the town authorities respecting the proper disposal of the wealth they
abandoned.

_To the Honourable Provincial Congress now holden at Watertown in
the Proviance of the Massachusetts Bay._

We the subscribers do request and desire that you would be pleased
to direct or Inform this proviance in General or the town of
Lancaster in Partickeler what is best to be done with the Estates
of those men which are Gone from their Estates to General Gage and
to whose use they shall Improve them whether for the proviance or
the town where s'd Estate is.

EBENEZER ALLEN,
CYRUS FAIRBANK,
SAMLL THURSTON,
The Selectmen of Lancaster.

Lancaster June 7 day 1775.

The Provincial Congress placed the property in question in the hands of
the selectmen and Committee of Safety to improve, and instructed them to
report to future legislatures. Finally, Cyrus Fairbank is found acting
as the local agent for confiscated estates of royalists in Lancaster,
and his annual statements are among the archives of the State. His
accounts embrace the estates of "Abijah Willard, Esq., Abel Willard,
Esq., Solomon Houghton, Yeoman, and Joseph Moore Gent." The final
settlement of Abel Willard's estate, October 26, 1785, netted his
creditors but ten shillings, eleven pence to the pound. The claimants
and improvers probably swallowed even the larger estate of Abijah