The mystery is solved, thanks to Stewart Baldwin, who said it was "acompt", an archaic word and spelling for "account." I never would have thought the letter after "a" was a "c." Once you Google "year of Christian account," you can see what the phrase means. Thank you, Stewart! Thank you to the others who asked for a copy of the document so they could see if they could help me. This mailing list is one of my favorites. *Katherine Benbow * On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 12:54 PM, Katherine Benbow <benbow.family@gmail.com>wrote: > I am going back and looking at some documents, and one of them is a Quaker > will, which disproves the "rule" about "In the name of God, amen." The > will starts with that phrase and then goes on to say "The 20th day of the > 2nd month in the year of Christian _____ 1713..." The will was by a > wealthy merchant who was a member of a Quaker family in early Philadelphia. > > I am trying to figure out what the word after "Christian" is. It looks > like "atoinpt" but could be "atompt". The "t" doesn't look like an > old-fashioned court "s," but it's a little unlike the other "s" and "t" > letters in the rest of the document, perhaps because it's under the > beginning phrase written in capital letters, and it may be compacted a bit > because of that. > > I am wondering if it's an abbreviated "atonement." but it doesn't look > like there's an "e" after the "n" or "m". Is there a familiar or known > phrase in old Quaker or court documents that would help me decipher this > word? > > If someone wants me to email the cropped image to them, I can do that. I > don't think I can attach files to emails which go through this list. > > *Katherine Benbow > > * >