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The Disposing of Their Children
In January, seventeen forty-six,
Nathan Tyler deeded to his neighbor,
Obadiah Munson, one hundred acres
in Wallingford, Connecticut. The pact
included Tyler’s house and barn, its mills,
and the tacit understanding Tyler’s daughter
Rachel, nine years old, would wed the younger
Obadiah ("Diah"), then fifteen,
when Rachel came of age. The two men closed
the deal with several tankards of hard cider.
And after seven years had passed, they wed.
When Barnabas, their first of twelve, was born,
Obadiah Senior, out of “love,
good will and natural affection,” gave
his son the the house and sixty acres of
as well as all improvements made thereon,
the selfsame bartered tract. And thus began
the young man’s unremitting appetite
for land, an uneventful run of years
when gains outnumbered losses. Wallingford
was good. But Diah Munson needed more.
The years went by. They moved to Farmington,
where Rachel loved her plain and sturdy home,
her busy life, the brand-new Meeting House,
the blessings and the bounties of the farm,
but felt uneasy when she heard the men
and Wil, their teenaged son, discussing plans
to settle in that godforsaken place
where uncle Ephraim Tyler had outrun
Lenape warriors in ’63.
And all the trouble brewing ever since.
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