Part 6.3 The Extended Family Connections of the American DeGraw Family Michigan

The Extended Family Connections

of the American DeGraw Family

Michigan

The "Extended Family Connections of the American DeGraw Family" follows the lineages of the great uncles and great aunts, and introduces their family ancestors.

With there being so many intermarriages, most of these family lines did, in the first few generations, join with another.

It all depended on where the family settled. Whether it be New York Massachusetts or other settlements.

Just how did all the ancestors manage to establish themselves in a new land?

That takes organisation and money. Who then financed the expeditions?

It is interesting to learn that the ancestors of Maree DeGraw were involved. Not only was her great grandfather a very wealthy shipbuilder, but some of her family had links to Mr Fox, the Quaker preacher.

But like a great deal that happened in the time period of the early 1600's it was the wealthy merchants of London who invested expecting a good return on their money. People under the direction of Sir Thomas Smythe, and various other influential members not only of Maree's family but mine!

Where ever they called home, they made such worthy contributions to the community.

This part begins with the marriage of Clarissa Baker and Jonathan Martin Derby. He was the son of John Derby and Susannah Jones. John Derby also married Rebecca Tarbox.

The reason for including all these additional lineages will become clear in the following series.

The references are GU indicating the Generation - 3GU is 3rd generation, and these are usually aunts and uncles.

The Derby Family

The Conant Family

The Clark Lineage

The Sheldon Family

The Woodford Family

The Warner Family

The Strong Family

The Lane Family

The Hollister Family

The Treat Family

The Skinner Family

The Ingersoll Family

The Woodward Family

Direct lineage to King William the Conqueror

The Baker Linage

The Todd Family

The Karner Family

The German Palatines

Jonathan Derby married Clarissa Baker, and they were the parents of

Clarissa was the daughter of

4GU Timothy Baker 1749 - 1816 and Prudence Brooks 1750 - 1816

Burial: Cornwall Central Cemetery Cornwall Addison County Vermont, USA

Thomas Baker was the son of

5GU Aaron Baker 1726 - 1802 and Jemima Clark 1728 - 1845

Aaron Baker was the son of

6GU Captain John Noah Baker 1679 - 1762 and Rebekah Strong 1687 - 1774

John Noah Baker was the son of

7GU Timothy Baker 1647 - 1729 and Sarah Hollister 1646 - 1691

Timothy Baker was the son of

8GU Edward Baker 1614 - 1687 and Joan Lane 1618 - 1693 They lived at Lavenham Suffolk. Edward arrived in 1630 to Massachusetts

No prior information can be found for Edward Baker. However, while searching these statements were located in the records of John Winthorp. Some of the information has been included as an additional chapter, and gives an insight into the establishment of the colony.

The Narragansetts make no claims to be masters of the Indians of Block Island: William Baker is reported to be living with the Mohegans. who also are harboring runaway Pequots; Miantunnomoh is willing to go to Boston provided his safety is assured.

Sir I heard that there is now at Pequat with the Monahiganeucks one William (Baker I thinck his name is) who was pursued, as is said, by the English of Qunnihticut for uncleanenes with an Indian Squaw, who is now with child by him. He hath there gotten another Squaw and lies close unknowne to the English They say he came from a trading howse which Plymmouth men have at Qunnihticut, and can speake much Indian: If it be he, when I lived at Plymmouth, I heard the Plymmouth men speake much of his evill Course that way with the Natives.

The occasion that our neighbours know of him was this: Some 8 dayes since 6 NanhiGUonsick men were comming from Qunnihticut, and by the way fell upon some Pequts who were rescued out of their hands by the Monahiganeucks, who allso bound those 6 Nanhiggonsicks many dayes togeather at Monahiganick (vpon Pequat river where this William was) and spoild them of their Coats and what els they had.

The Sachims and the men are greatly incensed, affirming that they can not but revenge this abuse offerd to their men; yet haue I got this promise that they will not doe ought without Air. Governours advice.

Sir I haue long heard, and these 6 men affirme, that there are many of the scattered Pequts randevouzed with Okace the Monahiganic Sachim and Wequash the Pequt, who being employed as one of the guides to the English in their late Warrs, is growne rich and a Sachim with the Pequts: and hath 5 or 6 runnawayes. There are all the Runnawayes harboured (which upon long and diligent inquirie) I am certaine and confident of, and can give good assurance that, there is not one amongst all the Nanhiggonsicks.

Mr. Stoughton hath bene long assured that Meiksah Canounicus eldest Sonn hath his Squaw, but having enquired it out I find she was never at the Nan-higgonsicks, but is" married to one Meiksomp a Sachim of Nayantaquit, which being neerer to Pequt is more friendly to the Pequts: and where as I heare that Wequashcuck (who long sheltred Audsah and so grossly deluded Tho: Stanton in the late warrs) hath filled many baskets with beades from Pequts Sachims and 120 Pequts which he sheltreth now at Nayantaquit.

Okace the MonahiGUon and Wequashcuck were lately at Long Hand, from whence some few dayes since Okace caried away 40 Pequts to Monahiganick and Wequashcuck 30 to Nayantaquit.

While I write, Miantunnomu is come to my howse and affirmeth the same: professing if I would advise him he would goe over to Mr. Governor to acquaint the Governour that Caunonicus and himselfe haue no hand in these passages. He askes me often if he may safely goe, and I assure him if he have an honest heart he neede not feare any deceit or Treacherie amongst the
English: So I thinck within a day or 2 he will be comming towards you.

He tells me what I had not heard that of those Pequts to whome at the first by my hand you were pleased to giue life, but 7 came to them of which allso long since are gone to Monahiganick.

Sir I forget not your loving remembrance of me concerning Air. Ludlow es debt: I yet know not where that Tobacco is: but desire if Mr. Cradocks Agent Air. Jolly would accept it, that it may be delivered to him in part of some payments for which I have made over my howse to Mr. Mayhew.

Sir your servant Repriue lodged here 2 nights, and Miantunnomu tells me that 5 dayes since he lay a night with him and is gone to Block Hand: He is very hopefully improoved since I first saw him: and am bold to wish that he might now take his last farewell of his friends, to whome you would be rather
pleased to giue leaue to visit him at Boston, for you can not belieue how hard it is for him to escape much evill and especially uncleanenes while he is with them. The good Lord be pleased to blesse him to you, and to make you a blessing to him and many others. [Torn] runn headlong (without once hearing of it) into [torn] everlasting burnings. So prayes dayly Your Wo[rshi]ps
vnfaigned

R: Williams
[Ca. October 26, 1637]

Two references to Baker

Baker, Richard, 210; wages, 203.
Baker, William, scandalous conduct of, 500-501.

(Original spelling and translation)

The Derby Family

Jonathan Derby and Clarissa Baker were the third generation. Jonathan was the son of

4GU Captain Nathaniel Derby and Jemina Skinner.

5GU John Derby 1705 - 1762 and Susannah Jones 1712 - 1774

John Derby was the son of

6GU John Derby 1681 - 1753 and Deborah Conant 1688 - 1783

John was the son of

7GU John Derby 1650 -1690 and his wife Alice

Poor John Derby - he is the great grandfather - death by head blown off by cannon ball!

John Darby was probably born in England, although the record of his birth has not been discovered. He most likely came to New England as a young man, possibly a brother of Roger Darby, known to be a native of Topsham, Devonshire, who settled in Salem. In 1677, John Darby was a fisherman, and lived in Marblehead, where he owned a cottage and a small plot of land. His name is on the first list of "gatherers" of the First Congregational Church of Marblehead, in 1684. The name of his wife was Alice, but her parents are unknown. John and Alice were the parents of five children, including John.

In 1689, John was a crewman on the ketch "Mary", of Marblehead. The ship was taken by the pirate, Thomas Pound. Although he was abandoning his wife and children, and his lawful way of life, Darby volunteered to join the pirate's crew. The rest of the men from the "Mary" made it back to Marblehead and notified the authorities. The militia from Marblehead and Salem set out to capture the famous Pound and his men. They were located at Tarpaulin Cove on the Vineyard, but refused to surrender to the militia. In the ensuing fight, most of the brigands were killed, including the neophyte pirate from Marblehead, John Darby. His estate was inventoried in Marblehead on January 17, 1690.

From SENTENCED TO BE HANGED AS A PIRATE, HE DIED A GENTLEMAN, RESPECTED BY FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS Yarmouth Vanguard, Tuesday, November 7, 1989.

Yarmouth Vanguard, Tuesday, November 7, 1989.

Three hundred years ago, in the year 1689, it was August 12th (o.s.), two captains from Boston, Thomas Pound and Thomas Hawkins, anchored their ketch, the "Mary", about four miles below Fort Royal, at Portland, Maine, which was under the command of Silvanus Davis. They sent ashore John Darby to fetch some water, as he was known to Commander Davis. He told him that the ketch was just back from Cape Sable, where she had been robbed by a privateer brigantine of some lead and most of their bread and water. He asked that a doctor be sent aboard to take care of its master, who had hurt his foot. But when Davis learned that there were on board a certain Captain Pound and a so-called Captain Hawkins, he suspected immediately that he was dealing with "rogues". In the meantime, a number of soldiers of the Fort had managed to escape and make their way to the ketch, bringing with them arms and clothing. Davis asked that the soldiers be sent back to the fort with the booty they had stolen. But Pound laughed at the request and not only refused to return any of the arms and clothing (which had been stolen from the sleeping soldiers) but he threatened to go into the harbour and cut out a sloop which was there anchored.

There was about nothing true in what Darby told Davis. The truth is that Thomas Pound had asked Thomas Hawkins to take him, with his fishing vessel, to Nantasket, about ten nautical miles south-east of Boston. They had just left Boston, when Pound told Hawkins that his real purpose was to become a pirate and asked Hawkins to join with him, which he did. Pound was to take charge of the operations. It was on that same day that they seized the ketch "Mary", leaving their fishing vessel to its captain, Allen Chard. Two days later, they were in Casco Bay, when John Darby went ashore to fetch water and told his made-up story to Silvanus Davis.

After helping himself to a calf and three sheep grazing on an island, Pound set sail for Cape Cod, and early on the morning of the 16th came upon the sloop "Good Speed," owned by David Larkin. As it was a larger vessel than the "Mary", she was taken over by the pirates, leaving to the captain the ketch and setting him free. Pound told him to tell the Governor of Boston that if he dared come up to get them, everyone of his men would die. While in Cape Cod, he sent some of the crew ashore, where they killed four young hogs. Shortly after, they plundered another vessel from Newburyport, north of Boston (on the New Hampshire border) with its twenty half-barrels of flour, sugar, rum and tobacco.
Sailing out of Nantucket Sound, south of Cape Cod, the sloop ran into a stiff north-easter and was forced away to Virginia. Here, Pound managed to fetch some other spoil in the shape of an old sail, a piece of linen cloth and some dyes, before heading back towards Massachusetts. On their way, Hawkins noticed that they were being followed; but they finally outran their pursuer.

Not long after they had reached Cape cod, Thomas Hawkins, who was getting tired of Pound's maneuvering, succeeded in making his escape. He met Captain Jacobus Loper, a Portuguese whaler, who was getting ready to sail for Boston. Here, Hawkins thought that he would be safe and escape the grip of the law. But instead Loper thought best to turn him over to the Boston authorities and soon Hawkins was shackled and safely lodged in prison.

A few days later, the ketch "Mary", that the pirates had seized from Chard and that they had exchanged for the "Good Speed," was on its way, in search of the "Good Speed," which was at anchor in a cove, south-east of Cape Cod, where Pound was getting ready to sail to Curacao, the Dutch colony near the South American coast.

As soon as the "Mary" reached the "Good Speed", Pound, in his surprise, climbed on deck with his sword flourishing in his hand and shouting: "Come you Digs, and I will strike you presently". When he was told that if he would yield they would be given good quarter, he replied: "Ei yee Dogs, we will give you quarter by and by." But it was not long before Pound himself was hit by a bullet, when "several bones were taken out." There were casualties on both sides. The pirates were finally captured and brought to Boston, fourteen of them. This was taking place at about this time of the year, exactly 300 years ago. Most of them, including Pound and Hawkins, were found guilty of felony, piracy and murder. They were sentenced to be "hanged by the neck until they be dead."

Jan. 27 (1690), the day that the hanging was to take place, Hawkins had already the rope around his neck practically, when someone ran to tell the hangman that the Governor had postponed the hanging. He was even completely pardoned, probably at the request of his sisters, who had married high ranking officers of the colony. Finally, all, except one, received their pardon, Pound included. Pound and Hawkins were then placed on the "Rose" to be sent into exile in England.

Reaching Cape Sable, the "Rose" was intercepted by a French privateer of thirty guns, and a vigorous combat took place. The captain of the "Rose" was slain and several others; Hawkins finally died of his wounds. Somewhat bruised, the "Mary" was able to reach England, without any other incidents.

Here, Thomas Pound was pardoned entirely for whatever mischiefs he would have done on the coast of the American colony. He even wrote right away to Governor Andros of Massachusetts, who was in London, giving him the latest news from New England. In 1691, he published in London "A New Map of New England," now very rare, of which I am the proud owner of a copy; it served as a basis for other charts for nearly fifty years after. August 5, 1690, just a few months after his arrival in England, he was appointed captain of the frigate "Sally Rose", of the Royal Navy.

In 1697, his ship was stationed at Virginia under his old patron Governor Andros. In 1699, he retired to private life and died in 1703, at Isleworth, county Middlesex, a "gentleman, respected by friends and neighbors".

Deborah Conant was the daughter of

7GU John Conant 1652 - 1724 and Behiah Mansfield 1658 - 1720

Bethiah Mansfield was the daughter of

8GU Andrew Mansfield 1623 - 1683 and Elizabeth Walton

Andrew was born in England about 1623 and came to Boston in 1636, thence to Lynn in 1638. He and his brother John preceded their parents to New England as shown by two depositions made by Andrew. On March 26, 1661, claiming to be then about 38 years old, he made affidavit to the Court at Ipswich, that he had been an inhabitant of Lynn about 22 or 23 years, and in June 1669, he testified in court concerning the estate of Frances Axley, saying he was about 49 years old. Andrew became a freeman in 1645, and was very active in Town affairs. He served as selectman, on road and land committees. He also served as trial juror and on Grand Jury 1650-1677. The clerk of the courts office of Essex County has many letters on file in his clear legible handwriting. He was deputy to the General Court from l880-1883 inclusive.

Andrew was married three times. His first wife was Bethiah, who he married about 1650. Andrew and Bethiah had eight children, all were born in Lynn. Bethiah died July 2, 1672. Her maiden name might have been Gedney (Lynn Historical Register 1913), or Townsend (Warner-Harrington Genealogy). His second wife, married June 4, 1673, was Mary Neal, widow of John and the only daughter of Frances Lawes of Salem. She died June 27, 1681. His third wife, married January 10, 1681-82, was Elizabeth Conant, widow of Lot and daughter of William and Elizabeth Walton of Marblehead. Two of her sons had previously married two of Andrew's daughters.

Andrew's will was dated June 1, 1679, with a codicil added at Boston November 19, 1683. It seems that while attending the General Court, he was taken suddenly ill, as the codicil was witnessed by the members of the court. The exact date of his death is not known, but the inventory of his estate was returned November 28, 1683.

Elizabeth Walton was the daughter of

9GU Rev William Walton 1608 - 1668 and Elizabeth Cook d 1670

"Rev. William WALTON was born on 13 Sep 1605 in Seaton, Devonshire, England. He died on 6 Nov 1668 in Marblehead, Essex Co., Massachusetts. He was a Minister. He married Elizabeth Cooke, daughter of William and Martha (White) Cooke of Stratton, England. William Walton died of apoplexy 9 November 1668 at Marblehead. It is believed his resting place is "Ould Burial Hill. The last official record of Elizabeth was in 1670. She died in 1682 and the final settlement of the property was made 29 March 1685."

Additional biographical information about William Walton, here follows:

William Walton [. . .] was born in Devonshire, England. He attended Emmanuel College, Cambridge (degrees in 1621 and 1625) and may have become a separatist minister soon after he left the university. A nineteenth century source (James Savage) states that William Walton was "no doubt ordained" and served at Seaton in Devon. But our source does not specifically state that Walton served as clergy there. [. . .]

William and Elizabeth Walton had nine children.

The Waltons sailed to Massachusetts with other Puritans in what many historians term the "Great Migration" (approximately 1620 – 1634). This movement of several thousand included some propertied families as well as at least a handful of generally well educated male heads of households. William and Elizabeth Walton were among these promising early settlers.[. . .]

If William Walton was ordained in England, he seems to have pursued other activities in Hingham, Lynn, Manchester and Marblehead, MA, where he was living when he died in 1668. James Savage, our nineteenth century source (everyone's source) who says he checked the documents, stated that Walton received a ministerial allowance in Marblehead.

Savage speculates that Walton may have been employed as a teacher during winter months. Savage found William Walton the proprietor of an establishment in Manchester called Jeffery's Cove. These surmises indicate that William and Elizabeth arrived in America without great wealth. (What kinds of activities did the Puritans permit to take place in the Cove?)

Papers filed in probate court in Marblehead, which undertook to settle his intestate property, refer to William as "Mr" Walton and make no references that might infer clerical activities. (But "Mr" was a generally applicable term.) His widow, Elizabeth, was permitted to administer her husband's affairs and was instructed by the court to keep the estate together during her life and to pay William's debts.

After her death, Elizabeth Walton's son, Samuel, together with his brothers and sisters, returned to court in 1683 to affirm that the family had reached agreement among themselves as to the disposition of their parents' possessions. Son Samuel Walton was given a cow and leased another from his siblings, to be paid for from his part of the residue of the estate.[. . .]

This brief biography has been taken from Volume I of a book of family history entitled ALL OF T

The Conant Family

Roger Conant (c. 1592 – November 19, 1679) arrived in Plymouth Colony from London early in 1623/24 with the profession of salter. Early in his colonial life, he became associated with those opposed to the Puritan authorities in Plymouth and led the settlement to outlying areas, particularly in the Salem area, which he is credited with founding. He was the first governor of English settlers in Salem from 1626 to 1628

Roger Conant was baptized at East Budleigh, Devonshire on April 9, 1592. He was the son of Richard and Agnes (Clarke) Conant. He later moved to London and became a salter

Contrary to some accounts that Roger Conant and his family arrived in 1623 in the ship Anne, per Banks, only Roger's brother Christopher Conant is listed as being on the Anne in 1623. In Bradford's history, in addition to letters to him by the London Adventurers, mention is made of an unnamed master or journeyman salter who may have arrived in Plymouth in the Charity in March 1623/24. It is thought that Bradford may have been describing Conant, and that he arrived in Plymouth in 1624.

In 1625, Bradford learned of the death of John Robinson, the long-time minister of their exiled congregation in Leiden, Netherlands. Robinson had been the driving force behind all their efforts to find a better place than England to live their lives and it was he who cared for the many left at the Leiden congregation after the Mayflower's departure. After the dispiriting news of Robinson's death, those in Plymouth began to lose the fervor that helped them survive the grim early years there and began to fear that all they had gained might eventually be destroyed. These dark thoughts turned into mean-spirited fanaticism. At about that time, John Lyford, a minister who had been sent over by the London Adventurers, was expelled from Plymouth for secretly meeting with settlers who wished to return to the type of worship that they had back in England. One of Lyford's supporters, John Oldham, was forced to run a gauntlet while Pilgrims beat him with the butt-ends of their muskets. This punishment received the approval of Pilgrim leader Edward Winslow. The Adventurers were quite displeased over what had happened to one of their men and criticized the Pilgrims as “contentious, cruel and hard hearted, among your neighbors…”. Bradford later in his writings wrote that he thought that Lyford and Oldham deserved their punishments. These actions against the rebellion of Lyford and Oldham were possibly the reason Roger Conant left Plymouth for other locations where he would later continue to be in association with them against the Plymouth authorities.

In the years prior to and also after John Robinson's death, Plymouth Colony had lost about a quarter of its residents. They had moved to other areas of New England or went back to England, or to Virginia. Some, such as salter Roger Conant, found a place to work and worship peacefully in the fishing and trading outposts along the New England coast at Nantasket and Cape Ann.

Per Hubbard's General History, about 1624 Conant moved to Nantasket with his family and about a year or so later relocated to Cape Ann, at the north end of Massachusetts Bay. In another case of the new Pilgrim vindictiveness, in 1625 Roger Conant was involved in a violent situation between Plymouth Colony military Captain Myles Standish and some fishermen on Cape Ann. Conant was so shocked by the violence the Plymouth captain displayed that Conant later reported the incident in detail for Pilgrim historian William Hubbard. In restating John Robinson's earlier concerns about the way the colony was turning to fanaticism and violence, Hubbard wrote, "Captain Standish…never entered the school of our Savior Christ…or, if he was ever there, had forgot his first lessons, to offer violence to no man." Hubbard also wrote about Standish; "so was the Plymouth captain, a man of very little stature, yet of a very hot and angry temper."

In 1626 Conant was chosen as the first governor of the English settlers at Salem and was replaced in 1628 by Gov. John Endicott

Conant built the first Salem house on what is now Essex Street, opposite the Town Market. In 1630 he was chosen as freeman, or voting stockholder of the Massachusetts Bay Company. Conant was one of the first two Salem representatives to the colony's general court or legislature, and was repeatedly elected a selectman by the people of Salem. When the legislature granted communities the right to establish district courts, Roger Conant served on numerous Salem quarterly juries for sixteen years. He also was involved in civic activities over the years such as establishing town boundaries and laying out land grants.

In 1639, his signature was one of the first ones on the contract for enlarging the meeting house in Town Square for the First Church in Salem. This document remains a part of the town records at City Hall. Roger Conant was active in the affairs of Salem throughout his life.

During his very long lifetime Conant had a number of family tragedies, including the death of his wife Sarah, and of sons Caleb, Lot, Roger and Joshua. Only his son Exercise and possibly several daughters succeeded him.

Roger Conant and Sarah Horton married at St. Ann Blackfriars, London on November 11, 1618 and had nine or ten children. She was alive in November 1660 and may have died before March 1677/78 as she was not named in her father's will. Her burial place is unknown.

Children of Roger and Sarah Conant:

Sarah was baptized at St. Lawrence Jewry, London on September 19, 1619 and was buried there October 30, 1620.

Caleb was baptized at St. Lawrence Jewry, London on May 27, 1622. He died in England before November 11, 1633, when his uncle, John Conant, became administrator of his estate.
Lot was born about 1624 and died September 29, 1674. He married Elizabeth Walton and had ten children. The marriage of their descendant Hannah Conant (d.1810) with Josiah Dodge (d.1785/90) in 1761 connected the line of Mayflower passenger Richard More with the Conant family. After Lot’s death, Elizabeth married (2) Andrew Mansfield in Lynn on January 10, 1681/82.

Roger was born in Salem and died in June 1672. He married Elizabeth Weston by 1661 and had two children.
Sarah was born about 1628. She married John Leach and had ten children.
Joshua was born about 1630 and died in England in 1659. He married Seeth Gardner by 1657 and had one son.
Mary was born about 1632.

She married:

1. John Balch about 1652 and had one daughter.
2. William Dodge by 1663 and had five children.

Elizabeth was born about 1635 and was unmarried in March 1677/78. Nothing further is known.
Exercise was baptized in Salem on December 24, 1637 and died on April 28, 1722. He married Sarah Andrews by 1668 and had six children. He was buried in Olde Mansfield Center Cemetery, Mansfield, CT.
John

Roger Conant died on November 19, 1679 in what is now the city of Beverly in Essex County, Massachusetts. He was reportedly buried in Burying Point Cemetery in Salem.

Statue in Salem

In 1913, the Conant Family Association approved sculptor Henry Hudson Kitson's design for a bronze sculpture of Roger Conant. Kitson's dramatic design features Conant overlooking Salem Common, shrouded in a billowing heavy cloak.

The sculpture was installed atop a boulder taken from nearby Lynn, Massachusetts. Because of the cloak, wide-brimmed hat, and its proximity directly outside the Salem Witch Museum, visitors to the area often mistake Conant for a witch.

In 1887 and incredible family history of the Conan Family from the beginning and containing over 4000 names was prepared.

The book can be read online.

HISTORY AND GENEALOGY OF THE CONANT FAMILY

IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. THIRTEEN GENERATIONS, 1520-1887 ;

CONTAINING ALSO SOME GENEALOGICAL NOTES ON THE

GONNET, GONNETT AND CONNIT FAMILIES.

FREDERICK ODELL CONANT, M. A., OF PORTLAND, MAINE, U. 8. A.

PRIVATELY PRINTED. PORTLAND: 1887.

In 1884 I published a "Pedigree of the Conant Family," embracing eight generations and giving the names of about six hundred descendants of Roger Conant. While the tabular form has its advantages, the impossibility of attaining completeness by its use decided me in undertaking the present

Genealogy.

The plan adopted is substantially that of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Only those names are numbered which are subsequently taken up as the head of a family, and as the names are treated consecutively no difficulty will be experienced in tracing any particular line of ancestors

or descendants. The materials for the work have been collected with care, and at considerable expense, from printed works, from the Massachusetts Archives, from town and church records, from the records in the offices of the Registers of Deeds and Probate of Plymouth, Essex, Middlesex and Barnstable counties iu Massachusetts, Cheshire and Rockingham counties in New Hampshire, York and Cumberland commities in Maine, and from an extensive correspondence with members of the family.

Besides the above, which was conducted personally, I have caused an extensive search to be made in the Probate Offices at Somerset House, London, and Palace Gate, Exeter, the Public Record Office, College of Arms and Marriage Licenses of the Archbishop of Canterbury, in London, the Marriage

Licenses of the Bishop of Exeter and the Parochial Registers of more than twenty parishes, and among other public and private records.

In a work of this class it is well nigh impossible to insure absolute correctness. Doubtless some, perhaps many, mistakes may be found, and I beg that any one noticing such, either of dates, names or facts, will kindly report the same to me. I shall be happy to receive additional family records, and dates of births, marriages or deaths, from members of the family, and should a sufficient number l)e obtained a supplement may be issued embodying these, together with any corrections. The list of additions and corrections beginning on page 572 is important, and all having occasion to use this book should consult it to see that statements niade in the text are not thereby modified.

The book contains the names of some 4300 Conants, about 1700 other surnames and about l000 names of places.....

The Colliant family appears to be, primarily, of Celtic descent, for the name Collaii or Conon, from which the name is derived, is found at a very early period among:- various races of Celtic origin, including- the Britons, Welsh, Irish, Gaels and Bretons. Nobody knows when the Celts first settled in Britain, for at the beginning of authentic history the island was inhabited by them. When Britain was invaded by the Anglo- Saxons, these Celtic inhabitants retreated before them into Cornwall and Wales, where they retained their language and customs for a long time. Some crossed the English Channel southward and joined their kinsmen in Armoric Brittany.

Though Anglo-Saxon influence predominates, the English character of to-day is in no small degree an inheritance from Celtic ancestors. This influence is fully realized by Emerson, who says: "The sources from which tradition derives their stock are three.

And first they are of the oldest blood of the world — the Celtic. Some peoples are deciduous or transitory. Where are the Greeks? Where the Etrurians'? Where the Romans? But the Celts or Sidoides are an old family, of whose beginning there is no memory, and their end is likely to

be still more remote in the future; for they have endurance and productiveness....

How any person could amass the family genealogy of over 4300 people in 1887 is astonishing.

https://archive.org/details/historygenealogy00con

The Clark Lineage

The fifth generation is Jemima Clark 1728 - 1845. She was the daughter of

6GU Increase Clark 1684 - 1775 and Mary Sheldon 1690 - 1767

Increase Clark was the son of

7GU John Clark 1651 and Mary Strong 1654 - 1738.

John Clark was the son of

8GU William Clark 1610 - 1690 and Sarah Lambert 1622 - 1688

John Clark and Mary Strong were also the parents of

6GU Rebekah Clark 1687 - 1774 Rebecca married Captain John Baker 1679 - 1762.

8GU Sarah Lambert was in all likelihood the daughter of

9GU Francis Lambert 1592 1647 who died at Rowley and Margery Casson 1590 both from Pollington in Yorkshire. They had a daughter Ann who married a Nelson

Now for the confusing part.

8GU William Clark married twice, once to Sarah Slye 1615 - 1618. This Sarah was married to Lieutenant Thomas Cooper 1615 - 1675. He met an untimely death. Their children included Rebecca Cooper, who married as his second wife, 7GU John Clark.

That means that William Clark married his daughter-in-law's mother!

While his son married his step mother's daughter

Makes research interesting, but not half as interesting as trying to establish the lineages of these great grandparents.

The Clark Family

This was another fairly complicated research. So many people have so many differing versions of who the first, second and last Clarke was who settled America. The lineages is supposed to come from some fairly prominent English nobility. Each and every one of those suGUestions has been followed in my online tree, and none could prove or disprove who William Clark was. The one thing to remember in old English times, is that people did not generally move from the area they were born in. They were born, married and died all within a fairly close location.

Faced with the possibilities, some research is included.

William Clark arrived on the ship "Mary and John" in 1630. He married Sarah Lambert in 1638 at Barnstable. They had several children including John born in 1651. Sarah died about 1675 and he married Sarah Slye in 1676. Sarah was previously married to Lieut Thomas Hooper, who was killed by an Indian arrow when Springfield burnt in 1675.

Yet another story has him arriving in 1635 on the William and Mary

LIEUT. WILLIAM, b. Plymouth, Dorset, England, 1609, came t o N.E. 1630, settled at Dorchester,, MA, before 1635; removed to Northampton,MA, 1659. William Clarke emigrated in 1630 at the age of 21, on the ship "WIlliam and Mary" with Rev. Mr. Warham. He settled first at Dorchester where he officiated as townsman from 1646 to 1653. He was one of the ear ly settlers of Northampton MA. Townsman 20 times; deputy t o General Court 14 times between 1663 and 1682; associate justice of county court for 26 years; frequently appointed to deal with Indians. Was Lieutenant of the military company and saw active service in King Philip's War. Helped to supply the Commissary dept. during King Philip's War; helped to build the first grist mill and first saw mill in the town. His home lot, one of the largest, covered the north half of the Smith College property.(From)

In Trumbull's History of Northampton: "A man of quiet dignity, self-contained, and a ready resource, he bore a more conspicuous part in the early history of the town than any ot hers who lived here during the first 20 years of its existence.

Others mention he signed the Plymouth Compact, but it was John Clarke and Thomas Clark who signed that document.

William Coddington, John Clarke, William Hutchinson, Jr., John Coggeshall, William Aspinwall, Samuel Wilbore, John Porter, John Sanford, Edward Hutchinson Jr., Thomas Savage, William Dyre, William Freeborne, Philip Shearman, John Walker, Richard Cardner, William Baulston, Edward Hutchinson Sr., Henry Bull, Randall Holden, Thomas Clarke, John Johnson, William Hall, John Brightman, Esq.

None however mention he is the brother of Mary Clark who married Tey, and who is also married into the DeGraw family.

Genealogical Notes on the Founding of New England: My Ancestors Part in that Undertaking, written in 1926 by Ernest Flagg

8GU William Clark married Sarah Slye 1615 - 1675 and Sarah Lambert

Sarah Slye was the daughter of

9GU George Slye 1564 and Deborah Gardener 1564 - 1625 They lived at Lapworth Warwickshire

Deborah Gardiner was the daughter of

9GU Richard Gardiner 1542 - 1598 of Worminster in Wiltshire and Eliza Burgess 1543 - 1602

George Slye was the son of

10GU Robert Slye 1545 - 1596 and Elizabeth Stoddard 1545 - 1664

Robert was the son of

11GU Robert Slye 1505 and Margaret Walton. 1510 - 1561

A Richard Slye and a George Slye were admitted to the Merchant Taylors in London in the mid 1600s, they may have been a separate family.

It is no wonder then that Robert Slye, also a merchant was living in Maryland

It is reported that several Irish Catholic women worked as maid servants for the Protestant merchant Robert Slye and the Catholic planter Thomas Gerard in the 1650s

Slye, Captain Robert, 1615- 1670. One of the Commissioners of the Province and Member of Council

of State in Maryland, 1655. Burgess from St. Mary's Co., 1658. Captain of Militia.

Another interesting member of the Clark family, but no relation is Jeremy Clarke.

He was the son of William Clarke and Mary Weston. Unfortunately when he was a young child, he and his siblings were orphaned. It can be surmised that he was then brought up by his extended family. Mary Weston's father was Sir Jerome Weston, Baron of the Exchequer and her brother was Richard Weston, 1st Earl of Portland, and Lord High Treasuer of England. Jeremy was a merchant in London. He married Frances Latham, who had been married to William Dungan, and had four children. He and Frances settled at Acquidneck Island, and were living there by 1638. He later was one of the men who signed the Portsmouth Compact. In 1642 he was a lieutenant in the Military later becoming Captain.

He later became the President of the Colony, and his son Walter became Colonial Governor of Rhode Island.

The Sheldon Family

9GU Ralph Sheldon 1600 and Barbara Stone 1605

Barbara Stone was the daughter of

10GU Stephen Stone 1581 - 1638 and Anna Sutton 1585 -- 1615. They lived Bakewell in Derbyshire

Ralph Sheldon was the son of

10GU Ralph Sheldon 1537 - 1619 and Ann Throckmorton 1545 - 1603

Ralph Sheldon was the son of

11GU William Sheldon

William Sheldon was he son of

12GU Ralph Sheldon d 1546 and Phillipa Heath daughter of Baldwin Heath

Ralph Sheldon was the son of

13GU William Sheldon and Mary Willington.

The name Willington, is probably taken from the village of Willington. St Michael's parish Church is from the 13th century.

The founder of the lineage was Ralph de Willington, the son of Ralph Willington and Olimpia Franc. He was a Knight and born c 1194. He married Joan de Champernon.

All the sons of Ralph de Willington and Joan de Champernon abandoned their paternal arms of Willington (ancient) in favour of a differenced version of their maternal arms of Champernon

10GU Ann Throckmorton was the daughter of

11GU Sir Robert Throckmorton 1520 - 1581 and his wife Muriel Berekley 1518 - 1541

Robert Throckmorton was the son of

12GU Sir George Throckmorton d 1552 and Katherine Vaux d 1523

"Sr. Robert Throgmorton", Sir Robert Throckmorton (1513–1581). He holds a skull in his right hand. 16th century English. Throckmorton Collection, Coughton Court, Warwickshire. Property of the National Trust, NTPL Ref. No.153605

The following photographic relationship may assist in trying to work out all these relationships. One thing that you may notice is the closeness of these different ancestors to King Henry VIII. Catherine Parr, wife of King Henry VIII was his cousin.

One the left is Goditha Throckmorton who married William Tew. They are also ancestors of the DeGraws.

Sir Robert Throckmorton of Coughton Court, Warwickshire, MP, KG (c. 1513 – 12 February 1581) was a distinguished English Tudor courtier. His public career was impeded by being a Roman Catholic.

Throckmorton continued the family in the Catholic tradition. He married his children into leading Catholic families, and in these generations the increased persecution of the Catholics led to many of his relatives becoming involved in plots against the throne. The sons of his daughters Anne and Muriel, were Robert Catesby and Francis Tresham of Gunpowder Plot fame. and a third daughter, Mary, was married to Edward Arden, who was also convicted of treason and executed for his part in a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth in 1583.

Mary Arden kept an excellent record of a woman persecuted for recusancy, documenting the fines and searches made at Coughton Court, that is still in the family archives. A nephew, Francis Throckmorton, was executed in 1584 for acting as a go-between for Mary, Queen of Scots and the Spanish Ambassador in an attempt to invade England and place Mary on the throne. A niece Elizabeth, also known as Bess, the daughter of Sir Nicholas, and a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth, also got into trouble by secretly marrying Sir Walter Raleigh

11GU Muriel Berkeley was the daughter of
12GU Thomas Berkeley 1472 - 1532 and Ailinore Contable 1480 - 1545

Thomas Berkeley, de jure 5th Baron Berkeley, (b. 1472 - 22 January 1532) was a British soldier and aristocrat.

He was born to Sir Maurice Berkeley, de jure 3rd Baron Berkeley, and Isabel Meade, in England. He was the younger brother to Maurice Berkeley, de jure 4th Baron Berkeley, and had a younger brother, James, and younger sister, Anne. On 9 September 1513 he fought in the Battle of Flodden and was knighted by the Earl of Surrey, Thomas Howard.

He later became Constable of Berkeley Castle on 15 May 1514, and Sheriff of Gloucestershire, November 1522 - November 1523. By writ, he was succeeded to the title of de jure 5th Baron Berkeley on 12 September 1523 after his brother Maurice's death, and his eldest son Thomas followed as the de jure 6th Baron Berkeley, again by writ.

Thomas Berkeley was the son of

13GU Sir Maurice Berkeley d 1581 and Isabel Meade

Sir Maurice Berkeley (by 1514–81) of Bruton in Somerset, was an English politician who rose rapidly in the Tudor court. He came from a cadet branch of the great Berkeley family of Berkeley Castle, but in his career his initial advantage was his mother's second marriage to Sir John FitzJames, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench 1526–1539, which by 1538 had brought him into the household of Thomas Cromwell, from which he passed into the royal household by 1539.

He built a house on the site of Bruton Priory, a spoil of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, incorporating some of the buildings, but this was demolished in 1786. Sir Maurice's impressive Renaissance tomb, shared with his two wives, is retained in the later chancel of Church of St Mary, Bruton, Somerset.

His Bruton branch of the Berkeley family produced a number of notable figures until the 18th century, including five Barons Berkeley of Stratton (extinct in 1773), and four Viscount Fitzhardinges (extinct in 1712), as well as William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia. Berkeley Square in London derives its name from this branch.

The Sheldron Ancestors lived at Beoly. William Sheldon built Balford Hall which was burnt down in 1643.

William Sheldon of Abberton, however, must have held a good part of the parish by feu as he was established at Balford Hall in Beoley in the reign of Edward IV (1460-1483). In addition he bought Benyt’s Place in that parish in 1488. Sheldon supported the Yorkists at the battle of Bosworth in 1485, and as a result of the definitive Lancastrian victory there he was deprived of his property, but it was restored to him before he died in 1517. In his Inquisition Post Mortem (IPM), held at Pershore, it was said that Sheldon owned Balford Hall and seven other houses and 460 acres of land in Beoley, and even more elsewhere in Worcestershire and Warwickshire. In his will he made bequests to the churches at Beoley and Abberton and to Pershore Abbey.

Sheldon was succeeded at Beoley by his son Ralph (d.1546), who was married to Philippa, daughter of Baldwin Heath of Ford Hall, Wootton Wawen. Ralph was imprisoned in the Marshalsea in 1580 for recusancy but was released on medical grounds. Ralph was succeeded at Beoley by his eldest son, William (b.c1500-1570), who possessed the manors of Weston, Warwickshire, Abberton (jointly with his brother Francis), and, by now, virtually the entire parish of Beoley (some 4000 acres). He was Receiver at the Court of Augmentations, Knight of the Shire for Worcestershire, and Sheriff of the same county. Around 1534, William Sheldon purchased 2,000 acres of land at Skilts, between Beoley and his mother’s home Ford Hall, which lands had been a grange of Studley Priory. His magnificent tomb is in Beoley parish church.

William Sheldon was succeeded by his son, another Ralph Sheldon (1537-1613), who was married to Anne, daughter of Sir Robert Throgmorton, Knt., of Coughton, who had attended the reception of Anne of Cleves. A Roman Catholic, Ralph Sheldon was a courtier at the Court of Queen Mary, and sometime a courier for Mary Queen of Scots between her place of confinement and Scotland. He is frequently mentioned in State Papers as a recusant, and in 1594 there is reference to an alleged premeditated rebellion in North Wales, "the chiefest aid for which is to come from Ralph Sheldon", and that he had sent an emissary to Louvain "with letters to Cardinal Allen."

He is said to have been responsible for the construction of the great manor house at Weston Park in Warwickshire, another Sheldon estate in Long Compton parish. He was succeeded by his eldest son and heir Edward (1561-1643). Also a Royalist, in August 1636 King Charles 1st visited Warwick, and a day or two later went on "to Weston at Mr. Sheldon's house with great delight."

Ralph Sheldon (1623–1684) was a Roman Catholic Royalist and an antiquary, who bequeathed his library of books and manuscripts to the College of Arms, the authority over heraldry and pedigree in England. Sheldon was born on 1 August 1623 at Beoley, Worcestershire, eldest son of the landowner William Sheldon (1589–1659) of Beoley and of Weston in Long Compton, Warwickshire, and his wife Elizabeth (1592–1656), daughter of William, Lord Petre. He was a nephew of Edward Sheldon, the translator of Catholic religious works.

The Sheldons were among the wealthiest gentry families in their own region; however, their Catholicism prevented any prominent position in public life.

After the Restoration, Sheldon ordered copies to be woven of two of the tapestry maps, those of Worcestershire and Oxfordshire, first commissioned around 1590 by his great-grandfather, also named Ralph Sheldon. Each of the four original maps was centred on a county in which members of the family lived, held land and had friends: Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Oxfordshire. The copies of the map itself were almost exact, while the decorative borders were updated in style.

The two later maps and the earlier one of Warwickshire, were sold at auction along with the contents of Weston in 1781, and bought by Horace Walpole. They were presented to Lord Harcourt, who built a room specially for them at Nuneham Courtenay. They were later acquired by the Yorkshire Philosophical Society. The Oxfordshire map is now on display at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, that of Warwickshire is in the County Museum, Warwick while that of Worcestershire is in store in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

http://heritage.warwickshire.gov.uk/museum-service/collections/the-sheldon-tapestry-maps/

The Woodford Family

Mary Sheldon was the 6th great grandmother and she was the daughter of

7GU Isaac Sheldon 1656 - 1712 and Sarah Warner 1667 -1701

Isaac Sheldon was the son of

8GU Isaac Sheldon 1630 - 1708 and Mary Woodford 1636 - 1684

Mary Woodford was the daughter of

9GU Thomas Woodford 1612 - 1667 and Mary Blott 1612 - 1660

Mary Blott was the daughter of

10GU Robert Blott 1582 and Susanna Seelby 1590.

Thomas Woodford was the son of

10GU Joseph Woodford 1590 - 1614 and Alice Upton 1590 - 1619 They lived Bedfordshire

Joseph Woodford was the son of

11GU Thomas Woodford 1565

Alice Upton was the daughter of

11GU John Upton 1568- 1621 and Elizabeth Leversedge 1570 - 1674

Mary Blott From Resources

Mary Blott, mother of Mary Woodford, was born in 1609 at Harold, Bedfordshire, England. She came to America in with her parents. The Roxbury MA church records show "Mary Blott, a maid servant, came in 1632, and married Steward Woodford of this church she lived in Christian sort." She married Thomas Woodford on March 4, 1635. The couple had four daughters, Mary, Hannah, Thankful, and Sarah, and two sons, Nehemiah and Joseph. She died at age 51, predeceasing her father, in Northampton or Boston MA on January 10, 1660; her will was proved May 27, 1662.....

The 63rd member admitted to Roxbury Church was "Mary Blott a maid servant. She came in the year 1632 and was after married to Steward Woodford of this church, who after removed to Connecticut to Hartford church, where lived in christian sort" [RChR 77]."

"... Mary Blott was baptized at Harrold, Bedfordshire, 24 Dec 1609, dau of Robert Blott [TAG 67:65-67]. Robert Blott first appears in New England records in a list of those admitted as inhabitants of Charlestown in 1634 [ChTR 11]; many of the others in this list were known to have arrived in New England in 1634. While he and his entire family may have come as early as 1632, only Mary is known to have been in New England before 1634, so she is here presumed to have come on her own, probably as a servant, two years in advance of the rest of her family."

More likely the whole family of 7 children arrived with their parents in one group

Robert Blott The family arrived prior to 1634.

Robert first appears in records of Charlestown, Massachusetts, 2 April 1634. He was then a resident of Charlestown and owned a house there. He was made a Freeman at the General Court on 4 Mar 1634/5. The law stated that: “noe man shalbe admitted to the freedom of the body polliticke, but such as are members of the churches within the lymits of the same.” No church record has been found for Robert Blott in the Massachusetts Bay Colony for 1634. Evidently, however, he was a church member in accordance with the law.

Woodford Research

Thomas Woodford, came to Boston in the "William and Francis;" embarked March 7, arrived June 5, 1632; settled at Roxbury; freeman, March 4, 1635; married in Roxbury, Mary, daughter of Robert Blott; he came to Agawam with Mr. Pynchon's company, where he signed the agreement of May 16, 1636, and had an allotment of land. Named in the distribution of 1639 at Hartford, when he was one who received land "by the courtesie of the town;" his home-lot was on the west side of the highway now Front St. He was chosen with Arthur Smith, February 10, 1639-40, to attend the townsmen, and to do any special services required by them, as to give notice of town-meetings, impound stray cattle, etc. Appointed to act as sexton, March 3, 1640, to "attend the making of graves for any corpses deceased;" to "receive for giving notice by ringing the bell, making the grave, and keeping of it in seemly repair, so that it may be known in future time; when such graves have been made for the lesser sort, 2s. 6d., for the middle sort, 3s., and for the higher sort, 3s. 6d.;" also appointed town crier, and to be paid 2d. for crying anything lost. His wife probably died in Hartford; he removed about 1656 to Northampton; there died March 6, 1667.

Thomas Woodford, Steward, came from London, England, and embarked in the ship "William and Francis" March 7th, 1631/32, arriving in Massaschusetts Jun 5th, 1632. He settled first in Rodbury, Mass. He married Mary Blott, daughter of Robert and Susanna Blott, March 4th, 1636, and moved to Hartford, Connecticut, and later to Springfield, Mass, where he is mentioned in the Compact of Settlers in 1536. Later he removed to Northampton, Mass, where he died March 6th, 1667. He had three daughters; Mary, who married Isaac Shelton; Hannah, who married Samuel Allen; and Sarah, who married Nehemiah Allen. He made a will Apr. 24th, 1665, bequeathing to his daughter Mary and her children; also to Hannah and Sarah; and to his sons-in-law, Isaac Shelton and Nehemiah Allen. --Clark F. Allen

Another of the Woodwards from Puddington in Bedfordshire as Nathanial Woodward.

Nathaniel WOODWARD and his wife, Margaret LAWRENCE baptised three of their children at Puddington (Podington), Bedfordshire:
James 21st September 1623
Ezekiel 8th May 1625
Benjamin 5th November 1626
Prudence 18th January 1629

The Woodward family were Puritans. They emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1633. Nathaniel surveyed the boundaries between Massachusetts and Connecticut, and also the Merrimac and Charles Rivers. They were probably married in Rushden, Northamptonshire on 16th September 1608 and it is believed that their family roots were in Warwickshire. Possibly Ezekiel, Snitterfield and Richard, Stratford-on-Avon.

Nathaniel Woodward seems to have been the standard bearer and later gallant captain of the Warwick Yeoman Guards, and was founder, or a prominent supporter of the Standish Hall branch of these guards. He was a strong Puritan and apparently hot-headed for he was cited in 1632 by a bench of Anglican Bishops to the hall of Lord de Birmingham to take oath to keep his Puritan teachings within his own family and home. Unwilling to do this and heavily fined by the ecclesiastical court, he gave notice with his brother, Ezekiel, likewise cited, that he would leave England for good.
Some time late, Lord de Bradford of Castle Bromwich near Birmingham, England, who was interested in Nathaniel because of his gallant service in the Warwick Guards, ordered remittance of the fines levied against Nathaniel and Ezekiel and severely censured the Warwickshire Episcopal Court for its arbitrary procedure. A Grand Jury thereupon caused the British Government of Charles I to grant lands in New England to the brothers Nathaniel and Ezekiel, now freemen. It is said that there Royal Grants were made in 1642 in the township of Roxbury, Mass.

Nathaniel I had a son Nathaniel Jr. and it is possible that the person fined was Nathaniel Jr.
Nathaniel Woodward - Margaret Lawrence married 16th September 1608 Rushden, Northamptonshire England

Children:
Nathaniel II - born between 1608 - 1609 Rushden - Married Mary Jackson daughter of gentleman Edmund Jackson of Boston, Lincolnshire, England in Boston, Mass. Removed to Taunton, Mass. Proprietor of Ironworks in Taunton.

1. John Woodward baptised 22nd September 1610 in Rushden

2. Robert Woodward baptised 22nd February 1612 in Rushden

3. Elizabeth Woodward baptised 24th April 1614 in Rushden

4. Anne/Agnes Woodward baptised 12th May 1616 in Rushden

5. Lambert Woodward baptised 10th May 1617 in Rushden

6. Thomas Woodward baptised 6th February 1620 in Rushden

7. James Woodward baptised 21st September 1623 in Puddington, Bedford, England

8. Ezekiel Woodward baptised 5th November 1626 in Puddington, Bedford

9. Benjamin Woodward baptised 5th November 1626 in Puddington

10. Prudence Woodward baptised 18th January 1629 in Puddington

Nathaniel is mentioned by John Winthorop, founder of the Mass Bay Colony in his diary, and Nathaniel Jr was an indentured servant to William Coddington, one of the leaders of the Winthrop Fleet. He then became a freeman, joined the church and married Mary Jackson. Nathaniel obtained grants in Brookline, Mass, and his home lot is shown on one of the first maps of Boston, Mass. A descendant of John le Wodeward, Anne born 1709 died 1797 married Thomas Thakeray. They had 16 children one of whom was the grandfather of William Makepiece Thackeray.

Much of this information was contributed by Faith Eckert Woodward whose father spent years researching the family and from the English Origin of Nathaniel Woodward by Doris J. Woodward and Patricia Law Hatcher; Publication: The Maine Genealogist, Nov. 1998, Vol 20,number 4

Footnote
This information was supplied by Gladys Woodard Roby of California who is researching this family. If you have any information or would like to know more then please contact Gladys (Gladroby@aol.com)

The Warner Family

8GU Daniel Warner 1635 - 1692 and Mary Gerner 1626 - 1672

Daniel Warner was the son of

9GU John Warner 1600 and Mary Purchase 1610

John Warner was the son of

10GU John Warner c 1565

Mary Gerner, has no records, which certainly indicates transcription errors. Considering the variants of the name, it is in all likelihood Garner.

10GU Richard Gardiner/Garner born 1592 in England and his wife Elizabeth Hame 1595 were early settlers who purportedly arrived on the Mayflower.

Mary Purchas was the daughter of

10GU Samuel Purchas 1575 - 1626 and Janeleasin.

Samuel Purchas was a Cleric, and author. He wrote the book "His Pilgrim" in 1625

Samuel Purchas at the age of 48.

Samuel Purchas (1577? – 1626), an English cleric, published several volumes of reports by travellers to foreign countries.

Purchas was born at Thaxted, Essex, son of an English yeoman. He graduated from St John's College, Cambridge, in 1600. In 1604 James I presented him to the vicarage of St. Laurence and All Saints, in Eastwood, Essex. Eastwood is two miles from Leigh-on-Sea, which was then a prosperous shipping center and a congregational place of seafaring men. Purchas himself never travelled "200 miles from Thaxted in Essex where I was borne." Instead, he recorded personal narratives shared with him by the sailors, who returned to England from their voyages.

He added these accounts to a vast compilation of unsorted manuscripts, which were left to him by Richard Hakluyt and were later published as Purchas's third - and final - book. In 1614, Purchas became chaplain to Archbishop George Abbot and rector of St Martin, Ludgate, London. He held a Bachelor of Divinity degree, and with this degree was admitted at Oxford University in 1615.

In 1613 he published Purchas His Pilgrimage: or Relations of the World and the Religions observed in all Ages and Places discovered, from the Creation unto this Present. In this work, intended as an overview of the diversity of God's creation from an Anglican world-view, he presented several abbreviated travel stories he would later publish in full. The book achieved immediate popularity and went through four editions between 1613 and 1626, the year of Purchas's death.

Title page of Samuel Purchas's magnum opus: Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas his Pilgrimes, London, 1625

His second book, Purchas his Pilgrim or Microcosmus, or the Historie of Man. Relating the Wonders of his Generation, Vanities in his Degeneration, Necessities of his Regenerations, was published in 1619.

In 1625 Purchas published Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas his Pilgrimes, a massive four-volume collection of travel stories that can be seen as a continuation of Richard Hakluyt's Principal Navigations and was partly based on manuscripts left by Hakluyt, who had died in 1616.

Although the work is not methodically organized, it may be thematically divided into four volumes:

Volume I explores ancient kings, beginning with Solomon, and records stories of circumnavigation around the African coast to the East Indies, China, and Japan.
Volume II is dedicated to Africa, Palestine, Persia, and Arabia.
Volume III provides history of the North-East and North-West passages and summaries of travels to Tartary, Russia, and China.
Volume IV deals with America and the West Indies.

The fourth edition of the Pilgrimage (published in 1626) is usually catalogued as the fifth volume of the Pilgrimes, but the two works are essentially distinct. Purchas himself said of the two volumes:
These brethren, holding much resemblance in name, nature and feature, yet differ in both the object and the subject. This [i.e. the Pilgrimage] being mine own in matter, though borrowed, and in form of words and method; whereas my Pilgrimes are the authors themselves. acting their own parts in their own words, only furnished by me with such necessities as that stage further required, and ordered according to my rules.

Purchas died in September or October 1626, according to somein a debtors' prison, nearly ruined by the expenses of his encyclopedic labor. Othersbelieve the patronage of Dr. King, Bishop of London, which provided him with the Rectory of St Martin, Ludgate, and made him Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, relieved him from his financial troubles. In addition, his move to London allowed Purchas to expand his research. None of his works was reprinted till the Glasgow reissue of the Pilgrimes in 1905–1907.

As an editor and compiler Purchas was often injudicious, careless and even unfaithful; but his collections contain much value and are frequently the only sources of information upon important questions affecting the history of exploration. His editorial decisions as well as the commentary he added can be understood from his basic goal: to edify and educate the reader about the world, foreign culture, and morality. This should be contrasted with Hakluyt's goal of inspiring and interesting the nation in pursuing the project of exploration.

Purchas his Pilgrimes became one of the sources of inspiration for the poem Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. As a note to Coleridge's poem explains, "In the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm-house between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire.
In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in Purchas's Pilgrimes: “In Xaindu did Cublai Can build a stately palace, encompassing sixteen miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile meddowes, pleasant springs, delightful streams, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure.”

They lived in Essex, which was referred to as "Hooker Company", and "Braintree Company" from Braintree, which is were so many of the ancestors lived.

Mr Hooker was a preacher, and was for a time in Holland, due to persecution, he came to America on the ship Griffen, and became a pastor of the church at Cambridge.

After preaching briefly in the parish of Esher in Surrey, England, Hooker became lecturer to the Church of St. Mary at Chelmsford, Essex, around 1626, where he delivered fervent evangelical addresses. Such church lectureships, an innovation of Puritanism, came under attack from the Church of England in 1629, and in 1630 Hooker was cited to appear before the Court of High Commission. He fled to Holland, forfeiting his bond, and in 1633 immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony.

At New Towne (now Cambridge), he became the pastor of a company of Puritans who had arrived from England the previous year; in expectation of his joining them, they had been called Mr. Hooker’s Company. Hooker and his supporters became restive under the influence of John Cotton, and in 1636 Hooker led a group to Connecticut to settle Hartford, where he served as pastor until his death.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Hooker

The following link will provide more information about the Warner family.

Full text of "The descendants of Andrew Warner" - Internet Archive

https://archive.org/stream/.../descendantsofand1919warn_djvu.txt

Mr. J. R. Hutchinson, a genealogist of London, has made extensive examinations of the records of Essex County in England, and has carried back the record of Andrew Warner from his parents, John and Mary Warner of Hatfield Broad Oak, to his grandfather, John Warner of Great Waltham, and probably also to his ...

Andrew Warner was born by about 1594/5, son of John and Mary (Purchas) Warner of Great Waltham, Essex, England, who later moved to neighboring Hatfield Broad Oak. He died on 18 Dec 1684 in Hadley, Hampshire, Massachusetts. His first wife was Mary, mother of his children; after her death he married Hester Wakeman, widow Selden.

Records show that as early as 1632-3 Andrew Warner was residing in America and was a member of the Cambridge colony. He was born about 1595, so he was at this time 37 years old. The reason for his removal to America we can only know by inference. It was during the reign of Queen Elizabeth that Protestantism was restored to England, and it was also during her reign that Puritanism appeared. Towards the close of her life, the persecutions of the Puritans, who were non-conformists to the established church, became severe and under her successor, James I, matters became decidedly worse for them both in civil and religious affairs (Warner, & Nichols, p 14).
Of the first wife of Andrew Warner we have not been able to discover a single record. The family tradition is that her name was Mary, but we find no positive proof. Not far from the time of Andrew Warner's removal to Hadley, he was married to Esther or Hester Wakeman Selden, baptized June 15, 1617, died in Hadley in 1693, daughter of Francis Wakeman of Bewdley, Worcestershire, England, and his wife Anne Good. Her first husband was Thomas Selden who died in 1655. They had 8 children, Thomas, John, Mary, Esther (1), Joseph, Hannah, Esther (2), and Sarah. The first mention of Esther Selden in connection with Andrew Warner is a record of the Connecticut Probate Court, Dec 3, 1663, in which a complaint is entered against Andrew Warner because he had not given proper security to the Court for the payment of the legacies due from the estate of Thomas Selden to his children

The early colonial records show that there were five Warner brothers immigrants who came to America in or before 1639.

1. The first was Andrew Warner who was residing in Cambridge in 1632, he arrived in Cambridge on the ship "Lyon" arriving on 2, Nov 1631. With his was his wife and two children, Mary and Andrew.

2. One was John Warner, who came on the ship Increase in 1635 and settled in Providence Rhode Island in or before 1637.

3. The third William Warner who came from England in 1637 with two sons John and David and settled in Ipswich, Mass.

4. The fourth John was one of the original settlers of Farmington.

5. The fifth was Captain Augustine Warner who settled in Virginia in 1628. His son Col. Augustine was educated in England he married Mildred Reade and their daughter Mildred Warner married Lawrence Washington grandfather of Gen. George Washington.

Andrew remained in England until he was about 35 years old. He was also a Maltster (maker of malt) and was in the brewing business. He had his own still for distilling cordials, sweet waters from herbs, flowers and spices. The malting business established by Andrew Warner was continued for 130 years by three generations of his descendants. He was very active and stirred with the Puritan preaching of Rev. Hooker. Thought he came to American following Hooker and escaping the persecution of Puritan's in England during that time. He stayed with Hooker until the Rev's death, even following him to CT. Andrew lived to be about 90, and stayed very active in community affairs until his death.

Andrew Warner died at the age of 75, and no monument marks his grave in Hadley, but nearby Mount Warner is a monument to his memory. (From "Warner Family, Desc. of Andrw" Warner & Nichols, 1919)

The first direct mention of Andrew Warner in America is an entry in the town records of Cambridge, Mass, then known as "Newtowne." The records indicate that Andrw Warner was among the more prominent and wealthy members of the new colony. (Taken from the Descendants of Andrew Warner) Andrew was a deacon in his church...... Andrew took the oat of "freeman" on 14 May, 1634 in Cambridge, Middlesex, Mass. He moved in 1636 to Harford, Hartford Connecticut. In February of 1640 he was appointed to help study how cattle could be kept from trespassing. He was one of the earliest settlers in 1659 in Hadley, Hampshire Massachusetts. He signed a will on 16 June 1681. He had an estate probated on 31 Mar 1685. He served as selectman. (?) (Portions taken from Taken from Colonial Families of the United States of America: Vol 4)

Augustine Warner Sr. (September 28, 1611 – December 24,^[1] 1674), was an English Virginia planter and politician. He was born in Norwich, Norfolk, the son of Thomas Warner and Elizabeth Sotherton. The progenitor of a prominent colonial family, and great-great grandfather of President George Washington, Warner arrived in Virginia in 1628 at the age of seventeen, one of a group of thirty-four settlers brought in by Adam Thoroughgood. His first land acquisition came seven years later, when he patented 250 acres (1,000,000 m²). Lewis of Warner Hall

Continuing the typical pattern of 17th-century success in colonial Virginia as a merchant, landowner, and politician, he rose through the hierarchy to become a member of the House of Burgesses in 1652 and then in 1659 a member of the King's Council, which he held until his death. About 1657, he moved across the York River to Gloucester County, where he settled and built the first house at Warner Hall.
Augustine Warner died in 1674, at sixty-three, and was succeeded at Warner Hall by his only son, Augustine Warner Jr. (1642–1681). After his English education in London and at Cambridge, the younger Warner returned to Virginia, and by 1666 became a member of the House of Burgesses, and then Speaker of the House in 1676. In 1677 he took his seat on the King's Council, but his career was cut short by his early death in 1681 at the age of thirty-nine.

From the resources, Andrew Warner was born 1594 and the son of John and Mary. The only problem was that John and Mary were born around 1600.

No doubt Andrew Warner was a brother to John.

John and Mary were the family who arrived in 1635.

Augustine Warner is no relation to Andrew or John.

The Warners came from Waltham. There was a strong Quaker presence in Waltham, as told by one well known Quaker Preacher, George Fox

George Fox recorded in his Journal in 1654:

“Then I went to Waltham… and had a meeting there; but the people were very rude, and gathered about the house, and broke the windows. Whereupon I went out to them, with the Bible in my hand, and desired them to come in; and told them, I would show them scripture both for our principles and practices.”

It is likely that Friends from Epping were there, and that they met in a barn since no meeting house had been built in the area. Shortly after Fox’s visit a Quaker meeting was established in Waltham Abbey in a lane leading off the Sewardstone road, still called Quaker’s Lane. After the death of Edward Burrow and Richard Hubberthorne (in 1662) George Fox assumed the leadership of the Society of Friends. Early Quakerism was a millenial religion. Some Friends believed that Christ would return in the near future and others that there was now a chance to create a better world order.
George Fox was in the area again in 1668. “Then I came to Waltham and established a school there for the teaching of boys and ordered a women’s school to be set up at Shacklewell to instruct young lasses and maidens in whatsoever things were civil and useful in the creation.”

Edward Mann was a prominent Friend who lived at Ford End near Winchmore Hill. In 1672, he was given an orchard in Waltham Cross by Mary Bennett. In the same year, Thomas Brand of Theydon Garnon also gave him an orchard. It is not known whether the Meeting Houses were erected on the orchard grounds or whether the sale of the land brought in enough money to build them on other suitable sites. It was while staying with his friend Edward Mann that George Fox wrote an ‘Epistle to Friends in the Ministry’ in 1690, not long before he died.

John Warner, in a 1701 document, left “£10 for the People called Quakers.” He also founded the John Warner School in Hoddesdon which is now a community, foundation comprehensive for 11-18 year olds specialising in science. Several score descendants, including a member of Epping Meeting, attended an anniversary gathering held at the school, around 2003.

Edward Mann gave £20 to Six Weeks Meeting (the body still responsible for Friends’ premises in the area) towards the cost of Epping Meeting House which was built in 1705. It was of red brick with a thatched roof which extended to a portico of pillars round the building. It stood close to the present meeting house in Hemnall Street in the grounds of Theydon Grove.

The Dimsdales were from Hoddesdon but a branch of the family settled in Theydon Garnon in about 1640. Robert Dimsdale became a Quaker. He was a surgeon and doctor and treated his patients at Kendalls on the site of what is now Kendal Lodge in Hemnall Street. He bought the 30 acre farm at the end of the 17th Century and may have been in the group who helped build the first Meeting House in Epping. He went to America twice, the first time accompanying William Penn to help establish the colony where a greater degree of religious freedom could be practised. He died in 1713 and left his estate to his two sons John and William. Both were surgeons, John remained at Kendalls and William moved to Bishop’s Stortford. There were several generations of Dimsdale doctors in that town and in Hertford during the 18th and 19th centuries.

John’s sons Robert and Thomas were born at Kendalls in 1705 and 1712. Thomas moved back to Hertfordshire and became a Fellow of the Royal Society. He worked on the practice of smallpox inoculation, publishing a treatise in 1766 which was translated into several languages and circulated on the continent.

In 1768 and 1781 he was invited to St Petersburg and successfully inoculated the Russian Royal Family, followed by large numbers of people in Petersburgh and Moscow.
He was rewarded with an appointment as physician to the Empress, travelling expenses, gifts and a Russian baronetcy.

Throughout the 1770s he conducted a pamphlet debate with a Dr Lettsom who proposed inoculating the poor at their own houses. Thomas Dimsdale opened an inoculation house under his own direction for persons of all ranks in the neighbourhood of Hertford, which was used with great success. In 1781 he printed “Tracts on Inoculation” which were liberally distributed, but never sold. He was buried in the Quaker burial ground at Bishop’s Stortford with other members of his family. The burial ground, at the bottom of the steep hill that is Newton Road, was presented to the town as a garden by the Society of Friends in October 1935.

At the beginning of the 18th century there were very few members, but in 1773 there was a slight increase and Meetings were held every three First Days out of four. Probably the fourth was at Waltham Abbey, to help them keep up their Meeting. A week-day Meeting was also established. Friends met on Sunday morning for worship, and The Evangelisation Society met in the building in the afternoon and evening. Friends from outside the district sometimes attended Meeting and left records in their diaries. Thomas Scattergood, an American Friend, recorded that he attended Epping Meeting in 1794.

The Strong Family

Mary Strong married John Clark. They are the 8th great grandparents.

Mary Strong was the daughter of

9GU John Strong 1610- 1699 who married Abigail Ford 1619. John Strong and his first wife Marjory Deane had a child born on the journey, and Marjory died four months after they landed. John, with a baby, then married Abigail who was 16 years old. They arrived in 1635, and Abigail was on the same ship.

John Strong was the son of

10GU John Strong 1580

Abigail Ford was the daughter of

9GU Thomas Ford and Elizabeth Chard

John Strong (1610—1699) was an English-born New England colonist, politician, Puritan church leader, tanner and one of the founders of Windsor, Connecticut and Northampton, Massachusetts as well as the progenitor of nearly all the Strong families in what is now the United States. He was referred to as Elder John Strong because he was an Elder in the church.

Strong was born in about 1610 in Chard, Somerset, England and emigrated to Massachusetts with his pregnant wife and a one-year-old child in 1635 aboard the sailing ship Hopewell. During the 70-day sea voyage, his wife, Marjory Deane (md. 1632) had a baby while they were still at sea. She and their infant child died within two months of their arrival. With a one-year-old son to take care of, John Strong Jr., John Sr. married sixteen-year-old Mary & John (1630) passenger Abigail Ford, daughter of Thomas Ford and Elizabeth Charde, in December 1635. They settled originally in Hingham, Massachusetts, a New-Plymouth Colony, in 1635. In 1638 he was made a "Freeman" (eligible to vote in town and colony elections and serve in the church), and went to Taunton, Massachusetts. While in Taunton, Strong represented the town in the General Court of Plymouth Colony for four years, from 1641 to 1644.

He later moved to Windsor, Connecticut, on the Connecticut River where he was a leading figure in the new Connecticut colony. In 1659 he moved 40 miles further up the river to the Connecticut River town of Northampton, Massachusetts—then a frontier town surrounded by Indians about 100 miles (160 km) inland from Boston. One of the early settlers of the town, he operated a tannery for many years, helped defend the town against Indian attacks during King Philip's War (1675-1676) and also played an important role in town and church affairs.

In 1661, John Strong was one of the eight men who founded the First Church of Northampton. Of their number, Eleazer Mather, the older brother of Boston minister Increase Mather, was chosen as the first pastor. Two years later, 1663, Strong was ordained an elder of the church. The Puritan pastor Mather died in 1669, and Strong was tasked with finding a suitable minister to replace him. The following year, he and several other church leaders extended a call to Solomon Stoddard, who formally accepted in 1672, and was ordained by John Strong. Stoddard served as pastor for many years, until his death in 1729, and was succeeded by his grandson, Jonathan Edwards, whose subsequent ministry in Northampton would play a major role in the Great Awakening.
John Strong died on April 14, 1699, at Northampton and is buried at the Bridge Street Cemetery, Northampton Massachusetts.

John Strong was the first of the Strong family to settle in New England, and is the ancestor to most of that name in the United States. He and his two wives had 18 children, 15 of whom survived to adulthood. His descendants include many prominent figures in the early history of the United States, including his great-grandson, Caleb Strong, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, a US Senator, and Governor of Massachusetts from 1800-1807 and 1812-1816. In addition, Strong's descendants included, as of 1889, three other governors, four other Senators, 12 Congressmen, four members of the Continental Congress, and 29 judges, including US Supreme Court justice William Strong, who served from 1870 to 1880

9GU Thomas Ford was born in 1587 in Dorset, and died 1676 in Northampton Hampshire in Massachusetts. His first wife Joane Waye died in 1615 in Powerstock in Dorset.

He married Elizabeth Chard, who had been married to Aaron Cook. Elizabeth died in Windsor in 1643. He then married for a third time in 1644.

They arrived in 1630 on the 'Mary and John'.

The Chard family were represented in Parliament in 1492 by Thomas Chard who was a cofferer.

Thomas Chard was perhaps named after the rebuilder of Forde abbey, Dorset. By 1543 he had six messuages and 30 acres of land in Bridport and Bradpole, and in 1544 he inherited from his brother William the lease of the bridgehouse and another house in Bridport, with the household stuff there, and a messuage in Essex. His election to the fourth Parliament of Mary’s reign was an extension of his municipal career. By his will, made on 5 Apr. 1575 and proved three months later, he left money to his grandchildren, and the household stuff in the Swan, a burgage in Bridport (comprising a house and garden and five shops) to his youngest son, and named his wife residuary legatee and sole executrix

His son, William Chard followed in his footsteps and was in Parliament

William Chard ‘junior’, who was elected to Parliament and chosen as one of the town’s two bailiffs about the same time, was or became a citizen and brewer of London: he may have been a kinsman of the energetic last abbot of Forde, Dorset. He had several houses in Bridport, one of which he leased from the chaplains of Mondens’ chantry, another in West Street which he exchanged in 1541 for one in South Street, and the bridgehouse. As one of the town’s Members in 1529 he was probably involved in the petition for the monopoly in rope-making to be granted to Bridport which was enacted during the first session. In 1535, when the Parliament had reached its sixth year, the bailiffs, faced with the difficulty of paying wages to Chard and his fellow-Member, Richard Furloke, agreed to give Chard 20s. in final payment and to allow him to hold the bridgehouse rent-free for six years.

Chard was probably the less unwilling to serve for reduced wages as his business interests were in London, and the borough for its part is likely to have welcomed a continuation of this economical arrangement.

Thus as well as sitting again in 1536, when the King asked for the return of the previous Members, Chard may have done so in either or both of the following Parliaments, those of 1539 and 1542, for each of which the name of at least one of the Bridport Members is missing. Before the next Parliament met, however, he was dead. When he made his will on 19 Oct. 1544 he was evidently in London, for it was both written and witnessed by a London scrivener, Edmund Bright.

As he mentions neither wife nor child he was perhaps unmarried. He left to his brother Thomas the bridgehouse and the house in Bridport held of the chantry, with the household stuff there, and to his father (who was to outlive him by more than seven years) a furred gown and a velvet doublet. He gave a gold ring and a black gown to Paul Withypoll and a gown, a jacket and six silver spoons to John Miles, brewer, and his executors were another London brewer, James Wilkinson, and his wife, to whom he left a tenement in Bridport. As Chard had held ex-monastic property in the town by knight-service, his brother Thomas had to sue out livery of his lands, which included some in Essex: it is the inquisition post mortem which furnishes both the date of Chard’s death, 28 Oct. 1544, and the age of his brother, who was 51.

The Lane Family

At this point in the research for the family of Timothy Baker, some additional information is included.

Clearly there are very many different scenarios regarding the background of these ancestors, and with so many obvious errors on people's family trees. It has always been my aim to try to break down those brick walls, and find the ancestors, because the British records are very good up to the 16th century, and depending on their station in life, for years prior.

Edward Baker was the 8th Great Grandfather. However, it cannot be proven who he married. No doubt she was the daughter of a Puritan family who arrived by 1635.

Considerable research has been done and is ongoing by some of your Baker cousins in a family blog.

Edward Baker (c. 1610 – 1687)

My 9th great grandfather Edward Baker first appeared in historical records on March 14, 1638 when he was admitted as a “freeman” in Saugus, (later Lynn) Massachusetts. The year of his birth and the year of his arrival in America have never been determined although some family historians write that he arrived with other Puritans under the leadership of Governor John Winthrop who sailed into Massachusetts Bay with a fleet of ships in the spring and summer of 1630. More recently, genealogists have uncovered historical documents of an Edward Baker who was baptized on 2 February 1613 in Staffordshire, England who they believe was the same Edward Baker who immigrated to New England. In fact however, the location of Edward’s birth in England is widely disputed ranging from Staffordshire in central England, to Suffolk County in southeast England, to Devonshire County in southwest England. His estimated birth year is also in dispute. Truth is we have no concrete evidence as to when and where he was born or when he arrived in America. We can only speculate using common sense and logic.

Edward Baker was probably born to a middle class English couple who owned land in southeast England very possibly in Suffolk or Essex County. Many of the earliest Puritans who immigrated to New England in the 1630s were known to have come from Suffolk and Essex Counties including Governor John Winthrop who was born and raised in Essex. Edward’s parents were probably Puritans. Furthermore, Edward was most likely not their oldest son and he would have known that upon the death of his father he would not be inheriting the family land. Edward was undoubtedly a young unmarried man when he immigrated to America, probably in his early or mid-twenties, and as such he was easily incensed (a trait of youth) by the harsh treatment of Puritans in England that began in earnest when King Charles I gained the throne of England in 1625.

Early Baker family historians have asserted that Edward Baker was a passenger on one of the ships traveling with the Winthrop fleet in 1630 although there is no evidence to support this assertion. While no original passenger lists exist from this time period, the more recent lists of likely passengers arriving in 1630 created by historians does not included the name of Edward Baker. Furthermore, no mention of Edward Baker appears in the early colonial records until he became a freeman in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1638. The principle requirement of becoming a freeman in the 1630s is that one had to become a member in good standing of a Congregational church. The vast majority of the earliest Puritan settlers arriving in New England in 1630 became freemen by 1631.

The likelihood that Edward Baker arrived in the Boston area in 1630 and then stayed “under the radar” and avoided joining with his fellow Puritans the Congregational church until 1638, is extremely unlikely. More likely is that Edward Baker immigrated to the New World sometime between 1635 and 1637. While there is no way of knowing for certain, it is estimated that the population around Massachusetts Bay and the Charles River in the new towns of Boston, Charlestown Dorchester, Roxbury and Salem to the north was somewhere around 8 to 10,000 by the time that Edward Baker arrived in America. While the area where Edward Baker eventually settled near Saugus, Massachusetts was settled as early as 1629, it is probable that by 1638 when Edward was granted 40 acres of land near Saugus, this area was one of the closest areas to Boston where large plots of land were still available.

We know almost nothing about our 9th great grandmother, Edward’s wife, including her name. Early records are conflicting with respect to her name and she is listed in a few documents as either Joan or Jane. Her difference names may simply reflect the writer’s inability to spell the name Jane or Joan. Joan (we will call her Joan) was probably younger than Edward as 28 would have pretty late for her to marry and she was undoubtedly the daughter of a Puritan couple who had immigrated to America after 1630. They married in 1637 and together they had eight children born between the years 1638 and 1657. If Joan was 40 years old when her last child was born, her birth year would have been around 1617. If that is correct she would have been 20 years old when she married 28 year old Edward Baker.

In Nelson M. Baker’s history of Edward Baker and his descendants and in a history narrative of Northampton written by James Russell Trumbull in 1898 we learn that Timothy Baker was a large landowner in Northampton. By the early 1660s he owned several grants of land that he had received from the town plus several additional lots that he purchased. His estate is identified as being on the south side of Elm Street running westward from the intersection of Elm and Prospects Streets. We also learn that his son, Joseph, owned land that he obtained from his father on both sides of Henshaw Avenue where it too intersects with Elm Street. The Loomis homestead was built around the same period that Edward Baker built his home in Northampton and it probably closely reflects the appearance of the Baker home. Joseph Loomis who owned this home in Hartford, Connecticut was the brother-in-law of Edward’s son Timothy.

Unless one is familiar with Northampton, the location of Edward’s property does not mean much until we realize that today his property forms a large portion of Smith College. Smith College in Northampton is a premier liberal arts college for women where many famous American women including Barbara Bush, Nancy Reagan, Julia Child, and Gloria Steinem are listed as alumni. Another bit of interesting history about the early Baker family in Northampton is that they planted a lot of American Elms on their property. One very large elm planted at the intersection of Prospect and Elm Street was for many years referred to as “Baker’s Elm.” There is no doubt that all of the elm trees along the old roadway bordering the Baker land accounted for the street’s name, Elm Street.

Edward Baker is credited with being one of the earliest settlers in Northampton. During the many years that he lived in the village he held numerous important town offices and remained for years a “respected and influential” citizen of the community. Virtually all historians and family genealogists write that sometime before his and his wife’s death, Joan and Edward Baker returned to Lynn, Massachusetts.

While this makes absolutely no sense from what we know about the exceptional life that Edward and Joan had made for themselves in Northampton, the fact that his Will was recorded in Lynn on 16 October 1685 and his burial on 17 March 1687, it is pretty hard to refute the fact that they had returned to Lynn. Perhaps his actions before his death will help us to understand why he and Joan returned to Lynn.

First, before they left Northampton they made certain that both of their sons, Timothy and Joseph, were well situated and owned their plots of land in Northampton. While there is no record of what Edward provided to his other children still living in Northampton before they departed for Lynn, it is likely that he had transferred other items of value to the other siblings of Timothy and Joseph. Edward and Joan Baker may have returned to Lynn to be with their other children and grandchildren who continued to live in and around the Lynn area. While this is only a guess, what we do know is that Edward’s Will listed only a few of his children and the assumption is that he had provided for most of his other children not mentioned in his will prior to preparing the document.

Nelson M. Baker writes in Edward’s biography with respect to Edward’s will: In his will “He exhorts his family to live peaceable and pious lives, and desires for himself a decent funeral, suitable to his rank and quality while living.” Edward Baker was clearly a man who placed a great value in his life on the importance of his family and on his religious beliefs. Joan Baker died on 9 April 1693, six years after her husband. The burial location of Edward and Joan Baker, my 7th great grandparents, is unknown although it is assumed that their remains lie in Lynn, Massachusetts.

Timothy Baker (1647-1729)

My 8th great grandfather Timothy Baker was ten years old when he moved from his home in Lynn, Massachusetts to his new home in Northampton. Timothy was the fifth child born to Edward and Joan Baker and the only home that he had ever known was their large clapboard sided farmhouse on the side of the hill that everyone was calling Baker’s Hill. His father had tried to explain to all of them, his brothers and sisters, why they were moving but Timothy did not understand. The Baker family planned their move for months and Timothy helped his family, although reluctantly, to pack the wagons with their family belongings, farming tools, seeds, and other implements that they would need to begin a new life. Timothy knew nothing about where they were headed. He did not know that they would be traveling with other families and with a guide to show them the way.

He did not know about the hardships that they might encounter and he did not know that while the trail that they would follow was well worn by other families that had preceded them, it was a rough road filled with deep ruts, and that sometimes after heavy rains, the trail was virtually impassable. Furthermore, the possibility of encountering Indians or unsavory characters on the trail was omnipresent and required that his father and older brother Joseph carry their firearms at all times. The distance they had to travel was over 100 miles and even if the weather remained dry during the entire journey, the group with their loaded wagons, and their farm animals and young children most of whom walked, would move very slowly. Their guide expected that it could take as long as three exhausting weeks before they would arrive at their new home in the town of Northampton. Fortunately for Timothy once the trip began, the excitement of the trail even in the confusion of the wagons, cattle, horses, and people seemingly everywhere, made him soon forget what he was leaving behind.

By the time Timothy Baker had reached his early twenties he could barely remember leaving his home in Lynn and the hard overland trip to their new home in Northampton. Much had changed since their arrival in Northampton in 1657. With the help of their new neighbors their land had been cleared, crops planted, and their new home built. Timothy’s father had become a prosperous farmer and a well respected member of their church and community. In early 1663, Timothy’s older brother Joseph married Ruth Holton, and Timothy’s father built for his son Joseph a new home located near his parent’s home on Elm Street. Timothy, as was required by all young men in his community joined the Northampton militia and he was quickly elected by his peers to the position of ensign.

In the early years of our country local militia leaders were elected rather than appointed. This arrangement usually resulted in either a respected member or a wealthier member of the community being elected. Unfortunately the results of an election did not always end up with the most qualified and knowledgeable person left in charge. Timothy probably had little to no training leading a militia unit especially in a fight against the Indians, however the fact that he was elected reflects that he had become at his early age a respected member of his community.

In January of 1672, Timothy then around 24 years old, married Grace Marsh age 17. Their marriage united two important families in the Northampton area. Grace Marsh was the granddaughter of John Webster one of the original founders of Hartford, Connecticut. John Webster had moved to Hartford in 1636 and he soon became one of its principle leaders serving in many important positions between 1639 and 1659 including being elected governor of the Colony of Connecticut in 1656. In 1659, John Webster following a dispute with the Congregational Church leaders in Hartford, led a group of fellow dissenters who were called “withdrawers” (as they withdrew from the church) to the recently settled town of Northampton, 40 miles upriver from Hartford. John Webster and his wife Agnes Smith are my 7th great grandparents as well as bring ancestors of Noah Webster who is known for having a “way with words”. John Webster later settled in Hadley, Massachusetts located across the Connecticut River from Northampton, where he died in 1661.

Also a member of the “withdrawers” was the Webster’s son-in-law, John Marsh who had married their daughter Ann Webster in 1640. Grace Marsh, their youngest daughter born around 1655, traveled with her parents, siblings, and grandparents in the move to Northampton. John Marsh was also a prominent citizen in Hartford and he is recognized along with his father-in-law as one of the Founders of Hartford. Both of their names are engraved on a monument in downtown Hartford commemorating the founding of the city in 1635 and honoring its original settlers. Incidentally, many of the other names on the “founder’s monument” are also my direct ancestors mostly on my fraternal grandmother’s side of our family.

In would be nice to believe that the young 24 year old Timothy Baker met and fell in love with the lovely 17 year old Grace Marsh and following a whirlwind courtship they married in front of hundreds of friends and relatives in a picturesque white clapboard church in the center of town in Northampton. If Timothy and Grace were members of the Church of England this scenario might have been possible, but they were Puritans and for Puritans getting married was a civil union not a religious one, and marriages were officiated by a town magistrate usually in the home of the bride or groom’s parents.

Furthermore, it was not considered an occasion, the marriage, worthy of celebration and as such the wedding was not usually followed by a large gathering of family and friends honoring the new couple. Sadly, it is possible that Timothy and Grace may have hardly known one another before they were married.

Their fathers both prominent members of the community may have decided that it was time for their children to wed so they prepared a (marriage) contract between their two families that spelled out important matters such as financial issues between the families and the couple, when and where the wedding was to take place, and so forth. As a matter of tradition the bride was permitted to reject the proposed groom but she rarely exercised this right. The Congregational church unlike the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church did not believe that marriage was a sacred rite administered by the church. Puritans believed that the only holy sacraments were those mentioned in the Bible, baptism and communion, and therefore they believed that marriage despite its importance in Puritan life, was purely a civil function to be performed by the local magistrate. And so they were married on January 16th of 1672.

The next four years for Timothy Baker and his family was pretty much a nightmare filled with disappointments. Timothy and Grace’s new life together began with great hopes for the future. As promised, following the marriage, Timothy’s father, Edward Baker, deeded his home and land over to Timothy with the understanding that the parents would remain living in the home along with the newlyweds. Then in late spring of 1672, Grace announced that she was expecting their first child. In early 1673, a baby daughter who they named Grace after Grace’s grandmother, was born but the baby was not well, maybe born prematurely, and she died on a cold winter’s day in February 1673.

The family was devastated but they knew that early childhood deaths were not uncommon and they forced themselves to look to the future. Timothy continued to stay busy both running the farm, serving on various civic committees, and several times a week engaging himself with the other local Northampton men in military training and sentry duties. Finally in early 1675, Grace again announced that she was pregnant with their second child.

The period between 1675 and 1676 was a frightening time for everyone in the southern New England colonies. Many of the Native America tribes finally fed up with their ill treatment by the white colonists who were gradually taking their land and their food supply, waged a fierce rebellion against the English communities across the entire region. The rebellion or war is called by historians the “King Philip’s War” named after the Indian leader who the colonists were calling King Philip. From a statistical standpoint this war that is rarely studied in schools today, was one of the bloodiest and costliest wars in the history of North America.

Not only were more than half of New England’s ninety towns including Northampton assaulted by the Indians but of the 52,000 English colonists in the area approximately 800 were killed or about 1.5% of the total English population.

The Indians fared even worse in the conflict for they lost about 15% of their estimated population of 20,000 with around 3,000 warriors and their families killed. Northampton and the nearby communities of Hadley across the river, and Hatfield about 5 miles upstream from Northampton were all major targets of the Indians during the approximately 12 to 13 months of fighting.

This was not a conflict in the traditional sense of war for both colonists and Indians indiscriminately killed women and children in addition to the male combatants. Numerous English towns and Indian villages were burned and food supplies destroyed. In the end, the English colonists were declared the winners but in reality, no one was the victor and the economy was left in shambles.

Through much of the latter half of 1675, Grace Marsh Baker, pregnant with child, faced weeks at a time not seeing her husband for as an ensign in the militia Timothy was often away. Attacks against the local towns near Northampton began in September of 1675 when the Indians ambushed and killed about 70 militia men near south Deerfield (just north of Northampton) in a conflict now called Bloody Brook. Another battle occurred at Hatfield about six miles from the Baker home on October 19th and it is likely that Timothy was with his militia during this fight.

For the Baker family however, the war really hit home when on October 28, 1675 a surprise attack by Indians in Northampton resulted in the brutal slaying of Timothy’s older brother Joseph as well as Joseph’s young son.

They were killed while working in the fields by their farmhouse. Joseph was 35 when he was killed, his son was only 9. It is hard to know how often Timothy Baker was home during this period or whether or not he was home when his son, Timothy (my 7th great grandfather), was born just before the end of the year 1675. Unfortunately, the war, the cold weather, the constant threat of an Indian attack, and the shortage of food all took their toll on Grace Baker who, probably already weakened from the birth of her second child, was unable to gain the strength needed for her recovery and she passed away on February 10, 1676. Timothy was no doubt devastated. He was exhausted from the war and the experience of watching his comrades slain, he had lost his daughter, he had lost his brother and his nephew, and now he had lost his wife of only four years. It was much to endure although as history records, Timothy Baker continued to serve in his local militia and serve his community.

Conflicts between the colonists and the Native Americans continued in and around Northampton (as well as other areas within Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut) during the entire first half of 1676. Timothy Baker’s name is listed as one of the 150 or so combatants in a battle known as Falls Fight (sometimes called the Turners Falls Massacre) that took place on the morning of May 19, 1676.

This particular conflict is one of the low points of the war but it profoundly illustrates the deep hatred that the English colonists felt towards the Indians (and the feeling was no doubt mutual.) In the early morning of May 19, 1676 a contingent of militia from the towns of Northampton, Hadley, and Hatfield surrounded an Indian village near the present day town of Turners Falls, Massachusetts, and in a surprise attack they killed approximately 200 defenseless Indians mostly women and children.

There was apparently no attempt at mercy. Following the killings the soldiers then burned the Indian village and destroyed the food supplies. The Indian warriors were not at their village at the time of the attack, however as they learned about what had happened they counterattacked the retreating soldiers and managed to achieve some small amount revenge by killing a few of the fleeing militia. King Philip’s War was finally concluded following the death and beheading of King Philip and the signing of a peace treaty with the Indians in August of 1676. This forgotten war was one of many low points in the relationship between the American settlers and the Native Americans in our county’s early history.

Timothy Baker married his second wife Sarah Hollister Atherton in early 1678. Sarah was the widow of the Rev. Hope Atherton of Hatfield who had died the previous year. It is interesting to discover that Hope Atherton’s name appears along with Timothy Baker’s on the list of soldiers who were present at Falls Fight, especially when I realized that Hope Atherton had the title of Reverend. Apparently for the Puritans the death of an Indian women or child was not considered a sin by the church. Hope Atherton was only 30 years old when he died and one has to wonder if perhaps he died from wounds that he received in the previous year of fighting. Timothy and Sarah were to have five children including their oldest son John who eventually inherited the Baker estate following the death of his father. Timothy Baker continued to serve his community for the remainder of his life. He was eventually elected to the position of lieutenant in the militia, and he served as a “selectman” in the town on a number of occasions as well as serving “often on important committees, both of town and church.” Sarah preceded her husband in death dying in 1691. Lt. Timothy Baker lived to the ripe old age of 82 before finally passing away on 30 August 1729.

This is the end of Part 1. Part 2 begins with the life of Timothy Baker (Jr) (1775-17470

http://bakerfamilytree.blogspot.com.au/2010/07/chapter-26-my-baker-ancestors-part-1.html Posted by C.A. Baker Jr at 10:51 AM

Following the excellent stories of the Bakers, the assumption has been made that "Joan" daughter of a puritan family was Joan Lane daughter of William Lane and Agnes Farnworth. They arrived in 1635 on the Hopewell, however no daughter by the name of Joan is mentioned.

William was born in almost every county in England.

This was the information that began a search for Joan

Joan Lane was the daughter of William Lane 1581 - 1654 and Agnes arrived in 1635, and lived in Cambridge She may have been the second wife.

William Lane was the son of Thomas Lane 1556 - 1625 and Amy Roberts 1552 - 1611

Thomas Lane was the son of Robert Lane 1520 - 1562 and Margareta Day 1526 - 1562

Further research indicates that:

William Lane. Born ca 1580 in Henlow, Bedfordshire. William died on 6 Jul 1654 in Dorchester, MA.
William, the ancestor of all who have borne this surname in Hingham and vicinity by birth, was probably from the western part of England, where, according to tradition, one or more of his daughters was married. The precise date at which he came to New England is unknown.

It is certain, however, that he was a residnet of Dorchester as early as 1635, and probably a widower, as no mention is made of his wife either upon Dorchester or Hingham records. The following parcels of land were granted to him at Dorchester, in 1637, viz.: â€˜Jan. 2. It is ordered that Good: Lane shall haue one acre [at] the little neck towards the harbor.â€™ On the 18th of March following, he had two additional grants of between six and seven acres; and at his decease he bequeathed to daughter Mary Long â€˜my great lotâ€™ of about 24 acres.

He also bequeathed to Thomas Rider â€˜my Sonne in Lawâ€™ and daughter Elizabeth his wife â€˜my new dwelling-houseâ€™ in Dorchester with all the outhousing, gardens, etc. Also to his sons and sons in law, a specified sum to each, in silver. He died about 1654. His will, proved 6 July of that year, mentions two sons and four daughters, all probably born in England.â€

William married Agnes Farnsworth. Agnes died on 3 Apr 1671 in Hingham, MA.

From the passenger list of the Hopewell, quite a few of the relatives were all on the same ship. In all likelihood they all originated in the same Counties in England.

In trying to determine the exact background of an immigrant, a little understanding may be helpful.

Obviously all these people did not have the money to pay to charter a ship, nor the ability to make mass arrangements as to who was going to be on which ship.

Consideration also has to be given, as to who organised each ship? Who paid for the ships? Where did they leave from?

For PBS NewsHour’s latest Making Sen$e segment, economics correspondent Paul Solman travelled to Plimoth Plantation, a recreation of the pilgrims’ 17th century settlement in New Plymouth. There, Paul spoke with historian Richard Pickering who explained that most of the first pilgrims were originally farmers in England living in “deep privation.” Crossing the ocean was a way to escape poverty.

About 70 investors, known as merchant “adventurers,” pooled together capital and funded the passage. They expected, of course, a return on their investment. But the first brutal winter was not good for business, and nearly half the colonists died.

After King James I refused to give the Pilgrims a charter to start a colony, the London Virginia Company, a group of merchants with financial interest in the American colonies, was more than happy to help the Pilgrims make their journey and set up a colony across the Atlantic—for a price.
That price was seven years of sweat and labour. Basically, the Pilgrims became indentured servants for the first seven years in America in order to complete their voyage.

Any profits they made were to be sent to the London Virginia Company back home. At the end of the indentured period, the Pilgrims would be free to keep whatever profit they made from their businesses.

That was the arrangement. However, a dispute with a representative from the London Virginia Company took place on the docks of Southampton prior to their departure, causing the contract to be voided.

With the Pilgrims’ funds dwindling down to zero, they had to sell some of their butter to pay dock fees. The voyaging group also decided to take on extra passengers for the trip to help further defray expenses.

This led to the division among the 102 Mayflower passengers of “strangers” and “saints”: the saints being the 41 Pilgrim separatists, and the strangers being regular folk. The division disappeared once the travellers landed and began to set up their colony.

The Mayflower Contract bound each person, Pilgrim or not, to work for the well-being of the group as a whole.

[1] Photo of St Mary's church, Berkeley, Gloucestershire. Tomb of Thomas Berkely, the 5th Baron Berkeley. Britain Express

Search This Blog

The Ancestors of Henry DeGraw from The Herrick Family