Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
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To our trusty and well beloved
Epaphras Hoyt,
of Deerfield, — in the County of
Franklin, Esquire,

Greeting:
We, reposing special trust and confidence in your
Caleb Strong ability and integrity, have, by and with the advice of our
Council, appointed, and do by these Presents appoint you
SHERIFF of our said County of Franklin during
our good pleasure, and do authorize and empower you, with-
in our said County, as well by yourself as by your Deputy
or Deputies, lawfully appointed and qualified, to execute all
writs and precepts, to you and them directed and commit-
ted, issued from good and lawful authority ; and by yourself or deputies, as the Laws
and Constitution direct, to take charge of all the Gaols within our said County, and of all
Prisoners that may be within the same ; and the peace of our said County to conserve and
keep. And to do and perform whatever, by our Constitution and Laws, doth or may ap-
pertain to the said office of Sheriff ; rendering an account from time to time to our
Treasurer, as the laws direct, of all dues, fines and forfeitures, accruing, happening or
arising within our said County.
AND we do command all our good citizens, within our said County, that they be aiding
and assisting you, the said Epaphras Hoyt, Esq^r. in executing and
performing the authority and trust hereby reposed in you.

In testimony whereof, We have caused our public seal to be hereunto affixed.
Witness, His Excellency Caleb Strong, our
Governor and Commander in Chief, at BOSTON, the nineteenth day of
October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
fourteen, and in the thirty ninth year of the Independence of
the United States of America.
By His Excellency the Governor.

Alden Bradford { Secretary of the
Commonwealth

(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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Epaphras Hoyt, a man of affairs in Deerfield, Massachusetts, served as High Sheriff of the county from 1814 to 1831. He was also active as an author, surveyor, postmaster, justice of the peace, and register of deeds during his long life of public service. Mr. Hoyt was a major general in the Massachusetts militia and published a "Treatise on the Military Art" in 1798. He published other military and genealogical articles and left manuscripts on Burgoyne's campaign as well as notes on various aspects of the French and Indian wars.

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