Description:

Documents:
1. Will [4 pages] dated 28 January 1755 .
Beneficiaries: By a marriage settlement containing reference to £200 for the benefit of the younger children made between Samuel Watkins and his late wife Mary, he bequeaths £100 to his daughter, Mary and £100 to his daughter, Martha. A further sum of £100 charged on estates in Monmouthshire for a portion for a younger child is to go to his daughter Rachel. Two parcels of land purchased from William and Elizabeth Watkins are to provide a further portion for his sons Samuel and William. Samuel is to pay William £60 out of it.
Samuel is to be residual legatee, save for the testator's household goods, provided he pay all funeral expenses and debts also £160 as follows:
To William £40
To son, James, £100.
To son, Nathaniel, £20
A long list follows to enable the distribution of his household goods between sons and daughters. It includes a large spinning wheel and a large Bible; the rest of his books to be divided amongst his children.
In addition, for the better maintenance of his son, William, his executors are to procure a leasehold or copyhold estate for 3 lives with the £100 left him.

Executor: son, Samuel with Nathaniell Watkins and Henry Marsh as trustees..

Signed by the testator

Witnesses: Samuell Howell, Joseph Thomas and James Jones.

Date of probate: 14 June 1763

2. Inventory: [plus copy] dated 19 July 1762 , value £237 9 0d. Appraisers Robert Gwillim and Henry Marsh

Observations:

Documents include a separate registration instruction and a coversheet; 8 sheets in all.
This was a wealthy man whose inventory shows he must have been brewing in a large way; it also names the rooms in the house and shows he had, for the area, a large herd, 38, of horned cattle.