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Plymouth Colony at once placed the lands on the market, and September 14, 1680, sold them for $1,100 to four men of Boston, John Walley, Nathaniel Byfield, Stephen Burton and Nathaniel Oliver. The first three of these became residents of the town they founded. Of them, Byfield was the ablest and most distinguished. He came of good stock. His father was of the Westminster Assembly of Divines. His mother was sister of Juxon, bishop of London and later archbishop of Canterbury, who was a personal friend of Charles I, and attended that ill fated monarch upon the scaffold. Byfield was the wealthiest of the settlers. He had one residence upon Poppasquash near the head of that peninsula, and one upon what is now Byfield Street in the south part of the town. He was a man of unusual ability and large wealth. He was also a man of great liberality in all his dealings with the town. His public service was continuous and distinguished. His liberal mind resisted the insane fanaticism of the people during their delusion on the subject of witchcraft, and in his will he left a bequest “to all and every minister of Christ of every denomination in Boston.” He lived forty-four years in Bristol, only leaving the town when his advanced age made the greater comforts of Boston necessary.

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