John Pratt, son of Ebenezer Pratt and Dighton Richmond, was born on August 14, 1788 in Taunton, Bristol County, Massachusetts.
John Pratt was the father of Dr. J. R. Pratt. He resided in the house/tavern on the corner of Main Street and Pratt Road in Manchester. Through the years, he acquired additional acreage.
John had a propensity for books. His only stock venture was on February 11, 1817 when he was given one share of stock in the Manchester Library. John would have been the perfect secretary in his day and in ours. He kept track of his expenses on a spreadsheet and when debts were as small as $1, he recorded when they were paid. It seems natural that he was selected as the secretary/treasurer of town meetings and as the secretary/treasurer of militia parading. He recorded militia names, rank, pay, weapons, etc.
In a small notation in the John Pratt Collection is the following note, “The annual meeting of the Manchester Library Society will be held on the 8th day of January next at the house of John Pratt in the village of Manchester for the purpose of choosing officers to manage the library at the ensuing year.”[1] John was passionate about being in the Manuscript Library Society. He was the longest standing volunteer librarian in the area. He was a paid librarian only for the years 1824-1826. It was not only books in the library that fascinated him, but books he collected. He had over six hundred books and dozens of manuscripts in his home.
John’s secondary interest was religion. In January 1816, the trustees of the Baptist Church in Farmington recorded that John paid $45.50 for half of No. 45 pew in the stone meetinghouse in Manchester. For him, being a trustee for the Baptists was as important as being a Free Mason. He never became a worshipful master warden of the Free Masons, but he did become the secretary/treasurer.
His secretarial/treasurer skills were called upon by village leaders of Manchester. He was given the responsibility of financially assisting the poor in the village. Beginning in the early 1820s, John was either acting as the overseer of the poor or paying for bushels of corn, etc. to satisfy debts of the poor. He also became a school trustee. As such, he had responsibility for the treasury of the school district. On September 29, 1837, it was recorded, “Received of John Pratt, Trustee of School District #8, $25 in part payment for teaching the summer school of 1837 in said district.”[2]
With his various affiliations, John had a relationship with Lyman Cowdery. It appears he also switched his religious allegiance. On February 1, 1843, he paid $1.25 in full for a pew in the Methodist Episcopal Church in Manchester. John Pratt died on November 9, 1868 in Manchester at age eighty.
[1] John Pratt Collection, in Ontario County Historical Society. In author’s possession.
[2] John Pratt Collection.