IMPORTANT INDENTURE ON VELLUM 1621 - PLYMOUTH COLONY- EDMUND FREEMAN SIGNED

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IMPORTANT INDENTURE ON VELLUM 1621 - PLYMOUTH COLONY- EDMUND FREEMAN SIGNED:
$401.00

A historically important indenture on vellum dated 1621 and signed in two places by Edmund Freeman of Billingshurst in Sussex, one of the original Ten Men of Saugus and an Assistant Governor of Plymouth Colony.
11 3/4 inches by 8 3/4 inches.
Very good condition for its age with no losses. Seal tag still present and signed across by Edmund Freeman.
Dated \" the five and twenty day of Aprill in the eighteenth year of the rayne of our Sovereign Lord James, by the grace of God of England, Scotland , France and Ireland,King defender of the Faith and of Scotland the free\"
Signed again to the rear by Edmund Freeman, and by a Leonard Crooke. There is a mention of a Leonard Crooke being a Steward to to a Lord of the Manor, Giles Garton at Bassetts Fee Manor in Billingshurst in 1639.
There is a third signature that I cannot decypher at this time.
Edmond is shown as married at the time of the document to his first wife, Bennett ( Hodsoll).Also mentioned are his brother William and Williams wife, Christian Hodsoll.
Edmond travelled to the US aboard The Abigail in 1635 at the behest of John Beauchamp and the Earl of Warwick to collect monies due from the Plymouth colonists.
In 1637 the Ten Men of Saugus were given permission by the Plymouth court to \" sit down and have sufficient lands for three score families upon the conditions propounded to them by the Governor.\"
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Packaging and FEDEX shipping within CONUS $20. - please ask for international shipping Edmund and his family became recognized settlers of Saugus (Lynn,) Essex County, Massachusetts Bay, early in 1636. In his history of Lynn, Massachusetts,, Lewis says: “This year (1636) many new inhabitants appear in Lynn and among them worthy of note, Mr. Edmund Freeman, who presented to the colony twenty corselets or pieces of plate armour.”
Apparently, this gift had a great deal to do with the colony’s recognizing Edmund as a citizen, for on January 2, 1637, the Plymouth Court granted to Edmund the status of freeman. This means that he was considered fiscally and morally worthy as a citizen and therefore eligible to vote, to serve in public office and to start a new settlement. For a short time in 1637 the Freemans moved to Duxbury, and, on March 7, 1637, Edmund was sworn in as a Grand Juryman “to inquire of all abuses within the body of this government.” But soon, he and nine other “men of Saugus” received sanction to found a new settlement about fifteen miles from Plymouth at the gateway to Cape Cod. The decree of the Plymouth Court, issued on April 3, 1637, read: “It is also agreed by the Court that those ten men of Saugus shall have liberty to view a place to sit down and have sufficient lands for three score families upon the conditions propounded to them by the Governor and Mr. Winslow..” The grant was made to these ten men on the assumption that they were all members of the church and freemen, and that being such, they would receive into the township when organized only such persons as already were church members or fit to become so. Mr. Edmund Freeman picked his own associates in the enterprise, and the nine men who, with himself, were known as the ten proprietors of Sandwich were of his own choice from the list of his personal friends. It has been stated that Freeman displayed a well balanced judgment in this choice with respect to his associates’ station in life and their respective ages. Including himself, five, John Carman, Thomas Dexter, Henry Feake and Richard Chadwell were men of means. The other five, William Almy, Edward Dillingham, William Wood, Thomas Tupper and George Knott were men of moderate circumstances. The oldest men in the company, those past fifty, were Dexter, Feake, Carman, Knott and Tupper. On the other hand, Freeman, Almy, Dillingham, Wood and Chadwell were comparatively young men. Of the ten, five eventually moved from the community, the five remaining to end their days in Sandwich being Edmund, George Knott, Richard Chadwell, Edward Dillingham and Thomas Tupper.