Genealogical notes of Barnstable families - citizen hylbom blog

GENEALOGICAL NOTES OF BAKNSTABLE FAMILIES. 479
be the better way, a trait of character which many of his descendants,
down to the fifth generation, inherited.*
However wayward he may have been, his generous donation
to the poor of Yarmouth will ever be remembered, and make us
regret that we know so little of the man. If at the present time
a man should present a cow to the poor, the act would not be
heralded in the newspapers as an act of great benevolence, but in
order to form a just estimate of the value of the gift, it must be
borne in mind that cattle were then scarce in the Colony, and that
a cow was then the equivalent of a good sized farm, or of the
wages of a common laborer for a year.
There is no record of his death. In the division of the
fences in Barnstable Feb. 28, 1647, Mr. or Mrs. Hallett is named,
but not in the subsequent division in 1649. This entry is probably
in old style, and would be 1648, new. Not much reliance,
however, is to be placed in it. He probably died in 1647, as
above stated, but if the entry in the division of fences is reliable,
in the spring of 1648.
Of some of the members of the Hallett family I have spoken
in a note. John Hallett, who settled in Scituate, was one of the
Conihasset planters in 1646. Mr. Deane calls him a brother of
Andrew of Sandwich. Mr. Savage copies from Deane, and remarks
that his account is "confused." He has not made it any
clearer. Both mix up the families of Andrew, Sen., with that of
Andrew, Jr., and hence the confusion.
Similarity in the family names of the Scituate and Yarmouth
families probably induced Mr. Deane to call them relatives. They
probably were ; but John of Scituate was too old a man to be
called a son of Andrew, Sen., without some more certain evidence
than has yet been obtained. Richard Curtis married "Lydia,"
daughter of John Hallett, in 1649, presuming her to be bis oldest
child, 1609 is as late a period as can be assigned for the birth of
the father. In some families there are as great or a greater disparity
in the ages of the children, but such cases are rare, and in
the absence of records it is not safe to make such presumpt-
ions.
Mr. Deane had but little exact information respecting the
Hallett family. He evidently did not know that there were two
*Few men could tell a story more ffracefuUy or better than the late Hon. John Keed.
He frequently told the following, remarking that he was an eye-witness. It is a ffood illustration
of a peculiar trait of character for which many of the Hallets of other days were
noted. Perhaps it was the manner in which the story was told that made it interesting.
The fourth Jonathan Hallett and Joshua Hallett were at work together shingling a building.
One proposed to put up a stage; the other said, "We can put on two or three courses
more without one." The first said to himself, "I can shingle as long as you without a
stage, and I will not again propose to put up a stage," and the other made the same resolution.
They continued naiung on course after course, both resolved not to yield, till both
were seen standing tiptoe bedside the building, nailing on shingles as high above their
heads as they could possibly stretch, neither yielded till it was impossible for him to drive
another nail. This singular contest attracted spectators, and the merriment which it excited
had, perhaps, an influence in inducing them to take a common sense view of the matter
and put up a stage.