The little brown house stands on a part of the tract which in 1686 the "Proprietors of Pocumtuck" "sequestered for the use of the ministry of Deerfield forever." In this service the lot was leased from year to year by a committee chosen by the town, the income of it going, during his lifetime, to the Rev. John Williams, our "Redeemed Captive," and afterwards to his successor in office, Rev. Jonathan Ashley.

As in later days, so in the olden time, leased lands fared hardly. Every thing possible was taken from it, and little or nothing returned. In 1759, after seventy years of this kind of treatment, the selectmen in a petition to the General Court say, "the soil is poor and barren for want of manure," also that the land is of less benefit to the minister than its value in money would be, and they ask leave of the General Court to sell it. There was, however, another reason for this action, and, it may be, the main one.

Deerfield was then the center of business for a large region round about, and craftsmen of many kinds— "tradesmen" they were then called — were seeking places here on which to build shops where they could exercise their handicrafts. Suitable locations were hard to get, and the ministerial lot, lying along the Albany road, was wanted for that purpose. In 1760, under the authority of an act of the colo-