1740 July 5 (Saturday). I was at Mr. Thatchers[1] and bought the whole works of the Author of the Whole Duty of Man.[2] Several Persons (Cousin Elias, and Two Elizas) accompany’d us to Charlestown. My Daughter Molly, who had been at Boston Several Weeks, being now to return home with us. Mounted between 11 and 12. Din’d at Brother Barretts[3] at Cambridge, his wife having lately been deliver’d of a son. It was after one when we left Cambridge. N.B. The Distemper not so raging as last week, when no less than 8 dy’d therefrom. At Mr. Harringtons Tavern we had Mr. Belcher Hancocks Company to Marlborough. Got home between 9 and 10 and found all in Safety. D.G.
[1]Rev. Peter Thatcher.
[2]Richard Allestree, D.D. (1619-1681), the royalist divine, is generally held to have been the author of The Whole Duty of Man, which was first published in 1658, and went through more than thirty editions. The work Parkman refers to may have been his Forty Sermons whereof Twenty-one are now First Published (2 vols.; London, 1684).
[3]John Barrett, who had married Ruth, the daughter of Samuel Champney, Sr., of Cambridge. Paige, Cambridge, 506.