Description:

Mass Physician Charged with Fornication and Bastardy Rev War Dated

This bond for £2,000 obligated physician Buffum Slead to appear at the Court of General Sessions of the Peace in Taunton, Massachusetts. His recognizance was continued for several terms, then seems to have disappeared from the records, while she was charged 24 shillings for giving birth to the child.

[LAW.]. Ezra Richmond, Autograph Document Signed, Memorandum of Recognizance Bond for Buffon Slead, October 31, 1780, Bristol County, Massachusetts. 1 p., 8.375" x 9" Expected folds; general toning; very good.

Complete Transcript
Bristol Ss Memorandum that on the 31st Day of October in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred & Eighty Personally appear'd before me Ezra Richmond Esqr one of the Government and peoples Justices of the Peace for the County aforesd, Buffom Slead of Swansey in the County of Bristol aforesd Physician, Robert Slead yeoman & Edward Slead yeoman, both of Swansey, and acknowledged themselves to be severally Indebted to the Government & people of the State of the Mass Bay &c. the Respective Sums following, vizt, The said Buffom Slead in the sum of Two thousand Pounds as Principal & the said Robert Slead & Edward Slead, as sureties in the sum of One Thousand pounds each, to be leveyed on their Goods Chattels, Lands or Tennements, & for want thereof on their Bodies, if default be made respecting the performance of the Condition hereunto annexed. The Condition of this Recognizance is such that if the above named Buffom Slead shall personally appear before the Justices of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace next to be holden at Taunton within & for the County of Bristol aforesd on the third Tuesday of December next, To answer to such Matters as shall be then & there alledged against him, more Especially to Answer to the Complaint of Alice Chase of Swansey in the same County for Begeting her with child by Fornication some Time in the month of June last past, and shall Do & Receive that which by sd Court shall be then & there enjoyned upon him, & not Depart without License of sd Court then this Recognizance to be Void & of no Effect otherwise to Remain in full force & Virtue.
Recognized before Ezra Richmond

Historical Background
The town of Swansea, Massachusetts, was founded in 1662 by Baptists who were forced to leave Rehoboth. The first Baptist church in Massachusetts relocated there in 1667 from Rehoboth because of religious intolerance.

The General Court of Massachusetts established Courts of General Sessions for the various counties in the colony in 1692. Many of the cases they considered involved charges of fornication for children born out of wedlock and warnings out of indigent persons from specific towns. In fornication cases, the mother often revealed the father of her child. When the accused father posted a bond for his appearance, his sureties were often close relatives. The court also dealt with roads, bridges, ferries, licenses of tavern keepers, and a variety of other issues of town concern.

According to "Extracts from the Bristol County Court of General Sessions of the Peace," in the session on June 12, 1781, Alice Chace, a single woman of Swansea, appeared on the charge of fornication for a child born of her body at Swansea on March 6. She received a fine of 24 shillings. After the court apparently continued Slead's recognizance bond at the December 1780 term and again continued it to the next term at both the March and June 1781 terms of the court. The extracts do not have any further mention of Slead or his securities. Slead may have made private arrangements with Chace for the support of their child to avoid further public embarrassment for him and his new wife.

According to historian Kelly A. Ryan, white women became the main targets of fornication charges by the Massachusetts judicial system in the eighteenth century, while the punishment of men for fornication dwindled beginning in the mid-seventeenth century.

Ezra Richmond (1721-1800) was born in Rhode Island. He served in the British Army with the rank of captain and was a colonel in the French and Indian War. He served as a selectman and town clerk of Dighton, Massachusetts in 1751, and represented the town in the General Court from 1752 to 1754 and from 1764 to 1767. He also served as town treasurer in 1767 and as a justice of the peace. In 1751, he married Mary Baylies in Dighton. He was reportedly very wealthy and aristocratic in his bearing.

Buffum Slead (1733-aft. 1820) was one of nine sons born to Samuel Slead and Mercy Thrasher Buffum in Swansea, Massachusetts. On December 10, 1780, he married Elizabeth Sherman. According to this document, he was a physician. By 1800, he had moved to Saratoga County, New York, north of Albany.

The accuser may have been Alice Chace/Chase (b. 1764), who was born in Swansea to James Chase Jr. and Huldah Winslow Chase. She was likely named for her aunt, her father's younger sister, Alice Chase (1734-1813).

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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