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Know all Men By These Presents, that I Seth Towner of Braintree, in the County of Suffolk & Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, Gent. In Consideration that I may promote & encourage the worship of God, I have given liberty to Ephriam, and Atherton Wales, & Th’o:s Penniman of Stoughton who attend Publick worship with us to erect a Stable or Horse House, on my Land near the Meeting House, in the South Precinct in Braintree afores:d, to serve their Horses, while attending the service of God–and to the intent that the s:d Ephriam, Atherton & Thomas, their Heirs or assignes shall and may hereafter So long as they or any of them incline or Desire to keep up & maintain a Horse House for the afores:d use and Purpose; have s:d Land whereon s:d House Stands without mollestation: I the said Seth Towner for my Selfe, my Heirs, exec. and admin.: Do hereby Covenant promise bind & oblige my selfe & them to warrant & Defend the afores:d Privilege of Land. To the s:d Ephriam Wales, Atherton Wales, & Tho:s Penniman their Heirs or assignes So long as they or any of them keep a Horse House their, for the afores:d use: they keeping s:d House in Such repair at all times, as that I the s:d Seth Towner, my Heirs or assignes, may not receive Damage by any Creature Coming through s:d House into my Land adjoining. In Witness Whereof, I the s:d Seth Towner have hereunto set my Hand & Seal the first Day of November One Thous. and Seven Hundred Sixty & four: in the fifth year of his Majesty’s Reign George the third King etc.

Signed Sealed and Del:d
presence of Seth Towner, Daniel Linfield, Simeon Thayer.”

Ann’s two uncles by adoption, and Thomas Penniman of Stoughton, were well pleased to get this permission to erect a stable, or Horse-House, as they put it then, to shelter their horses during divine worship. The want of one had long been a sore inconvenience to them. The few stables already erected around the meeting-house, could not accommodate half of the horses congregated there on a Puritan Sabbath, and every barn, for a quarter of a mile about, was put into requisition on severe days. After the women had dismounted from their pillions at the meeting-house door, the men-folks patiently rode the horses to some place of shelter, and then trudged back through the snow-drifts, wrestling with the icy wind.

So this new “Horse-House” was a great benefit to the Waleses, and to the Pennimans, who lived three miles from them over the Stoughton line. They were all constant meeting-folks. Hard indeed was the storm which could keep a Wales or a Penniman away from meeting.

Mrs. Polly Wales’ horses were accommodated in this new stable also. In the winter time, there were two of them; one which she and Ann rode, Ann using the pillion, and one for Nabby Porter. Phineas Adams always walked. Often the sturdy young blacksmith was at the meeting-house, before the women, and waiting to take their horses.

One Sunday, the winter after the Horse-House was built, Mrs. Polly, Ann, Phineas, and Nabby went to meeting as usual. It was a very cold, bleak day; the wind blew in through the slight wooden walls of the old meeting-house, and the snow lay in little heaps here and there. There was no stove in the building, as every one knows. Some of the women had hot bricks and little foot-stoves, and that was all. Ann did not care for either. She sat up straight in the comfortless, high-backed pew. Her cheeks were as red as her crimson cloak, her black eyes shone like stars. She let Mrs. Polly and Nabby have the hot stones, but her own agile little feet were as warm as toast. Little Hannah French, over across the meeting-house, looked chilled and blue, but somehow Ann never seemed to be affected much by the cold.