McKay/Deary/Howard
The Howard side of the family is varied and fascinating. More recent Howard, Gage, and Coon families are identified with early settlements in upstate New York. The Titus family were Quakers. The Kuntz, Hagedorn and Manngen families were Palatine Germans who settled in the Hudson Valley. The Soule and Howland families are closely associated with the Mayflower arrival and the earliest New England settlements in Plymouth. The Hooker and Wilson families were very prominent in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony and in the founding of Connecticut.
See all links in Howard Family TreeThe Howard and the Coon and the Meeker and the Gage families lived in the Binghamton, New York area for multiple generations after relocating from Schenectady. As the table below shows just from the 1810 census in Duanesburg, New York there were fourteen different households of Gages, Howards, and Coons.
The Howard Family
There are three identifiable generations of Howards in our family tree ending with Enos Howard (1760-1844). Over this roughly one hundred year period the family migrates north and west from the Hudson Valley to Iowa.
Anna Howard married John Deary on September 10, 1882 in O'Brien, Iowa.
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Benjamin Howard married Anna Meeker about 1843 in Broome, New York. They had eleven children. Benjamin moved to Binghamton, New York then to Union, New York and later in life to Highland Township, O'Brien, Iowa.
*********Isaac Howard married Catherine Coon about 1805. They met and probably married in Duanesburg, Schenectady, New York, then moved to Silver Lake Township, Susquehanna, Pennsylvania between the births of their children Enos (1811) and Jesse (1812). All told Isaac was the father of 16 children. [The 1840 United States Census notes that there is one person in Isaac's household "Insane and Idiots kept at Private charge.]Isaac died sometime after 25 July 1860 (as he was present on 1860 United States Federal Census) in Silver Lake Township, Pennsylvania.
********Enos Howard married Martha Soule in Hillsdale, New York in 1783, the ceremony being performed by Rev. Jepo Clark, pastor of the Spencertown Presbyterian Church. Earlier Enos had served a total of 15 months in the New York troops during the Revolutionary War, including both battles at Saratoga in 1777. Enos and Martha had a big family with 12 children.
They moved to Duanesburg, Schenectady, New York about 1790 between the births of their sons Ebenezer and John. The last home of Enos and Martha Howard was on the National Register of Historic Places. Martha died at the home of her son George Washington Howard in Duanesburg, New York.
The big family tree databases like Ancestry.com have many examples of propagating errors. I think the parents of Enos Howard are an example of that. Many sources list John Easgan Howard and Mary Inman as Enos' parents with no documentation even though Enos was born in upstate New York and Mary and John came from England to South Carolina. I'll assume they are not the parents until it is shown otherwise. So that ends the known Howard family line with Enos.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Soule
The Soule Family
The first Soule immigrant, George, came to America came aboard the Mayflower. His descendants became Quakers and eventually moved from Massachusetts to New York, first the Hudson Valley and later to near Schenectady.
Martha Soule married Enos Howard in 1783 in Hillsdale, New York. They moved to Duanesburg, Schenectady, New York about 1790. The last home of Enos and Martha Howard is still standing and on the National Register of Historic Places.
*******Ebenezer Soule married Mercy Foote in 1769 in Hillsdale, New York. Ebenezer Soule was born of Quaker stock and brought up his family in the "straitest sect" of that faith. He spent his life in the Hudson Valley town of Hillsdale. He was appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the County of Columbia as early as 1808, after an extended term of service. He was also a Trial Justice, as well as a Commissioner and was the Hillsdale town Supervisor in 1810. He served as a private in the Albany County, New York Militia, 9th Regiment during the Revolutionary War. He was part of a detachment ordered to apprehend Tories in Kinderhook District.
In the family Bible owned by Ebenezer Soule, the following is written by his own hand: "Be it remembered that the above-named children all dined at my table in the town of Hillsdale, on the 24th day of January, 1804; ten of them married and settled in the parts of the country where their lots were cast; their husbands and wives also attending with them, except one. At that time I made a calculation of the number of children and grandchildren, with one great-grandchild, I being at this time in my 57th year, and found them to be 66."
********Benjamin Soule married Abigail Howland in 1746 in Dutchess County, New York. They were strong Quakers. Benjamin was very loyal to the British cause although, being a Quaker, it is doubtful that he fought.
********George Soule married Lydia Howland in 1719 in Dartmouth Massachusetts. George was a blacksmith. The Quaker records of the Dartmouth Monthly Meeting show that George and Lydia published their intention to marry, "contrary to our order" They were disowned October 21, 1721. In 1741 they moved from Dartmouth to Nine Partners in Dutchess County New York and were reunited with the church. George and his family were strong Tory supporters. Being Quakers the males could claim exemption from serving in the army by reason of "religious scruples." This however did not stop both armies from "requisitioning" their goods. George was "distrained of an oxchain and steel trap."
********Lydia Howland and Isaac Howland are brother and sister. Abigail Howland married Benjamin Soule is the daughter of Isaac Howland. So Lydia (Soule) Howland is both Abigail (Soule) Howland's mother-in-law and aunt.
William Soule married Hannah Eaton in 1691 in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.
The identity of William's wife, Hannah, is a matter of controversy. It is claimed that she was Hannah Brewster, grand-daughter of prominent Mayflower Pilgrim William Brewster. More likely she was Hannah Eaton, grand-daughter of Mayflower passenger Francis Eaton.********
George Soule, Jr. married Deborah Thomas in 1671 in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. It is not clear when the Soules became adherents of the Quaker beliefs but George was probably the first. The first known Quakers in North America arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1656 via Barbados, and were soon joined by other Quaker preachers who converted many colonists to Quakerism. When the Quakers refused to report for required "musters and training of the troops," they were fined. George was assessed a cow and a heifer.
G.T. Ridlon's family history states: "George Soule second was a "sea rover" like his brother Nathaniel and went with him on many fishing voyages. While absent from home Giles Slocum seems to have presumed upon their indefensible situation and entered upon their lands by trespass. The brothers went into court for adjustment of the case and received a verdict... For the most of his time this man was a farmer and lived from the harvest of the land and sea."
Deborah's father is reported to be David Thomas who came to America in about 1645 from Wales but that is in dispute.
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George Soule, Sr. married Mary Beckett in 1625 in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Recent DNA research indicates that George might have been the son of Jan Sol and his wife Mayken Labis, who are identified as Protestant Dutch refugees in England. He was a passenger on the Mayflower. George Soule came on the Mayflower as a servant to the Edward Winslow family, indicating he was under 25 years old at the time; however, he was the 35th signer of the Mayflower Compact, suggesting he was over 21. In 1645, he sold the lands he had in Plymouth and moved to Duxbury. George, Myles Standish and John Alden laid out the town of Duxbury and all are probably buried there. There he was a deputy to the Plymouth Court for a number of years beginning in 1642. He had volunteered for the Pequot War of 1637, but Plymouth's troops were not needed. He was on various committees, juries, and survey teams, during his life in Duxbury. In 1646, for example, he was appointed to the committee to deal with Duxbury's problem of the disorderly smoking of tobacco. George and Mary had nine children. Their youngest, Benjamin, was slain in the Battle of Pawtucket during King Philip's War.
For an extended discussion of George Soule click here.
English connection
The passenger ship Anne arrived in Plymouth in July 1623 accompanied by the Little James, bringing new settlers along with many wives and children who had been left behind in Leiden when the Mayflower departed. Mary Beckett was one of the passengers in Anne in 1621. Her marriage to George is established through George's sale of an acre of land granted to Mary as a ship passenger, which he could do as her husband.
George Soule, Sr. is the 7 x great grandfather of President William Jefferson Clinton
McKay/Deary/Howard /Soule/Foote
The Foote Family
The Foote family's earliest arrivals in America came at the beginning of the Puritan "Great Migration" in 1630. Descendants migrated first to Connecticut and then to western Massachusetts at a time when that was a dangerous frontier before settling into the Hudson Valley.
Mercy Foote married Ebenezer Soule She was the mother of his twelve children and her husband wrote down in his Bible, "My wife Mercy died on the 14th day of December, 1805, being in her 57th year."
********Joseph Foote married Roselle Chapin in 1746. Roselle died at age 30 and Joseph was married twice more. He was a veteran of the Revolution, serving from March 1777 to March 1780. During his service he was present at Saratoga during the capture of Burgoyne. He was illiterate but a well-to-do farmer. He lived not distant from Rev. Ebenezer Soule, south of Spencertown, New York. As an old man he quite was eccentric and always walked with a cane.
********Thomas Foote married Abigail Seger on November 3, 1726. He lived in Springfield, Brimfield, Springfield again, and Monson, Massachusetts.
Abigail's parents are unknown.********
Samuel Foote married Mary Merrick on May 30, 1671 in Hadley, Massachusetts. Their daughter Elizabeth and three of her children were killed by Indians in 1696 in Deerfield, Massachusetts.
********Mary's father, Thomas Merrick, came to America on the James, in 1636, with three brothers and a sister. He first settled in Roxbury, but by 1638 was at Agawam. Thomas was Sgt. of the town's Militia.
Sarah's mother was Sarah Stebbins who married Thomas Merrick in Springfield, Massachusetts on September 14, 1639. The parents of Sarah Stebbins were the immigrants Rowland Stebbins and Sarah Whiting who arrived aboard the Francis in 1634. Rowland was a surveyor. They first settled in Roxbury, Massachusetts. In 1635, he moved to Agawam, Massachusetts (afterward named Springfield), which was a colony founded by another McKay ancestor, William Pynchon. Rowland and his immediate children were involved in at least six new settlements: Roxbury, Springfield, Brimfield, Longmeadow, Northhampton, and Deerfield.
Nathaniel Foote married Elizabeth Smith in 1646 in Wethersfield, Connecticut. Nathaniel died at just 34 years of age leaving his wife and four children under ten years old. Elizabeth remarried William Gull.
McKay-Stevens Connection
Elizabeth is the daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth Smith who are ancestors in the Stevens/Petersen tree.
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English connection
Nathaniel Foote married Elizabeth Deming in January 1615 in Shalford, Essex, England. He had arrived from in Plymouth, Massachusetts from England on the ship "Ann" in 1630 possibly along with his brother, Richard. In 1633 Nathaniel became a freeman. He first lived in Watertown, Massachusetts. He was one of the first settlers in Wethersfield, Connecticut. Elizabeth remarried about 1646 after Nathaniel's death to Thomas Welles
McKay-Stevens Connection
Nathaniel's descendants are related not only to multiple McKay family ancestors but also to the Francis family on the Stevens side.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Soule/Foote/Chapin
The Chapin Family
The progenitor of the Chapin family, Deacon Samuel was the archetype of the Massachusetts Puritan. Like many during the following generations, his descendants drifted west looking for opportunities.
Roselle Chapin married Joseph Foote in 1746.
********David Chapin married Thankful Prior in Enfield, Connecticut on October 30, 1728. David and Thankful resided in Ellington, 1731 and 1743, returning to Enfield at a later date. David was called "Old Corporal Chapin".
********Ephraim Chapin married Margaret Torrey in Mendon, Massachusetts on January 23, 1705. They were the parents of at least three sons and five daughters.
********Josiah Chapin married Mary King in Weymouth, Massachusetts on November 30, 1658. They had 11 children. Josiah apparently came to Massachusetts with his parents as an infant. In 1656 he took the Oath of Fidelity in Springfield. Was a farmer and land surveyor and moved to Braintree in 1661. From 1681-1726 he was a leading citizen of Mendon. Josiah was a captain of Massachusetts Colonial forces at Mendon and participated in King Philip's War (against "King Philip." chief of the Wampanoag Indians). He built the first sawmill in Mendon and was the town's largest taxpayer and "first" citizen for many years. He was the author of the so-called "Manuscript of Josiah Chapin", a genealogical account of his family. He died at 92 years old, having out lived three wives.
********Mary was the daughter of John and Mary King. In an interesting historical footnote, Mary is the grandmother of Lydia Chapin-Taft, the first woman voter in Colonial America. [An important vote regarding funding for the French and Indian Wars took place just after the death of Lydia's husband, Josiah Taft. As the largest taxpayer in Uxbridge, Massachusetts the town voted to allow Lydia the widow of Josiah Taft to vote on 30 Oct 1756. She voted in favor of the funding.] Mary died before she turned 37.
Mary's father John King was a very early immigrant from England to America. He was a seaman and he first traveled to America with Thomas Weston's company in 1622. They arrived at Wessagusset in June 1622. Lack of leadership, fear of Indian attacks, and starvation caused these men to become "scattered up and down the seaboard". By 1623 John King was at a Maine fishing station. This endeavor of Thomas Weston's failed and John King returned to England.
Back in England, John became a servant of John Humphrey who became Deputy Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony in about 1629 and took John King with him to America. Perhaps Mary Blucks was married to John King in England and immigrated to New England with him. By October 1640 John was master of fishing boat Thomas Applegate. John and Mary (Blucks) King were settled at Wessagusset (Weymouth by 1635), where John had first landed in 1622, and raised their 7 children there. After Mary's death, John married twice more and continued as a seaman (traveling throughout New England) and a planter for many years with his home at Weymouth, Massachusetts where he had become an extensive landowner.
Samuel Chapin married Cicely Penney on February 9, 1623. He immigrated to America between 1630 and 1635, and became a full member of John Eliot's congregation at Roxbury (later incorporated into the city of Boston). He was a prominent early settler of Springfield, Massachusetts. He served the town as selectman, magistrate and deacon (in the Massachusetts Bay Colony there was little separation between the church and government). Chapin is best known today as the subject of the Augustus Saint-Gaudens sculpture entitled Deacon Samuel Chapin (also known as The Puritan) that stands in Springfield.
Samuel Chapin has many famous descendants including Harriet Beecher Stowe and Noah Webster.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Soule/Foote/Chapin /Prior
The Prior Family
The Prior family origins are uncertain but they have a long history in Connecticut.
Thankful Prior married David Chapin in Enfield, Connecticut on October 30, 1728.
********John Prior married Mary Geer(or Geares) on April 15, 1686 in Enfield, Massachusetts. They had a 60 acre farm in Namerick village in Windsor, Connecticut. They had at least ten children.
********Mary's father, Thomas, was born in 1623 Heavitree, Devon, England. He was orphaned at a young age. His uncle who was his guardian sent him to America along with his brother, George, in 1635, keeping their sizable inheritance for himself. They arrived in Boston with no money. He may have lived in Salem, Massachusetts until after 1676. He arrived in Enfield, Connecticut in 1682 one of the first settlers. He was a tanner and farmer. Thomas married Deborah Davis in 1668 in Yarmouth, Massachusetts.
Deborah's parents were Robert and Ann Davis who married in August 1643. Robert came to America in 1638 as a servant of Peter Noyes. Ann was Robert's second wife and they settled in Barnstable, Massachusetts.
Humphrey Prior married Ann Osborn on November 12, 1663 in Windsor, Connecticut. Humphrey's ancestry is uncertain. We do know that Humphrey and Ann had at least four children and it is believed they lived all their lives in Windsor.
Ann was the eldest daughter and second child of ten born to John Osborne and Ann Oldage. John was said to be of Welsh origin. He married Ann Oldage on May 19, 1645 in Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut and had ten children with her. Ann Oldage was the only child of Richard Oldage and his wife. Richard is also said to have been of Welsh origin. Some researchers say he came to Windsor, Connecticut, from Dorchester with Rev. Huit in 1639. Richard is listed as a founder of Windsor. Richard purchased land in 1640 in Windsor and Ann lived there with him. On the day of her marriage to John Osborne, Osborne purchased the lot and house next to Ann’s father’s home.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Soule/Foote/Chapin /Torrey
The Torrey Family
The three generations of the Torrey family in our family tree remained in Massachusetts for their lifetimes.
Margaret Torrey married Ephraim Chapin in Mendon, Massachusetts on January 23, 1705.
********Josiah Torrey married Sarah Wilson on May 5, 1680 in Medfield, Massachusetts. He was a clothier and cloth weaver who moved many times, living in Weymouth, Boston, Mendon, Massachusetts and Bristol and Mansfield, Connecticut. He ran a sawmill in Mendon.
********William Torrey married Elizabeth Frye before 1640 in England. Along with his two oldest sons from a previous marriage and his wife Elizabeth, her brother, George Frye and his three brothers he emigrated to America in 1640, possibly on the ship Hopewell. He was admitted as a freeman May 18,1642; a representative 1642-1650. In 1641 he was elected a member of the Royal Artillery of Boston and soon became a Lieutenant. He was clerk of the House of Representatives and recorder of deeds. He was said to be a good penman and skilled in Latin.
On retiring, he wrote a book called "A Discourse in Futurities of Things to Come." A copy of this book can be found in the Boston Public Library bearing the statement, "written with his own hand in the seventy-ninth year of his age and in the year of our Lord sixteen and eighty seven." It was published in 1757 and it is said to have supplied almost all of the arguments of the Millerites," i.e., presaging the beliefs that later followers of the Seventh Day Adventist Church held, probably about the Second Coming of Jesus.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Soule/Foote/Chapin /Torrey/Wilson
The Wilson Family
The first three generations of the Wilson family in America are closely identified with the Puritan church.
Sarah Wilson married Josiah Torrey on May 5, 1680 in Medfield, Massachusetts.
********John Wilson married Sarah Hooker about 1648. He came with his father to New England in 1630. He graduated from Harvard College in 1642, and was ordained and settled with Mr. Mather at Dorchester. In 1651 he removed to Medfield, Massachusetts, where he became a famous preacher, and remained there until his death in 1691.
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John Wilson married Elizabeth Mansfield in 1617 in Windsor, Berkshire, England. He was educated at Eton and at Cambridge, where he was graduated about 1606. He studied law three years at one of the inns of court, and took orders in the Church of England, but soon became conspicuous for his Puritanical leanings and he was repeatedly suspended or silenced by the bishop's court for his opinions. He left England early in the Puritan migration in 1630 and organized what was subsequently the first church in Boston. He made visits back to England (in part to try to convince his wife to join him in Boston) but remained minister of the First Church of Boston from its beginnings in Charlestown in 1630 until his death in 1667. He is most noted for being a minister at odds with Anne Hutchinson during the Antinomian Controversy from 1636 to 1638, and for being an attending minister during the execution of Mary Dyer in 1660. He is remembered for the roles he played in the persecution of those who did not embrace the Puritan orthodoxy.
Elizabeth did not accompany her husband to Massachusetts in 1630, and her unwillingness to come to New England was the subject of several letters from Margaret Winthrop to her son John in May 1631; she first reported that "Mr. Wilson is now in London and promised me to come and see you. He cannot yet persuade his wife to go, for all he hath taken this pains to come and fetch her. I marvel what mettle she is made on. Sure she will yield at last, or else we shall want him exceedingly in New England." She later wrote that "if he go it must be without his wife's consent, for she is more averse than ever she was." Elizabeth did return with him in 1632, however, for they had a child born and baptized in Boston in 1633.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Soule/Foote/Chapin /Torrey/Wilson/Hooker
The Hooker Family
The Hooker family in the McKay family tree is dominated by Rev. Thomas Hooker, the so-called Father of Connecticut.
Sarah Hooker married John Wilson about 1648.
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Thomas Hooker married Susanna Garbrand on April 3, 1621 in Amersham, England. Called today "the Father of Connecticut", Rev. Thomas Hooker was a towering figure in the early development of colonial New England. He was one of the great preachers of his time, an erudite writer on Christian subjects, the first minister of Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of the first settlers and founders of both the city of Hartford and the state of Connecticut, and cited by many as the inspiration for the "Fundamental Orders of Connecticut", which some have called the world's first written democratic constitution establishing a representative government.
For an extended discussion of Thomas Hooker click here. You can find his famous descendants here including Aaron Burr and J.P. Morgan.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Soule/Howland
The Howland Family
The Howland family were among the earliest New England settlers with ancestor Henry arriving a year or so after the Mayflower. For the next four generations the Howland descendants continued to live in the Plymouth Colony area.
Abigail Howland married Benjamin Soule in 1719 in Dartmouth Massachusetts. Abigail and Benjamin are cousins. Abigail is the daughter of Isaac Howland. Isaac Howland is Benjamin Soule's uncle and Benjamin's mother, Lydia Howland and Isaac Howland are brother and sister.
********Isaac Howland married Hannah Allen on December 17, 1717 in Dartmouth Massachusetts. He owned and worked a farm in the south part of the town of Dartmouth. He was selectman in 1727, surveyor in 1731, constable in 1732 and 1733, was on the jury in 1734, and later; and seems to have been an active member of the Friends' Meeting.
********Benjamin Howland married Judith Sampson in Dartmouth, Massachusetts on April 23, 1684. He was about seventeen years old when his father was slain by Indians. The town of Dartmouth was incorporated in 1664 and the settlement gradually enlarged. It was named for the town of Dartmouth, Devon, England, from where the Puritans originally intended to depart for America. The land was purchased with trading goods from the Wampanoag chiefs Massasoit and Wamsutta by elders of the Plymouth Colony; reportedly thirty yards of cloth, eight moose skins, fifteen axes, fifteen hoes, fifteen pairs of shoes, one iron pot, and ten shillings' worth of assorted goods .[7] It was sold to the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers, who wished to live outside the stringent religious laws of the Puritans in Plymouth.
The land at Round Hill in Dartmouth was purchased by Benjamin Howland in 1695. The central portion of the house was built about 1720 either by Benjamin or his son Barnabas. The large east addition was made for the entertainment and accommodation of the guests of the monthly and quarterly meetings of the Friends. People would come from miles around to attend these meeting, often arriving on foot since horses were still a luxury. Many would even walk barefoot much of the way since shoes too were a luxury and people wanted to conserve the leather on the bottom of their shoes. There were spots, often large flat rocks, near the meetinghouses called shoeing places, where the weary walkers could stop to rest and put on their shoes before joining the others at the meetinghouse. The house at Round Hill remained in the Howland family for 250 years until 1969.
Benjamin Howland was active in the affairs of the Friends in Dartmouth and in civic duties. Benjamin was several times chosen for town offices, being selectman and assessor in 1697, surveyor of highways in 1698, and constable in 1709. He was a prominent member of the Apponegansett Friend's or Quakers.
Judith was the daughter of the immigrant Abraham Sampson and an unknown mother. Although it is claimed in Benjamin's wife Judith is daughter or granddaughter of Mayflower passenger Henry Samson, this has been shown not to be true. She may have been a cousin however.********
Zoeth Howland married Abigail Kirby in October 1656 in Duxbury, Plymouth Colony. He took the oath of 'fidelitie' at Duxbury in 1657, and became a convert to the Friends' [Quakers] sect with his father about the same time and held meetings at his house, for which he was fined. He and his family moved to Dartmouth about 1662 from Plymouth, where his religious beliefs had led to persecution from Puritan clergy, including time spent in the stocks.
He was killed by Indians, January 21, 1676 (during the King Phillip's War), at Pocaset (modern Tiverton, R.I.) while on his way to a Quaker meeting on Aquidneck Island. In a interesting coincidence, the death of Zoeth was investigated by another McKay ancestor, Christopher Almy
Abigail's father was Richard Kirby who came from England and settled in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1636. He moved to Cape Cod in 1637 and settled in Sandwich. He became interested in the Quaker faith, and was accordingly persecuted by the Puritan authorities. In 1656 a complaint was filed at the Court of Assistants of Plymouth Colony against Richard for frequently attending Quaker meetings. In 1658-60 the Sandwich Quakers were fined six hundred and seventy-nine pounds, and Kirby and his son paid fifty-seven pounds and twelve shillings of the sum. In 1660 he move to Dartmouth, Massachusetts. He married Jane (last name uncertain, possibly Vallins) in 1656.
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English connection
Henry Howland married Mary Newland on June 16, 1624 in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Henry, with his brother Arthur, came to America in either the "Fortune", 1621, or the "Ann", 1623. He had been apprenticed to his brother Humphrey at the Drapers Co. in London, England before his emigration to America. Their brother John had preceded them to Plymouth as one of the Mayflower Pilgrims in 1620. In 1633 his name is found in the list of freemen, and in the same year he indentured a servant, Walter Harris.
He was among the earliest settlers of Duxbury, where in 1635 he was chosen constable, and was described as "one of the substantial landholders and freemen." For several years he was surveyor of highways in the town, and for nine years served on the grand jury. But in 1657 he refused to serve longer on the grand inquest, the apparent reason being that he had turned Quaker and could not conscientiously perform the duties required of him. Thereafter he was an object of persecution by the authorities of the Colony. In October, 1657, he was "summonsed to appear at the next March Court to answare for intertaining Quakers meetings at his house." He was fined ten shillings. In March, 1659, his wife, their son Zoeth, and the latter's wife, and Arthur Howland and wife, with others, were fined ten shillings each for "frequently absenting themselues from the publicke worship of God." In 1659 Henry Howland was convicted and sentenced by the Court "to be disfranchised of his freedom in the corporation" for being an abettor and entertainer of Quakers. The following year he was again convicted and fined for a similar offense. Once, on refusing to pay his fine, his house and lands were seized by the marshal.
In 1652 Henry Howland was among the original purchasers of Dartmouth, where his son Zoeth and four of his six grandsons were destined to become settlers. He was one of the twenty-seven purchasers of what is now Freetown, Massachusetts, and finally ended his days in the Duxbury homestead. You can find his famous descendants here including Gerald Ford and George Bush.
Mary Newland was the daughter of immigrants William Newland and Agnes Greenway who were married in England but settled in Sandwich, Massachusetts.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Soule/Howland/Allen
The Allen Family
The Allen family is related to both the Howlands and the Fords in the McKay line.
Hannah Allen married Isaac Howland on December 17, 1717 in Dartmouth Massachusetts.
********Ebenezer Allen married Abigail (last name unknown) in 1682 in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. According of Phillip Allen, executer of Ebenezer's estate on April 1726 mentions "selling & delivering the Negro" implying that Ebenezer was a slave owner. It is very likely he was a Quaker. The area that makes up Dartmouth was purchased with trading goods from the Native Americans living in the area by the elders of the Plymouth Colony. It was then sold to the Quakers, who wished to live outside the stringent religious laws of the Puritans in Plymouth. Unfortunately, the adoption of Quakerism by the Allens resulted in their being persecuted and fined for many years for practicing their faith. Their persecution was particularly acute for refusing to take the Oath of Fidelity which they felt was unlawful.
********Ralph Allen married Susannah (last name unknown) before 1642 in Weymouth or Sandwich, Massachusetts. Although it has not been determined when he arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, it is known that he did not travel on the same ship as his father, George. Ralph was a wheelwright. He was found in Weymouth, Massachusetts in 1639, in Rehoboth, Massachusetts in 1643, and then in Sandwich, Massachusetts. On July 5, 1669, he was granted liberty to keep a ferry at or near Pocasset. He was also given the right to purchase 100 acres of land from the Indians. Ralph, like his son Ebenezer, was likely a Quaker and in his will expressed his desire that his body should be placed in Friends' burying place.
Ralph is the brother of John Allen who is also a McKay/Howard ancestor and they are both sons of George Allen.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Soule/Eaton
The Eaton Family
The Eaton family descends from Mayflower passenger Francis Eaton.
Hannah Eaton married William Soule. There is some controversy over whether Hannah is the daughter of Benjamin Eaton but new research seems to point in that direction.
********Benjamin Eaton married Sarah Hoskins. Benjamin Eaton lived for a time with his [half] brother, Samuel, at the Nook farm. He got into trouble with his formidable neighbor, Captain Standish, to such an extent that the court ordered him "to provide himselfe a service, if not the Court would provid him one." But apprenticeship did not seem to help, because two years later Benjamin, with others, was charged with "vain, light and lacivious carriage at an unreasonable time of the night." He was released with an admonition. Later he moved to Kingston, and apparently settled into respectability.
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Francis Eaton married Christian Penn. Francis and Francis' first wife, Sarah, and their son Samuel were passengers on the 1620 voyage of the Mayflower. His signature appears on the Mayflower Compact. Sarah died over the first winter. Francis was a carpenter by trade and may have been the Mayflower ship's carpenter, being in the employ of the Merchant Adventurers, financial supporters of the Mayflower venture. Francis died in the autumn of 1633, possibly as the result of an epidemic that spread through the colony that year. By the time of his death his was a freeman. The Plymouth Court proclaimed "…Francis Eaton, carpenter, late of Plymouth, deceased, died indebted far more than the estate…"
Christian Penn arrived in Plymouth in the summer of 1623 on the Anne. She and Francis married about 1625 or early 1626 and had three children including Benjamin.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Soule /Eaton/Hoskins
The Hoskins Family
The Hoskins/Hodgkins family has an Irish connection.
Sarah Hoskins married Benjamin Eaton on December 4, 1660.
Sarah's mother died soon after her birth. On Jan 2, 1643, William Hoskins placed his daughter, Sarah, with Thomas and Winifred Whitney, to remain until 20 years of age. "They adopted Sarah Hopkins (Hodgkins), aged 6 years, until she should become twenty agreeing to be a father and mother to her, to instruct her in sewing, and to find meat, drink, apparel and lodging." ********William Hoskins married Sarah Cushman on November 2, 1636. William was born in County Cork Ireland, about 1615, the son of Henry and Anne (Winthrop) Hoskins. William Hoskins had arrived in Plymouth Colony by November, 1636. Sarah died shortly after giving birth to daughter Sarah. William remarried Ann Hinds.
After giving Sarah up for adoption, William went to Ipswich, Massachusetts with his young son, William Jr.
Sarah's father was most probably Robert Cushman, one of the Leiden Separatist leaders who acted as an agent for the Pilgrims in London and Leiden, Holland. Robert came on the Fortune in 1621 with son Thomas of 14 years. He returned to England in the Fortune and left son in care of Governor Bradford.********
Henry Hoskins married Ann Winthrop in 1612 in Aghadownem, County Cork, Ireland. Note: There are some competing theories regarding William Hoskins' parents.
Anne Winthrop is the cousin of Governor John Winthrop, one of the leading figures in founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Ann's father, John, became estranged from his wife, and secured a legal separation. He then moved into Ireland, and settled in Aghadownem, County Cork. Later he married Elizabeth Powlden of Rathgogan, County Cork, and they had three children, one of these was Anne, who married Henry Hoskins.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Coon
The Coons (Kuntz) Family
The Coon (Kuntz) family was among the 300 German families that emigrated in 1710 from the Palatine region to the Hudson River Valley. Descendants spell their name Koon, Coons, Kuntz, Kunz, among others. Other McKay ancestors that were in the same migration were the Jungs, Mentgens, Hagedorns and possibly the Scramlins. They are commemorated on a plaque that says:
KNOW O TRAVELER, within sight of this hill on October 6, 1710, led by The Rev. Joshua Kocherthal and The Rev. Johann Frederick Hager, there arrived on the east and west shores of Hudson's River nearly three hundred families of refugees of the Palatine region in Europe, who suffered many sorrows in the ravages of war, sickness, poverty and destitution, yet survived to settle these shores, sustained by their faith in the Lord and the sympathy of Queen Anne of England, whom they came to serve in the reduction of the pine forest for naval stores for Her Majesty's fleet.
Catherine Coon married Isaac Howard about 1805.
********Jesse Jacob Coon married Mercy Manning in New York about 1780. In about 1790 the family moved from Dutchess County New York to Duanesburg.
********Adam Kuntz married Magdalena Hagedorn in Ancram, New York about 1759. Sometime during 1782-87 Adam and his brother John became squatters on adjoining tracts of Van Rensselaer lands in Albany County near Rensselaerville. In 1788, the land having been duly surveyed and laid out into lots, Adam took out a lease on his farm.
********
German connection
Philip Kuntz married Maria Manngen on June 26, 1716 in Germantown, New York. Philip had been born in the Bischmisheim Region of what is now Germany east of the city of Saarbrücken just a few miles from the French border. Philip had arrived at the age of seventeen with his family. Philip and Maria were married by Joshua Von Kocherthall, the minister who organized the Palatine Migration. They raised a family of 10 children. He was an elder in the Rhinebeck Lutheran church.
********Mathias Kuntz married Margaretha Lucken. They arrived from London aboard the ship James & Elizabeth on June 16, 1710. A year later he was among the contingent of Palatine Volunteers in an failed expedition to invade French Canada. This expedition left Albany about August but retreated back to Albany on 1 October. He became a United States citizen on January 17, 1715/16. [1]
McKay/Deary/Howard /Coon/Manning
The Manning Family
Mercy Manning married Jesse Jacob Coon in New York about 1780. Many sources claim that Mercy's parents are Jacob Manning and Sarah Nelson. I have found no certain documentation for that. In fact the whole ancestry of Mercy Manning is in doubt she might not have English ancestry at all. At any rate Mercy's ancestry rates a question mark. One possibility is that her surname, Manning, might be an Anglicization of the German names Manngen or Mentgen or Mentegen so she might be a later arriving cousin of the Mentgens (see below).
McKay/Deary/Howard /Coon/Hagedorn
The Hagedorn Family
Both the Hagedorn and Manngen families were Palatinate Germans who emigrated due to the encouragement of the English monarchy.
Magdalena Hagedorn married Adam Kuntz in Ancram, New York about 1759.
********John Peter Hagedorn married Debby (last name unknown) in 1736 in Ancram, New York.
********Johann Peter Hagedorn married Anna Mentgen about 1721 in Rhinebeck, New York. He arrived in America with his parents in about 1710.
********
German connection
Johann Peter Hagedorn married Elisabetha Catharina Job about 1683 in Erbenheim, Wiesbaden, Germany. Elisabetha had to convert from Catholicism when they married. The ship manifest shows that Peter and Elisabeth arrived in New York with the 1710 migration with four children. Peter was already sixty years old when they emigrated.
********
Jacob Hagedorn married Christina Mohr about 1637 in Weisbaden, Germany. Jacob was a wheelwright.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Coon/Hagedorn/Mentgen
The Manngen/Mentgen/Mentegen Family
Both the Hagedorn and Manngen families were Palatinate Germans who emigrated due to the encouragement of the English monarchy.
Anna Mentgen married Johann Peter Hagedorn about 1721 in Rhinebeck, New York.
********
Ferdinand Mentgen (aka Friederich Mentegen) married Anna Clara Manning on January 21, 1693 in Dattenfeld, Germany. They arrived in New York from Germany by way of England with their two daughters in 1710 as shown in a journal of Palatine debtors to the British government for subsistence payments. They had lost two infant sons the previous year.
Peter Hagedorn and Friederich Mentegen are listed as working in Livingston Manor, New York in 1710 and 1711.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Coon
The Other Coon Family
This branch of the Howard family may or may not be related to the other Coon family in this line (see above).
Anna Coon married William Meeker in 1829 in New York. Her mother, Miriam died soon after Anna's birth and their family moved to Pennsylvania soon after that. She married her husband in nearby Broome, New York.
********Abraham Coon married Miriam Gage. He was a lifelong farmer, still listed as such on the 1860 census when he was 70 years old. Abraham moved from near Albany, New York to Silver Lake, Pennsylvania between 1810 and 1820. He was the Post Master in Hawleytown, Broome County.
********Abraham's Ancestors
Benjamin Howard's mother was Catherine Coon (b. 1791) and Benjamin's wife Anna Meaker's mother was Anna Coon (b. 1808). At first glance it makes sense that Anna Coon and Catherine Coon might be related. It is well known that extended families often migrated west together. Catherine's father is well documented to be Jesse Coon/Kuntz the grandson of German immigrant Philip Kuntz. However there is no definitive documentation for Anna Coon's lineage. Abraham and Miriam are very likely Anna's parents but Abraham's father is often shown in other family trees as Asa Coon a descendant of the Scotsman John Maccoone. This is not impossible but unlikely so I will leave Abraham's ancestors blank until further research clarifies the lineage.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Coon/Gage
The Gage/Gaige Family
Four generations of the Gage family followed a familiar migration route from Massachusetts to the Hudson Valley to upstate New York.
Miriam Gage married Abraham Coon. She died soon after the birth of her first child Anna.
********Benjamin Gage married Deliverance Hoag in New York in 1779. Benjamin was one of nine brothers, all of whom settled in Albany and Schenectady within a radius of ten miles. Benjamin brought his family with six children in 1791 from Dutchess County. Five other children were born in Duanesburg.
********Joseph Gage married Mary Huddlestone on September 13, 1756 in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Joseph left New England for Dutchess County then ultimately to Duanesburg near Schenectady.
********William Gage married Hannah Davis in 1723 in Freetown, Massachusetts. They had ten children, all born in Freetown, Massachusetts. William was a schoolmaster in Freetown in 1721 until at least 1730. William served in the militia that fought in what was called Father Rale's War, an effort to apprehend Father Sebastien Rale, a Jesuit priest and French national who resided with local Indians and was thought to aid in raiding and killing or abducting New England colonists. They were unsuccessful in apprehending Rale.
William was apparently a Quaker, and with his sons William, John, Thomas, Joseph, Remembrance, Sylvester and David, left New England and sought a new home in Dutchess County, where Quakerism was well established.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Coon/Gage /Hoag
The Hoag Family
The Hoag family went from a Puritan judge in the Salem witch trials to early settlers in the Hudson Valley.
Deliverance "Dilla" Hoag married Benjamin Gage in New York in 1779. They had 12 children.
********Ebenezer Hoag married Mariam Collins on September 23, 1756 in Amesbury Town, Massachusetts. He later moved his family first to Dutchess County in the Hudson Valley then farther north to Hoosick in Rensselaer County.
********Benjamin Hoag married Esther Swett on November 21, 1718 in Amesbury, Massachusetts. They had fourteen children. Benjamin led a peripatetic life: living in Exeter and Stratham, New Hampshire during the period of 1707 to 1717; Dover, 1720 to 1722; Stratham, 1723 to 1731; Amesbury, Massachusetts in 1732; and finally moving late in life to Duchess County, New York.
********John Hoag married Ebenezer Emery on April 21, 1669 at Newbury, Massachusetts. John's father, Richard was a Puritan who landed in Boston about 1636. John was an apprentice to a leather dresser. There is some dispute about rest of John's family, some accounts report that they returned to England in 1652 and others show them staying in Boston. But John remained, reportedly because the master refused to release John from his apprenticeship. John later moved about 30 miles north of Boston to a village now known as Newbury. After the children were grown, all the family became Quakers.
John was involved as a judge in the Salem witch trials in 1692 and 93. He did not fall prey to the mob hysteria of the trials but rather was outspoken in his opposition to them hat resulted in him losing his job as a judge. One family historian wrote the following: "John Hoag was a man of fine natural abilities and filled the place of Side Judge in the County Court until the accusations and arrests of folk for witchcraft which he opposed with such steadfastness and resolution that he lost his seat."
For more information about the McKay ancestors and witch trials click here.
John's wife, Ebenezer, had what was even then an unusual name for a female. Like many Puritans, the Emerys looked to Holy Scripture in naming their children, and so out of a sense of thankfulness they named her Ebenezer meaning “the Lord has helped us” (1 Samuel 7:12).
Ebenezer's parents John Emery and Mary Shatswell were married in Essex County, Massachusetts in 1647. John and his first wife had arrived in Boston on the James in 1635 and soon settled in Newbury, Massachusetts. John was a carpenter and an innkeeper. John's first wife died in early 1647 and less than a year later John married Mary. She had recently lost her spouse John Webster.
McKay-Stevens Connection
The descendants of John Shatswell and Judith Dillingham include two different connections to the McKay family and two to the Petersen family.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Coon/Gage /Hoag/Collins
The Collins Family
The Collins family settled along the Massachusetts/New Hampshire border region. They practice the Quaker religion.
Mariam Collins married Ebenezer Hoag on September 23, 1756 in Amesbury Town, Massachusetts.
********Benjamin Collins married Mary Jones on August 9, 1732 in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Shortly after they were married, Benjamin and Mary appear to have moved just north over the border from Amesbury and Salisbury to Hampton Falls, New Hampshire. Later they relocated about ten miles inland to Kingston, New Hampshire.
********John Collins married Elizabeth Barnard in 1693 in Amesbury, Massachusetts. He was a Quaker, but had much trouble with the society in consequence of his preaching when the Friends ordered him to be silent. He was finally disowned by them in 1788, though most of his descendants, for two generations, remained active members of that society.
********Benjamin Collins married Martha Eaton on November 5, 1668 in Salisbury, Massachusetts. He emigrated from England and settled in Salisbury.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Coon/Gage /Hoag/Collins/Barnard
The Barnard Family
The Barnard and Peasley families are closely associated with Amesbury/Salisbury region of Northeastern Massachusetts.
Elizabeth Barnard married John Collins in 1693 in Amesbury, Massachusetts.
********Thomas Barnard married Sarah Peasley on April 12, 1664 in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Thomas may have served under Capt. Turner in King Philip's War 1676. In 1707 he sold the site of the Quaker meeting house in Amesbury.
Sarah's parents were Joseph Peasley and Mary Johnson who arrived from England in about 1638 and first settled in Newbury, Massachusetts; in 1639 he and Mary are in Hampton New Hampshire; then to Salisbury in 1641, and Joseph was one of the 32 landowners in Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1645. He was listed as a Freeman in Haverhill in 1646. Joseph was a prosperous man. He was a millwright, a farmer, and a cattle rancher. He was also remembered as one who had much knowledge of herbs & roots and used them to aid people medically.
In 1656 he settled in is now part of Newton, New Hampshire. While he was residing there, he fell out of favor with the established church. Once there the settlers felt they should have their own church and not have to travel to the church in Salisbury. They petitioned the General Court for their rights. The court ruled against them and added that anyone not attending their church would be fined five shillings. Joseph then took a leading role in it as he began to preach at the "new church". At one point a warrant was issued ordering him to appear before the court and answer for his disobedience to the authorities. He refused to stop preaching and in 1659 he was fined by the court. He continued to preach the doctrine that resulted in the formation of the "Society of Friends" (Quakers). Joseph was buried in the Quaker burial ground in Salisbury (now Newton) New Hampshire. The poet, John Greenleaf Whittier, is a descendant of Joseph and Mary Peasley.
Welsh connection
********Sarah's mother, Mary Johnson was born in Trevor Issa, Wales and was the granddaughter of Edmund Johnson. He, along with six of his children, drowned while on a boating trip in Pontypool, Wales, in 1600. The only surviving child was Mary's father, John who was 12 years old when this happened. He had stayed home with his mother during this family outing. John Johnson was a successful farmer in Wales.
Thomas Barnard married Eleanor (last name possibly Morse) in about 1638 in Salisbury, Massachusetts. He and his brother Robert came to New England in 1634. Robert was among the first ten purchasers of Nantucket and selected Thomas as his partner but Thomas himself never lived at Nantucket. Thomas was one of the founders of Amesbury, Massachusetts. Thomas was killed by Indiana in 1677 in Amesbury. The court records for the settlement of Thomas' estate contain some very non-legalistic language: "Elenor Barnard, administratrix of the estate of Tho. Barnard of Amesbury, with four of her sons, asking for a settlement of the estate, court April 9, 1678, ordered to the widow, 200li., comprising the house and home lot, half of the higgledee piggledee lot of salt marsh and the whole sweepage lot at the beach at the prices entered in the inventory, and such things as she desires as per the inventory."
Both Thomas' and Eleanor's parents are unproven.
After Thomas' death, Eleanor married George Little of Newbury on July 19, 1681.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Coon/Gage /Hoag/Collins/Eaton
The Eaton Family
The Eaton and Rowlandson families lived in Northeastern Massachusetts and were made famous by a book detailing a kidnapping incident during King Philip's War.
Martha Eaton married Benjamin Collins on November 5, 1668.
********
and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
John Eaton married Martha Rowlandson in 1644 in Salisbury, Massachusetts. He went to Salisbury with his father in the winter of 1639-40, and when the latter left for Haverhill, in 1646, the elder John deeded his house and property "on the neck" to John Jr. who lived there until his death. He was a planter and cooper like his father.
********Martha was the daughter of Thomas Rowlandson Sr. and the sister of Joseph Rowlandson. Rev. Joseph Rowlandson graduated from Harvard College in 1652 as the only member of his class. Thomas was in Ipswich, Massachusetts in 1637.
In 1676 Joseph and his wife, Mary White, were living in Lancaster, Massachusetts. At sunrise on February 10, during King Philip's War, Lancaster came under attack by Narragansett, Wampanoag, and Nashaway/Nipmuc Indians. Mary and her three children were among those taken in the raid. For more than 11 weeks, Mary and her children were forced to accompany the Indians as they travelled through the wilderness to carry out other raids and to elude the English militia. Eventuall she was ransomed for £20, raised by the women of Boston and paid by a Petersen ancestor John Hoar of Concord at Redemption Rock in Princeton, Massachusetts.
From this experience came a famous book, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God, Mary's autobiographical account of her kidnapping and ransom, considered a classic of the American captivity narrative genre.
John Eaton married Ann (last name uncertain, possibly Crossman) around 1618 in England. He was a farmer and a cooper. The family settled in Salisbury, Massachusetts, prior to the winter of 1639. In 1646 he transferred his homestead to his son John and moved with the other members of his family about 15 miles up the Merrimack River to Haverhill, and there spent the remaining 22 years of his life tilling the soil and manufacturing staves.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Coon/Gage /Hoag/Swett
The Swett Family
The Swett family is a study in contrasts. In three generations they were represented by the immigrant, John, the soldier, Benjamin, and the Quaker, Moses.
Esther Swett married Benjamin Hoag on November 21, 1718 in Amesbury, Massachusetts.
********Moses Swett married Mary Hussey in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire on May 12, 1687. He was a Quaker. They had eleven children.
********Benjamin Swett married Esther Weare at Newbury, Massachusetts on November 1, 1647. He came to this new land when he was a boy, settling in Newbury with his family. In 1663 he and his family moved to Hampton Falls, New Hampshire.
Benjamin was a captain in the military during King Philip's War. He commanded the garrison at Wells, Maine. On June 29, 1677, while pursuing some Indians sent as a ruse, the company was ambushed by warriors under Chief Squandro. In the New England militia of nearly one hundred soldiers, fifty to sixty were left dead or mortally wounded. Among the dead was Captain Benjamin Swett. [5]
********Benjamin's wife Esther Weare outlived her husband by more than forty years, and married, in 1678, Ensign Stephen Greenleaf of Newbury, of the same family from whom the poet Whittier was descended. Sadly, Stephen also died in a military encounter off Cape Breton.
Esther's father, Nathaniel Weare came from England to New England in 1637 with his brother Peter. His name, variously spelled, but always pronounced "wire". He was an early proprietor in Newbury, Massachusetts from 1638 to 1658. In 1659 he relocated to Nantucket. The Weare family changed their name to Wyer after they moved to Nantucket.
John Swett married Sarah (or Phebe) in England. John Swett may have sailed in 1641 and arrived at Parker River in 1642. And perhaps not coincidentally for a man who had four military-age sons, the last half of 1641 was the beginning of the English Civil War, which broke out in January 1642. John was a leather-worker, probably a cordwainer (shoe-maker). He was admitted as a freeman of Massachusetts Colony in 1642 and was one of the grantees of Newbury, Massachusetts the same year.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Coon/Gage /Hoag/Swett/Hussey
The Hussey Family
The Hussey family is identified with the American founder, Captain Christopher Hussey, who is credited with starting the American whaling enterprise from Nantucket Island.
Mary Hussey married Moses Swett May 12, 1687 in Hampton Falls, Rockingham, New Hampshire.
********
John Hussey married Rebecca Perkins on Sept 21, 1659 in Rockingham, New Hampshire. They had sixteen children. John inherited land on Nantucket, but lived in the southern part of Hampton (now Seabrook), New Hampshire. He fought as a soldier in King Philip's war in Massachusetts in 1675/76. John and Rebecca were members of the Society of Friends.
Between 1688 and 1692 John, Rebecca and many of their children, and his mother-in-law moved to New Castle county, Pennsylvania (now Delaware). He was a representative there in 1696. They became influential members of New Castle Friends Meeting.
John is a direct ancestor of President Richard Nixon.
********John's wife, Rebecca was the daughter of Isaac Perkins and Susanna Wise who married about 1634. Isaac Perkins was quite successful; was a ship carpenter and settled in what is now called Seabrook, New Hampshire.
Christopher Hussey married Theodate Bachiler probably in England before he and his wife and widowed mother sailed from Southampton in 1630 on the William and Francis. Christopher was one of the first settlers of Hampton, New Hampshire. In 1639 Christopher Hussey was made Justice of the Peace. He also held office of town clerk & was a deacon in the church. He was one of the original "purchasers" of Nantucket.
Christopher Hussey was also a Sea Captain. In 1712 Christopher was caught in a storm and blown several miles out into the Atlantic and accidentally was carried into the midst of a large herd of the great sperm whales. This discovery of the sperm whale forever changed the nature of whaling on Nantucket and in New England.
Christopher Hussey is an ancestor of Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex.
For an extended discussion of Christopher Hussey click here.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Coon/Gage /Hoag/Swett/Hussey /Bachiler
The Bachiler Family
The Bachiler (Bachelor/Batchelder) family descended from the dissident minister Stephen Bachiler who had a long and colorful life.
Theodate Bachiler married Christopher Hussey in 1629 in England.
********Stephen Bachiler married Ann Bates about 1593 in England. She gave birth to all six of his children.
Stephen had along and tumultuous life. He was 70 years old when he reached Boston aboard the William & Francis in 1632, and gathered his followers to establish the First Church of Lynn (then Saugus). He incurred the hostility of the Puritan theocracy in Boston, casting the only dissenting vote among ministers against the expulsion of Roger Williams. Despite his age, he was uncommonly energetic, and throughout some two decades pursued settlement and church endeavors, always engaged in controversy and confrontation with Bay Colony leaders.
In 1638, Bachiler and others successfully petitioned to begin a new plantation at what was to become Hampton, new Hampshire. His ministry there became embroiled in controversy. By 1641 Bachiler was excommunicated by the Hampton church on unfounded charges of "scandal", but protested to Governor Winthrop and was later reinstated.
By 1644 Bachiler was asked to be the minister at Exeter but was refused by the Massachusetts General Court. Frustrated in his attempts at a new ministry, Bachiler left Hampton and went as missionary to Strawbery Banke (now Portsmouth, New Hampshire). While there, he married in 1648 (as fourth wife) a young widow, Mary Beedle of Kittery, Maine. In 1651, she was indicted and sentenced for adultery with a neighbor (possibly forming the basis for Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, The Scarlet Letter.
Denied a divorce by the Massachusetts Court, Bachiler finally returned to England about 1653. His children who had stayed in England, were well off and able to take care of him. Bachiler died near London in 1656.
Stephen has many famous descendants including American lawyer and statesman, Daniel Webster.
For an extended discussion of Stephen Bachiler click here.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Coon/Gage /Huddleston
The Huddleston Family
The Huddleston family will always be associated with the Quakers through the marriage of Valentine to Katherine Chatham. The Huddlestons found a home in the more tolerant colony of Rhode Island.
Mary Huddlestone married Joseph Gage on September 13, 1756 in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.
********Isaac Huddleston married Eleanor Mortimer about 1728 in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Isaac was a cordwainer (shoemaker).
Nothing is known about Eleanor's parents.********
George Huddleston married Mercy Case on August 4, 1702 in Little Compton, Rhode Island. George was living in Dartmouth, Massachusetts on December 15, 1715, when his father Valentine Huddleston deeded him part of his original "800 acres."
Mercy was the daughter of James and Hannah Case who were married in 1685 in Little Compton. Her sister, Sarah, married George's brother, Henry. James Case was the son of immigrant William Case who sailed on the Dorset from Gravesend, England, on September 30, 1635. He was a freeman of Newport in 1655.********
Valentine Huddleston married Katherine Chatham Valentine immigrated to Maryland about 1633. He had numerous transactions in land on Patuxent River, in Calvert County, Maryland, between that date and 1671, when he is believed to have migrated to Newport, Rhode Island. He was one of the 56 persons to whom in 1684, William Bradford and associates conveyed lands which included the present site of New Bedford (Dartmouth), Massachusetts, which they had previously purchased from the Indians.
Katherine Chatham was a Quaker who appeared on the streets of Boston clothed in sackcloth, as a sign of the indignation of the Lord upon the magistrates. She was imprisoned there at once and held for a long term, in payment of fines and was repeatedly whipped for her loyalty to the Quaker faith. “But the Lord had provided for her and she was taken to wife by John Chamberlain, and so became an inhabitant of Boston.” When the colony of Friends established a settlement in Newport, Rhode Island, John and Katharine Chamberlain went with them in 1663. After John's death she married Valentine. At the time, Valentine was about forty-one, and he took on nine stepchildren and then had four more children with Katherine.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Coon/Gage /Davis
The Davis Family
The Davises were an early Massachusetts family.
Hannah Davis married William Gage in 1723 in Freetown, Massachusetts.
********William Davis married Mary Makepeace on March 1, 1686 in Taunton, Massachusetts. They had thirteen children. William’s first deed was in 1688 in Freetown, Massachusetts in which he purchased land from his in-laws. He was a Grand Juryman in 1697.
Mary was the daughter of William Makepeace and Ann Johnson who married on March 23, 1661 in Freetown, Bristol, Massachusetts Bay Colony. William's father, Thomas, was a merchant from Burton Dassett, Warwickshire, who came to Massachusetts Bay in 1635.********
William Davis married Margaret Pynchon on December 6, 1644 in Massachusetts Bay Colony. He emigrated to the colonies from England between 1640 and 1643. He married at least four times, having 4 children by his first wife Margaret.
There is some dispute about William's son. He definitely had a son, William born around 1653 but it may have been William, a mariner, who died in 1685 and was married to Abigail or William that died in 1736 and was married to Mary Makepeace. Until proven otherwise, I'll stick with the latter.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Coon/Gage /Davis/Pynchon
The Pynchon Family
The Pynchon family is known for the immigrant and patriarch, William who founded Springfield, Massachusetts and wrote the first book banned in the colonies.
Margaret Pynchon married William Davis on December 6, 1644 in Massachusetts Bay Colony. She had immigrated to New England from Springfield, England, with her parents, in the Winthrop Fleet.
********
William Pynchon married Anne Andrews. He arrived in New England in 1630. Anne died of the scurvy in Dorchester when just arrived. William was elected assistant and treasurer of the colony, and was instrumental in founding a new settlement at Roxbury before leading a small group of eight families to settle a plantation "over against Agawam" in the spring of 1636. The settlement was founded, in large part, to take advantage of fur-trading opportunities along the Connecticut River. The settlement was named Springfield after Pynchon's home Springfield, Essex, England.
The first book banned in the New England colonies was written by William. Pynchon was a scholarly man, and a deeply religious one. In 1650, he completed a theological treatise entitled The Meritorious Price of our Redemption in which he argued a point of Puritan doctrine that was opposed to the usual teachings of the ministers and leaders of the Bay Colony in Boston. The book was suppressed and copies of it ordered to be burned in the market place by the marshal. In 1652 he returned to England where he died ten years later.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker
The Meeker Family
The Meeker family originated in America in the early wave of Puritan immigration. They migrated out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony first to Connecticut, then to the Hudson River Valley, and finally to western New York State.
Anna Meeker married Benjamin Howard about 1843 in Broome, New York. Anna was the oldest of eleven children. She moved with her husband and youngest children to farm in Iowa in the 1870s.
********William Meeker married Anna Coon about 1831. His obituary said that he moved to Silver Lake Township in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania south of Binghamton NY at age 12. In his late 30s he became a dedicated member of the Hawleyton Methodist Episcopal Church from 1831 onwards.. He died at age 78 after a long battle with cancer.
********Eli Meeker married Deborah Holmes about 1800. In 1814, Eli Meeker came, with his family, from Columbia County, N. Y., and settled near Quaker Lake, Pennsylvania. He was a blacksmith, and had a shop near the lake shore.
Deborah's parents are uncertain.********
Joshua Meaker married Abigail Mills on February 7, 1781 in Fairfield, Connecticut. In about 1783 Joshua and Abigail moved to Hillsdale, New York in the Hudson River Valley from Connecticut.
********Robert Meaker married Rebecca Morehouse on September 19, 1746 in Redding, Connecticut. He was Clerk of the Episcopal Church in Nobletown, Massachusetts in 1771. The family had moved there about 1761.
********Robert Meeker married Abigail Mallory. Robert died young, just two years after the birth of his son Robert and Abigail remarried to Nathan Lyon.
********John Meeker married Elizabeth (last name possibly Sherwood) on September 16, 1689 in Fairfield, Connecticut. When he died in 1727 he left an estate worth more than 525 pounds.
********
English connection
Robert Meeker married Susan Tuberfield/Turberfield in Fairfield, Connecticut on September 16, 1651. Robert arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony with his brother, William, from Leamington, Warwickshire, England where they were born. He sailed from Plymouth, England and arrived in Massachusetts in 1630. Robert Meeker took the Oath of Fidelity in New Haven, July 1644, and then removed to nearby Branford.
But things in New Haven were not smooth. Robert's brother, William, in 1657 sued one Thomas Mulliner for slander in bewitching his pigs.
Susan Tuberfield came to the Colony of New Haven from Barbados. She was maid to a Mrs. Van Goodenhousen in New Haven. In March 1651, a spurned suitor accused Susan of keeping cloth and lace given to her on condition of marriage. “She said the cloth was given her freely: and that he had never made any motion of marriage to her, which the Court believed not, because it is granted on all sides that he had such intentions.” [2] The court took possession of the fabric pending final disposition of the case.
Six months later, in September 1651, Susan and Robert were married. Eight months after that, they were hauled into court and charged with fornication prior to their marriage.
“They confest the fact, that they had so defyled one another, and said they were sorey for it,” according to town records. “He was told it hath bine reported that hee made her drunke with strong water, and then did it.”
Robert and Susan both said that was not how it happened.
“But after [testimony] by Goodwife Beecher, ye midwife, it was proved to their faces that he said so, that he found her asleepe & acted his fylthynes & left her asleepe, and that she said she neithr knew him or felt him.”
They were sentenced to be whipped the next day for their “fylthynes” and fined 10 shillings apiece for lying.[3]
The couple relocated to Fairfield, Connecticut, and raised three children there. Susan died in 1683 (age 53) and Robert four months later (age 59).
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Mills
The Mills Family
The Mills family origins are unknown but after arriving during the Great Migration, they settled in Stamford/Fairfield, Connecticut.
Abigail Mills married Joshua Meeker on February 7, 1781 in Fairfield, Connecticut.
********Ebenezer Mills married Abigail Wakeman about 1760 in Connecticut. Ebenezer's father died when Ebenezer was young.
********Robert Mills married Dorothy Middlebrook. At his father's death, Robert chose his mother Mary for guardian in 1729 when some of his siblings were distributed to other relatives.
********John Mills married Mary Fountain on October 2, 1702 in Stamford, Connecticut. In 1717 John and Mary received land on Mary's grandfather's death. When John died in 1723, they had ten living children and some had to be placed in guardianship.
Mary's parents were Aaron Fountain and Mary Beebe who married December 1681 in New London, Connecticut. Although it is said that Aaron had French/Huguenot or was part of the Rogerenes, I haven't been able to verify his background or ancestry. Mary Beebe's father was Samuel Beebe who came to America in 1650 aboard the Speedwell with his parents and settled in New London, Connecticut. In 1660 Samuel married, in New London, Mary Keeney. In his later years, Samuel moved to Plum Island, off the northeastern tip of Long Island in Suffolk County.********
John Mills married Mary (last name unknown) in 1669 in Stamford, Connecticut.
********Richard Mills married Sarah Nichols.
Sarah is the daughter of Francis Nichols and Frances Wimarke. Frances died before the family came to North America. He arrived with his children about 1635. He married for a second time about 1649 to Ann Wines. Francis settled at Stratford, Connecticut by 10 October 1639, at which time he was appointed Sargeant of the Stratford trainband.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Mills/Wakeman
The Wakeman Family
The Wakeman and Goodyear families were prominent along the Connecticut coast in Fairfield, Milford and New Haven. They included merchants and slave owners.
Abigail Wakeman married Ebenezer Mills about 1760 in Connecticut.
********Samuel Wakeman married Ruth Rogers in 1738 in Milford, New Haven, Connecticut.
********Joseph Wakeman married Elizabeth Hawley in 1698 in Fairfield, Connecticut. He was appointed Lieutenant in 1704 during Queen Anne's War. He left an estate of over 5,000 pounds, including his house in Greenfarms. Surprisingly in a survey of slaves in Fairfield, Connecticut in 1726, Joseph Wakeman is shown to own five slaves (three men and two women): Quash, Tom, Dinah (bequeathed to widow, Elizabeth), Mingo, and Tamer.
********Samuel Wakeman married Hannah Goodyear on October 29, 1656 in New Haven, Connecticut by Hannah's father Stephen, the Deputy Governor of the Colony of New Haven. Samuel's will showed he had an Indian slave who was to be granted liberty in 1698 (seven years after Samuel's death).
As mentioned, Hannah was the daughter of Stephen Goodyear. He was a merchant, mariner, and West Indies trader. He immigrated to America from England and settled in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1643 he was chosen Deputy Governor of the Colony of New Haven and served for many years (1643 - 58) under Gov. Theophilus Eaton. He owned the vessel, Saint John, which was licensed to carry 250 passengers from England to the Americas.
He was part of the company called "The Ship Fellowship" of New Haven, which built the Phantom Ship that left New Haven Harbor in January of 1648 for London and was never heard from again. Stephen Goodyear's wife, Mary, was lost on this ship. In 1658, Stephen Goodyear married Margaret (Lewen) Lamberton, widow of George Lamberton who also died on the Phantom Ship.
The first iron works in Connecticut were established in East Haven in 1655 by Stephen Goodyear and continued about 25 years.
History Digression: The Phantom Ship
painted by Jesse Talbot
A surprising number of ancestors died in one ship disaster. In the early 1640s, seeing their estates shrinking fast in the New World, the merchants of New Haven Colony formed a last-ditch partnership to build and stock a trading ship that could bypass the large ports (and of course, fees) of Massachusetts Bay, and trade directly with England. The ship called The Fellowship was poorly built, but in January 1646, it set out from New Haven with George Lamberton [FF] as the master, loaded with wheat, beaver pelts, hides, and other goods valued at £5,000, which would be worth perhaps US$645,000 today. Because this was the coldest decade of the Little Ice Age, the ship’s master had to break through three miles of harbor ice to get out to Long Island Sound. The ship disappeared forever.
Many of our ancestors were involved. John Wakemen [MD] and Richard Miles [FF] were involved in the construction. Along with George Lamberton, Thomas Gregson [FF] and Mary Goodyear [MD & PR] were also lost on this ship.
The story goes that in June of the next year, the residents of New Haven saw what many claimed to be a vision of the ship returning to port. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem called The Phantom Ship.
********John Wakeman married Elizabeth Hopkins on January 28, 1628 in Bewdley, Worcestershire, England. John was a timber merchant in Bewdley, England, a position of much importance at that time as the Park contained, in 1612, 3,500 old trees. On Wyre Forest (Wyre Hill) were many square miles of oaks. The wood was wanted for making charcoal to smelt the ironstone brought on pack horses from Clee Hill. His brother, Samuel, came to New England in November 1631 in the ship Lyon. John is first mentioned as a freeman in New Haven, Connecticut in 1639. He signed the New Haven Compact in 1638, was a deacon of the First Congregational Church of New Haven, served as treasurer of the Colony of New Haven, and was Captain of the New Haven trainband. Stephen Goodyear mentions a fur trading post started in 1642 started by John.
The preamble to his will shows great religious tolerance for his time and place: "I doe testify against absolute independency of churches, and perfection of any in light or actings, and against compulsion of conscience to concur with the church without inward satisfaction to conscience, and persecuting such as discent upon this grownde, which, I take to be an abuse of the power given for edification by Christ who is only Lord of the conscience."
Elizabeth's father, William Hopkins, was a member of parliament in 1647.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Mills/Wakeman /Rogers
The Rogers Family
The Rogers and Knowles families were early Connecticut settlers as well as land owners in southern Maine.
Ruth Rogers married Samuel Wakeman in 1738 in Milford, Connecticut.
********Joseph Rogers married Sarah Clark in 1700 in New London, Connecticut. His tombstone in the Milford cemetery read "Here lyes interr'd the body of Lieut't Joseph Rogers who departed this Life June y 6th AD 1754 in ye 83 year of his age.
********Eleazer Rogers married Elizabeth Knowles on March 27, 1663 in Milford, Connecticut.
Elizabeth had been married to Thomas Ford until his death in 1662. Elizabeth's father was Alexander Knowles. Alexander was a freeman as of 1636 and owned land in what is today Kittery, Maine but in 1653 relocated to Fairfield, Connecticut.********
John Rogers married Ruth (last name unknown) about 1640 in New England. John had arrived in 1635 at the age of eighteen. John was documented as a First Planter and founder of Milford, Connecticut in 1639.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Mills/Wakeman /Rogers/Clark
The Clark Family
The Clark family includes a founder of Milford, Connecticut.
Sarah Clark married Joseph Rogers in 1700 in New London, Connecticut.
********Samuel Clark married Mary (last name uncertain, possibly Clark) on December 21, 1673 in Milford, Connecticut.
********George Clark married Sarah. They came on the Martin from Great Munden with Rev. Peter Prudden arriving about 1637 in Boston. He along with the "Hertfordshire Group" moved on to New Haven Colony. Deacon George Clark is considered a founder of Milford. His occupation was a carpenter.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Mills/Wakeman /Hawley
The Hawley Family
The Hawley and Birdsey families are associated with settlement in Stratford and Wethersfield, Connecticut. The Hawley family became one of the largest land holders in the Colony of Connecticut.
Elizabeth Hawley married Joseph Wakeman in 1698 in Fairfield, Connecticut.
********Ebenezer Hawley married Hester Ward on April 19, 1678. He settled in Fairfield, Connecticut.
********Joseph Hawley married Katherine Birdsey in 1646 probably in Wethersfield, Connecticut. Joseph arrived in Boston, Massachusetts around 1629 or 1630. He and Katherine settled at Stratford, Connecticut by 1650 and Joseph became the town's first town clerk or record keeper, tavern (ordinary) keeper and a shipbuilder. He became a large landowner or yeoman. It is believed that Joseph owned nearly 5,000 acres of land in his lifetime.
Katherine most likely arrived from England about 1636 with her father Joseph Birdsey and her uncle, John Birdsey and possibly her grandfather, John. Katherine and Joseph settled in Wethersfield, Connecticut.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Mills/Wakeman /Hawley/Ward
The Ward Family
The Ward family settled first in Watertown, Massachusetts but later, along with the Lockwood family settled in Connecticut.
Hester Ward married Ebenezer Hawley on April 19, 1678. She married three more times after Ebenezer's death.
********William Ward married Deborah Lockwood on October 20, 1658 in Fairfield, Connecticut. He settled at Fairfield purchasing the Perry house on Newton Square next to that of Rev. Samuel Wakeman. A physician, he was appointed by the General Court in Hartford to be the surgeon for Company F in the war against the Narragansett Indians. He died during the war.
Deborah was the daughter of Robert Lockwood. After William’s death, his widow, Deborah, married a Tappan of Southampton, Long Island, hence she is called Deborah Ward Tappan.********
Andrew Ward married Hester Sherman on May 14, 1634 in England. Andrew arrived in New England aboard the ship Arabella in 1633 and was a freeman in Boston in 1634 and was a member of the Watertown church in May of that year. He was granted a ten acre home lot there. In 1648 he made his final move, settling at Fairfield, Connecticut.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Mills/Middlebrook
The Middlebrook Family
The Middlebrook, Bateman and Williams families' start in New England was in Concord, Massachusetts but soon relocated to Fairfield, Connecticut.
Dorothy Middlebrook married Robert Mills in 1739 in Stamford, Connecticut.
********Joseph Middlebrook married Deborah (last name unknown) on January 3, 1703 in Fairfield, Connecticut.
********Joseph Middlebrook married Sarah Williams on April 16, 1683 in Fairfield, Connecticut.
Sarah is the daughter of immigrant David Williams.********
Joseph Middlebrook married Mary Bateman on March 24, 1656. It was her second marriage. Joseph relocated from Concord, Massachusetts to Fairfield, Connecticut in 1644 with the Rev. John Jones.
Mary's father was William Bateman who immigrated with his family to Boston in 1630 and settled in first Charlestown, then Concord. By 1644 he had relocated to Fairfield, Connecticut.********
Joseph Middleton married Ann Halsey in about 1609 in Bedfordshire, England. Joseph died soon after the birth of his son Joseph.
Ann remarried to Thomas Wheeler.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Mallory
The Mallory Family
The Mallory family is associated with Fairfield, Connecticut and can trace back their roots to the Norman French Anschetil Mallory born about 1075.
Abigail Mallory married Robert Meeker on October 26, 1723 in Fairfield, Connecticut.
********Peter Mallory married Elizabeth Trowbridge on May 28, 1678 in New Haven, Connecticut. He was a cordwainer and moved to Stratford later in his life.
********Peter Mallory married Mary Preston on March 12, 1648 in Fairfield, Connecticut. Peter came to America at the age of eight and lived with the Preston family for a time until marrying Mary Preston. He was a signer of the New Haven Covenant in 1644. He became a large land owner in New Haven.
McKay/McKay Connection
Peter Mallory is also the father of another McKay ancestor, Rebekah Mallory.
Mary's father was William Preston. William, his second wife, Mary, and his children migrated to New England in 1635 on the ship, Truelove. He first settled in Dorchester then moved to New Haven in 1640. In 1646 William was excommunicated from the church for lying but apparently was later reinstated. He signed the fundamental agreement on June 4, 1639 at New Haven, Connecticut, and took the oath of fidelity on July 1, 1644.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Mallory/Trowbridge
The Trowbridge Family
The Trowbridge and Lamberton families were among the earliest settlers in New Haven, Connecticut.
Elizabeth Trowbridge married Peter Mallory on May 28, 1678 in New Haven, Connecticut.
********William Trowbridge married Elizabeth Lamberton on March 9, 1656/57 in Milford, Connecticut. After his father returned to England in April of 1644, the servant of William's father, a man named Gibbons, managed affairs badly for William and his brothers. William was left in such a sorry state regarding access to his estate that the town placed he and his brother under the care of Sergeant Thomas Jeffrey and his wife "to be well educated and nurtured in the fear of God." William was schooled by the famous schoolmaster, Ezekiel Cheever. But through good fortune and a favorable marriage, William became a success. In 1664 he was master of the sloop Cocke, making voyages out of New Haven. In early West Haven town records William is referred to as a "planter"; in later records he is described as a "husbandman".
********William's wife, Elizabeth (Lamberton) Sellivant, was the widow of Daniel Sellivand and daughter of George and Margaret (Lewen) Lamberton. Possibly, as a marriage dowry, Elizabeth gave William a farm in West Haven which originally was a 1/6th share of the property which she inherited from her father.
Elizabeth's father was Capt. George Lamberton, made famous as captain of The Phantom Ship. George was in New Haven in 1641 and had been a merchant in London. He was one of the original founders of the Colony of New Haven. In 1642 New Haven Colony tried to establish a settlement in Delaware. Fifty families on a ship captained by George settled at the mouth of Schuylkill River around to establish the trading post at what is today Philadelphia. The Dutch and Swedes who were already in the area burned their buildings. A court in New Sweden was to convict Lamberton of "trespassing, conspiring with the Indians.”
In the first years of the colony it only had ships capable of coastal travel. Trade with England was done with the Massachusetts Bay Colony as the middleman. In 1645 the Colony built an 80-ton ocean-going ship to be captained by George Lamberton. George was lost at sea aboard that ship, the Fellowship, immortalized by Longfellow in his poem "Phantom Ship". The ship carried peas, wheat, hides from th West Indies, plate and beaver pelts. Seventy persons were onboard. The loading of the ship was delayed so that it was not ready to sail until winter. In order to get to sea they had to chop through ice for three miles. The ship was never heard from again.
Thomas Trowbridge married Elizabeth Marshall on March 27, 1627 in Exeter, England. Thomas came to Dorchester, Massachusetts with his wife and two sons (Thomas and William), perhaps in 1636. In 1639 he moved to New Haven, Connecticut. His business was shipping, and his fortune seems to have been large for the day. He returned to England where he died; his wife died in Connecticut.
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Morehouse
The Morehouse Family
The Morehouse family has strong Connecticut roots as settlers in Stamford and Fairfield.
Rebecca Morehouse married Robert Meaker on September 19, 1746 in Redding, Connecticut. Rebecca was baptized on July 29, 1731 at Greenfield, Connecticut.
********Jonathan Morehouse married Mary (last name uncertain, possibly Saunders or Reed) in 1749. They lived in Fairfield County, Connecticut.
*******Jonathan Morehouse married Rebecca Hull at Stratfield, Fairfield, Connecticut on August 8, 1706.
********Jonathan Morehouse married Mary Wilson on April 16, 1676 in Fairfield, Connecticut. John was an ensign in King Philip's war, 1676 and settled in Southampton, Long Island.
Mary was the daughter of immigrant Edward Wilson of Fairfield.********
Thomas Morehouse was in Wethersfield, Connecticut as early as 1640. The name of his first wife and mother of his children is uncertain, possibly Elizabeth Pindar. In 1641 he moved to Stamford, and was one of the original twenty-nine white settlers of that town who purchased it of the New Haven Colony, who had previously bought it of the Indians for one hundred bushels of corn. In 1653 he last settled in Fairfield where he purchased a tide mill (a water mill driven by tidal rise and fall).
McKay/Deary/Howard /Meeker/Morehouse/Hull
The Hull Family
Among the earliest of the Great Migration to New England, the Hull family settled in Windsor, Connecticut and later in Fairfield along with the Jones and Beers families.
Rebecca Hull married Jonathan Morehouse at Stratfield, Fairfield, Connecticut on August 8, 1706.
********Samuel Hull married Deborah Beers in 1670 in Fairfield, Connecticut.
*********Deborah is the daughter of James Beers and Martha Barlow who married in 1659 at Fairfield. James had come to New England with his uncle in 1635. He was an early settler at Southport, Connecticut, and he subsequently became one of the largest landholders at Fairfield.
Martha was the daughter of John Barlow, an early settler at Fairfield, Connecticut. He sold this place to Thomas Morehouse before 1653 and settled in an area still called Barlow's Plain.
Cornelius Hull married Rebecca Jones on March 19, 1653 in Fairfield, Connecticut. He was a deputy to the General Court and a Lieutenant of the Life Guards and was a large landholder. Cornelius is the brother of Mary Hull, another McKay ancestor.
********Rebecca was the daughter of John Jones, an ordained minister who came to New England on the ship Defence in 1635. he was reordained in 1637 and made pastor of the church at Concord, Massachusetts. In Sept 1644 he moved with parishioners to Fairfield, Connecticut where he was first pastor until his death.
John and his family twice became entangled in episodes of witchcraft. In the case of Goody Knapp in 1654, both In 1692, Mercy (Holbidge) Disborough, daughter of John Jones' second wife, was herself accused of witchcraft.
George Hull married Thomasine Mitchell on August 27, 1614 in Somerset, England. They came to America in 1630 aboard the Mary and John and settled first at Dorchester, Massachusetts. In 1636 he moved to Windsor, Connecticut where he was a surveyor and Indian trader and was representative of that town in the first Connecticut legislature (known as the General Court). In 1638, the general court granted him and Humphrey Pinney a monopoly of the beaver trade on the Connecticut River. In 1647 he sold his home in Windsor and moved to Fairfield as a follower of Roger Ludlow.
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