Boston Dedham Dorchester Newton Roxbury first settlers 1630 1635 1630 1630 1630 incorporated 1630 1636 1630 1688 1630 first ancestor 1633 1645 1635 1654 1638 last ancestor 1687 1654 1654 1683 1681 # of ancestors 16 2 3 3 3 # of immigrants 11 1 3 3 3 # born in town 2 0 0 0 0 # died in town 12 0 0 2 1
|-Theodore Atkinson ????-| |-Abigail ChambersThe Atkinson family is somewhat of a mystery. In the fourth generation, one of our ancestors living in Harvard, Massachusetts, married ELIZABETH ATKINSON of Groton in 1735. The marriage is recorded in the books of both Harvard and Groton. However there is no record of any Atkinson living in Groton before that time, and we don't know who are the parents of ELIZABETH. If we search through the records of New England, there are only three Atkinson's who are mentioned as emigrating during the 17th century. One of those three went to Plymouth Plantation, but had no children. The other two were brothers, THOMAS and THEODORE. THOMAS is described in the chapter on Concord, as he is one of our ancestors through one of his daughters. He had only one son, John, and we know about all of John's sons and grandchildren through his sons, and know that ELIZABETH was not one of his descendents. So by the process of elimination, ELIZABETH must have been a great-granddaughter of THEODORE ATKINSON, who had six sons. But there is only mention in the records of Boston about one of the sons, and the whereabouts of the other 5 sons and their sons are unknown. So we are faced with an unsettling gap in the ancestry of ELIZABETH. But even with this uncertainty, it is worth our while to look at THEODORE ATKINSON's life in Boston, because even if he is not ELIZABETH's ancestor, he is the brother of an ancestor, and he was the employee of another ancestor.
|-Captain Edmund Greenleaf |-Sarah MooreEDMUND GREENLEAF married SARAH MOORE in 1611 and had 12 children, including STEPHEN, born about 1628, before the family emigrated to Newbury in 1635 (see the Newbury chapter). Around 1650 the family moved to Boston, where he was admitted as an inhabitant in 1654. In Boston he was a silk-dyer by trade, with his dyehouse by the spring. When SARAH died in 1663, he remarried Mrs. Sarah Hill, but had an unhappy marriage with her and her children. He died in 1670, and left a rather ordinary will (Edmund Greenleaf will) where he appointed his son STEPHEN and STEPHEN's father-in-law TRISTRAM COFFIN as executors of his estate, which had a value of £131.5.9. However he appended a very curious paper to the will explaining why he did not leave anything to his 2nd wife, which I am including here:
|-Stephen Iggleden Ruth Iggleden-| Sarah Iggleden-| |-Elizabeth BennettSTEPHEN and ELIZABETH IGGLEDEN and at least five children including RUTH and SARAH left England on the ship "Castle" in 1638. Sadly, STEPHEN died on the ship. The rest of the family settled in Roxbury (originally called Rocks borough), where "Widow Iggulden" owned 22 acres, became a proprietor, married Joseph Patcham and had two more sons. Joseph removed to Fairfield, Connecticut, with one of his sons around 1658, but ELIZABETH appears to have remained in Roxbury where she died about 1681. SARAH married JOHN NUTTING in Woburn in 1650 while RUTH married SAMUEL BLODGETT in Woburn on Dec 13, 1655.
|-John Kent | |-Hannah GriswoldJOHN KENT first came to Dedham in 1645 with his two brothers. He was admitted to the Dedham church in 1652 and became a freeman in 1654. He was on the tax lists in Dedham from 1653 to 1664. He married HANNAH GRISWOLD in 1662, and she joined the Dedham church in 1664. In 1667 they moved to Charlestown where all of their nine children were born, including EBENEZER in 1680. EBENEZER eventually moved to Hingham around 1703 (see the Hingham chapter), while JOHN and HANNAH both died in Charlestown in the 1690s.
|-Simon Lynde Nathaniel Lynde-| |-John Newgate |-Hannah Newgate-| |-AnnThe Newgate family was the third of our ancestors to emigrate to New England, preceded only by the Lyford family (see Hingham chapter) and Edward Johnson (see Charlestown chapter). JOHN and ANN NEWGATE came from Southwark, England, and were a resident of Boston in 1633. He was called a "hatter", or "haberdash of hatts", or a merchant. ANN was listed in the records as being admitted to the church in 1633, while JOHN was listed in 1634 and THEODORUS ATKINSON, a servant to JOHN, in 1635. John was a freeman in 1634/5, a Constable in 1636, on a committee to oversee allotments in 1636, selectman in 1636, 1638, and 1640, and a Deputy to the General Court in 1638. The Newgate family lived in a house southeast of Tremont Hill, on the south side of what is now Cambridge St near Somerset St. JOHN was also alloted 112 acres at Rumley Marsh and Pullen Point in 1638, and the following year he bought an additional 150 acres bordering his property. This land became known as the Newgate, the Shrimpton, then Yeamans farm. The farm-house of the estate stood on Mill St. in Revere, and the farm stretched from the tide water at what used to be Slade's Mill, north to include the hill east of Woodlawn Cemetery. There was a "Newgate landing" on the Creek. Old history books show a photograph of the farm-house built in 1680 by JOHN's son Nathaniel. In 1640, JOHN gave Harvard College "five pounds per annum for ever..." to be paid from the rents of his farm at Rumney Marsh. The Newgate's had six children. The last, HANNAH NEWGATE, was born in Boston in June 28, 1635, and was our first ancestor born in New England.
|-Robert Reynolds Ruth Reynolds-| |-MaryROBERT and MARY REYNOLDS and their four children immigrated to Boston on the Winthrop Fleet of 1630; their fifth child was born on the ship or shortly after in America. Robert was admitted to the church and became a freeman in 1634, while MARY was admitted to the church in 1645. ROBERT was a successful shoemaker. He bought his home lot around 1640, at the southeast corner of what are now Washington and Milk Streets, on the site of the modern Transcript Building. He also owned land at Muddy River and Long Island. When he died in 1659, he gave his lands and estate to MARY with the provision that when she died it would be given to his only son Nathaniel, who was a ship captain in Rhode Island. He also gave 20 pounds to each of his four daughters, including daughter RUTH WHITNEY. The inventory of the estate included 110 pounds for his house. When Nathaniel inherited the house and land, he never lived there, but rented out the several buildings on the land. In 1685 Josiah Franklin became one of his tenants in a small house wedged between larger homes. Benjamin Franklin was born there in 1705.
|-Thomas Wiswall Ester Wiswall-| |-Elizabeth BarbageTHOMAS WISWALL and ELIZABETH BARBAGE married in England in 1632, and after one child was born emigrated with his brother's family to Dorchester in 1635. There they had seven more children including ESTHER born in 1635. They joined the first church in Dorchester August 23, 1636. THOMAS subscribed to the school fund in 1641, was voted a selectman in 1642, 1644, and 1652, and became a freeman in 1652. He had over 5 acres of land by 1637 including 2 acres towards Fox Point (Savin Hill). In 1645 he bought another 3 1/2 acres from Thomas Clarke, and in 1646 bought all the lots in Dorchester of Richard Williams. Their son Ichabod, by agreement between the Selectmen, THOMAS, and Ichabod, and with the consent of Thomas, became the first public school teacher in Dorchester in 1656.
Thomas Wiswall, ordained ruling elder July 20, 1664. His son ENOCH of Dorchester Died Nov. 28, 1706, aet. 73. --- Rev. ICHABOD, minister of Duxbury, 30 yrs, Agent of Plymouth Colony in England, 1690. Died July 23, 1700, aet. 63. --- Capt. NOAH, of Newton, an officer in the expedition against Canada, killed in battle with the French and Indians July 6, 1690, aet. 50, leaving a son Thomas. --- EBENEZER of Newton died June 21, 1691, aet. 45.