Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/542

 438 THE HISTOKY OF BAEEINGTON. River to Providence, where the Washington Bridge was afterwards built. That the lottery was a success in a business light is proven by the facts that the meeting-house was repaired and the main road through the town from southeast to northwest was laid out and constructed. Reference is elsewhere made to the great expense of the town in building this road. In proof that our ancestors were no more nor less virtuous nor clear in their notions of ethics than their fellows of that period, we again find them applying to the General Assem- bly, the supreme power to remedy the ills of society, in 1798, for another lottery, for the sole benefit of the Congre- gational Church. This was the year when the charter of the United Congregational Society was granted and two years after the death of the venerable pastor. Rev. Solomon Townsend. A Lottery was granted to the United States Congrega- tional Society in Barrington, January, 1798, as follows : "Whereas Joshua Bicknell and others, Members of the United Congregational Society, in Barrington, preferred a Petition unto this Assembly and represented, that their House, by them occupied for publick religious Worship, is much decayed, and that the settling the Gospel in that Place, has exhausted their Finances, so that the aforesaid House of Worship, must remain in its present Ruinous Condition, unless relieved by the kind interposition of the Legislature of this State, and thereupon prayed this Assembly to grant them a Lottery, to raise the sum of three thousand Dollars, to be appropriated to the Repairs of said Meeting House, and for the further Establishment of a Gospel Ministry in Said Society, and that the said Joshua Bicknell, and Thomas AUin, Esquires might be appointed Directors of said Lottery, on giving Bonds agreeably to Law : And the premises being duly considered. It is voted and Resolved, that the Prayer of said Petition be granted, that the said Joshua Bick- nell and Thomas Allen, Esquires, be and they are hereby appointed Directors of said Lottery, on giving Bonds ac-