1748 September 7 (Wednesday). We met at the Meeting House. Mr. Hall (according to Turn) pray’d. Such of the Separatists as had any Things to offer, who had not opportunity heretofore, were call’d; and while the Moderator was attending upon one or Two who presented themselves, a Certain Woman (Mr. David Wadsworths Wife) from behind cry’d out and came up the Great Alley crying out “O Dear souls in the Name of my great Lord and Master, have a Single Eye etc.” With much ado the Moderator Still’d her. Dr. David Batchellor[1] openly declar’d himself a Separatist; and the rather because we had resisted (as he judg’d) the Ordinance and will of the Lord in not suffering that sister to go on with her message. We din’d at Deacon Whipples. P.M. the ministers call’d in several of those who had been wont to clogg the church in dealing with the Separatists, and conferr’d with them — viz. Mr. Abner Stow, Joseph Batchelour, Gideon Baker and several others. At length the whole Church and all the people were call’d in: and Deacon Merriam[2] was interrogated. Mr. Eaton pray’d, before the Church was dismiss’d at Night.
[1][Additional note: Batchellor is not listed among Grafton’s physicians in Frederick Clifton Pierce, History of Grafton, Worcester County, Massachusetts, from Its Earliest Settlement…to the Present Time, 1879… (Worcester: Chas. Hamilton,1879), 372-75; nor is he elsewhere given that title in Parkman’s diary.]
[2]Joseph Merriam.