Note F — PART THIRD. (continued 7)

The following is a statement of the loss inflicted upon the estate of George Jacobs, Sr. The property of the son was utterly destroyed.

"An Account of what was seized and taken away from my Father's Estate, George Jacobs, Sr., late of Salem, deceased, by Sheriff Corwin and his Assistants in the year 1692.

"When my said father was executed, and I was forced to fly out of the country, to my great damage and distress of my family, my wife and daughter imprisoned,—viz., my wife eleven months, and my daughter seven months in prison,—it cost them twelve pounds money to the officers, besides other charges.

Five cows, fair large cattle, £3 per cow £ 15 00 0

Eight loads of English hay taken out of the barn, 35s. per load 14 00 0

A parcel of apples that made 24 barrels cider to halves; viz., 12 barrels cider, 8s. per barrel 4 16 0

Sixty bushels of Indian corn, 2s. 6d. per bushel 7 10 0

A mare 2 0 0

Two good feather beds, and furniture, rugs, blankets, sheets, bolsters and pillows 10 0 0

Two brass kettles, cost 6 0 0

Money, 12s.; a large gold thumb ring, 20s. 1 12 0

Five swine 3 15 0

A quantity of pewter which I cannot exactly know the worth, perhaps 3 0 0

— 67 — 13 — 0

Besides abundance of small things, meat in the house, fowls, chairs, and other things took clear away above 12 0 0

— 79 == — 13 == — 0 ==

"George Jacobs."

When Edward Bishop and his wife Sarah were arrested, household goods which were valued by the sheriff himself at ten pounds,—he refusing that sum for their restitution,—six cows, twenty-four swine, forty-six sheep, were taken from his farm. The imprisonment of himself and wife (prior to their escape) aggregated thirty-seven weeks. Ten shillings a week for board, and other charges and prison fees amounting to five pounds, were assessed upon his estate, and taken by distraint. A family of twelve children was left without any to direct or care for them, and the product of the farm for that year wholly cut off.

There were taken from the estate of Samuel Wardwell, who was executed, five cows, a heifer and yearling, a horse, nine hogs, eight loads of hay, six acres of standing corn, and a set of carpenters' tools. From the estate of Dorcas Hoar, a widow, there were taken two cows, an ox and mare, four pigs, bed, bed-curtains and bedding, and other household stuff.

Persons apprehended were made to pay all charges of every kind for their maintenance, fuel, clothes, expenses of transportation from jail to jail, and inexorable court and prison fees. The usual fee to the clerk of the courts was £1. 17s. 5d., sometimes more; sometimes, although very rarely, a little less. He must have received a large amount of money in the aggregate that year. The prisoners were charged for every paper that was drawn up. If a reprieve was obtained, there was a fee. When discharged, there was a fee. The expenses of the executions, even hangmen's fees, were levied on the families of the sufferers. Abraham Foster, whose mother died in prison, to get her body for burial, had to pay £2. 10s.

When the value of money at that time is considered, and we bear in mind that most of the persons apprehended were farmers, who have but little cash on hand, and that these charges were levied on their stock, crops, and furniture in their absence, and in the unrestrained exercise of arbitrary will, by the sheriff or constables, we can judge how utterly ruinous the operation must have been.