass. Hist. Coll., VII, 179 (March 26, 1718). Cf. also Earle, Customs and Fashions, 45, 46.
"The colonists married early and they married often. Widowers and widows hastened to join their fortunes and sorrows. The father and mother of Governor Winslow had been widow and widower seven and twelve weeks respectively, when they joined their families and themselves in mutual benefit, if not in mutual love. At a later day the impatient governor of New Hampshire married a lady but ten days widowed."—Earle, op. cit., 86. On early marriages see Weeden, Ecc. and Soc. Hist. of N. E., II, 541, 739.
[472] Earle, op. cit., 38.
[473] Dunton's Life and Errors (Westminster, 1818), I, 102, referring to Boston in 1686. In Dunton's Letters from New-England (ed. by Whitmore for the Prince Society, Boston, 1867), 99, where this passage appears in a modified form, the age of a "thornback" is reduced to twenty-six years. The paragraph is also quoted by Weeden, op. cit., I, 299, 300; and Earle, op. cit., 38, 39.
[474] Mass. Col. Rec., II, 211, 212; Whitmore, Col. Laws of Mass. (1660-72), 172; ibid. (1672-86), 216.
[475] Mass. Col. Rec., I, 283.
[476] Ibid., II, 86.