The History of Bandon, and the principal towns in the West Riding of County Cork. Enlarged edition, with ... illustrations

Preface

. The history of a town, or of a locality, is often but the history of a nation in miniature. It frequently happens that the same passions, the same interests, the same aspirations, that are to be found in a small community, are to be found in a large one — indeed, this is generaUy the case where the same race occupies both. But when the two communities are peopled by different races — when the conqueror comes to take up his abode on the lands of the conquered — history is then very often but one protracted tale of the conqueror's difficulties ; of the foes that stood arrayed against him on every side ; of the circumstances that impeded his efforts to move forward ; and of the hostitity — often of the deadliest kind — that confronted him at every step. Although some of the lands which our colonists rescued from the woods and the forests were almost worthless in the eyes of the former owners, and more of them, worse still, lying under stagnant waters, or were quagmires accessible only to the outlaw and the wolf, yet, when the settlers drained them, and when they were cultivated, then the original proprietor and his kern began to plot for their restoration; consequently the colonist, who had to labour hard te create a farm, had then to fight hard to keep it.

The Saxon plantee in O'Mahony's country had to handle the arquebus as well as the mattock — he was as PREFACE, IV familar with powder and lead as he was with barley and seed oats. His Irish neighbours looked with longing eyes on the fruits of his toil. If they could but lay hands on his comfortable homestead — if they could but make their own of his cattle, and enjoy his cultivated fields — they could bask all day in the sun, and denounce the perfidious Saxon. But the Saxon, who won his fields and his home by dint of perseverance and hard work, had no idea of allowing others to possess them against his wdU. Hence the perpetual strife between the Saxon who had, and the Celt who had not ; between the civilized EngUshman, and the barbarous Irishman; between those who lived in cheerful homes, and who supplied their tables with beef and mutton, and those who dwelt in wretched cabins composed of wattles, plastered over with cow-dung and mud, and who lived on roots and whey.

Our Bandon colonists came over in the latter half of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and they settled in a district escheated to the crown by the rebellion of a local chieftain. The country into which they had come had but little to recommend it. One who was alive at the time, and who subsequently became its possessor, describes the site of the new colony "as a meer waste bog and wood, serving for a retreat and harbour to woodkerns, rebels, thieves, and wolves." But, by the magic of theti skill and industry, this was soon all changed. Xot only did they alter the face of the country, but they butit themselves a town, within whose walls they could shelter themselves in time of need, and they spread themselves about on every side for miles. They struck root in the earth ; and now, Uke a brave old oak that stood many a gust of wind and many a storm ; whose head oft bent beneath the force of the blast ; whose ponderous limbs have creaked as they swayed to and fro ; whose branches have beat many a time wildly in the air ; whose leaves have fallen thick and heavy upon the glade — yet after the lapse of three centuries its heart is as sound as ever ; it stiU puts forth its PREFACE, V young shoots ; it still blooms in aU the pride of strength and maturity ; and its vigorous grasp is still on the soil, and is as firm as of yore.

During the progress of our researches in connection with the colony whose history we have endeavoured to trace, we have noted much interesting matter connected with various other settlements in the west riding of this county ; and as the plantees in those settlements had to undergo toils and dangers similiar to those of the Bandon colonists — and in some instances even greater, as they had no fortifications, or even an outwork, to stay the rush of the great wave that would fain engulf them — we have judged that the recital of their struggles too, to over come and to save themselves from the common danger, would be accept able to our readers. We are also actuated by another motive — that of essaying to preserve some of those old legends which garb with a deep interest the mouldering ruins of many an old keep, and some of those reminiscences— 'voices — which, as it were, speak to us from the grave, and teU us of the heroism of former days, and of scenes to many of which our age is happily a stranger.

To do this correctly ; to relate any circumstance which we have thought may throw light on the social progress of our townsmen, their reUgious and political views, their passions ; to describe the contests between our colonists and the natives in the great fight for supremacy ; to narrate how at one time the former overwhelmed the latter, and floated uppermost, and at another time how they were nearly over whelmed and sunk themselves ; to portray the feelings and influences which actuated both the contending parties; to accomplish aU this fairly and dispassionately, is the aim of the following pages. Hill House, Bandon. 1869. CONTENTS.

Chapter I

Defeat overtakes the Desmonds — South Munster a waste — Queen EUzabeth resolves to colonize it with EngUsh Protestants — The O'Mahonys of Castle , Mahon— Beecher's Patent— Names of the first Settlers — The site of the Town "a meer waste bog" — All the adjacent lands reclaimed— The river Bandon 1 CHAPTEE II. The Spaniards in Kinsale — Obstinate battle on the banks of the Bandon, between the English under Taffe and the Irish under the Pope's ApostoUc Vicar — The Irish defeated and the Vicar kUled — The Letters Patent granted by James the First for holding our Fairs — Christ Church, Eilbrogan, its Clergy, Charities, Monuments, &c 19 CHAPTEE III. The Charter — The first Provost and Burgesses — "No Papist inhabitant" to dweU within the Town — The Provost's Day — Our two first Members of ParUament — BaUymodan Church, its Clergy, Charities, Monuments, &c. . 43

CHAPTER IV.

A Joint Stock Company to manufacture woollen cloth in Bandon projected — The Beechers part with their side of the Town — Names of many of the Puritan Settlers — The Assizes held here — Great dinner given to the Judges — The walls — The mason's strike for a rise of wages — Murder — The famous House of Call — The town militia — Inhabitants complain of having troops quartered on them — Original letters of Lord President Villiers — The Earl of Cork— Sir Wareham St. Leger — The Provost refuses to impose any more taxes on the townspeople for the support of the garrison 61

CHAPTER V.

Grand entertainment given by the townspeople to Lord Cork and " his noble company" — Baltimore sacked by the Algerines; its History, Charter, Parliamentary Representatives — The O'Driscolls — Attack on Baltimore Castle by the rebels in 1642 — an Algerine Rover wrecked in Dunworly Bay — the a Wisemans — The Spensers — Prosperous state, of the country before the breaking out of the Great Rebellion — Bandon worthy of regard for " its bigness and handsomeness" — Downdaniel Castle — Kilbrittain Castle — The McCarthys-Reagh CONTENTS. VII CHAPTEE VI. The Great EebeUion— Warnings of the coming storm— An unspeakable number of Irish Churchmen flock over from the Continent — The cruelties— The Glamorgan Treaty ; the first article confirms the Eoman Catholic clergy in the possession of aU the lands, tithes, &c, which they had wrested from the Protestant clergy since the EebeUion began— Duplicity of the King— Cromwell arrives 107 CHAPTEE VII.

First appearance of the EebeUion in the county of Cork— The first governor of Bandon-Bridge — Names of the Irish gentry in this locaUty who were indicted at the great Sessions held at Youghal— Old Clear and his forty Spartans— The Bandonians pursue a band of marauders into Kerry.— Massacre of the congregation at Coole Church — Commissioners sent to Bandon to take the evidence of the Settlers concerning thenlosses in the EebeUion — The Cessation — The Glamorgan Treaty— The Ormond Treaty— The Bandonians protest against such packed terms of peace— A Mint estabUshed in Bandon . 122

CHAPTER VIII.

OUver CromweU lands in Dublin — He storms Drogheda — His career in the South — Several of the Munster towns pronounce for him — Bandon is the first to make the attempt — CromweU visits Bandon — The Eoman CathoUc Bishop of Eoss hanged at Carrigadrohid Castle — Sir Eichard Cox and his descendants — Trial of Mac Carthy-Crimen, of BaUinarohur Castle, before High Court of Justice in Bandon, for the murder of Mr. Burrowes and his family 149

CHAPTER IX.

The country a desert — Wolves are numerous — The forfeitures — What it cost to suppress the RebeUion — Not a single tenement seized in Bandon — Many of CromweU's troopers seU their grants for a trifle — HeU or Connaught — flow CromweU quieted the country — What his Commissioners thought of the Priests. — CromweU's son, Henry, orders lands, valued at £200 per annum, to be conferred on the Bandon Corporation — Charles the Second deprives them of some of their grants 176 CHAPTEE X. BaUinacorriga Castle — Eandal Oge Hurly and his descendants — Teige Mac Carthy-Downy, of the Togher — Patrick Eoche (Fitz-Eichard), Shippool Castle 191 CHAPTEE XI. The Lord-Lieutenant (CromweU's son-in-law) an-ives in Bandon — The Quakers first visit the town — CromweU dies — His remains dishonoured — His two sons — Ireland more Protestant in the reign of Queen Victoria than in the days of CromweU — Dr. Brady (of Brady and Tate's version of the Psalms) born in Bandon - 214 CHAPTEE XII.

Judge Bernard and his descendants — The French expected — Lord Barrymore claims some of the Corporation lands — Provosts' accounts — Loss of an EngUsh ship of war on the neighbouring coast 227 CHAPTEE XIII. The mUitia disarmed — The Protestant inhabitants terrified — The old Bandon Charter set aside — The new Corporation — King James's Irish miUtia — The Black Monday insurrection CONTEXTS. VIII

CHAPTER XIV.

King James lands at Kuisale— The Mac Carthys of Bellea— Bandon surprised by Colonel Mac Carthy— The Irish pipers in KUbrogan Church— The attack on Castle-Mahon— The Bandonians at the Boyne— Two troops of GinkeU's horse garrison the town — Father Mick in a fix — The loyal Parish Clerk . . 282 CHAPTEE XV. The anniversary of the Battle of tbe Boyne in days of yore — Anecdotes — The Bandonians rebel again — They declare James's Charter nuU and void— The Irish attack Castletown — Governor Cox's Proclamation — Sarsfield's division embark at Cork for France — The forfeitures 297 CHAPTEE XVI. Captain Nash (alias Shane Dearg)— The Sugan— Priest-hunting— The Black Cat — A new ParUament — Bachelors taxed— Nuce's bye-law revived — The great auction of forfeited estates 314

CHAPTER XVII.

Sir WUUam Jumper — Bye-law of the Corporation to prevent any one teaching a Popish apprentice — The last presentment passed in this county for killing wolves — Thomas Wight — A Turk, a Jew, or an Atheist 331 CHAPTEE XVIII. ClonakUty — Timoleague — Courtmasherry — Enniskeane — BaUineen — Kinneigh 346 CHAPTEE XIX. Dunmanway — Skibbereen — Bantry — Carrigbuie — Eosscarbery — Macroom . . 377 CHAPTEE XX. No. "84," or the Antient Boyne — John Wesley's first visit to Bandon — The Unen manufacture — Our old watchmen — Old Bandon Bridge swept away — ■ How they woo'd a hundred years ago 407 CHAPTEE XXI. The McCarthy-Duves — The Bandon yeomanry — The Hazlitts — Our volunteers at BaUincollig — Trade combinations prevalent — Strike's flood — The coal-yard — Anecdotes 428

CHAPTER XXII.

The Bandon MUitia, or South Cork Light Infantry 452

CHAPTER XXIII.

The Bandon MiUtia, or South Cork Light Infantry 482

CHAPTER XXIV.

The first Eoman CathoUc Chapel in the neighbourhood of Bandon — The French at Bantry Bay — The execution of the four United Irishmen at Innoshannon — Why the H s became Protestants — Our first glass shop window — The old black buU — From Bandon, but no Irishman 500

CHAPTER XXV.

The first Eoman CathoUc who ventured to Uve in one of our principal streets Jack, the Jobber — Nobody did it — The battle of the Cross — The Dunmanway Boy and the Gauger — Mad Mary and the tobacco — The supervisor and the potheen — Complete List of our Chief Magistrates — Oui- Manor Courts . . HISTORY OF BANDON, ERRATUM. Page 239, line 25. — After "the squire" should be "and three daughters — Alice, married, in 1750, to William Beamish, Esq., of Willsgrove, Capt. R.N. She died in 1792, and was buried in Desertserges, leaving, with other issue, two sons — Francis Bernard, of Willsgrove, M.P. for Rathcormac, and William, of Beaumont. Upon the death of the former, who died unmarried, William succeeded. "Mary married at" &c. Qfm|"™SlIE rebellion of the great Earl of Desmond* was over. (<^\ v)rjtP That great effort which the Geraldines had made to §MJ 25»i shake off the English yoke, ended as disastrously as *^ many a previous struggle.

For awhile the insurgents were victorious, and their hopes rose high with their success ; but the tide turned on them, as it had often turned on them before, and those who rode out triumphantly on the ebb were overwhelmed with the flow. > So it was with the Eed Earl. After carrying all before him for a time, defeat overtook him. His brother, Sir James, was captured, * Gerald, the sixteenth Earl of Desmond, famiUarly known as the Eed Earl. THE HISTORY OF BANION, AND THE PRINCIPAL tried by court-martial, his body was quartered, and his head was set up over one of the gates of Cork. His brother, Sir John, after being stunned by a blow from a horseman's staff, had his head cut off and sent to Dublin. His body was sent to Cork, whore it was hung up ignominiously by the heels on a gibbet at North-gate.

And he himself — who upon one occasion narrowly escaped being taken prisoner by rushing out of his bed in his shirt, and hiding in the veiy depth of winter under the bank of a river, where ho remained for some time up to his chin in the water — was hunted like a beast of prey across swamps and bogs, through woods, over htils and mountains, and was at last found in a lonely ruin in the wtids of Kerry. "Spare me, I am the Earl of Desmond!" said an old man who lay stretched before the fire ; but a blow from a sword had, ere he spoke, nearly cut off his arm, and life's purple current was flowing fast. Another blow, and the head which had brought, such ruin upon himsoti, his kindred, and his associates, was soon to be scon a ghastly trophy on London Bridge. The country, which was the theatre of this great devastating war for bo many years, was a desert.

There was not a fortress or a town, or a dwelling, or a stack of corn to which the Desmonds had come that they had not burned or destroyed, lest the English should possess it ; and the English left not a house or a granary, or a habitation of any kind in theti course that they did not demolish, lest the Geraldincs should possess it. Thus it was that the vast tract of country which was the seat of war did not contain a fortified castle, nor a tenanted cabin, and had neither corn nor cattle. The greater portion of the population had starved to death, and the rest were starving. " All nearly were brought to such wretchedness," says Spenser, " as that any stony heart must rue the same. Out of every corner of the woodes and glynnes they came creeping forth upon theti handes, for their legges could not bear them.

They looked Uke anatomies of death ; they spoke Uke ghosts, crying out of their grave ; they did eat the dead carrions, happy when they could find them." Into this wasted and almost dispeopled region Elizabeth resolved to introduce English colonies. By doing so she expected that, in a short time, the colonists would by their industry and skill turn waste lands into corn-fields and orchards, and occupy the pastures with sheep and cows. She expected that prosperity would soon reward their perse- HIDING OF COUNTY CORK. vcrance ; and that South Munster, which had been for many years a heavy drain upon her exchequer, would for the future be a support to it ; and that, should another outbreak occur, then she could reckon on the assistance of the colonists, and place unbounded confidence in their fidelity.

This was not the case with her Irish subjects. Although there wore many among them upon whom she had conferred grants of land ; whom she honoured and petted from time to time ; yet she knew they only kept their oath of allegiance to her until they were strong enough to break it. What reliance could be placed in the people when their leaders laughed at their own protestations, and thought as little of breaking their oaths as they did of " drinking unstrained milk ?" How could she ever rely on the Desmonds again ? when Sir James of Desmond and his partizans knelt before the Lord-President, with hands uplifted, and with " countenances betraying theti great sorrow ; with the eyes of my heart sore weeping," said Sir James, " and bewailing my most devilish life past. I acknowledge myself to have most wickedly rebeUed against God, and most undutifuUy against my prince, and most unnaturally against my native country."

He was believed, and he was pardoned; and immediately after he set off for France, where he remained for two years soUciting help to invade the very country which he had used most " unnaturally," and to overpower tho very sovereign against whom he had "rebeUed most undutifuUy." Being unsuccessful with the French king, " who misliketh to deal in Irish matters," he proceeded to Spain ; where he was introduced to PhiUip the Second, by whom he was furnished with letters of introduction to Gregory the Thirteenth. At Rome, Saunders and Alien,* two zealous priests, entered warmly into his designs ; and they obtained from his Holiness a bull, addressed to the prelates and nobles of Ireland, exhorting them to join the" penitent of Kilmallock; and promising the same indulgences to any one that would kill a Protestants in Ireland, as had been previously offered to any one that would kill a Turk. * Allen was soon after kUled in battle ; and Saunders, who was subsequently raised to the dignity of Papal Legate, was found lying dead in a wood in Kerry, and his body half-eaten by wolves. t A book appeared about this time : it was dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, and was entitled:— The supplications of the blood of the English most lamentably murdered in Ireland, crying out of the earth for revenge. _6— Z PBINCTPAX Sir John of Desmond, whose protestations of loyalty had imposed on the authorities, soon joined the force which Sti James had brought over under the auspices of Saunders and AUen, and signaUed his hatred to those who treated him with so much tenderness by an act of the basest treachery.

Entering Tralee at midnight, he found his particular friend, Henry Davels, asleep. Being aroused, Davels became alarmed at seeing men with drawn swords around his bed, but on recognizing his old acquaintance, Sir John, his fears forsook him, and he caUed out to him in his usual friendly tone : — " What, son ! What's the matter ?" " _No more son — nor no more father," gruffly replied Sir John ; " but make thyself ready, for die thou shalt!" Not only was poor Davels put to death, but also every one who was in the house when Sti John and his party entered it. Even the earl himself — ( ' ' who hath been before her Maj esty ; whom her Highness liked weU for his plainness ; and hath good hope of his truth and Constance ") — detained in DubUn on his parole, going out one day under the pretence of hunting, showed his own estimate of his ptighted word by trotting off to Desmond ; where he did not remain long until he rendered his EngUsh friends apprehensive for the safety of the country.

It is no wonder then that Etizabeth " should encourage and enable our loving subjects of good behaviour, and accoumpt, within our realme of England, to inhabit and re-people a great part of the province of Munster, which, through the late rebeltion of the earl of Desmond and others his confederates, hath been utterlie wasted and unpeopled, and made desolate ; and that, as well by the attainders of the earl and his confederates, as by the forfeiture, escheat, and other lawful means sundry lordships, manors, lands, tenements, and hereditaments within the province, are come into our hands ; and whereas, &c." AU these sundry lordships and tenements here referred to amounted in the aggregate to 547,628 acres ; and this large extent of country was expected in a few years to be inhabited by twenty thousand English people.

Etizabeth had set her heart upon the colonization of Munster. She sent SU John Popham,* her Attorney-General, down to Somersetshire * SU- John Popham was descended from an ancient family that was formerlv seated at Popham, in Hants. He was born in Somersetshire, in 1531. When about sixteen years old be entered Baliol CoUege, Oxford ; and, upon obtaining his degree to coax the gentry in that district to send over the junior members of theti families as undertakers, and caused letters to be written to people of distinction in every shire in England with the same intent. To such as would come she offered estates in fee, at twopence and threepence an acre. Rent not to commence until the end of the thtid year, and even then a half-year's rent was to be accepted in lieu of a whole for three years mores For every twelve thousand acres thus bestowed the undertaker was to plant eighty-six English Protestants families upon the lands, and smaUcr or larger grants were to be peopled in the same ratio.

He was to erect a suitable residence for each family. Three houses for freeholders, § to each of whom was to be assigned three hundred acres at least, at the rate of sixteen feet and a-half to the lug or pole. Three houses for farmers, to each of whom was to be assigned four hundred acres of tike measurement. Twenty-one for copyholders or other base tenures, to each of whom was to be assigned one hundred acres ; and to the residue there was to be assigned fifty acres, twenty-five acres, or ten acres. he became a law student in the Middle Temple. He was not at the bar many years before he enjoyed an extensive practice, and had attained to great eminence. In 1570 he was made sergeant-at-law. He was appointed to the office of soUcitor general, and subsequently to that of attorney-general ; and in 1581 he was made Lord Chief-Justice ofthe Court of Queen's Bench.

His " Eeports and Cases" display considerable abUity and great industry. In 1607 he died, leaving — besides seven daughters — one son, Sir Francis ; who married Annie, daughter of John Dudley, by whom he had five sons and eight daughters. Amongst the sons were Alexander, one of CromweU's lords, and Edward, one of the "sea generals" of the parUamentary fleet. Admiral Popham is described as a brave man, but violently attached to independence. He died of fever at Dover, in 1651, and was interred iu St. John's Chapel, Westminster Abbey. At the restoration, his body. was dragged out of his grave, at the same time as that of Mrs. EUzabeth CromweU, the Lord Protector's mother, who had been buried with great state within the abbey waUs. Mrs. CromweU's remains were flung contemptuously into a hole dug before the doorway of one of prebendaries of St. Margaret's ; but through some interest which the relatives of Admiral Popham's wife, Anne (daughter of WUliam Carre), had with the government, his were given up to them, and his monument was permitted to remain where it was, but with the inscription reversed.

The Bandon Pophams claim descent from the same parent stock as Sir John ; and it is very probable that her Majesty's attorney-general, who endeavoured to pursuade the gentry of his native shire to send some of their younger chUdren over to this new colony, should also have induced some of his own kindred to do the same. t Bogs and mountains were to pay no rent until improved, and were then only to be charged at the rate of a halfpenny an acre. X The planters were to be English, and theuheirs were to man-y none but of English bn-th. The settlers were not to permit any of " the meer Irish" to be maintained in any of thenfamilies. § Every freeholder, from the year 1590, was bound to furnish a horse and armed horseman; and a copyholder, an armed footman. An undertaker for 12,000 acres had to supply three horsemen and six footmen.

PRINCIPAI The undertakers did not perform what they undertook. Most of them did not bring over the stipulated number of tenants. Many of them made leases and conveyances to the Irish, whom they were bound whoUy to exclude. Some of them became absentees; and several abandoned their seigniories to their former possessors. In fine, it does not appear that a single one of the entire number of patentees compUed with the conditions of his patent excepting Phane Beecher, the founder of the colony of Bandon-Bridge ; who carried out the in tentions of his patent with such fidelity, as to elicit from one of his contemporaries, who was engaged in an enterprise similar to his own, the following high testimonial to his integrity, and to his disinterested ness and success : — " This Master Beecher," said he, " by means of his honest and plaine deating, rather seeking to replenish his countrie wdth people, according to her Majesty's grant, than esteeming any great gain to himself, hath gotten more sufficient tennauntes into his saide countrie than any other two that doe attempte the like within the province of Munster.

Soe wel doe oure countiiemen esteem of his worde, that, of my own knowledge, a dossen gentlemen of good accompt have dealth with him for five hundreth acres apeace onely upon his report ; none of which ever saweth same. But there is no hope of any more land to be had of him, for he hath atieady, to pleasure his countrie, straightned his demeasnes, which, I suppose,, he would have done if he had had half the Desmond's land ; so many are desirous to inhabbitfe with him."* If every other planter had executed the behests of his sovereign with the same honesty of purpose and assiduity as Master Beecher, South Munster would be to this day as loyal and devoted to the crown of England as any other portion of the British isles. Among the confederates of the Earl of Desmond was Cnogher O'Mahony.j- This young chieftain entered warmly into the earl's * A brief description of Ireland, made in the year 1589, by Robert Payne. t Cnogher O'Mahony, of Castle-Mahon, was of royal extraction, ne was descended from Mathgamhain, who derived his descent through a loii" Une of ancestors from Cas, brother to Nadfroch, son of Core, who was king of Munster ■ and who was himself descended from OUoli Olum, who was also a king of Munster and who died a.d. 234.

The O'Mahonys of Castle-Mahon were not a powerful 6ept. The utmost that they at any time were able to bring into the field were twenty six horse — no gaUow glasses — and one hundred and twenty kern. When the Lord- Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney, visited Cork in 1575, amongst those who came to pay thenrespects to him was O'Mahony, whom he represents as " a man of smaU force although a proper countrie." They came into this neighbourhood from Carbery in 1460 — according to the report of an Inquisition held in Cork in 1584 — and possessed themselves of lands at that time the property of the crown, but previously the designs, and lost both Use and estate in his cause. His course was a brief one. At the early ago of twenty-three, death overtook him in one of the many sanguinary engagements which took place between the Queen's troops and the rebels.

But much injury may be inflicted upon an enemy, even in a short space of time, by an active and resolute leader; and it would seem that such a one was Cnogher O'Mahony, as not a single acre of thg large inheritance he left behind him was ever restored to any of his kit or kin. The forfeitures of O'Mahony included his residence at Castle- Mahon, and his lands — which lay for several miles on both sides of the river Bandon. The castle and a large portion of the lands, amounting in the aggregate to fourteen thousand acres, were conferred on Phane Beecher, son of Alderman Henry Beecher, of London. The patent, which is dated September the 30th, 1588, grants to " Phane Beecher, of London, the Castle of O'Mahony (alias Mahown's Castle), and the moiety of all the lands and hereditaments therein — 14,000 acres — at the yearly rent of £66 13s. 4d." By the conditions of the patent, Beecher was bound " to erect, or cause to be erected, houses for fourscore and eleven — ninety-one famiUes.