1 Samuel Adams to Samuel Cooper, 25 Dec. 1778; Adams to Benjamin Austin, 9 March 1779; Adams to John Scollay, 30 Dec. 1780; Adams to Richard Henry Lee, 15 Jan. 1781, Cushing, ed., Works of Samuel Adams, IV, 104, 132, 235-36, 239-40.

2Mass. Bay Records, I, 83, 159.

3“Concord, Sudbury & Dedham … being inland towns & not thinly peopled, it is ordered that no man now inhabiting & settling in any of the said town (whether married or single) shall remove to any other town without the allowance of a magistrate or other selectman of that town.” Mass. Bay Records, II, 122.

4“Every unmarried man in the township shall kill six black-birds or three crows while he remains single; as a penalty for not doing it, shall not be married until he obey this order.” Eastham Town Records, 1695; Earle, Customs and Fashions in Old New England, 37.

5Mass. Bay Records, I, 110.