Your great grandfather Ari Boynton (b. 1806, d. 1888 while shoveling snow in the great blizzard) and his wife Calista Loring (b. 1810 at Petersham, mass., d. about 1900).

Once when Tana and I were there, Grandma Boynton complained of the high grass in the yard and I offered to cut it. She objected because it was Sunday. "But of course the grass is awful long," she admitted, adding, "and it would take someone who knew how to swing a scythe." I said I guessed I hadn't forgotten how, and as she said no more about Sunday, I sharpened up her scythe and cut the grass. When I had finished this desecration of the Sabbath, she merely smiled and said with a twinkle in her eye, "Well, I never thought I'd have a New York lawyer come and cut my grass for me!"

Ari Boynton was descended from William Boynton (b. 1605), who joined an expedition organized by Sir Matthew Boynton and emigrated to Massachusetts in 1638, where he settled at Rowley, Essex Co. Sir Matthew stayed in England and joined Cromwell in the Great Rebellion.

Calista Loring was the daughter of Israel Loring (b. 1768 at Barre, Mass.) and Hannah Jones, daughter of John and Betsy Hapgood Hones of Princeton, Mass. Israel served in the force which put down Shay's rebellion in 1787. Capt. John Jones, grandfather of Calista Loring, died of smallpox at Crown Point, leaving a widow and four children including Hannah, born 1772. The father of Capt. Jones, a surveyor, sheriff and justice of the peace, was a great Tory. He wrote in his diary: