Week # 1 - Jeremiah Bacon (1657-1706)
An ancestor a week for 52 Weeks! #52ancestors
This should be a fun project. I tried to write about an ancestor each week back in 2019 but faltered about half-way through the year. My plan in 2023 is to look at my ancestors whose parents arrived in the colonies during the Puritan Great Migration (PGM) - a twenty year time period (1620-1640). Many thousands of people arrived during that period and I would like to focus on the children of those people.
Nathaniel Bacon can be found in Wikitree at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bacon-95 He lived from about 1621 to 1672. He arrived in 1640, right at the end of the PGM time frame, in Barnstable, MA from Stratton, Rutlandshire, England. He married Hannah Mayo on 4 Dec 1642 and they had eight children. Were Nathaniel and Hannah excited, afraid, hopeful, persistent, when they joined together in this new town? Speaking about the project with my sisters and Mom this morning about this profile brought to light that we are talking about Bacon and Mayo! (Maybe you had to be there?)
Since I am focusing on the generation after the migration, people typically born in the colony, I will focus here on their son, Jeremiah Bacon, my 6th grt-grandfather. I imagine there were less than a 1,000 people in Barnstable when Jeremiah was born 8 May 1657. He is listed in The First Settlers of Barnstable, MS., The New England Historical & Genealogical Register (New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Mass., 1848) Vol. 2, Page 65 with his parents and siblings. Growing up with five older siblings and two younger must have been quite an experience. Their house couldn't have been very large.
Jeremiah is also listed in Otis, Amos. Genealogical Notes of Barnstable Families (F.B. & F.P. Goss, Publishers and Printers, Barnstable, Mass., 1888) Vol. 1, Page 21-25. His older sister, Hannah is listed as one of the remote members of the Barnstable church in 1683 probably living with her husband, a reverend in Taunton, Mass. "Jeremiah was a tanner [just like his father, Nathaniel]. His house was a two story building with a Leantoo on the west end, stood a little distance north-east from William Cobb's house. His tannery was in the low ground on the north-east of his house. [It is related of Jeremiah's father that, 'as there were other tanneries in town, it is probable that they worked at their trade in the winter and were employed in the cultivation of lands the remainder of the year'] I think his land was on the north side of the Old King's Highway just east of Meeting House Hill.
Jeremiah married Dec 1686, Elizabeth Howes of Yarmouth. Ten children were born to this family:
I. Sarah b. 16 Oct 1687
II. Anna b. 16 Mar 1688
III. Mercy, (my 5th grt-grandmother) b 30 Jan 1690 m. 19 Mar 1719 Thomas Joyce. On a sad note, "Mercy and Thomas, had a large family of girls noted for their beauty, which however did not prevent the father from committing suicide."
IV. Samuel, b. 15 Aug 1692, married thrice and called "Scussion Sam" for his noted response to queries- "We will discuss that."
V. Jeremiah Jr, b. 2 Oct 1692
VI. Joseph, b. 15 Jun 1695 m. and had seven children
VII. Ebenezer, b. 11 Mar 1698
VIII. Nathaniel, b. 11 Sep 1700
IX. Job, b. 23 Mar 1703
X. Elizabeth, b. 6 Aug 1705.
Poor Elizabeth with so many children under foot.
"Jeremiah died in 1706, aged 49, leaving a good estate which was settled Feb 15, 1713. His house lot, a part of the Dimmock farm, contained nine acres and he had thirty acres in the Common Field, adjoining the house lot on the north, lands at Stony Cove, and at Middleboro, meadows and wood land. Of the homestead two and three fourths acres were set off to son Job... This land is now (1888) owned by William Cobb. To Samuel, his eldest son, and his mother, three acres, bounded... by Job Bacon, with the barn and other buildings thereon. To Jeremiah, second son, 3 and 1-2 acres, bounded.. now the town road to the common field." Other children are mentioned in Jeremiah's will- "son Nathaniel had one third of land at Middleboro, &c.; in his portion were 1 silver spoon, 1 silver porringer, &c. [Nathaniel's] Wid. Elizabeth, and daughters Anna and Mercy had portions set to them in severalty. Sarah and Elizabeth are not named and were probably dead."
I hope that gives just a glimmer of an ancestor and his family from long ago. If you want to read about the smelly and lowly task of making leather, take a look at this- https://blackstockleather.com/history-of-the-leather-tanning-industry/
