Cambridge
first settlers 1630
incorporated 1630
first ancestor 1633
last ancestor 1713
# of ancestors 31
# of immigrants 16
# born in town 8
# died in town 14
|-John Gibson
|-John Gibson Jr -|
| |-Rebecca
Timothy Gibson-|
| |-Abraham Errington-|
|-Rebecca Errington-| |-Ann Liddell
|-Rebecca Cutler
JOHN GIBSON was born in England around 1601 and emigrated to Massachusetts around 1633 with his wife REBECCA, the first of our ancestors to come to Cambridge. He first shows up in the records of Cambridge in 1635 as owning a house lot of 6 acres on the east side of Sparks St. He bought an additional 3 acres, so his land stretched from Sparks St. to Garden St. Since this is in the West End, it is safe to assume that he did not come with the original 1632 ship, but was likely on the 1633 ship or later. (Unfortunately, there is no passenger list for the 1633 voyage of the Griffin, although there is one for its 1634 voyage.) When Rev Thomas Hooker left, the Gibson family was one of the 11 families that remained.
HERE LIES Ye BODY OF | HERE LIES Ye BODY OF | HERE LIES Ye BODY OF ANN JOHN GIBSON AGED | ABRAHAM ERINTON AGEd | ERINTON,AGED 77 Yrs DECd 38 Yrs. DEDd OCTOBr Ye | 55 Yrs DECd MAY Ye 9 | DECEMr 25, 1 6 5 3 15 1 6 7 9 | 1 6 7 7 |
I. G. (John Gibson) Abraham Erinton Ann Erinton
A view of all 4 grave Gregory Stone
markers: Gregory Stone born in England 1590
in the foreground, with came to America 1635
the other 3 above and died Nov. 30, 1672
to the right of the --------------------
large tree erected by descendants
|-Thomas Blodgett
Samuel Blodgett-|
|-Susanna
THOMAS BLODGETT, born in 1605, left London, England in April 1635 on the ship "Increase" with his wife SUSANNA and two infants Daniel and SAMUEL. He was one of only 3 men on the ship who ended up in Cambridge. He arrived before Rev Thomas Hooker's group left Cambridge, and before Rev. Thomas Shepard arrived. Two more children were born in Cambridge, and through one of them the Blodgetts were the great-great-great-great-great-grandparents of President Calvin Coolidge. THOMAS was a glover by trade. He became a freeman and was listed with his wife as a member of the First Church in Cambridge in 1636, and received several grants of land beginning in 1636, including two acres of planting ground in the west field, two acres of planting ground in the West End (the second lot south of JOHN GIBSON on Sparks St), 2 1/2 acres on the south side of the Charles R., 2 1/2 acres in fresh pond meadow, a house lot on the westerly side of Dunster St. between Harvard Square and Mount Auburn St., and a 2 acre house lot between the cow common on the west and the pine swamp on the east (this is now between Mass Ave and Oxford St. about Wendell St. THOMAS sold the Dunster St. lot to Edmond Frost in 1639, so I presume they lived there until 1639 and then lived in the Mass. Ave house until he died in 1642. SUSANNA married James Thompson in Woburn on Feb 15, 1643/4 and had no more ties with Cambridge.
|-Thomas Brigham
Thomas Brigham-|
|-Mercy
THOMAS BRIGHAM came over at the age of 32 on the "Susan & Ellyn" which embarked at London on April 18, 1635. One of the other passengers on this ship was our ancestor PETER BULKLEY, who also lived in Cambridge before founding the town of Concord. THOMAS was in the group of settlers that replaced those living in Cambridge who followed Rev. Hooker to Connecticut. THOMAS moved into the 3 1/2 acre houselot on the southeastern corner of Ash and Brattle streets which was formerly owned by John Talcott. THOMAS also bought a 14 acre lot from John Doggett on the border between Watertown and Cambridge, bounded on one side by the land of Sir Richard Saltonstall, another side by the Charles River, and also by the highway to Windmill hill. He might have owned the windmill for a while. A wharf was built on his land for the use of the people of Cambridge. THOMAS was admitted a freeman April 18, 1637, and also listed in that year as a member of First Church in Cambridge along with his wife Mrs. MARY (or MERCY) Brigham. Thomas was a Selectman in 1639, 1640, 1642, and 1647, and a constable from 1639-42. He is also cited in the Cambridge records on June 8, 1646, for "his wife's rescuing of 2 hogs from the impounder" who should have driven them to the pound, and several other occasions, and was finded 4s. He amassed several more pieces of land including 10 acres near Fresh Pond and 72 acres along the Charlestowne line. His estate when he died in 1653 was 449 pounds, including two bound servants, five horses, 14 sheep, and 10 cattle. He could not write (he signed his name with a "T" mark), so his will was written by his neighbor, Thomas Danforth.
|-Dolor Davis
Simon Davis-|
|-Margery (Willard) Davis
DOLOR DAVIS came to Cambridge in 1634 with his brother-in-law, Simon Willard. MARGERY and their three children came a year later on the ship "Elizabeth" (which also brought two other ancestor families, the Bates family to Hingham and the Woodward family to Watertown). DOLOR was granted 25 acres in Cambridge Aug 4, 1634, adjacent to 100 acres granted to Simon. These lots were in what is now Brighton, and bordered the Charles R. on the east and the Brookline border on the south. In 1635 DOLOR was granted a house lot in Cambridge Village at the corner of Winthrop and Dunster. Probably both families lived there, because at some point Simon became the owner and sold the lot in 1639. DOLOR and MARGERY had a son SIMON born in Cambridge. DOLOR and Simon sold their Brighton lots on Aug. 25, 1635, 8 days before a grant was made by the General Court to PETER BUCKLEY and Simon Willard and others of 6 miles square, which became the town of Concord. Simon moved to Concord later that fall, but DOLOR probably not until 1636 (see the Concord chapter for more on the life of DOLOR DAVIS).
|-Stephen Gates
Stephen Gates Jr-|
|-Ann Hill
STEPHEN GATES was born in England about 1600, the son of Thomas and Ann Gates of Hingham, Norfolk, England. He married ANN HILL, born in 1603 in England, and they had 2 children born in England, ELIZABETH and Mary (read more about ELIZABETH in Hingham chapter). In 1638 the family embarked on the ship "Diligent" which sailed from Ipswich in June and arrived August 10 in Boston. They and the other hundred passengers from Hingham, England located in Hingham, MA (started around 1633 as Bare Cove), where 5 more children were born, 4 of whom were baptised May 3, 1646. One of the children was STEPHEN, father of the REBECCA GATES mentioned above for marrying TIMOTHY GIBSON. In 1653 the family moved to Cambridge, but the next year moved to Lancaster where he signed the covenant April 3, 1654, "made free" May 14, 1656, was chosen constable in 1657, and was the 3rd largest taxpayer on the roll. His farm of several hundred acres was in the southeast part of town which later became the town of Berlin. He eventually returned to Cambridge, where he died Sept 29, 1662. His oldest son, STEPHEN, received his house in Lancaster while his wife ANN and son Simon received his house in Cambridge. The following year ANN married RICHARD WOODWARD of Watertown, who died two years later. ANN went to live with her children and died at Stow, Mass in 1683.
|-Francis Griswold
Hannah Griswold-|
|-Mary
FRANCIS GRISWOLD (or GRISSELL) arrived in Cambridge in 1636. With his wife MARY he had three children, including HANNAH born in 1645. FRANCIS was a freeman and listed with his wife as a member of the First Church in Cambridge in 1645, and lived on the north side of Kirkland St. near Holmes Place, a small street where Oliver Wendal Holmes lived just to the west of Harvard's Science Center. The family moved to Charlestown by 1649 where he bought a house at the west end of the town near the way to Cambridge. He died three years later. MARY remarried William Bullard of Cambridge, and they joined the church in Cambridge in 1666. She died at Charlestown in 1685.
|-Gregory Stone
Sarah Stone-|
|-Lydia (Cooper)
GREGORY STONE first came with his family to Watertown in 1635 and lived there three years (see the Watertown chapter). In 1637 he sold his Watertown property and moved to Cambridge, where he bought 5 acres of land with a house from Roger Harlackenden adjacent to two of our ancestors, JOHN GIBSON and THOMAS BLODGETT, stretching from Garden St. to Sparks St. Over the next 35 years he acquired a number of parcels of land in Cambridge, including 10 more acres adjacent to his home, 40 acres of upland and meadow beyond Fresh Pond, 19 acres on the south side of the Charles River, and over 300 acres out toward Concord in what eventually became Lexington and Lincoln. He wrote an extensive will in 1672. He gave a little cow called Mode and his little young colt to one of his grandsons provided that the gandchild live with GREGORY's wife for a year doing her faithful service. He bequethed his 15 acre home to his wife while she is alive, and thereafter to 3 of his sons. He also mentions a 100 acre farm (which is now in Lexington). Fifty acres were to be given to three of his sons, with a note that the other 50 acres he had already given to his son Samuel and son-in-law JOSEPH MERRIAM. The inventory of his estate, after he died November 30, 1672, gave a value of £189 for his land.
