Charlestown Malden Medford
first settlers 1625 1640 1630
incorporated 1629 1649 1674
first ancestor 1633 1648 1725
last ancestor 1725 1681 17??
# of ancestors 50 3 3
# of immigrants 27 0 0
# born in town 12 0 0
# died in town 22 2 2
|-Edward Johnson
William Johnson-|
|-Susan Munter
The first of our ancestors to arrive in Charlestown was EDWARD JOHNSON, who came in Governor Winthrop's fleet of 11 ships in 1630. He came for adventure, traded some with the Indians on the Merrimac River, and returned to England the next summer. He liked what he saw, and in 1636 he brought his family back to the Massachusetts Colony, including his wife SUSAN (MUNTER) JOHNSON and their son WILLIAM. He was granted land in Charlestown in both 1637 and 1638, and the family lived on Crooked Lane about 100 yards from the meeting house. In 1640 he became one of 32 men to sign a Town Order forming Woburn, and in 1642 the family moved there and EDWARD became known as "the father of Woburn". Read more about EDWARD and the Johnson family in the Woburn chapter.
|-Edmund Hobart
|-Peter Hobart-|
Elizabeth Hobart-| |-Margaret Dewey
|-Elizabeth Ibrook
Ruth Lyford -|
|-Sarah Lyford
Next to arrive in Charlestown was the Hobart family; at least seven of our ancestors in the extended family lived in Charlestown briefly. EDMUND & MARGARET HOBART and serveral of his married children first came to Charlestown in 1633. EDMUND built 3 adjacent houses for his family, became a freeman on March 4, 1634, and was Constable the same year. MARGARET died, and EDMUND married the widow Mrs. SARAH LYFORD on Oct 10, 1634, with her daughter RUTH LYFORD. In 1635, his son REV PETER HOBART and his wife ELIZABETH and daughter ELIZABETH came and spent the summer living in one of the three houses. He also joined the church and became a freeman in Charlestown. By Sept. of 1635 all of the Hobart's had moved to Hingham and had no more dealings with Charlestown. Much more about the Hobart and Lyford families is in the Hingham chapter.
|-John Gould
Sarah Gould-|
|-Mary
JOHN GOULD came to Charlestown on the ship "Defence" in 1635. His first wife died soon after arriving, and he then married MARY, who was admitted to the church in Charlestown Jan 8, 1636/7 and gave birth to 3 or 4 children including SARAH, who was baptised Dec 15, 1637. MARY died Sept 28, 1642 at Ten Hills Farm, which was a 600 acre farm along the southern banks of the Mystic River granted to Governor Winthrop. The GOULD family lived on a double lot on the side of Windmill Hill, adjacent to another of our ancestors, ROBERT CUTLER. JOHN was admitted to the church two years after his wife, on March 25, 1638-9. He was initially described as a carpenter, but later as a planter. In the allotment of 1658, he was rated as the 20th most prominent person out of 202 total. He sold his house on Windmill Hill to Gualter Edmonds in 1649. By 1668 he had moved to that part of Charlestown called "Charlestown End", which eventually became Stoneham. At that time there were six families living there, including his son John and Thomas Cutler, who had grown up next door at ROBERT CUTLER's house. JOHN GOULD Sr. is considered the original settler of Stoneham. He was active in the militia until he was 72, and was in Captain Huchinson's company for King Philip's War. He conveyed his house and 90 acres to his son Daniel in 1687, and the property stayed in the Gould family for 200 years. JOHN died in 1690/91, and his will bequethed to his sons Daniel and John, and his son-in-law JOHN BIRBEN (BURBEEN) of Woburn, who had married his daughter SARAH in 1660.
|-Stephen Fosdick
Martha Fosdick-|
STEPHEN FOSDICK and his family also came to Charlestown in 1635. He was born around 1584, and married ANNA HARRE on June 10, 1612, in Hadleigh, Suffolk, England. They had six children, including MARTHA born in 1620, before ANNA died and STEPHEN married his second wife, Sarah. STEPHEN was admitted to the Charlestown church April 6, 1638, but was excommunicated five years later. After another twenty years, just three months before he died, he went through a confession and absolution, and was accepted again into the church. STEPHEN was a carpenter by trade, and was also the Charlestown highway surveyor in 1641 and 1655. His house with a garden plot was situated at "Sconce Point", overlooking the Charles River. He held at least eight other parcels of land, and at his death his real estate was worth 260 pounds. His will, dated February 23, 1663/4, bequeathed to his wife the four rooms they lived in and half the upper garden. To his daughter MARTHA, wife of RICHARD HOLDEN, he gave 10 pounds and 40 acres of land in Woburn (read more about MARTHA in the Watertown chapter).
|-John Fosket
|-Jonathan Fosket-| |-William Powell
Mary Fosket-| |-Elizabeth Powell-|
|-Mary Holden |-Elizabeth
WILLIAM POWELL was a cooper who arrived in Charlestown by 1636. He married ELIZABETH and they had four children born in Charlestown between 1637 and 1642. ELIZABETH died in 1644, and sometime in the next decade WILLIAM returned to England where he died. His daughter ELIZABETH married JOHN FOSKET, who came to Charlestown in 1658. (Note that it is possible that ELIZABETH went back to England with her father, and married JOHN in England.) They had ten children born between 1658 and 1680. ELIZABETH died in 1683, and JOHN married Hannah (Johnson) Liscomb, who also had two sons. JOHN was a soldier in King Phillips War under Captain Joseph Sill. Just after the war he purchased a homestead in Charlestown from Samuel Phipps and later several other parcels. When JOHN died in 1689 his will left most of his estate to Hannah for bringing up his four youngest children, including JONATHAN who was born in 1674. We know little about JONATHAN. He married MARY HOLDEN (grand-daughter of MARTHA and RICHARD HOLDEN mentioned above) in 1703, and they had three children. The family moved to Medford around 1725, where he appears in the tax records in 1730, 1732, and 1733. He bought 9 acres pasture SW of the road to Menotomy and SE of the from from Mystic to Cambridge. Their daughter MARY married JAMES RUSSELL of Lexington (see Lexington chapter).
|-Robert Cutler
Rebecca Cutler-|
|-Rebecca
ROBERT CUTLER and his wife REBECCA were born in England, and possibly their daughter REBECCA as well. Robert first appears in the Charlestown records in 1637, 8 years after the town was incorporated. On Sept 6, 1637, he was admitted to the First Church (on the same day as John Harvard, who was a neighbor). He was made a freeman May 2, 1638, and a deacon in 1659. In 1638 he owned about 80 acres of land with his house on the northeast side of the mill hill butting northeast upon the street, southwest upon the mill hill, southeast by mill lane (now Hurds Ln), and northwest by Har. Garrett. The "mill hill" was short for Windmill Hill; a Dutch-style windmill for grinding grain was built on top of the hill in 1635, probably 50 yards from his house. The family had 10 children, most born in Charlestown. He might have been a blacksmith, since his will mentions tools and unwrought iron, and somebody else's will mentions "a falling ax that goodman Cutler made". He died in 1664, and REBECCA died in 1676. Their daughter REBECCA married ABRAHAM ERRINGTON of Cambridge. The Phipps St. Cemetery in Charlestown has the graves for 19 Cutlers buried between 1676 and 1719, but none is listed for ROBERT or REBECCA.
|-Philip Knight
Jonathan Knight -|
Elizabeth Knight-|
|-Margery
PHILIP and MARGERY KNIGHT came to Charlestown around 1637. He was a cooper by trade. In 1651 he was granted the right to run the Penny Ferry for a year, at the rate of 2 penny for a single person, or 1 penny each for more people. The Ferry ran across the Mystic River where the Malden Bridge is now. They had five children born in Charlestown, including JONATHAN and ELIZABETH, both of whom are our ancestors (JONATHAN's grandson married ELIZABETH's granddaughter in Concord around 1740). MARGERY was admitted to the Charlestown church May 7, 1650. The Knight family sold their house to J. Cloyes in 1656 and moved to Topsfield, where the parents died in 1668 and 1670.
|-Francis Willoughby
Susan Willoughby-|
|-Margaret Locke
FRANCIS WILLOUGHBY was one of the most distinguished of our ancestors. He was a "gentleman from England", the son of a colonel of the city of London. He was a native of Kent, England, and before he came to Charlestown was the commander of a vessel. He arrived in 1638, joined the First Church in Charlestown Oct 10, 1639, became a freeman May 13, 1640, and was an ensign of the Artillery Company in 1643. He invested largely in real estate in Charlestown, and built warehouses and wharves on each side of the ferry ways, and a shipyard on the site of the current Fitchburg Railroad depot. He owned a "great lot" in Malden, along what is now Bucknam St in Everett.
|-John Wright
|
|-Priscilla
JOHN and PRISCILLA WRIGHT show up in Charlestown in 1640. Along with EDWARD JOHNSON, JOHN was one of the 32 signers of the Town Order forming Woburn, where the family moved by 1642. You can read more about the Wright family in the chapter on Woburn.
Anna Rolfe-|
|-Honor (Rolfe) Rolfe
The Rolfe's originally lived in Newbury, where HONOR ROLFE's husband HENRY died in 1642. Their daughter ANNA married Thomas Blanchard of Charlestown about 1646, and they had two children in Charlestown. HONOR died at the Blanchard house in 1650; she may have been living with them, or she may have just been visiting. Since her will is reported with the Ipswich Deeds, I would surmise that she was just visiting. ANNA's husband died a couple months later, and ANNA married RICHARD GARDNER of Woburn within a year.
|-John Upham
Elizabeth Upham-|
|-Elizabeth (Slade) Upham
The Upham's originally lived in Weymouth (see the Hingham chapter). They arrived in Weymouth in May of 1635 along with their three children including ELIZABETH, born in 1632. After living there 13 years, they moved to Malden, where JOHN was elected selectman from 1651 through 1660, and town moderator for three years. He also became a deacon of the Malden church on June 25, 1658. Daughter ELIZABETH married THOMAS WELCH in 1653 and lived in Charlestown the rest of her life. Wife ELIZABETH died in 1671, and JOHN soon remarried Katharine (Richards) Hollard. The Hollard family had come to America on the same ship as the UPHAM family. He died in 1681, and is buried in the Old Burial Ground (Bell Rock Cemetery) in Malden.
Here Lyes ye body Bell Rock Cemetery of John Upham, Grave to left of Aged 84, died John Upham is for one Feb. 25, 1681 of his grand-daughters
|-Thomas Welch
|-Elkanah Welch-|
| |-Elizabeth (Upham) Welch
Paul Welch-|
|-Tryal
THOMAS WELCH was the first of eight generations of our Welch ancestors in America. One history book calls him Sergt. WELCH, but there is no record of any military service in America. He was admitted to the Charlestown church April 12, 1650, and married ELIZABETH UPHAM probably that same year. They had 13 children between 1651 and 1672, including ELKANAH, born Jan. 5, 1667/8. In 1691 it was recorded that he had a seat in the meeting-house. Land records show he had several scattered pieces of land, including "the Sybley estate", which he bought of William Mead in 1654. His will written Feb 15, 1700 mentions his sons Thomas, Jonathan, and ELKANAH, one of his daughters, and several grandchildren. Thomas was given all of the land on the lower side of his, but ELKANAH was given the house and several small parcels. Jonathan was given the land that Jonathan's house stood on. Thomas, being the oldest son, contested the will, and there were several depositions that THOMAS Sr. was of sound mind. The judge divided the estate up according to the will. THOMAS died in 1701, and his wife died in 1705.
|-John Kent
Ebenezer Kent-| |-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 in 1645 and lived on the north side of Kirkland St. near "Holmes Place" (perhaps this refers to the house 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.
|-James Miller
Isaac Miller-|
|-Mary
JAMES MILLER was a Scotchman baker who shows up in Charlestown in the 1670s. His wife MARY was admitted to the church in 1677. They had 9 children, born between 1660 and 1672. Their son ISAAC was born in Charlestown in 1670, and eventually moved to Sudbury and married PRISCILLA BALL of Concord. JAMES died in 1688 and MARY died in 1704. The Phipps St. Cemetery has a gravestone for "Mary Miller", but with no readable date
