Found this on the Essex mailing list.
I guess it's safe for us to travel to Billerica, Mass. now.
Subject: Thomas and Martha Carrier
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 12:07:05 EST
From: LeoNTopVMe(a)aol.com
To: ESSEX-ROOTS-L(a)rootsweb.com
Taken from the Lowell Sun newspaper dated Tuesday March 16, 1999:
Billerica family's 323-year exile ends
by Pierre Comtois, Sun Correspondent
BILLERICA- The Carrier family won redemption last night-although it came
323
years too late.
The Board of Selectmen, seeking to undo a wrong committed by their
predecessors during colonial times, voted last night to rescind the
banishment
of the entire Carrier family.
In 1676, Thomas and Martha Carrier and family were told by selectmen
to
leave town forthwith or pay a surety of 20 shillings per week if they
wanted
to stay.
Selectman Edward Hurd, who's wife is a descendant from the family,
said town
records aren't clear but he believes that "a member of the family had
the
smallpox virus" and town officials didn't want them to be a burden on
their
neighbors.
This immediate family moved to Andover, only to see Martha accused of
witchcraft in the 1690's and sentenced to hang atop Gallows Hill in
Salem.
Members of the family later moved to Colchester, CT, Hurd said, though
some
stayed behind in Billerica.
In the early 1700's, said Hurd, the Massachusetts government
apologized to
Thomas Carrier for the hanging of his wife and paid him a settlement.
Last night was the town's turn to make good. Hurd asked his colleagues
to
rescind the banishment as an "appropriate gesture" to the Carrier
family.
It was unanimously approved.
______________________________
Neal F. Carrier
Holland Patent, NY
ncarrier(a)dreamscape.com
Listowner CARRIER-L Mail List
Rootsweb.com Contributor