Samuel Stearns

Roads, town duties and a family estate

Samuel Stearns’s work for Watertown, just west of Boston in present-day Massachusetts, included highways, fences and livestock regulation. A compilation citing the town books records him as highway surveyor in 1666, constable in 1670 and a selectman in several later years. His name also appears among the signers of the 1674 inquest into two boys killed beneath a brick cart.

Born in 1638 to Isaac Stearns and Mary Barker, he married Hannah Manning in February 1662/63. Their children arrived over the next twenty years. The first Samuel died in 1671; another son born in 1673 received the same name. Abigail was born in 1681 and Joseph in December 1682.

His father’s will in June 1671 made Samuel and his brother Isaac joint executors. Samuel was bequeathed £70, to be considered alongside property previously given him. The estate was largely to remain intact for their mother’s support during widowhood, so the sons’ responsibilities involved preserving her provision as well as distributing inheritances.

Samuel died in 1683. The family genealogy gives his estate inventory as £481 4s. Hannah survived him for decades, with several children still young at his death.

The family record also identifies him as Corporal Samuel Stearns.