Week # 2 - Rebecca Bangs (1636-1677)
An ancestor a week for 52 Weeks! #52ancestors
I believe Rebecca Bangs is my 7th-great grandmother. She was daughter of Edward and Rebecca Bangs, two of the English migrants in the Puritan Great Migration (PGM) during the period 1620-1640. Information about Rebecca is a little sparse. She is the first member of the Bangs family added to our grand project, Wikitree.com, Bangs-1, which seeks to make a single tree that connects all of us together.
One piece of evidence is a memorial in the Cove Burying Ground, Eastham, Barnstable County (Cape Cod) Massachusetts set by her descendants in 1876 - Centennial Year of Independence. This memorial does help cement some of the lore about this family living far out on the Lower Cape - (the lower arm of the Cape Cod peninsula) what some might call the boondocks. (See FindAGrave memorial #15871823)
Here rests the dust
of
Richard Sparrow
and his wife
Pandora
who came from Kent County England
about 1633 and settled in Plymouth.
about 1650 they came to Eastham
and settled near this place
where he died January 8, 1660
Here also rests
Jonathan Sparrow
only child of Richard
together with his first two wives
Rebecca Bangs & Hannah Prince
He settled in the part of Eastham
now East Orleans where
After filling many offices of honor
and trust in both church and state
he died March 21, 1706 aged 73 years
IN MEMORY OF
These early settlers of our country
we their descendants have erected
this tablet in this centennial year
of our American Independence AD 1876
So maybe you can picture, 1654, when Rebecca is only 18, she marries Jonathan Sparrow, about 7 years older, age 25. Their families had moved across Cape Cod Bay to what is Eastham. The "eastern hamlet," makes perfect sense to name a town. Plymouth Colony government required these settlements to have a preacher and form a church. In 1640- “The Court doth grant unto the church of New Plymouth, or those that go to dwell at Nauset [Eastham], all that tract of land lying between sea and sea, from the purchasers’ bounds at Namskaket to the herring brook at Billingsgate, with the said herring brook, and all the meadows on both sides of said brook, with great bass pond there and all the meadows and islands within the said tract. Nathaniel Morton, Secretary of the Court.”
Over the objections of those who advocated for a unified church, seven families led by Thomas Prence, a leader in the church and community, removed to the Nauset territory in 1645. Prence was joined by the families of John Doane, Nicholas Snow, Josias Cooke, Richard Higgins, John Smalley and Edward Bangs, who were lured by the promise of larger tracts of land and better farming opportunity.[https://easthamthefirstencounter.org/from-nauset-to-eastham/]
The children of Jonathan Sparrow and Rebecca Bangs included:
Rebecca, born 30 Oct 1655 [my 6th GGM], who married Deacon Thomas Freeman [my 6th GGF]
John, born 2 Nov. 1656, who married Apphia Tracey
Priscilla, born 13 Feb 1658, who married Edward Gray son of John[6]
Lydia, born circa 1662, who married William Freeman and Johnathan Higgins
Elizabeth, born 1663, who married Samuel Freeman Jr[6]
Jonathan Jr, born 9 July 1665, who married Rebecca Merrick and Sarah Young
Just a bit more about husband Jonathan, because that gives us a picture of his wife-
According to these sources, Jonathan was
listed among the legal voters at Eastham on May 22, 1655;
a Constable in 1656;
admitted and sworn a Freeman in June, 1663
engaged as Eastham's School Master in 1665
an attorney for some townsmen in a lawsuit;
a Deacon of the local Congregational (Puritan) Church
Jonathan was also an officer in the Eastham militia in "King Philip's War" (1675). On December 19, 1675, he was first lieutenant of Captain John Gorham's company under Major William Bradford at Naragansett. He held the rank of Captain in 1691, when he was designated as a Representative to the Massachusetts General Court at Boston.
So sad to see that Rebecca died 19 Oct 1677, age 41 in Eastham when her youngest is only twelve. :(
--------------
Some great sources exist:
The Mayflower Descendant (MD), Volume 14 [Jan 1912] The Heirs of Captain Jonathan Sparrow-
https://books.google.com/books?id=BrpBAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q&f=false
MD says "It is extremely unfortunate that the Brewster Genealogy [New York, 1908] has made so many serious errors, on page 22, in giving the children of Hannah Prence by her two husbands, Nathaniel [2] Mayo and Capt Jonathan[2] Sparrow. Three of the five Sparrow children there assigned to Hannah were not her her children. They were the children of Rebecca (Bangs) Sparrow, and were not descendants of Elder William Brewster." [proven by a deed from the Sparrow heirs]
Other sources:
Torrey's New England Marriages to 1700 (Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2008.) Originally published as: New England Marriages Prior to 1700. Boston, Mass.: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2015, which states:
SPARO, Jonathan (?1633-1707) & 1/wf Rebecca BANGS (living 1665); 28 Oct 1654, 26 Oct 1654; Eastham {Barnstable Co. Prob. 4:90, 99; Reg. 7:280, 8:Chart, 9:314, 21:212; Pope's Pioneers 31; TAG 17:95; Bangs 20; Bassett-Preston 20, 112, 115, 265; Tracy (1936) 26; MD 5:123, 14:2, 193, 197, 5:123, 17:70; Munsey-Hopkins 58; Dawes-Gates 2:67; Sv. 1:111; Winthrop-Babcock 453; Brewster 23; Crocker (1923) 60; Young (1923) 11; Foster 554; Warner-Harrington 35, 38; Linnell-Snow 50, 52, 53 https://www.americanancestors.org/DB1568/rd/21175/1418/426904798
Richard Sparrow's Will by George Ernest Bowman, published in Volume 12, page 57-58 of 'The Mayflower descendant : a quarterly magazine of Pilgrim genealogy and history; Published: Boston : Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1899- https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101076382694&view=plaintext&seq=73
V.5, p.23/264884879 Eastham-Orleans Vital Records found in Massachusetts: Vital Records, 1620-1850 (Online Database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001-2016), published in Volume 23, page 204 of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, which states Jonathan Sparo and Rebeca bangs maryed October 28 : 1654- https://www.americanancestors.org/DB190/rd/14498/MD
Births, marriages, deaths, land grants 1649-1722 Eastham, Orleans
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L979-9XN8?i=23
Genealogical notes of Cape Cod families SOU-SWE
https://archive.org/details/genealogicalnote45brow/page/n33/mode/2up
Smith Jr., Leonard H. & Norma H. Smith. Vital Records of the Towns of Eastham and Orleans: An authorized facsimile reproduction of records published serially 1901-1935 in The Mayflower Descendant, With an added index of persons, published online by Ancestry.com, The Generations Network, Inc., Provo, UT, 2007. Original publisher: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, 1993
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