in sight of Read's residence, on the next then unappropriated
territory, at a distance of about two and a half miles. When Read
returned to England, he left his property here in the care of the
Winthrops. Wait Winthrop, as the agent and attorney of his heirs, sold
it to Daniel Eppes. If, as I conjecture, Thomas Read was a son of
Colonel Read, of Essex, his coming here with Peters, and his
connection with the Winthrops, are accounted for. His strong
predilection for military affairs was natural in a son of a colonel of
the English army. It led him back to the mother-country, on the first
sound of the great civil war reaching these shores, and raised him to
the rank he finally attained. The conjecture that he was a brother of
the wife of the younger Winthrop is favored by the fact, that her son,
Fitz John Winthrop, was a captain in Read's regiment, at the time of
the restoration of the Stuarts.

During the short period of the residence of Hugh Peters in America,
professional duties, and the extent to which his great talents were
called upon in ecclesiastical and political affairs, in all parts of
the colony, left him but little opportunity to attend to his
two-hundred-acre grant. It was to the north of the present village of
Danvers Plains, on the eastern side and adjoining to Frost-Fish Brook.
The history of this grant confirms the supposition of his particular
connection with the family of the younger Winthrop. It seems that it
had not been formally laid out by metes and bounds while Peters was
here. Owing to this circumstance, perhaps, it escaped confiscation at
the time of his condemnation and execution. Some years afterwards,
June 4, 1674, a committee of the town laid out the grant "to Mr.
Peters." The record of this transaction says, "The land is in the
possession of John Corwin." Captain John Corwin had married, in May,
1665, Margaret, daughter of John Winthrop, Jr. She survived her