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    | 1786. | Rev. 
      Isaac Foster. -- First Settled Minister | 203 |   
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    | horse stealing and one for counterfeiting. The lashes were laid on the 
        naked back. Amos Partridge the jailor stood by with a drawn sword, and 
        Johnson his deputy applied the lashes.1
 
 July 10th Mr. Ballard, his son Jonathan, and one of 
        the Cowens who was at work for him went to the raising of a meetinghouse 
        in Winthrop, and it is recorded that "the business was performed 
        with safety."2 This was the house occupied by the Congregational 
        Society for forty years to 1825.
 
 The names of the Rev. Seth Noble 
        and Rev. William Hazlitt were presented to the town at the meeting April1st, 
        as candidates for "settlement in the work of the ministry," and were 
        both rejected. The town voted to pay the former £9 for the six Sundays 
        he had preached, and the latter seventy dollars for "fourteen day's 
        preaching including Thanksgiving," as already noticed.
 
 Rev. Isaac Foster of Hartford, Conn., "a young 
        candidate" for settlement arrived in Hallowell April 13th, and the next 
        Sunday preached in the meeting-house "by desire of the committee," who 
        during the succeeding week invited him to preach the three following Sundays. 
        Having complied with this request, he officiated with so much satisfaction 
        that a town meeting was called for the 8th of May, to see if the town 
        would invite him to settle and provide for his "salary and settlement." 
        Upon assembling a motion was submitted to "invite him to settle in this 
        town in the work of the ministry," which was taken by "polling the house," 
        when fifty-seven were arrayed in favor of the motion and four against 
        it.
 
 A large committee was now raised consisting of James 
        Howard, Benjamin Pettingill, Samuel Cony, Noah Woodward, Jonathan Davenport, 
        Jeremiah Ingraham, Samuel Badcock, Enoch Page, Simon Dearborn, Henry Sewall, 
        Nathan Weston, Daniel Savage, James Page, Ezekiel Page and Daniel Cony 
        to report what stipulations should be made with Mr. Foster for "his support 
        and maintenance." The committee, after the meeting had taken a half hour's 
        recess, reported that the town should "pay £100 lawful money annually" 
        as a salary, on condition that Mr. Foster "shall formally and regularly 
        receive ordination;" and that should be his salary as long as he "continues 
        to be the town's minister and public teacher." To this they added "£50 
        settlement." The report was accepted, and £10 a year added to the 
        settlement for the first five years.
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    | 1 Elihu Gould, seventy-nine 
        years old in 1860.   2 
        Mrs. Ballard's Diary |  |  
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