Genealogical notes of Barnstable families - citizen hylbom blog

GENEALOGICAL NOTES OF BARNSTABLE FAMILIES. 13
misfortune, the public had no right to complain, and Dr. Thacher,
for giving publicity to private matters, was injudicious, and trod on
ground he had no moral right to enter upon.
I have quoted substantially what he has published, and I have so
done that the bane and the antidote might appear side by side. If
Dr. Hersey had been a bad man, it would have been unjust to have
veiled his faults ; but no man is to be condemned because God, in
his allwise Providence, has afflicted him with an incurable disease.
He is a subject for our piety and our commiseration.
Dr. Hersey has left a good record.—Very few a cleaner or a better
one. When he signed his will he thought he had immortalized
his name-^that it would be venerated by the wise and the good in
all coming time. He was mistaken. As a physician he had then
erected a monument to his own memory more enduring than marble
or brass. Of what other physician can it be said that for forty-five
successive years he commanded all the practice of a County extending
seventy miles in length. There were other physicians at the
time in the County ; but no one would employ another in a difficult
case, if by any means his services could be secured. All had the
utmost confidence in his skill—nothing could impair their confidence
in him as a man or a physician. His memory and his reputation
will brighten as time advances, and the future writer of the biogra-
phies of the eminent physicians of our land will never pass over in
silence the name of Abner Hersey.
His body has now rested nearly a century in the grave, yet he is
not forgotten—his memory is embalmed in the popular mind and
centuries will not eradicate it. He was a good man—he left his
mark on the age in which he lived.
The will of Dr. Abner Hersey is dated Oct. 21, 1786, and the
codicil thereto 23d Dec. next iollowing, and proved in 1787.
Its several provisions are very clearly stated, his meaning and
intention cannot be misunderstood. It was probably drawn up by
himself, and is too long to copy verbatim. After the usual preliminary
articles he says
"I give to my wife Hannah the use and improvement of all my
real estate, with this special restriction that she shall not suffer more
than two crops in the term of twelve years to be taken off said real
estate, and that she cut no more wood off said real estate than what
is sufficient for her own firing and fencing said estate, provided she
cannot procure fencing stuff otherwise."
After paying off his debts and legacies she was to have the improvement
of his whole estate, real, personal and mixed.
The following bequest shows clearly that however "penurious"
his own education may have been, he did not despise learning and
science. His brother Ezekiel had been a benefactor of Harvard
College, and the founder of a professorship.
"I give and bequeath the sum of five hundred pounds lawful