court, in a land case of disputed boundaries, August, 1705, "John
Putnam, Sr., of full age, testifieth and saith that--being a retainer
in Governor Endicott's family, about fifty years since, and being
intimately acquainted with the governor himself and with his son, Mr.
Zerubabel Endicott, late of Salem, deceased, who succeeded in his
father's right, and lived and died on the farm called Orchard Farm, in
Salem--the said Governor Endicott did oftentimes tell this deponent,"
&c. The same John Putnam, in a deposition dated 1678, says that he was
then fifty years old, and that, thirty-five years before, he was at
Mr. Endicott's farm, and went out to a certain place called "Vine
Cove," where he found Mr. Endicott; and he testifies to a conversation
that he heard between Mr. Endicott and one of his men, Walter Knight.
I mention these things to show that a lad of fifteen, a son of a
neighbor of large estate in lands, was an intimate visitor at the
Orchard Farm; and that, when he became of age, before entering upon
the work of clearing lands of his own, given by his father, he went as
"a retainer" to work on the governor's farm. He went as a voluntary
laborer, as to a school of agricultural training. This was done on
other farms, first occupied by men who had the means and the
enterprise to carry on large operations. It gave a high character, in
their particular employment, to the first settlers generally.

I cannot leave this subject of Endicott on his farm, without
presenting another picture, drawn from a wilderness scene. In 1678,
Nathaniel Ingersol, then forty-five years of age, in a deposition
sworn to in court, describes an incident that occurred on the eastern
end of the Townsend Bishop farm as laid out on the map, when he was
about eleven years of age. His father, Richard Ingersol, had leased
the farm. It was contiguous to Endicott's land, and controversies of
boundary arose, which subsequently contributed to aggravate the feuds