Sarah Strong (1656–1733), daugh­ter of Elder John Strong (abt. 1610–1699) and Abi­gail Ford (1619–1688) mar­ried Joseph Barnard (1650–1695). Joseph Barnard was the first Town Clerk of Deer­field, Massachusetts.

The Pocum­tuck Val­ley Memo­r­ial Asso­ca­tion, Deer­field, MA, host a num­ber of arti­facts online. They write:

Account Book of Joseph Barnard

Like many peo­ple in New Eng­land, Joseph Barnard (1641–1695) of Deer­field, Mass­a­chu­setts, kept an account book. In its pages Barnard recorded the goods, labor, and ser­vices he exchanged with his trad­ing part­ners. Joseph served as Deerfield’s first town clerk and was con­sid­ered a “pru­dent man.” Barnard’s account entries ended abruptly in 1695. He died after being wounded in an Indian ambush. Barnard and four other armed men were attacked on August 21 as they rode with sacks of grain to grind at a mill about three miles away. In his writ­ten report of the inci­dent to the Gov­er­nor, John Pyn­chon of Mass­a­chu­setts called Barnard’s death “a Hum­bling prov­i­dence, he being a very use­ful & help­ful man in ye place so much under dis­cour­age­ment, & will ye more find & feel ye want of him.”

Click the links below to see these inter­est­ing artifacts:

• Account Book of Joseph Barnard (2 pages high resolution)
• His­tory of the Con­necti­cut Val­ley in Mass­a­chu­setts (many pages, with illustrations)
• Deer­field Town Meet­ing (4 pages, 1728–1729, high resolution)
• A Bio­graph­i­cal Mem­oir of the Rev. John Williams, the Deer­field Cap­tive, with sketches of Early Indian Wars

I’m sure you’ll enjoy brows­ing through more of the dig­i­tal library. Watch for the “See Also” links on the right side of each page.