"1779: The Honourable Theodore Atkinson departed this life on the 22d September, aged eighty-two years...Colonel Atkinson was a person of intelligence and lively imagination; he was remarkable fond of wit and repartee, and on this account encouraged a familiarity with persons of the same habits and disposition, notwithstanding a difference in rank or station in life, or a dissimilarity in other respects. This induced him to take a person named Joseph Moses with him as a waiter, when he was sent as Commissary to the army; he knew very well that Moses would not be obsequious as a servant, but would afford him amusement by his wit. Captain John Chamberlain, representative from Merrimack, was of this character; Colonel Atkinson once asked him what had been done with a certain act which had been sent down from the Council; Chamberlain told him, that there were objections to it in the House , and that it would not pass. Atkinson said ;I wish you were all in Heaven.; Chamberlain replied, I should have no objection, only that it would be an eternal separation from the honourable his Majesty's Council." 10