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| The Goshen, Massachusetts, town hall. John James is your 5G grandfather |
- Immigrants to the Americas are highlighted. Men who fought in the American Revolution are marked with (AR).
- The General Court is the colony's legislature, similar to a state legislature today. You'll see that many of your ancestors served as representatives to, and leaders within, the General Court. I saw it so often, in fact, that I did not even always include it in the individual profiles.
- A deacon is the lay leader of a local congregation. I cannot tell if it was a lifelong appointment or if once given, the title of deacon was used for the rest of a man's life. There are more deacons in this list than I've indicated. I generally dropped all the titles (except Reverend) when compiling this blog, but you'll see titles, especially deacon, in the clippings I copied here.
- In 1751-52, the legal calendar was changed. Before the switch, a calendar year started on March 25, so that a date like January 1, 1750 (as recorded in the old system) would be January 1, 1751 (as recorded in the new system.) In some records created after that switch, dates like that were often noted as January 1, 1750/1751. I'm not doing professional-quality research, so I mostly just ignored this and picked up only the earlier year if there was any ambiguity.
- Long Island is now part of New York, but from 1625, when English settlers first arrived, through the late 1600s, control of the settlements bounced back and forth between the Netherlands and England, and when governed by England, between the colonies of Connecticut and New York. Many of your ancestors were born and died there during the 1600s; I've noted all those events as occurring simply in "Long Island," without bothering to look up who was in control at the time of each event.
- Inconsistent spelling: Spelling of neither names nor of words was yet standardized in colonial times. When a family name was inconsistently spelled (e.g., Worick, Warrick, Worwick) I rather arbitrarily chose one and tried to use it consistently in this blog, without including all the alternatives. If anyone tries to check my work or to dig deeper, keep that in mind.
- Numbering system: To find anyone's father, double their number and add one; to find anyone's mother, double their number and add two. To find any father's kid, subtract one and divide by two; to find any mother's kid, subtract two and divide by two. If you notice a missing number, it's because: a) Ancestry.com had no information about that person; b) the person/couple is a duplicate--that is, somewhere down the line, cousins married or c) for those in the earliest generations, they stayed in England.
Notes to myself are highlighted in green:
- Sort out who died in which attack/battle, starting with the Pequot War (1636-1638--I don't think we lost anyone in that short war, though John Plumb #1569 played a key role); King Phillip's War (we lost a lot: Bloody Brook 1675; Brookfield 1675; Turner's Falls 1676; and through 1678); Queen Anne's War (1702-1713; Deerfield 1704); other skirmishes and massacres; and the French & Indian Wars (1754–1763), and the Revolution (I think we lost two.)
- Make a list of all the New England towns for which one or more of these individuals is listed among the founders.
- After everything else is done: Work forward in time from Roger Ludlow to see if you can find Mary Sanford's parents.
Here's the town hall that Goshen constructed 100 years after John James' death.
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| First a town hall, the James Memorial building is now a library. |
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| Image from SAR Membership #11177; application filed 1898 |
In April 1775, Jonathon was a private in Captain Abel Thayer’s Company, a militia organized from men in Hampshire County, MA. His service record indicates he was a minuteman. (Minutemen were militia men who were selected and trained to be instantly deployed.)
The alarm of April 19—the one that Paul Revere spread and that, after he was captured, spread out from Lexington—reached Hampshire County 80 miles away, on April 21.
Captain
Thayer’s Company immediately marched and joined John Fellow’s regiment in the
growing force that surrounded Boston. The Siege of Boston successfully prevented the
British from leaving Boston overland.
Over the course of the war, Warner served in multiple engagements, including Bennington and the Saratoga campaign (he was shot in the shoulder at Saratoga). He advanced to the rank of 1st Lieutenant by 1779. After the war, in 1781, he was promoted to captain, and saw more action with Shay’s Rebellion in 1787, when he was captured by Shay’s men and held for several days.
“Sir: about 2 o’clock this morning, five barges from the British squadron came and made an attack upon Sag Harbor, took three vessels, set fire to one, but met with a reception so warm and spirited from our militia there stationed, who are entitled to much credit, as also many citizens of the place, that they abandoned their object and made a very precipitate retreat. They threw some shot almost to the extreme part of the place, but fortunately no lives were lost or injury done except to the vessels which they had in possession, one of which was bored through and through by an 18 lb. shot from the fort.”
The British retreated in such
haste that they left a large quality of guns, swords and other arms behind.
Your 7G grandparents
Born between 1656 and 1741
383 & 384 - Thomas James b. 1669; d.1724 and Patience Tower b.1678; d.1741 Both Thomas and Patience were born and died in Hingham, MA.
385 & 386 - Joseph Bates III b.1687; d.1750 and Deborah Clapp b.1686; d.1783
Slave holder
Both Joseph and Deborah were born and died in Hingham, MA.
The 1776 will of Hugh Roberts #879 is similar: Rather than emancipate his one slave, Hugh instead bequeaths "the labor of my negro, Toby" to his wife as long as she lives and after that, Toby is given the choice of which of Hugh's sons he wants to live with.
387 & 388 - Andrew Beal b.1685; d.1762 and Rachel Bates b.1696; d.1780 Both were born and died in Hingham, MA
389 & 390 - Chasling Worrick b.1697; d.1749 and Hester Bates b.1697; d.1739 Both were born and died in Hingham, MA
Chasling, a shoemaker, died of drowning at age 52 while fetching water.
391 & 392 - John Lyman (younger) b.1660; d.1740 in Northampton and Mindwell Sheldon b.1665; d.1735 in Northampton
Mindwell's older brother John (your 7G granduncle) was a hero of the Deerfield story--or at least its aftermath:
Like quite a few other men among our Puritan ancestors, Samuel was a deacon of the church, and he is usually identified with that title in the records.
395 & 396 - Capt. Roger Clapp b.1684 Northampton, d.1762 Dorchester and Elisabeth Bartlett b.1687; d.1767 - Northampton, MA
Roger has a lengthy, detailed will saved to the online family tree.
397 & 398 - Waitsill Strong b.1677, d.1762 and Mindwell Bartlett, b.1682, d.1741 - Northampton.
399 & 400 - Jonathan Wells b.1658 Springfield, MA; d.1738 Deerfield, MA and Sarah Strong b.1656 Hartford. CT; d.1738 Deerfield
Had you known him, you would NOT have predicted Jonathan would die an old man. He seems to
have been drawn to combat from an early age, and lived at a very combative place (the Connecticut River frontier) at a very combative time.
As he
reached his teenage years, previously peaceful relations with the
Natives were giving way to hostilities as English settlements grew; as tribes continued to contest each other; and
as France and England competed for control of America. Someone was always ready to fight someone else.
Jonathan's recorded martial exploits start at age 16, in King Phillip's War. Read the details of his harrowing escape in this history, which seems to have entered colonial folklore. I saw the incident mentioned in some histories that have nothing to do with our ancestors as "the Falls Fight from which young Jonathan
Wells escaped," or some other similar reference. Your other ancestors who saw action at the Falls Fight were your 8G grandfathers Preserved Clapp and John Lyman, and your 9G grandfathers Nathaniel Dickinson, William Clark, and David Hoyt (the elder, #803).
Jonathan fought in other skirmishes and led the 90-man militia that vainly fought to protect the village of Deerfield in 1704.
Sarah and Jonathan were each other's second marriage. A local history, written in 2012 by Edward Barnard, reports: “Sarah must have been stylish and well dressed, for in 1675 at 18 years of age she married Joseph Barnard, the well-educated son of early Puritan settlers of Hartford, CT. Joseph Barnard was a tailor, surveyor, and farmer. In 1676, Sarah was indicted, along with 37 other women and 30 men for wearing silk, contrary to law. (She was fined 2 shillings and 6 pence).
Joseph and Sarah moved to be among the first
settlers of Deerfield, MA, where Joseph was mortally wounded in an Indian
ambush in 1695 as he rode with five other men taking bags of grain to the
mill. Sarah was left with nine children living at home and gave birth to a tenth in
March of 1696, six months after Joseph’s death. In 1698 Sarah married a second
time to Captain Jonathan Wells, a hero in King William’s War.”
401 & 402 - David Hoyt b.1676 Hatfield; d.1704 Deerfield and Mary Edwards b.1675 Northampton, d.1747 Deerfield
Mary and their infant daughter (#200) survived the Deerfield Raid, which started in the dawn hours of February 29, 1704, described in the highlights post in this blog. David was
one the seven men who defended the Stebbins house for more than two
hours, in which his and several other families were sheltered and that was burned after the attackers left. David then joined the
party that pursued the French and Indians who were holding the captives,
and was killed later that day in the "field fight."
403 & 404 - John Graves b.1664, Hatfield; d.1746 Hatfield and Sarah Banks b.1666 Chelmsford, MA; d.1709 Hatfield
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| Someone on Ancestry. com contributed this as a portrait of Nathaniel Dickinson, but did not cite a source. |
Nathaniel was a deacon of the church .
407 & 408 - Mark Warner b.1677 Hadley, MA; d.1766 Northampton and Lydia Phelps b.1683, d.1765 in Northampton.
409 & 410 - Jonathan Wright b.1681; d.1743 in Northampton and Experience Edwards b.1691 Westfield; d.1721 Northampton
411 & 412 - Ebenezer Sheldon b.1677; d.1755 and Mary Hunt b.1679; d.1767. Both Ebenezer and Mary were born and died in Northampton.
Ebenezer is the brother of #392 Mindwell Sheldon
417 & 418 - John Smith b.1732 England; d.1775 Long Island and Mary Slowby b.1736 England; d.1775 Long Island
419 & 420 - John Fitz Young b.1722; d.1754 in Suffolk and Mehitable Cleveland b.1724 Suffolk NY; d.1808 New York, New York
421 & 422 Benjamin Brown b.1720; d.1774 and Mary Tuthill b.1722; d.1770. Both Ben and Mary were born and died in Suffolk, NY.
431 & 432 - Joseph Tichenor b.~1740 Morris County, NJ; d.unknown and Susannah Day b.1741; d.~1820, probably New Jersey for both
435 & 436 -John Vreeland b. 1735 New Amsterdam; d. .... and Marritje Kidney (Kittney) b. 1739 Barbados; d. 1795, New Jersey
439 & 440 - Moses Roberts b.1724; d.1804 (AR) and Mary Coe b.1726; d.1791 Both Moses and Mary were born and died in Newark, NJ.
Moses's will indicates that Newark then is a lot different than Newark now:
441 & 443 - James Wade b.1730; d.1774 and Hannah Hinman b.1731; d.1792 Both James and Hannah were born and died in Newark, NJ.
It looks like James had time to write a quick will before he died in 1774 at age 44.
444 & 445 - Peter Lyon b.1722; d.1784 and Joanna Clark b.1725; d.1783 Both Peter and Joanna were born and died in Elizabethtown, NJ
445 & 446 John Willcocks (AR) b.1727; d.1776 both in New Providence NJ and Massy Ross b.1727 Elizabethtown, NJ; d.1801 New Providence
Military action
The website of Union County, New Jersey has an inventory of "Deserted Village Cemeteries." It includes this information:
The Willcocks family cemetery is also located in the Deserted Village. There are an estimated 24 graves in this little modest cemetery. There are headstones of three Revolutionary War Patriots. The original headstone is of John Willcocks who died November 22, 1776. John Willcocks was a member of “Captain Marsh’s Light Horse Troop,” and was killed defending General George Washington's retreat across New Jersey.
According
to one historical account: On November 16, 1776, Fort Washington fell
to an overwhelming assault by the British forces who captured over 2,000
American troops. Following the fall of New York City to British
occupation, the Continental Army crossed the Hudson River and scaled the
Palisades to man the fortifications on the bluffs of Fort Lee.
General Washington, realizing that with the loss of New York’s Fort Washington, Fort Lee was of little military value, and made preparations to evacuate his remaining army through New Jersey. An orderly retreat, however, was not in store for the Americans. On November 20, General Cornwallis ferried between 6,000 and 8,000 men across the Hudson River north of Fort Lee. When word of the crossing reached Washington, he ordered the abandonment of Fort Lee and an immediate retreat before his army was cut off and captured by the British. Most of the American supplies and artillery had to be left behind. During these darkest days for the Revolution when it seemed as though the Continental Army could not survive, Thomas Paine, who was in Fort Lee with Washington’s army, wrote the famous words, “These are the times that try men’s souls.”
Your 8G grandparents
Born between 1605 and 1713
767 & 768 - Francis James b.1632; d.1684 and & Elizabeth Hyland b.1632; d.1688. Both Francis and Elizabeth were born in Hingham, England and died in Hingham, MA.
769 & 770 - Ibrook Tower b.1644; d.1732 & Margaret Harding b.1647; d.1705 Both Ibrook and Margaret were born and died in Hingham, MA
771 & 772 - Joseph Bates II b.1660; d.1714 & Mary Lincoln b.1662; d.1752. Both Joseph and Mary were born and died in Hingham, MA
The History of the Lincoln Family (published 1923) says:
773 & 774 - Samuel Clapp b.1642; d.1730 in Scituate, MA & Hannah Gill b.1645 in Hingham; d.1721 in Scituate
Community leader
Clapp was elected to public office consistently for many years. Clapp served in the Plymouth legislature for many years, until it was merged with Massachusetts, and then served in the Massachusetts legislature for many more years.
An 1884 history of Plymouth mentions Grandpa Clapp in the first column on this page, but I think the second column is more interesting, showing how the people of Plymouth felt about losing their special identity when the two colonies merged.
775 & 776 - Jeremiah Beal (younger) b.1655; d.1703 & Hannah Lane b.1658; d.1719 Both Jeremiah and Hannah were born and died in Hingham, MA.
Jeremiah was a blacksmith.
777 & 778 - Joshua Bates b.1671; d.1754 & Rachel Tower b.1674; d.1695 - Both Joshua and Rachel were born and died in Hingham, MA.
Joshua was a bricklayer.
783 & 784 - John Lyman b.1623 in England; d.1690 in Northampton and Dorcus Plum, b.1626 in England; d.1725 in New Haven.
Pioneer conflicts
Lieutenant John Lyman was with the militia defending the Massachusetts frontier during King Phillip's War. He is mentioned several times in this account of the disaster at Turner's Falls in 1676, along with your 8G grandfather Isaac Graves #807 and your 7G grandfather Jonathan Wells #399, who made a harrowing escape.
785 & 786 - Isaac Sheldon b.1629 in England; d.1636 in Northampton and Mary Woodford b.1636 in Roxbury, MA, d.1683 in Northampton.
Coming to America in 1652, Isaac was a relatively late arrival among this bunch. His parents seem to have been with him on the crossing, but they died at sea.
787 & 788 Samuel Allen b.1632 in Braintree; d.1718 in Northampton & Hannah Woodford b.1642 in Hartford, CT; d.1719 Northampton
Regular-people color
This marriage got off to a dramatic start. The couple were engaged when Hannah was only 17--young for marriage among the Puritans. In September 1659, two months before their marriage, Samuel sued John Bliss, also of Northampton "for unjustly stealing away the affections of Hannah Woodford, my espoused wife." Samuel later withdrew the suit "for that he found himself defective in his testimony."
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| Samuel Allen (b.1632) in 1704 |
789 & 790 - Israel Rust b.1643 in Hingham; d.1712 in Northampton and Rebecca Clark, b.1649 in Dorchester MA; d.1733 in Northampton
Israel died without a will, so an inventory of his belongings was filed with the town when he family divided up the property. His property seems to be very typical of the other wills I saw from around this time (1712). In addition to 18 acres, a house, a barn, 2 yokes of oxen, 2 cows, and three horses, he owned:
791 & 792 - Preserved Clapp, b.1643, d.1720 in Northampton and Sarah Newbury b.1650 in Windsor, CT, d.1716 in Northampton
793 & 794 - Samuel Bartlett b.1639, d.1712 in Northampton, and Sarah Baldwin b.1653 in Milford Connecticut, d.1717 in Northampton
795 & 796 - Thomas Strong, b.1637; d.1689, Northampton and Rachel Holton b.1637 in Northampton; d.1689 New Haven.
Some records show Thomas Strong as a "trooper under Major Mason in 1658." The images that some Ancestry members shared with that information have to do with cavalry. That is as much as I know.
799 & 800 - Thomas Welles b.1620 England; d.1676 Hadley, MA and Mary Beardsley, b.1631 Hartford, CT; d.1690 Hadley, MA
I don't know who Fredrick B. Wickman of Amherst was, or why he kept a record about the Wells family or when he wrote it (some of the spelling is archaic), but a document on Ancestry contains this detailed account of making a living on the colonial frontier:
801 & 802 - John Strong, b.1605 in Somerset, England; d.1699 Northampton, MA and Abigail Ford, b.1605 Somerset, England, d.1688 Northampton
Community leader
John seems to be among the most honored and respected of our ancestors among the early settlers of Massachusetts. This book, The History of the Descendants of Elder John Strong,
is not the only book such book written. In brief, he was a successful tanner
and planter and had a hand in either the original settlement or the
early development of Dorchester, Hingham, Taunton, Windsor, and
Northampton. He served in the General Court (the colonial legislature)
and as a church leader. He was among the early patrons of Harvard
University.
All that aside, as I skim his biographies, I cannot help but think that part of the reason he is so well-remembered is that he and Abigail had 16 kids, many of whom grew to adulthood and had many kids of their own. As a result, they had many descendants to get caught up in the late 19th-century local-history-writing craze. One of these histories begins:
His descendants have numbered over thirty thousand persons. Among these are four hundred college graduates, over thirty college professors, as many authors, four governors, over thirty judges, over thirty members of the US Congress, sixty officers of the Revolutionary army; Professors Dane, Whitney, and Goodrich of Yale; Newberry and Dwight of Columbia; Robinson of Union Theogogical Seminary, etc. etc. etc.
803 & 804 - David Hoyt b.1651 Windsor, CT; d.1704 Coos, VT and Sarah Wells b.1655 Wethersfield; d.1676 Hatfield
The circumstances of David's tragic death completely dominate the stories told about him in the family histories. As a result, I could not find the answer to a question I had about his early life: Both of his parents died in July 1655, when David was only four years old. I don't know who raised him.
Sarah was David's first wife. She had died before the Deerfield Raid, as had David's second wife. David and his third wife, Abigail, and two of their children were taken captive. A third child escaped by hiding in a corn bin. Abigail was taken but eventually ransomed, and one of the children stayed with a Mohawk family. David and the youngest child did not survive the march to Canada.
805 & 806 - Joseph Edwards b.1647 Springfield; d.1690 Northampton and Hannah Atkinson b.1653 Boston, d.1735 Northampton
Joseph
and Hannah had settled in Deerfield, and Joseph died before the 1704
raid. Hannah had remarried. She survived the raid
and was not captured, but her husband, Benoni Stebbins, died defending their house.
807 & 808 - Isaac Graves b. ~1620 in England; arrived 1637, d.1677 in Hatfield and Mary Church, b.1662, Duxbury, MA; d.1695 in Hatfield
Pioneer conflict
Isaac is another ancestor we lost in hostilities on the Massachusetts frontier.
John's story is more interesting. We know it thanks to only one 1653 record, a list of Scottish men working at the Saugus Iron Works in Lynn, Massachusetts.
In November 1649, English Parliamentarians beheaded King
Charles I (in the presence of your 10G grandfather Henry Lyon--see his story at #3551). The Scots were not on board with that, and they recognized his son as
King Charles II. So Oliver Cromwell's forces invaded Scotland, and the two
armies met at the Battle of Dunbar in September 1650. The Scots were defeated,
and John Bank was among 10,000 Scots taken prisoner.
He had better luck as a prisoner than as a soldier, which is how he came to be our American ancestor.
On a forced march to England, many of the prisoners died of their wounds, disease, starvation, or being shot. But enough remained alive to cause a headache for the English government. Keeping them in prison would be expensive; letting them go dangerous. So England offered the prisoners for sale as indentured servants, required to work in bondage for seven years without pay.
Most were sold to English coal or salt mines. But one small group went elsewhere. Representatives of an iron works in Lynn, Massachusetts negotiated to take possession of “150 prisoners who are well and sound and free of wounds,” and in November 1650, a boat carrying POW John Bank sailed to America.
The merchants planned to keep some prisoners for the iron works and sell
the remaining men for between 20 and 30 pounds, which would have made a tidy
profit, since they paid only five pounds for each. However, the wintry ocean voyage took a toll on the men's health. One died, and the others, sickly, did not fetch that high a price.
John was among 65 prisoners retained at the iron works. He and the others took their lodgings in the “Scotchmen’s house”, a single building one mile from the iron works. This house, now open to tourists, is believed to have had two rooms around a central chimney with a cellar oven. Eleven beds and bolsters there suggest that they slept two to a bed.
Records of other local businesses indicate that the iron works was buying clothing, shoes, soap, and medical care (such as it was in the 17th century) for its workers.
The Saugus Iron Works at Lynn was huge, covering 600 acres, and is now a national historic site run by the National Park Service. Most of the indentured Scots worked as woodcutters to supply raw material to colliers, who made charcoal for the furnaces. Others had jobs within the factory as forgers and blacksmiths. Some worked on the company farm, the source of all that food the investor complained about.
We don’t know how old John was, but he might have been quite young. Many of the prisoners had been teenagers when they were conscripted into the Scottish army. Company records indicate that they were taught trades during their time at the iron works, including blacksmithing and carpentry. One owner wrote that although the men had arrived as unskilled laborers, they “would neare have managed the Companie’s business themselves, and (had we been free to use them in that way) would have saved many hundreds of pounds in a yeare.”
One contemporary observer wrote: “At the Iron Works wee founde all the men with smutty faces and bare armes working lustily. The headmen be of substance and godly lives, but some of the workmen be young and fond of frolicking, and sometimes doe frolicke to such purpose that they get before the magistrates. And it be said, much to their discredit that one or two hath done naughtie workes with the maidens living thereabouts.”
The prisoners began assimilation almost immediately. They were included in the colony’s military training as early as 1652, and by the time their indenture was complete, their Americanization was too. They married local women, both before and after being released from indenture, to take their place in thousands of American family trees.
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| The Saugus Iron Works today, operated as a historic site by the National Park Service |
811 & 812 - Joseph Dickinson b.1630 England; d.1675 Northfield and Phebe Bressey b.1632 England; d.1711 Hartford.
813 & 814 - Daniel White b.1642 Hartford CT; d.1713 Hatfield and Sarah Crow b.1647 Hartford, d.1719, Hadley MA
Regular-people color
815 & 816 - Mark Warner b.1646 Ispwich, MA; d.1738 Northampton and Abigail Montague b.1633 Wethersfield, CT; d.1705 Northampton
Like #799 & 800 and #1600, these two were likely in Hadley during the legendary attack of 1675. (Details with #1600, Francis Belcher.)
817 & 818 - Nathaniel Phelps b.1653 Hartford, CT; d.1705 Northampton and Grace Martin (adopted name Marsh) b.1650 England; d.1727 Northampton
Regular-people color
Your 8G grandmother Grace has an interesting backstory:
819 & 820 - James Wright b.1639 Springfield; d.1707 Northampton and Abigail Jess b.1645 Springfield; d.1707 Northampton
821 & 822 - Nathaniel Edwards b.1657; d.1731 and Hepzibah Janes b.1665; d.1691. Both Nathaniel and Hepzibah were born and died in Northampton.
825 & 826 - Jonathan Hunt b.1637 England; d.1691 Northampton and Clemence Hosmer b.1642 Hartford; d.1691 Northampton
Pioneer conflict
Three generations are captured in the screenshot, below, of the Hunt family history. I highlighted our direct ancestors. Notice, too, that it identifies another uncle of some level (Mary's son Joseph, near the bottom of the first column) whom we lost in the Deerfield raid of 1704.
Here's what a maltster did,
from a colonial brewing book:
"The right kind of barley being chosen, no care can be too great in the making it into malt. The first operation is the covering it with water, to soak it in the cistern; for this clear water of a running brook or small river should be chosen … In this water the barley is to lie about three days and nights … to know when it is soaked enough take up one corn from the middle of the quantity and hold it between the forefinger and thumb of the right hand by the two ends, press it gently and the softness will show whether it is enough…. The grain being soaked enough the water is to be drawn leisurely from it. After this it is to be put into a hutch, and lie together thirty two hours: after this it is to be turned up on the floor; when it begins to spire it must be turned every four hours and spread thin on the floor … when the malt is made thus far without any accident, it is the common practice to lay it on the kiln at once … the time of drying malt varied according to the kind intended to be made, for the difference of color depends on the drying quick or slow. For brown malt, four hours will be sufficient, because the briskness of the fire that is used. For amber malt, the fire being smaller, there will require about seven hours; and the pale malt, the fire being very weak, the time will amount to about twelve."
831 & 832 - John Bellows b.1705 Groton, CT, d.1793 Marlboro, MA and Mary (unknown)
833 & 834 - David Williams b.1692; d.1762, both in Groton and Experience Bailey b.1698 Groton; d.1762 Hartford
Your 9G grandparents
Born between 1580 and 1685
The Pilgrims, a 2015 PBS documentary, part of The American Experience series, is worth watching.
1535 & 1536 - Philip James b.1599 Hingham England; d.1638 Hingham, MA and Jane
Davenport b.1611 Hingham England; d.1688 Hingham, MA.
Philip and Jane immigrated in 1638 with four children and two servants, William Pitts and Edward Mitchell. Sadly, it looks as if Philip died in August 1638, shortly after arrival. Jane probably did okay; the servants were likely indentured (that is, they had to work for her until they repaid the cost of their passage); Philip's parents and at least one brother immigrated at the same time; and Jane remarried in February 1640.
1537 & 1538 - Thomas Hyland b.1604 England; d.1683 Scituate MA and Deborah Curtis b.1607 England; d.1707 Scituate, MA (Arr. 1637)
1539 & 1540 - John Tower b.1609 Hingham, England; d.1701 Hingham MA and Margaret Ibrook b.1620 Hingham England; d.1700 Hingham MA (Arr. 1635)
1541 & 1542 - John Harding b.1624 Plymouth; d.1682 Eastham, MA and Hannah Hurst b.1627 England; d.1650 Braintree, MA
1543 & 1544 - Joseph Bates b.1628 England; d.1706 Hingham, MA and Esther Hilliard b.1642 Boston, MA; d.1709 Hingham, MA
Joseph
arrived with his parents in 1635, at the age of seven. My guess:
seven-year-old boys enjoyed the passage more than anyone else. He grew up to be a brick mason; constable of Hingham from 1675 to 1678; selectman in 1671, 1677, 1684, and 1692; and sexton of the parish in 1673.
1545 & 1546 - Samuel Lincoln b.1622 England; d.1690 Hingham, MA and Martha Lyford b.1624; d.1693 Hingham, MA
1547 & 1548 - Thomas Clapp b.1608 England; d.1684 Scituate, MA and Jane Martin b.1618 England; d.1656 Scituate, MA Arrived 1633
Regular-people color
One of the older published family histories, from the 1870s, has this story, which shows how picky the Puritans were about their religious practices--although anyone who has been involved in church organization can probably empathize with poor Grandpa Thomas. (Notice the controversy lasted 34 years!!!) The book itself is too old and faded, so I'll transcribe:
Thomas was Deacon of the Church in Scituate and was warmly engaged in a theological controversy respecting the form of baptism, which commenced about 1641, with the Rev. Charles Chauncey, who came to New England in 1638.
The Reverend Chauncey preached in Plymouth for about three years and would have remained there but for his holding some peculiar views, to which the church in Plymouth could not subscribe. He believed that the Lord's Supper ought to be administered in the evening and every Lord's day; and that baptism ought to be only by plunging the whole body under water, whether in case of children or adults. He then came to Scituate and remained about thirteen years, his ministry during the whole time being a scene of constant agitation.
About five years after its commencement, as no terms of agreement could be decided upon, nearly half the church and society withdrew and formed another church. In 1654 Chauncey contemplated returning to England, when he received an invitation to the office of President of Harvard College, with the stipend of 100 pounds per annum, and with the understanding that he forebear to disseminate or publish any tenets concerning immersion in baptism, and celebration of the Lord's Supper at evening. He agreed to this and was inducted to that office in November 1654.
The religious controversy in Scituate, begun under his ministry that resulted in the dismemberment of the church, was resolved by a letter signed by Thomas Clapp and two others in 1675, on behalf of the First Church, which signified an acceptance from the other church of a kindly offer of reconciliation.
1549 & 1550 - Thomas Gill b.1616 England; d.1706 Hingham, MA and Hannah Otis b.1618 England; d.1676 Hingham, MA
These two immigrated separately and married in 1642 in Hingham. Thomas and Hannah's father are two of the founders of Hingham, MA.
1551 & 1552 - Jeremiah Beal (elder) b.1631 England; d.1716 Hingham and Sarah Ripley b.1627 England; d.1715 Hingham, MA
1553 & 1554 - Andrew Lane b.1610 England; d.1675 Hingham, MA and Tryphena Eames b.1612 England; d.1707 Hingham, MA Arrived in 1635
1567 & 1568 - Richard Lyman b.1580, Canterbury, England; d.1640 Hartford, CT and Sarah Osborne b.1584, England; d.1642, Hartford, CT
New England: The Great Migration is a three-volume set of detailed profiles of immigrant individuals and families of that 1620-1635. It was published in 1995, and it's not clear where the author got all his information; in the following excerpt, he's clearly quoting from some period source:
Richard Lyman was admitted to the Roxbury church as member #11. He came to New England in the 9th month 1631, on the ship Bristol. He brought children: Phillis, Richard, Sarah, John, and another. He settled first in Charleston, where he first became a freeman. He was an ancient Christian, but weak, yet after some time of trial and quickening he joined the church. When the great removal was made to Connecticut in 1635 he also went and underwent much affliction, for going toward winter, his cattle were lost in the driving, and some never found again, and the winter being cold and ill provided, he was sick and melancholy, yet after he had some revivings through God's mercy, and died in the year 1640.
Richard is one of Rev. Hookers's Company--story at this link. His will is the first filed in Hartford's records.
1569 & 1570 John Plumb b.1594 in England; d.1648 in New Haven and Dorothy Chaplin, b.1596 in England; d.1660 in New Haven
Present for history (military action)
The story of the Pequot War is tragic and troubling. My own sense is that it was inevitable (given homo sapiens' flaws and limitations), but that doesn't make it any less appalling.
Here's a short version, but I encourage you to read more in other sources. The war marked a turning point in European/Native relations.
By the mid 1630s, both Dutch and English were expanding in to the Connecticut River Valley, both as traders and as settlers. Both Natives and Europeans engaged in much mutual accommodation, with mutual benefits. However, both Natives and Europeans had among them hotheads and men who preferred force over any other way of resolving conflict. And conflicts did arise, both as a result of genuine competing interests, and as a result of mistakes and misunderstandings that 'honor' escalated into retribution.
By the spring of 1637, the leaders of the Connecticut Colony had had it with sporadic destruction of homes and crops, broken agreements, and occasional killings. The leaders of the Pequot tribe felt exactly the same, for the same reasons. Both knew serious conflict was soon inevitable, and both started to prepare for war. Both sought allies among the other Native tribes in the area--the Mohegan, Narragansett, and Niantic. Because the Pequot Tribe had a long history of conflict with the other tribes, they found no allies. In fact, the other tribes threw their support to the English.
During the first two weeks in May 1637, in preparation for battle, Captains John Mason and John Underhill gathered more than 100 men from Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor, while Mohegan leaders Uncas and Wequash gathered 70, and Narraganset and Niantic leaders assembled around 200.
Mason hired your 9G grandfather John Plumb and his boat, along with probably 3-4 other boats, to transport the combined forces.
Late on May 25, 1637, the boats sailed from Fort Saybrook toward Narragansett Bay with the assembled militia. The troops disembarked out of sight of the village and moved inland to reach the Pequot village just before dawn on May 26. When their surprise assault met fierce resistance, Mason ordered the fort set ablaze. As the fire raged, men, women, and children were trapped in the fire or killed while attempting to flee through the only two doors in the palisade.
I transcribed the following from the Plumb Family Album, printed in 1893--probably the height of historical whitewashing (no serious history says that the Pequot warriors were drunk; if they had been, Mason would have had no reason to order the village burned):
John Plum was among the first settlers and proprietors of Wethersfield, CT in 1635. He sold his little property in Ridgewell, England in early 1635 and bought, if he had not previously owned, a ship and immigrated to Wethersfield in his own vessel, as he was from the moment of his arrival a ship owner there and traded up and down the river with the Indians.
It is also probable that it was his
ship that was used in 1637 to carry the 77 men down the river and around to
Narragansett Bay from which the march was made to Pequot Hill --now in Groton--
to surprise the Indians. The ship returned after landing the men at
Narragansett to the mouth of the Connecticut river in full view of the
Pequots. The Pequots supposed the men had given up the war and gone home, so
they themselves had a drunken spree that night and were taken by surprise by
the English attack in the morning just at daybreak. The Pequots were totally
defeated and the remnant driven west and either killed or captured in the
Fairfield Swamp.
In the following weeks, the few remaining Pequots were killed or captured and sent into slavery in the Caribbean or with other tribes. The tribe ceased to exist; it was obliterated. The ferocity of the attack on the Pequot non-combatants surely startled the Native tribes, although many of their men participated in the heat of the moment. The fact that the English felt the need to lie about it shows that they, too, felt a line had been crossed. Nevertheless, the Mystic Massacre did not become the only time superior European military tools and techniques were turned on non-combatants--just the first.
1571 & 1572 Rudophus Sheldon b.1605 in England; d.1651 at sea and Barbara Stone b.1606 in England; d.1651 at sea.
1573 & 1574 - Thomas Woodford b.1607 in England; d.1667 in Northampton, MA and Mary Blott b.1609 in England; d.1660 Boston.
1575 & 1576 - Samuel Allen b.1597 in Somerset, England; d.1669 in Braintree, MA and Anne Whitmore b.1612 Northampton England d.1641 Braintree
You have four Allen/Allyn ancestors, at least, and the same problem prevents me saying much with confidence about any of them:
1579 & 1580 - Henry Rust, b.1613 Hingham England, d.1684 Boston, MA, and Hannah Appleton, b.1615 Hingham England, d.1674, Boston, MA
Henry arrived 1633; I cannot find anything about when Hannah and her parents arrived.
Henry was among the eight men who first settled Hingham, but the family relocated to Boston around 1645.
In 1645, Boston was still limited to it colonial core--the Shawmut Peninsula, or what is now downtown, the north end and Beacon Hill. The Rust family probably rented from 1645 to 1652, but then purchased land at the northwest corner of Sumner & Hawley Streets, just east of Boston Common. After Henry's death, the land was purchased by the Trinity Church, and they built their first church there. Aftet it was destroyed in the Boston fire of 1872, they built a new church in Copley Square, which still stands.
1581 & 1582 - William Clark b.1609 England, d.1696, Northampton, MA and Sarah Strong b. unk in England; d.1675 in Northampton
Community leader
William was a busy guy:
William is one of Rev. Hookers's Company--story at this link.
1583 & 1584 - Roger Clapp b.1609 England, d.1691 Boston and Joanna Ford b.1617 England; d.1695 in Boston
Community leader
Now, LISTEN UP: Grandpa Roger has a message for you personally, directly from him and in his own words. He wrote you a long letter in the form of his memoirs. You can probably still buy a copy (google Memoirs of Roger Clapp), or read the Library of Congress copy online. Grandpa Roger took pen in hand because:
I thought it good, my dear children, to leave you with some account of God’s remarkable providences to me, in bringing me to this land and placing me here among his dear servants, and in his house, who am most unworthy of the least of his mercies. The Scripture requires us to tell God’s wondrous works to our children, that they may tell them to their children, that God may have the glory through out all ages.
Roger wrote in a letter to his descendants (including you):
“I had never heard of New England until I heard of many good people who were going there, and that Mr. Warham was planning to go also. I made my request to my father and God so inclined he heart that he did not tell me no. For now God sent the Rev. Maverick, who lived 40 miles away, a man I never saw before. But he had heard of me, came to my father’s house, and my father agreed that I should go with him and come under his care. So God brought me out of Plymouth (England) the 20th of March in the year 1630, and landed me in health at Nantasket on the 30th of May, 1930, I then being 21 years old.”
Roger settled in Dorchester, where he married Joanna Ford in 1633. She was a daughter of Thomas Ford (#3109). He built a house there, where one of his descendants built a larger home in 1767, at 199 Boston Street. Both houses are now owned by the Dorchester Historical Society and open for tours two afternoons per month.
Like many of the earliest arrivals, Clapp held various local offices and served in the colonial legislature, the General Court. Also like many early settlers, he became reasonably well-to-do during his life and left large tracts of land in his will to his many children.
His military career was more notable than most other early settlers. To be fair, it was not particularly action-filled, because King Phillips War did not break out until 1675. Nevertheless, Dorchester formed a militia in which Clapp served many years as lieutenant and then as captain. During this time, the Dorchester militia was based at the Castle Island fort, which your ancestor Newberry had helped to build. In 1650, Clapp was appointed as the “Captain of the Castle,” the commanding officer of the fort. As such, he was responsible for garrisoning the fort; maintaining defenses; overseeing supplies and armaments; and coordinating response to threats by sea.
In 1646, Clapp had been appointed to the Artillery Company of Massachusetts, the volunteer militia company that was in charge of training the officers of all the local militia companies across Massachusetts. That organization still exists as the "Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts", though it no longer trains militia. It is the oldest chartered military organization in North America and the third oldest chartered military organization in the world. It now works to preserve Massachusetts' historic and patriotic traditions; serves as honor guard to the governor of Massachusetts; and has its headquarters in Faneuil Hall in Boston.
Clapp retired in 1686 and died in 1690. He is buried in King's Chapel Burying Ground in Boston; records indicate the gravesite is still marked.
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| Faneuil Hall wasn't built until 51 years after Roger died, so his Boston didn't look like this. This building is where the HQ of his artillery company is now located. |
1587 & 1588 - Robert Bartlett b.1612 in England; d.1767 in Northampton, Plymouth and Anne Warringer, b.1616 England; d.1676 Northampton.
1589 & 1590 - Joseph Baldwin b.1609 in England, d.1684 Northampton and Hannah Whitlock b.1616 in England, d.1661 in New Haven, CT. Arr. 1639
1593 & 1594 - William Henry Holton b.1611 England; d.1691 Northampton and Mary Agnes Winche b.1612 England; d.1691 Northampton
Community leader
The "General Court" was the colony's legislature.
1599 & 1600 - Hugh Wells b.1590 England, d.1643 Hadley, MA and Frances Belcher b.1598 England; d.1678 Hadley, MA They arrived in 1635.
Present for history
Robert Harris' Act of Oblivion (2022) is a richly evocative historical novel that will bring our ancestors' world alive for you. It focuses on the late aftermath of the English civil war as it played out in America. The novel recounts the experiences of William Goffe and Edward Whalley, fugitives from the restored King's justice, who were sheltered by the people of Hadley, Massachusetts.
In particular, it spins a detailed account of an attack on Hadley when the legendary Angel of Hadley saved the town. (If that link is dead; google "Angel of Hadley" or read the book). Modern historians disagree over whether this attack actually happened, but Increase Mather, a chronicler of the time, reported it.
If it did happen, you
had ancestors there. In addition to the Widow Wells, your ancestors #799, 800; #815, 816; #1600; #1631, #1632, #1633,
and #1634 were living in Hadley at the time.
1601 & 1602 - William Beardsley b. 1601 England; d. 1661 Stratford, CT and Mary Ann Harvey b. 1605 England, d. 1661 Stratford, CT Both arrived in 1635.
Community leader
By 1623, Thomas was a member of Holy Trinity Church in Dorchester, England, the epicenter of planning for the Massachusetts Bay Colony under Rev. John White, a leading Puritan minister. Thomas was recorded as present at a key Puritan organizing meeting on October 15 1629, which made the departure plans for New England.
They arrived in early 1630 on the Mary and John, and were among the founders of Dorchester, Massachusetts, now a neighborhood in Boston. Thomas was admitted as a freeman in Dorchester on May 18, 1631, making him eligible to vote and hold town office. He went on to hold many of the civic offices typical of Puritan settlers including selectman, fence-viewer, rate collector, and fort-builder.
In 1637, they relocated with many fellow Dorchester residents to establish Windsor, Connecticut; Thomas was one of four purchasers of tribal land to create the town. He represented Windsor in the Connecticut General Court from 1637 to 1641 and again in 1654; served on livestock and grand jury committees. After Elizabeth died in 1643, he remarried.
Around 1644/45, Thomas opened an "ordinary" (tavern/inn) in the nearby town of Hartford, in the former house of his third wife’s deceased first husband, Thomas Scott, one of the founders of Hartford. The tavern was noted in John Winthrop Jr.’s diary: “reached the Inn of Thomas Ford at Hartford” on 17 November 1645.
He sold that business in 1652; acquired land in Northampton (as early as 1660); and relocated there around 1670 to join his adult children already living nearby.
He lived died in November 1676 and is buried in Bridge Street Cemetery.
As young as she was, Nicholas was Susannah's second husband. In an record associated with Nicholas, she appears as Susanna Joyce, but that was her married name. We don't know her maiden name and so cannot identify her parents or her date of arrival.
Nicholas and Susanna died within days of each other in July 1655, along with a four-month-old son. Nicholas was 35 and Susanna 29. Their three other sons, including our ancestor David, who was then four, appear to have been taken in by neighbors or the family of Susanna's first husband.
In mid-17th century New England, disease outbreaks were common in summer, and 1655 is noted in some New England town records as a “great sickness” year in Connecticut River Valley settlements. The Hoyts' cause of death was not recorded, but others in Windsor were noted to be suffering from the ‘bloody flux,’ as dysentery was known then.
The Church family has a history dating back to the 1300s in England as men who held professional jobs that required education--merchant, lawyer, Burgess in Parliament; mayor, etc. But Richard shows up as a carpenter when he received his first land grant in Plymouth Colony in 1632.
Okay, well, carpenter was probably as valuable a profession as there was in early Massachusetts. He was taking part in governance affairs by 1634. His skills made him valuable in new settlements like Hingham (1640s) and Hadley (1659), where he later moved and was recorded receiving payment for both civic structures and residences. One historian noted that his career reflects the movement of skilled tradesmen critical to building the expanding English settlements in New England.
Unfortunately, none of his handiwork survives today, that we know of. Pioneer buildings of the early 1600s were not built to last centuries; the colonists needed fast and functional. In Plymouth Colony, nothing built before the late 1600s remains.
Anna was Richard’s second wife; his first might have been Mayflower passenger Elizabeth Warren, but we’re descended from Anna.
This 19th century family history guessed wrong about his arrival date; he'd been granted land in Plymouth in 1632.
John Warner and three other men began that summer the work of marking off home lots and erecting houses. However, their work was “effectually frustrated by the tedious and unsatisfactory negotiations carried on by the English authorities with Uncas, which lasted through the year. The threatening state of Indian affairs discouraged the planters, who made no further attempt at settlement during the term of the initial grant." They petitioned for, and were granted, an extension to fulfill the terms of their land grant.
(Note: I think I understand the account to say that the Indians then granted a deed to Ensign Thomas Cooper in 1665, who in turn assigned it to Warner and two other men.)
In the spring of 1665, Warner and his son Samuel, John Ayres, Thomas Parsons, and Thomas Wilson put up at least two frame houses and planted some corn. John is said to have built the first house and is therefore recognized as the “father of Brookfield.”
In October 1673, the General Court agreed to incorporate the settlement as a township, and John and two other men were named as the town trustees. (I understand the account
to indicate that this is when Quaboag became Brookfield.)
Although “the numerous tribes of Indians inhabiting the lands adjacent to the new settlements in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut had in the main been or pretended to be on friendly terms with the settlers, it became apparent in 1674, that they were getting uneasy over the expansion of the whites. This fact had led Phillip, son and successor of Massasoit, to incite the various tribes to revenge against the encroachment of the settlers, an in the summer of 1675, open warfare broke out and started King Phillip’s War"
Wheeler, who was wounded, and his men then quickly retreated back into Brookfield and “betook themselves in the largest and strongest house there, that of John Ayres, where they fortified themselves as best they could. Eighty-two people were crowded in the house: Wheeler, Hutchinson, 13 able soldiers, 6 wounded soldiers, 13 able male citizens, and 50 women and children. They were besieged for three days and nights by about 300 Indians, who kept up a continuous firing at the house and made several attempts to set it afire.
John was familiarly known as "Chalker John," because he always carried chalk in his pocket and "figured on boards or shingles."
Before coming to America, William Brewster's band of Puritans tried living in the Netherlands, first in Amsterdam in 1608-1609, and then in Leiden. Gartend was born in Amsterdam in 1585--before the English Puritans arrived, so she was Dutch. She and James were married during the short time the Puritans were in Amsterdam. I'm guessing James fell for a local girl--which is one of the reasons the Puritans decided to give up on the Netherlands and head to America.
The Hursts were not the last of the Leiden group to arrive in the Plymouth Colony. They arrived in 1629 or 1630, while the last stragglers came in the mid-1630s. But he did well for himself, building and operating the first tannery in New England. He had been a weaver in Europe, but that occupation was not feasible in early colonial America, due to both shortage of fiber and machinery, so his change of occupation was common for former weavers.
Gartend may have gone by Catherine.
Records from the London Court of Chancery indicate that Thomas Newberry was well-educated; he had been engaged in legal studies in London during several terms of the Court. Around 1620, he married Joane Dabinot. They had five children before Joane died in 1629. Newberry then married Joane’s cousin, Jane Dabinot.
Caught up in the Puritan reform movement, in April 1634, Newberry sailed for New England with his family, where he seems to have quickly enjoyed great respect from his fellow colonists. He first settled at Dorchester, where received substantial grants of land and bought a house. He joined the church; was admitted freeman; and was made selectman the following year. Newberry also served as deputy from Dorchester to the General Court. By 1635, he had rights to more than 400 acres of land.
On May 6,
1635, he was chosen to be overseer of the works at Castle Island and “it is ordered that he
shall have power to press men for the works and to press carts for such
allowance as he thinks meet.” This is the island in Boston harbor which has a
fort on it from about that time to the present and Newberry was engaged to
complete the military works. (The 19th-centure family history may have exaggerated Newberry's role in the building of the fort. It's unlikely he was overseer, though he certainly served on some planning and oversight committees and was in charge of Dorchester's contribution of funds, resources, and labor. Your 9G grandfather Roger Clapp, #1583) had a longer stint when he was, undoubtedly, in charge of the Castle Island fort for many years.)
Newberry was active in plans for the settlement of Windsor, Connecticut, but died suddenly before he completed his plans for moving. The inventory of his estate amounted to ₤1520, a very large estate for that time. This indicates he probably brought a large stock of goods from England with the intention of engaging in trade as an importing merchant.
After his death, his widow and children moved to Windsor, where his children were granted lands for their father’s right in the plantation. Jane, Thomas’ widow, married Rev. John Warham (whom you can also read about in your 9G grandfather Roger Clap’s memoirs).
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| Castle Island, Boston Harbor, during the colonial period |
After Matt and Sam got title to the land, they would have filed it with the General Court of the colony. Shortly after that they split the land into lots and distributed it among 28 families and founded the town of Haddam, Connecticut.
The Matthew that I'm pretty sure is our ancestor was a merchant, who owned property in several towns; whose will disposed of (among land and other property) a small library of books and "one suit of clothes to John, Indian." So yeah, our guy might be the one who traded coats for land.
William played a key role in procuring land and settling the communities of Windsor, Hartford, and Farmington, as well as founding the Second Church in Hartford after 1659.
While still in England, William held offices in his local church (sidesman and churchwarden) at Braintree, Essex in the early 1620s. In June 1632, that Puritan church was targeted by Anglican authorities, so William and several of his friends were called to appear before a court to answer to the charge of "not receiving the Holy Communion at Easter nor since in this parish church," by which they meant the Anglican Church. However, by the time the court date rolled around, he and his fellow defendants were already on board the Lyon, sailing to America. He became a freeman in Newtown on November 6, 1632.
The stress must finally have gotten to him. He was elected as an elder of the church, but he was called into court in 1634 for ‘ungodly speech’ during an intemperate outburst.
That same year, however, he was elected as Newtown’s representative to the colonial legislature. Later, Gov. Winthrop recognized him as “a very reverend and godly man, being an elder in the congregation of Newtown.”
He became a recognized Ruling Elder under Rev. Thomas Hooker, and then helped found Hartford in 1636. He among the “Adventurers” who negotiated with native leaders and acquired land for Hartford; his name is on the Founders Monument. He came to hold significant land in Hartford, including riverfront, ox pastures, and meadow.
He continued with his strong ideas about forms
of worship, and so in 1659, he led the group that, following a dispute over
church sacraments, left Hartford to found Hadley, MA. More details are in this post.
He returned to Connecticut
around 1670, when Elizabeth died and he remarried with the widow of Rev. Hooker.
In Connecticut, he helped to found the community of Farmington, where he
continued as a church elder and community
leader until his death in 1674. He is buried in Farmington.
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| Not your 10G grandfather Phelps, but close enough. I wanted an image here. |
While the Plymouth Colony colonists and the Dorchester Company shared an interest in making money, their religious motives were a bit different. The Plymouth Pilgrims wanted to separate completely from the established Church of England (and to separate church from government), while the Puritans of the Dorchester Company, under the leadership of Rev. Thomas White, were much more comfortable intertwining religion and government and wanted to only to reform the church. But the church was not reforming, and the Puritans of Phelps’ group believed their chosen faith to be the only true religion and disrespected all other faiths, and they decided to leave.
Only around 300 colonists were in New England when the Mary and John arrived in America in 1630, carrying Phelps, his second wife Anne (not our ancestor), four children, two brothers, 133 other people, and some farm animals. Although it arrived in late May 1630, the Mary and John was not technically part of the famous Winthrop Fleet, the first ship of which (the Arbella) arrived in early April, carrying Governor Winthrop.
The Mary and John passengers called their new settlement Dorchester (now a part of Boston), and Phelps served in many capacities in both the colony’s and the town’s governments. He was a member of the first General Court (colonial legislature) held in the colony in 1636 and served 12 sessions there, where he served on the committee that drafted the first laws of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and was involved in negotiating the first treaties and licenses. He also served as a member of the Court of Magistrates from 1637 to 1643; and was foreman of the first Grand Jury in 1643. At various times he also served as Dorchester constable; leader of the town’s General Meeting; and on committees given authority to settle land and boundary disputes.
Being the first New England settlement outside Plymouth, Dorchester earned a lot of ‘firsts’ including:
- The first democratically elected governing body in the American colonies, and William Phelps was one of eight elected to lead it.
- The first church in the new Massachusetts Bay Colony and now the oldest religious organization in present-day Boston, still called the First Parish Church of Dorchester. Its first building was a simple log cabin with a thatched roof at the corner of Pleasant Street and Pond Street in Boston, and its sixth building is now a mile away at 10 Parish St. Both are in the area of Boston known as “Meeting House Hill.” Puritans used the meeting house as the center of both worship and government; Phelps would have spent a lot of time here, and with fewer than 30 families in the area at the time would not have lived far away.
The first publicly funded elementary school in America, behind the meeting house. It is now called the Mather School and is the oldest elementary school in America.
A colonial elementary school. The Mather School
in Dorchester is still operating. It was the first
pubic elementary school in America.- The first grand jury (Phelps was foreman); and
- The first murder trial (Phelps was on the jury, which acquitted the defendant).
However, the leaders of Dorchester eventually fell into conflict with Governor Winthrop. Phelps and his friends believed all men should have a voice in electing their leaders, while Winthrop and his friends wanted to keep the colony’s leadership roles among a select few.
So, as Puritans tended to do, the disgruntled settlers decided to split off. They sought the Massachusetts General Court’s permission to create a new settlement in the Connecticut River Valley, which was reluctantly granted in the Spring of 1635 on the condition that they remain part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. (Foreshadowing: nope.) Phelps was one of eight commissioners appointed by the General Court to govern the new settlement.
It turned out to be a more challenging adventure than any of them anticipated. First, about half the residents of Dorchester decided to join the relocation, including both ministers.
Second, the main body of the migrants started toward their new home in October 1635, at the beginning of what turned out to be a tough winter. About 60 individuals in 23 households set out on what they expected to be a two-week journey of about 100 miles to the east. They took a route known as the Old Connecticut Path, which took them through a region of swamps, rivers, and over small mountains. They sent most of their belongings and provisions via ship. But before they were established in their new homes, winter arrived. The river froze over, trapping the ship carrying their provisions. Their few supplies were soon exhausted, and they faced starvation.
A few struggled back to Dorchester and the rest survived the winter with help from a few Plymouth Colony settlers as a trading post they had recently established and from Native Americans. When spring 1636 arrived, the transplanted settlers moved to higher ground in the meadow north of the river and were finally able to receive their provisions.
The new settlement, Windsor, was the first English settlement in the area that is now Connecticut. The settlers expected resistance from the Dutch, but until that time, English settlers had lived reasonably peacefully with the Natives, trading and negotiating land purchases.
However by 1635, some natives were stretched to the breaking point. Trade with the French had not reduced the land available for the Natives’ use, but now selling land to the Dutch and English had more enduring consequences. For their part, the English settlers had now realized that the permanent sale of land often meant something different to Natives than it did to them. In addition, several Native tribes were in heated disagreement with each other over the best way to handle the Europeans, among other issues. To top all that off, food shortages following a massive hurricane in August 1635 continued to affect everyone, native and European alike.
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| A Pequot village of the Connecticut River valley |
It was in these circumstances that the new English settlements of Windsor, Hartford, Wethersfield, and Springfield appeared in the river valley in a relatively short period. After a series of outrages raised tempers on all sides, hostilities burst into flame with the Pequot War (1636-37). No other native tribes would ally with the Pequot in this, the first serious armed conflict in New England between the natives and the settlers. Some even allied with the English against the Pequot, and they were eradicated.
It didn’t take long for the frontier towns of the Connecticut River Valley to break from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In January 1639, delegates from Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield officially formed a self-governing General Court and earned a place in American history when they adopted a written framework for self-rule —the first written constitution in Western history, something that Connecticut is very proud of to this day.
Phelps served as a member of the Connecticut General Court until 1662. During that time, he and later Governor Thomas Welles, of Hartford, drafted a law prohibiting lying, and he participated in enacting laws which with others were later called the "Blue Laws of Connecticut." In 1641, he served as Governor of Windsor. In 1662, the colony’s Royal Charter was granted by King Charles II, uniting it with the New Haven colony and officially recognizing its status.
Phelps died in 1672 in Windsor and is buried in Palísado Cemetery there. His original marker may no longer survive, but a memorial stone honors him and other founders.
3273 & 3274 - Thomas Robert Copley b.1597 England; d.1634 England and Elizabeth Griswold (birth and death dates unclear)
On June 15, 1648, Margaret Jones became the first person executed for witchcraft in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Her case set a grim precedent for later witchcraft trials, including those in Salem decades later. How nice if history could also say that your 10G grandparents, Samuel and Alice, set a precedent for the colonists’ response to witch trials.
After Margaret was executed, the Strattons made their disgust and disrespect for the judges at the trial well-known. They were then called to court themselves. The record of the Strattons’ trial says that “Samuel said that Jones’ wife died wrongfully and that she was no witch and that the magistrates who condemned her would do anything for bribes, and the members also.” Further, “Alice said that the Goodwife Jones died wrongfully and was no more a witch than she was.”
Can you wrap your head around how much courage it would have taken to say “She was no more a witch than I am” directly to a court, about a woman they had convicted of being a witch? How easy would it have been for one of the judges to point a finger and shout “We have a confession!”
The court found the Strattons guilty and ordered them to “appear before the public assembly the next lecture day to pay a fine of ₤5 and acknowledge their offense and acknowledge the justice and leniency of the court in dealing so mercifully with them. Later, the record notes that “The parties did appear and acknowledge the mercy of the magistrates’ sentence on them, but of the charges laid upon them they are of the same mind.”
They were then fined another ₤5 for their refusal to recant.
But they apparently refused to pay. The following April, court records indicate that “Goodman Stratton, refusing to make full acknowledgement enjoined by the court, is granted liberty for payment of the fine until the next 8th month.” He seems eventually to have paid, but neither he nor Alice ever recanted.
- Noah Webster, of dictionary fame;
Your distant cousin Janis Joplin - President Rutherford B. Hayes;
- Emily Dickinson, the poet;
- William Faulkner, the novelist;
- Katherine Hepburn, the actress;
- Johnny Carson, late-night talk show host;
- William Barnes, co-founder of Barnes & Noble;
- the Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bush Junior; and
- Janis Joplin, rock and blues singer.
1) He came to America on the first 1635 voyage of the Hopewell. At that time, he was 12 years old and unaccompanied by any family member.
2) He was living in Concord, MA in 1645;
3) He married Mary Wood in 1655;
4) He was one of the original proprietors of Marlborough and as such was granted land in the original Marlborough plan there in 1656 as part of the effort to populate and defend the area. He would have participated in the early civic and defensive organization of the town, which was on the frontier at that time.
6) When he died, his will left land, buildings, and many carpentry tools to his wife and seven living children.
7) His descendants grew wealthy and rose high in 19th-century New England society.
"The
voyage of the Hopewell in April 1635 was under Captain William Bundocke.
Several voyages around this time produced passenger lists of particular
interest, as many of the passengers were unaccompanied minors.  |
| Signature from a land title transfer document |
Military action
William served in King Phillips War.
Arabella's parents arrived in 1635, the year she was born. I marked her here as an immigrant, but I cannot see any record that says where she was born. Perhaps on board, during the voyage? I don't know.
3337 & 3338 - John Wheeler b.1643 Concord MA; d.1713 Concord MA and Sarah Larkin b.1647 Charlestown MA; d.1725 Concord MA
3339 & 3340 - Thomas Bailey b.1636 New London, CT; d.1675, South Deerfield, MA and Lydia Redfield b 1636 Boston; d.1676 Connecticut
In September 1675, the settlers of the Connecticut River Valley had evacuated their new villages in anticipation of the war's arrival in the valley. But no one wanted to abandon Deerfield's excellent harvest. Colonial officials sent a group
of militia men to accompany a wagon train of ox carts to carry the grain out to feed the displaced settlers during the upcoming 
winter. The slow convoy began the trek from Deerfield to
Hadley on September 18, 1675. After they'd passed what they thought was the most dangerous part of the journey, the captain stopped the group in front
of the convoy near a small stream known as Muddy Brook to allow
the cumbersome ox carts in the rear to catch up. Some of the soldiers began to relax. Some put their guns aside and were picking bunches of
wild grapes growing next to the narrow road. At that moment, when
the convoy was least prepared to defend itself, a force of several
hundred Indians launched an ambush. In minutes, the attackers virtually
wiped out the convoy and its escort. Only a handful of men escaped.
3341 & 3342 - Edward Smith b.1637 England; d.1689 New London, CT and Elizabeth Bliss, b.1645 Saybrook, MA; d.1689 New London, CT
Personal color. Specifically, trying to start the American Revolution 100 years too soon
Nicholas Norton came to America in 1635 with the party of colonists led by Rev. John Hull. Elizabeth arrived separately the same year. The two married in 1637 in Weymouth, Massachusetts and lived there for about 20 years before moving to Martha’s Vineyard, where they were among the original settlers of Edgartown.
Grandpa Norton is profiled in a history of Martha’s Vineyard that tells about each original settler: “That he was of a social station somewhat above the average appears from the fact that he kept a servant whose ‘miscarriages’ brought legal problems in 1658 with the magistrates of Massachusetts.”
If I understand the story correctly, Grandpa Norton’s servant was summoned to court for some crime, and Grandpa bailed him out. Due to a misunderstanding about when the court date was scheduled, Grandpa failed to bring his servant to court on the day of the trial. As a result, he forfeited the bail and got his servant into even worse trouble than he’d already been in. Grandpa Norton wrote to the court explaining, apologizing, and asking that his bail be refunded. The court agreed, provided he bring the servant back to court for a new trial date. The history doesn’t say what happened to the servant.
But that was only the start of Grandpa Norton’s frequent involvement with the courts of Martha’s Vineyard. He served as constable for a while, but appears more often in civil cases as both plaintiff and defendant.
 |
| Grandpa Norton's tannery was near the Great Pond. |
His last and apparently only criminal offense is fascinating: He joined in the “Dutch Rebellion,” an ill-fated move among a group of Martha’s Vineyard residents to reject English government (which declared them to be part of the New York colony) and instead establish governmental ties with Massachusetts (a more self-governing colony with greater political and religious freedoms.)
It’s one of the weirder little chapters in American history; google Dutch Rebellion, 1673, and Martha’s Vineyard to learn more. Our ancestor was not one of the leaders, so he got off with a fine of 51 pounds and was made to publicly apologize for trying to overthrow the government of His Majesty the King. It would be another century before they were out from under royal rule.
3371 & 3372 - Benjamin Moore b.1640, Salem, MA; d.1690 Southold, Long Island and Anne Hampton b.1650, Orient, MA; d.1726 Southold
3373 & 3374 - Caleb Horton b.1642 Southold; d.1702 Cutchogue Long Island and Abigail Hallock b.1642 Southold; d.1679 Cutchogue Long Island.
Both Caleb and Abigail were born into leading settler families of Southold, Long Island. See their parents' stories (#6747-6750) for details.
3375 & 3376 - Richard Brown b.1627 England; d.1685 Southold, Long Island and Hannah King b.1629 England; d.1698 Southold, Long Island
Community leader
Richard was among the original, and eventually wealthiest, founders of Southold, Long Island, a group that included the Youngs, Kinge, and Tuthill families (additional ancestors). He had served in various capacities--lieutenant, sergeant, and ensign in the Suffolk County militia.
3377 & 3378 - Benjamin Conkling b.1638 Salem, MA; d.1709 East Hampton, LI and Hannah Mulford b.1645 and d.1712 East Hampton, LI
Another one of those names...
About Mary's birthplace: The same trade-and-settlement energy that brought Europeans to America starting in the 1500s took them also to Africa, where a lucrative gold and ivory trade developed from the west coast of Africa, which grew in the early 1600s to include slaves.
At first, Spain and Portugal controlled African trade. But in the 1590s the Dutch began raiding and trading along the West African coast. In the early 1600s, the Dutch West Indies Company built alliances with local African rulers who opposed Portuguese influence. By 1621, they built a permanent fort in what is now Ghana with the permission of the local chief of Efutu, and traded in gold, ivory, and spices. (That's not where Mary was born; her parents were at a trading post that was farther west and focused on pepper and grain.)
The Dutch West Indies Company became heavily engaged in the slave trade after 1637, when they captured another fort in Ghana, Elmina, from the Portuguese. Mary's family moved to Barbados probably she was a child. For the larger story of our Dutch and English ancestors in Barbados, see #6990.
Community leader
Benjamin is one of those sad cases where you can see his birth date is the same as his mother's death date. His father brought him to America when he was just five.
Benjamin helped found the settlement of Jamaica, NY, with his dad, #7055, but unlike his dad, Benjamin stayed put. He apparently got the normal allotment of land when a new settlement was created, but he bargained with the community to get an extra allotment of land in exchange for building a dam and a mill. He eventually owned and operated both a corn mill and a fulling mill, in addition to his farm. Fulling is a step in manufacturing wool cloth that involves cleansing the cloth to eliminate oils, dirt, and other impurities, and to make it shrink by friction and pressure. The work creates a smooth, water-repellent fabric.
3551 & 3552 - Henry Lyon b.1625, Glen Lyon Scotland; d.1703, Newark, NJ and Elizabeth Bateman b.1623, Glen Lyon Scotland; d.1703, Newark, NJ.
Present for history
The Lyon/Lyons/Lyne family was very well connected in 16th and 17th century Scotland; you can read more in this well-written (for its time) online family history. At this distance, I find the author's lack of any effort to withhold his opinions charming; I doubt I'd enjoy anyone that opinionated today.
Henry became a local leader in Connecticut; you can read more about him individually on page 80 of that book. The long history of the family in Scotland starts on page 9; a chapter focusing on the events that shaped Henry's life starts on page 49, and a chapter starting on page 69 is devoted to the history of Lyons Farms, a significant Puritan settlement the family founded in New Jersey.
Long-told family lore says that Grandpa Henry was present at one of the key events in English history, the beheading of King Charles I, which is why he is an American ancestor and not an English one. Here's how an old family history tells it:
The Lyon brothers would have been pardoned under the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, passed on August 29, 1660.
Your 11G grandparents
Born between date and date
6179 & 6180 - Anthony W. Hilliard b.1585 England; d.1657 Hingham, MA and Elizabeth Kempton b.1585 England; d.1657 Hingham MA
Anthony and Elizabeth immigrated in 1638. Anthony is listed in some records as Sir Anthony Hilliard, and the parents he left behind in England had titles.
6181 & 6182 - Michael Bates b.1584 England; d. after 1632 in Boston, MA and Susannah Bentley b.1591 England; d.1635 in England
Michael arrived in 1631.
6209 & 6210 - Edmund Hobart b.1573 England; d.1646 Hingham MA and Margaret Dewey b.1574 England; d.1633 Hingham, MA. Arrived 1633
A century later, within the smaller world of Hingham, England (a village in Norfolk), the Hobarts were leading lights. Son Peter (your 9G granduncle) attended Cambridge and became a minister. The Planters of the Commonwealth, a definitive history of Massachusetts's origins, covers the Hobart family's role in the exodus from England to Massachusetts like this:
The largest exodus from any single locality naturally belongs to London. Yet (second place belongs to) the small parish of Hingham in Norfolk, with a population of only a few hundred, from which 35 families emigrated to found the present town of Hingham in Massachusetts. The departures nearly depopulated this English town. It is difficult to account for this wholesale hegira from one little place unless the movement began under the leadership of Edmund Hobart in 1633, who preceded by two years his son, the Reverend Peter Hobart, who became the pastor of the first church in the new Massachusetts town.
6657 & 6658 John Wood b.1610 England; d.1678 Marlborough MA and Mary Parmenter b.1610 England; d.1690 Marlborough, MA.
Colonial courtship could get complicated, apparently, but John was there for his daughter:
6659 & 6660 - Thomas Rose b.1626 England; d.1683 New London, CT and Joanna Charity Rainsford b.1634 New London, CT; d.1698 New London, CT
6661 & 6662 - Robert Allyn b. ~1620 England; d.1683 New London, CT and Sarah Gager b.1628 England; d.1685 New London, CT.
6673 & 6674 - John Thompson b.1606 England; d.1678 Stratford, CT and Mirabella Finch b.1614 England; d.1690 Stratford, CT
John and Mirabella arrived in 1635. John appears in some Ancestry trees as 'lieutenant' and has documents related to the Pequot War (1636) and King Phillips War (1675-1676) saved to his records, but I cannot see any contemporary records that mention his name in connection with military service. No one is claiming he's a war hero or anything, so it's probably true, but I just don't know the source.
6675 & 6676 - George Wheeler b.1605 England; d.1687 Concord, MA and Katherine Pyn (or Penn) b.1610 England; d.1685 Concord, MA
Community leader
Charles Walcott, a 19th-century historian of Concord wrote that George "was foremost in the town's business, by virtue of his large
estates as well as integrity and good judgment. He was a man
of education, and the owner of a large amount of property, his house lot
alone consisting of eleven acres, while he possessed lands in every
part of the town, at Brook Meadows, Fairhaven Meadow, the Cranefield, by
Walden Pond, Flint's Pond, on the White Pond Plain, on the
Sudbury line, etc. He held as many positions of trust and was as active
in the direction of the town's affairs as any individual in Concord,
serving at various times on substantially every committee of
consequence, and leading in all matters of moment, as is evidenced by
the fact that nearly every town deed and petition of any importance from
either the Church or the civic community of that time bears his
signature.
 |
| A turner worked with a lathe. |
Edward left England with his parents in 1629 at age 14, but arrived with only his mom. His dad died at sea. This arrival is notable for being very early in the Boston area--even before the Winthrop Fleet arrived. Joanna arrived with her parents, also at age 14, in 1630.
Edward and his mother settled in Charlestown, Massachusetts, where he joined the church in September 1639 and became a freeman in 1640.
Edward became a skilled turner and wheelwright, producing wheels and related wooden tools locally—notably valuable since such items could be made on location without relying on imports.
He joined the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in 1644 (before #1583 Roger Clapp did; see above), indicating he was regarded as an able-bodied and responsible citizen
In 1647, he sold some land and purchased a riverfront plot, likely to improve access for trade and transport. At the time of his death at age 32 in 1652, after an illness, his Charlestown holdings included a house and workshop on Crooked Road, a garden, one acre of meadow, five acres of woodland, ten acres of “water field” land—and books, plus £0.10 for baby Hannah to be spent on books at age 18—demonstrating the family’s value of education.
6685 & 6686 - Thomas Bliss b.1618 England; d.1688 New London, CT and Elizabeth (maiden name unknown); d. Norwich, CT (dates unknown)
These two immigrated in 1636. Thomas Bliss and his father are both among the settlers of Hartford, CT. Full story at this link.
6719 & 6720 - Rev. John Youngs b.1602 England; d.1671 Southold, Long Island and Joan Herrington, b.1600 and d.1630 in England
Community leader
John
was the son of a distinguished clergyman in England, Samuel Youngs, and
a graduate of Cambridge University. He immigrated in 1637 to New Haven, CT, where he gathered a group of other recent immigrants. He then led the group, which included more of your ancestors, to Long Island to create the first English settlement on that island.
In those days, a 'new settlement' and a 'new church' were synonymous--you couldn't have one without the other. So I can understand why, if he wanted his own church, Rev. Youngs had to create a whole new town. But I don't understand the organized-religion dynamics of the time, so I cannot say why he was an Anglican clergyman in England (albeit a reform-minded Puritan), and the church he founded in Southold was Presbyterian.
Southold never had any trouble with Native Americans. The settlers purchased the land from the Montauks before they built their settlement in 1640, and then when they wanted to expand, made a larger purchase. Neither purchase was ever contested by the natives, either then or later.
Southold did, however, have problems with both the Dutch and the government of England. The threats were not to their lives; they were to their right to self-government.
As an outgrowth of the Puritan colonies in New England,
Southold enjoyed wide latitude for
self-government in its first few decades. And although the Dutch, who had controlled the eastern end of Long Island (New Amsterdam) since 1626, competed with English colonists and traders over who would control which trading posts, that tension never threatened Southold directly.
 |
| This map shows the situation in 1645. The colony of New Haven later merged with Connecticut, taking Southold with it. |
6721 & 6722 - Thomas Gardiner b.1590 England; d.1638 Roxbury, MA and Mary Warren b.1602 England; d.1678 Southold, Long Island
Thomas and Mary's daughter, Mary Gardiner, was born in England in 1630; the family arrived in America in 1637. They lived in Roxbury, MA in 1638, where Thomas died. The two Marys then appear to have found their way to Southhold on Long Island (settled in 1640), where daughter Mary married John Youngs (the son of the Reverend) in 1653, when she was 23 years old and he was 30.
That sequence of events is a bit suspicious. Both Thomas and Mary are rather old to be marrying for the first time, and I'm clueless about why the two Marys moved from Roxbury to Southold after Thomas died. A remarriage might explain it, but I cannot find a record of a remarriage for Mary in either Roxbury or Southold.
But it's the best I can do. I cannot find very much at all about Thomas (he did die fairly young, 48 years old), and Mary Warren unfortunately has the same name as a Mayflower passenger, so her records on Ancestry.com have been messed up by people eagerly linking her records to those of the Mayflower Mary, and untangling them will take more time than I have.
For more about the settlement of Southold, see #6719, Rev. John Youngs, just above.
6737 & 6738 - Edward Winn b.1599 England; d.1682 Woburn, MA and Joanna Sargent b.1607 England; d.1649 Woburn These two arrived 1635.
Community leader From a family history written in the early 1900s:
In 1635, three thousand settlers came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony and among these was Edward Winn with his wife Joanna, his daughters Ann and Elizabeth, and son Joseph. With them came his apprentice joiner, Moses Cleveland, a young lad of the Goode family. They had lived in Ipswich, England, where Edward was a master carpenter and housewright and they sailed from London.
Settlers arriving in Boston at that time had to create new towns if they wished to have title to their own land. The first mention of Edward Winn in colonial records is when he appears at the home of Thomas Graves in Charlestown as on of the commissioners at their first meeting on December 18, 1640 held for consulting on the affairs of the contemplated town of Woburn. On February 8, 1641, the commissioners came from Charlestown to find a location. After two days' search, they pitched upon a spot on the Aberjona River over which they built a bridge. To this spot they came in May following and laid out house lots. Buildings were erected during the summer.
Woburn was incorporated in 1642, becoming the twentieth community in the colony.
In 1648 Moses and Ann married, and Moses received the rights of a freeman and an apportionment of forty acres of land that had been reserved for him.
6741 & 6742 - Joseph Goodborne Isaac b.1588 England; d.1642 Cambridge and Elizabeth Jackson, d.1622 in England. Joseph arrived in 1636.
6743 & 6744 - Captain Thomas Moore, b.1613 England; d.1691 Southold Long Island and Martha Youngs b.1613 England; d.1671 Southold, Long Island
These two arrived in 1635 with their respective families, who knew each other, and married in Massachusetts in 1636.
I cannot tell whether Thomas was a sea captain or a militia captain. Either are possible in Southold on Long Island, which was heavily involved in sea trade with the other colonies, including Barbados.
Martha Youngs is the sister of Rev. John Youngs (#6719; founder of Southold), Elizabeth Youngs (#13500) and of Captain Joseph Youngs (who appears to have been a sea captain.) Father of all four was your 12G grandfather Rev. Christopher Youngs, Vicar of Reyden and Southwold, and 12G grandmother Lady Margaret Ellwyn, both of whom stayed in England.
6745 & 6746 - James Hampton b.1608 England; d.1675 Southampton and Mary Jane Qualls b.1610 England; d.1673 Southold, Long Island.
These two must have arrived in Massachusetts before 1633, because that is when James' widowed father died there.
6747 & 6748 - Barnabas Horton b.1600 England; d.1680 Southold and Mary Langdon, b.1607 England; d.1698 Southold, Long Island
I could tell you the story or you could just read the book. I do recommend it; it's good.
I read it, so I'll summarize. The only thing that seems to set Barnabas apart from many of your other ancestors, about whom no modern books were written, is the amount of records we have about him, which made him a good subject for an author wanting to write about a normal but un-famous Pilgrim leader. For example, I'm sure most Puritans brought their family bibles with them, but Barnabas's was preserved and is now available for viewing at the Long Island Historical Society in Brooklyn. He also had a huge blue-slate headstone carved for himself in England and brought that, too. In other words, the guy has records.
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| The historic Horton Point Lighthouse |
 |
| An Ancestry.com member uploaded this as a portrait of William Hallock, but included no source or citation. |
Peter and William probably arrived in America together around 1635, when William was 20 and unmarried. He and Margaret were married in 1640 in Massachusetts. William received a substantial land grant when a new town, Mattituck, was split off from Southold. He purchased and worked more land, and left a large estate when he died in 1684.
6753 & 6754 - William King b.1595 England; d.1649 Salem and Dorothy Hayne b.1600 England; d.1684 Southold, Long Island
Personal conduct William and Dorothy arrived in America in 1635 with their five kids ages 12, 10, 8, 6, and a toddler. (The six-year-old was our grandmother Hannah.) Their name was spelled Kinge in England, and King after they got here.
They settled in Salem, where they were members
of the church, but William got in trouble by siding with the Antinomians during a religious controversy. (Antinomians believed that direct personal revelation was more valuable than literal reading of the Bible; and that works, behavior, and
personal growth are not valid demonstrations of a person's salvation.)
A legal document from 1637 shows he was told to sever his
connection with the Antinomians, under penalty of being disarmed. He refused
and had to give up his gun. After he died in 1650, Dorothy moved to Southold, Long
Island to live near her daughters, Hannah Brown and Deliverance Tuthill, her youngest daughter and another one of your 10G grandparents
6755 & 6756 - Ananias Conkling b.1600 England; d.1657 East Hampton, LI and Mary Launder b. 1612 England; d.1655 Salem, MA
Ananias and Mary arrived in 1638, with Ananias's brother John and some other extended family members, to become some the first settlers of Salem, Massachusetts. Ananias and John were window-glass makers in England, and they continued the same profession here, starting the first window-glass factory in America shortly after they arrived. According to Ananias's entry on the Find-a-grave website, some of the historic buildings in Salem still have "Conklin glass" in their windows. (I find that hard to believe, unless the company stayed in business long after both Ananias and John died.)
6757 & 6758 - John Mulford b. 1606 England; d. 1686 East Hampton, LI and Friedeswiede Osborn b.1606 England; d.1683 East Hampton, LI
John and Friedeswiede (some records call her 'Hannah') were among the founding families of East Hampton. John was a judge.
6759 & 6760 - Henry Tuthill b. 1612 England; d. 1650 Southold and Bridget Burton b. 1616 England; d. 1650 Southold.
Their graves might still be seen at the Presbyterian churchyard in Southold.
6761 & 6762 William Kinge, b.1595 England; d. 1649 Salem and Dorothy Haynes b.1598 England, d.1684 Salem
These two arrived on the Marygould in 1635. They traveled with a group led by Rev. Joseph Hull, most of whom settled in Weymouth, but William and Dorothy went to Salem, where William was listed as a freeman in 1637. One biography says:
William took an active part in the religious controversies of the time and in 1637 identified himself with the Antinomians, a step which placed him under the ban of the Salem authorities, he was admonished to sever his connection with the sect, under penalty of being disarmed and, refusing to do so, he was directed to leave his gun with Lieut. Danforth.
Young British men came to Barbados in the 1600s for two reasons. English plantations were pulling in thousands as indentured servants (who at that time were cheaper than African slaves), and a relative handful came as the representatives of English owners/investors to manage those plantations.
We don't know whether Alexander was an indentured laborer or a manager, although we know his son married the daughter of a Dutch merchant.
But there's a larger story to tell about ALL your Dutch and Barbados ancestors. I have to write this combined entry because I don't have much information about each individual. (Not like the New England Puritans, for whom I can see births, marriages, deaths, wills, court records, memoirs, on and on.) For the Dutch and Barbados ancestors, I'm operating almost entirely from basic information I found on family trees saved to Ancestry.com, rather than primary sources, and then trying to fit that information into the broader history of when and where they lived. Here's what I think happened...
Barbados in the 1600s
Barbados is the easternmost island in the Caribbean. In the 1550s, Portuguese arrived, but never attempted settlement. Instead they depopulated the island by capturing all the natives and selling them for slaves; deforested the island; and abandoned it.
The English Colony: By the early 1600s, some London investors saw economic potential in the deserted island. Sir William Courten, a London merchant, acquired title to Barbados through a royal patent. He initiated the first English settlement in February 1627, which consisted of 80 settlers and 10 English indentured laborers. A few of your Barbados ancestors have the surname Coerten, but that may be a Dutch name that is only coincidentally similar. There's no reason to believe any of Sir William's family ever moved to the island.
Other English colonies had been settled earlier (Jamestown, est. 1607; Bermuda, est. 1609; and Plymouth in 1620), but Barbados was the economic hot spot. Two-thirds of the English emigrants to the New World in the 1630s and 1640s went to Barbados, and by the 1650s it was the wealthiest English colony in the Caribbean.
Most English arrivals were indentured workers, paying for their passage with a contract for five years of labor, after which they were given about £10, usually in goods. Those who arrived before the mid-1630s were also given 5–10 acres of land. Their first money crops were tobacco, cotton, and indigo, before sugar took over as the island's main product by the mid-1600s.
For most English residents of Barbados, hopes for an idyllic island life were fading by the mid-1600s. There were two problems. First, Barbados' population had reached the island's capacity. By 1650, 44,000 settlers lived in the West Indies, as compared to 12,000 in Virginia and 23,000 in New England. With only 106,000 acres on the whole island, it was no longer possible to give each released indentured worker 10 acres of their own land. Food shortages, high living costs, and the island's limited natural resources (primarily timber and fresh water) made living in Barbados expensive for all, and untenable for non-elite settlers.
Second, by the mid-1600s, the small tobacco and cotton farms were failing and being taken over by large-scale, slave-dependent sugar plantations. Once landless, English settlers had no economic or social future in Barbados because by then the plantation owners preferred enslaved Africans over free white laborers for nearly all jobs. The vast majority left the island before 1660 for other English colonies in the Caribbean or the Carolinas.
But our ancestors can be found in Barbados into the early 1700s, and their kids and grandkids appear in New Jersey, not North or South Carolina. What's that about?
Dutch residents in the English colony: With the exception of Alexander Kidney and his wife, all your other Barbadian ancestors seem to be Dutch, not English.
In the first half of the 17th century, the Dutch West Indies Company was the key intermediary between the Barbados economy and European markets. The company supplied financing for English operations in Barbados and transported its goods to market. The Brits relied on the Dutch for knowledge of sugarcane cultivation and refining techniques.
In each port where it conducted business, the company staffed trading posts with its employees. One of your Barbadian 10G grandmothers was born at a pepper and grain trading post in Africa. (See #3496). This indicates that your Barbadian Dutch ancestors came to the island as employees of the Dutch West Indies Company.
That brings us to the ugly question: Were they involved in the slave trade?
Before the 1630's, slavery was known in Barbados, but indentured workers produced most of its exports. During that time, the company's Barbados employees -- whether they were keeping the books, loading and unloading, maintaining the ships, whatever -- probably didn't deal with much human cargo.
But what about after the slave trade exploded in the Caribbean? I found a list of the names of the leading slave merchants around that time, and it does not include any I recognize as your ancestor. In addition, Curacao, not Barbados, was the main port at which the company unloaded Africans. Nevertheless, by the mid 1600s, the slave trade comprised such a large part of the Dutch West Indies Company's Caribbean operations, and Barbados plantations were buying so many slaves, that no Barbadian could have been involved in merchant shipping after around 1630 and remained innocent.
But why did the Dutch leave the island? In 1650, the English Parliament, seeking to strengthen British trade, forbade its Caribbean colonies, including Barbados, from doing any business at all with the Dutch shipping company. (The prohibition didn't entirely stick.) By 1652, war broke out between England and the Netherlands. These events must have upended the lives of the few Dutch living in Barbados. In 1674, the Dutch West Indies Company was dissolved. Still, some of your ancestors hung around after that. The last of them I can see died in Barbados in 1704. Who knows? Maybe they were shopkeepers and fishermen.
We don't know exactly when your Dutch ancestors left Barbados, but we do know where they went...
The Dutch settlements in New York and New Jersey in the 1600s
In addition to their Caribbean interests, the Dutch West Indies Company took control of the fur trade by establishing a trading post in 1625 at the mouth of the Hudson River (New Amsterdam), and other settlements upriver--primarily Fort Orange, modern-day Albany. By 1655, Dutch settlers numbered more than 2,000. Just five years later, the Dutch population had grown to almost 9,000 people, including a settlement in New Jersey at Bergen (now Jersey City). You have ancestors born in all these areas.
Both England and the Netherlands wanted control of the Hudson River and its outlet. This conflict involved both your Dutch ancestors at the west end of Long Island and your English ancestors on the eastern end. (To learn about your English ancestors' involvement, check out #3359, #3361, #3367, and particularly #3369). Long story short, despite your ancestors' efforts, the two empires negotiatated an end to their dispute in 1664. The Netherlands ceded its northern colony to England, which reorganized it into the New York and New Jersey colonies. In return, England handed over control of several of its South American and Caribbean holdings--not including Barbados.
The Barbados branch of your family tree joined the New Amsterdam branch with the marriage in the early 1660s of #435 and #436--James Vreeland (his parents were Dutch New Amsterdam colonists) and Marritje Kidney (her parents had come to New Amsterdam from Barbados). Their kids were born in New Jersey.
Note: I got my Barbados history mostly from this book, which is free online.
7055 & 7056 - Robert Coe b.1596 England; d.1689 Jamaica, NY and Mary Crabbe b.1600 and d.1628 in England
Community leader
Robert arrived in Boston in 1634 with his second wife and his three sons, and adopted a pattern followed by quite a few of our ancestors: he moved to a brand-new settlement every few years.
The Coe family first resided in Watertown, MA. Land records show he then purchased land from the Indians in 1635 and founded Wethersfield, CT; then in 1640 purchased land from the settlement of New Haven and founded Stamford, CT; then in 1643 was one of the founders of Hempstead, Long Island; then in 1652, settled Newton, LI; and finally in 1656, he was among the group of colonists who bought land from the Indians to found Jamaica, NY.
7057 & 7058 John Carman b. 1606 England; d. 1654 Hempstead, NY and Florence Fordham b.1614 England; d. 1670 Newtown, NY
Pioneer conflict
Thomas Carman, John's great grandfather (b.1514; your 14G grandfather), was burned at the stake for his religious beliefs in England in 1558.
The Carman family also had it pretty rough in the New World. A letter from their settlement to John Winthrop, Governor of Massachusetts in the summer of 1644 includes:
“… desiring to acquaint your worship with our condition, which is the worse by reason we want sufficient strength to carry on our plantation for present. The Indians would have made peace, and some of them have, but we dare not trust to them but have labored to serve the providence of god in a watchful way and care fearing the worst for lack of which Mr. Fordham’s plantation hath too lately suffered having too much trusted those unfaithful heathen. Three men have been cut down at their work and one of goodman John Carman's children almost massacred and another carried away, and yet to him they pretended greatest friendship. Sir the short of it is that their plot is to cut of all the Christians (as we call them) in these parts of America both Dutch, English, and French…"
The Batemans were titled back in England ('sir') and arrived in 1630 on the Winthrop Fleet. They were, therefore, among the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
However, there were several William Batemans who immigrated in the early years; count this man and his father as two of the less-than-positive identifications as the ones who were your ancestors; they are a best guess.
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| William Bateman III |
Your 12G grandparents
Born between year and year
13319 & 13320 - Robert Rose b.1594 England; d.1665 New Haven, CT and Margery Everard b.1594 England; d.1664 New Haven
Military action
Robert and Margery arrived in 1634. They settled first in Watertown, MA, but joined the group leaving there to found Wethersfield CT, where Robert became constable and then served in the colonial legislature from 1641-1643. Robert served as a soldier in the Pequot War.
13321 & 13322 - Thomas David Rainsford b.1608 Yorkshire, England; d.1600 New London, CT and Mary Elizabeth York b.1612 England; d.1660 New London, CT
These two must have immigrated before 1634, because their daughter was born in 1634 in Connecticut.
13355 & 13356 - John Larkin b.1585 England; d.1629 at sea in transit to America; Elizabeth Baker, b.1591 England; d.1662 Charlestown, MA
Records for these two are skimpy. John's death at sea was recorded in 1629, so I'm assuming that's when Elizabeth and her son (#6677, Edward) arrived. I cannot find any record of Elizabeth's remarriage, almost certain for a 38-year old widow. There are some records of an Elizabeth Larkin in Virginia, but I have never seen any historian talk of travel between Massachusetts and Virginia, except in commercial trading. Her son clearly resided in Charlestown, Massachusetts.
13363 & 13564 - William Redfield b.1580 England; d.1662 Monhegan (Maine? Massachusetts?) and unknown wife.
William arrived in 1635. The family record that documents William's death gives the location only as "Monhegan" but nowadays, that's only a small island in Maine. Settlers were in Maine at that time, involved mainly in the fur trade.
I think that Elizabeth was the sister of Rev. John Youngs, the leader of the group that settled Southold, but she died before the group moved there. We're also descended from John (#6719) and another sibling, Martha (#6744).
Community leader
Edward Howell was leader of the group that settled Southampton,
Long Island, and seems to have been an enormously respected man. The following excerpt is from a
history of Southampton, written by a historian who is NOT a descendant:
The Father of Southampton was Edward Howell. A magistrate, early elected one of the Selectmen to manage the town’s affairs; its leading citizen in wealth and social position, whose name appears first in every list, his is the most attractive figure we meet at the beginning of Southampton’s story.
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| The manor house of the Marsh Gibbon estate, which Edward sold to finance his family's new life in America. It looks like it's still on history tours of Buckinghamshire. |
A gentleman by birth, in the then-strict meaning of the word, he owned the old manor house of Westbury at Marsh Gibbon in Buckinghamshire, England, which he sold in 1639. He also owned property at Wotten Underwood, from which he received an annuity of 31 pounds.
He was admitted a freeman of the Massachusetts Colony in March 1638 and received a land grant of 500 acres at Lynn from King Charles I. He owned a grist mill there and later became owner of the first mill in Southampton. In 1640, Edward was one of three owners who obtained authorization to occupy an eight-mile-square on Long Island, which was then part of the Connecticut Colony. In June or July 1640, Edward and his family moved to Southampton.
He owned a sloop which from time to time carried “dissatisfied colonists” from Massachusetts to Long Island. Taking as indeed everyone did his share in the homely common tasks of the community (he and his son both appear, for example, in the whaling list of 1644) yet his name never figures in any of the innumerable petty law suits nor bickerings over small matters of business or scandal and one gathers the impression through the records of a man greatly respected, dignified, reserved and perhaps a bit aloof. In 1647, Edward was selected to serve as a member of the legislature at Hartford and held that position until his death.”
We're descended from Edward's daughter Margaret, but I read a bit more in that history of Southampton, and it sounds as if her brother Arthur was a delightful character. He got into a lot of relatively innocent trouble in the community as a boy, but learned the local Indians' language and as an adult became a valuable negotiator and interpreter.
In contrast, one of the more disturbing things I've seen in this project is a book, saved on Ancestry.com, written by another of Edward's descendants, published in 1930 in America, titled "Aryan Blood in Modern Nations and the Howells." It is every bit as weird as you might imagine it to be, proudly tracing the Howell family back to "the Aryans in their ancient home in Central Asia." I skimmed the whole book; the author, Fleming Howell, MD, did do a LOT of world-history review (I'll give him that), but the whole thing is an exercise in stereotyping, using highly questionable 'racial' groupings. He's much harder on the Arabs ("...the Moors were the most inherently treacherous and cruel people of whom we have any account.") than the Jews, whom he hardly mentions.
13517 & 13518 - Anthonie Osborn b.1575 England; d.1649 Salem, MA and Margaret Carrington b.1570 England; d.1645 Salem, MA.
Present for history (just)
In 1630, poor William must have pretty much just stepped off the boat, at age 66, and died. His wife had died in England.
The Batemans came with Governor Winthrop on the famous Winthrop Fleet, which created the Massachusetts Bay Colony. However, there were several William Batemans who immigrated in the early years; count this man and his son among the less-than-positive identifications as your ancestors; they are a best guess.
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