#52 Ancestors - William Green

 Week # 12 - William Greene ( 22 Aug 1651 - 1732)

An ancestor a week for 52 Weeks!   #52ancestors

Continuing my quest to study our ancestors who were children of migrants in the Great Migration (1620-1640) we find William Greene- born 22 Aug 1651 in Woburn, Middlesex county, Massachusetts Bay Colony.  While not exactly "Cape Cod Folks" I cannot ignore the contribution of this 8th great-grandfather to our heritage.  

He was the son of William Green and Hannah Carter who arrived in Charlestown about 1640 - From Wm Senior's wiktree profile [1] "In December of 1640, the elder William [Sr] was one of the original subscribers to "town orders" for the founding of Woburn (incorporated in 1642). These original founders were exempt from taxes for the first two years, so the first year we find William paying taxes is 1645. Little is known about William's life in Woburn; after his death, testimony was given concerning certain lands allotted to him."

William Greene [Jr] married about 1674 Mary Felch He married about 1677 Hannah Kendall. We are descended from his second wife.  "Because his parents died when he was young, he is said to have been raised by his Carter uncles (mother's brothers-possibly Uncle Samuel Carter). He received £38 from his father’s estate in 1670." [2]

William [Jr] and 2d wife, Hannah Kendall (1655-1719), daughter of Francis Kendall and Mary Tidd "had 12 children: Francis (1678-1759); Ebenezer; Mehitable; Hannah; Mary; Samuel; Jacob; Joseph; Thomas; Benjamin (1698-1753)(our 7th Great grandfather); John; and Abigail. Birth records of their children show they remained in Woburn for the majority of their life. In 1676 he was drafted to help in the efforts against the Narragansett in King Philips War [member of the Woburn Garrison]. William died after 1726 in Mendon, Massachusetts. Hannah may have moved to Mendon, Massachusetts, or stayed in Woburn and she is said to have died in 1719."

From Holman's work- "William Green became a cordwainer, or shoemaker."  He moved to Mendon where he "became a proprietor and his rights in land were divided off to him, year by year."  

His death should be at least 1726 and most likely in Mendon- the primary source, Holman, on page 106 says "William Green, of Mendon, deeds land there to his daughter Hannah and her husband, Thomas Beard in 1720; and in 1726 Green gave more land to his grandson, Thomas Beard (Worcester Deeds, 26:592)." There is even another deed on 25 May 1732 which is likely this William [Jr].

[1]https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Green-1445

[2]https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Greene-2280 This wikitree page has some great sources

[3]Mary Lovering Holman, Ancestry of Colonel John Harrington Stevens and his Wife Frances Helen Miller, 2 vols., (Concord, N.H.: privately printed at the Rumford Press, 1948–1953) Pages: 101-107 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89067408831&view=2up&seq=127

#52 Ancestors - John Rider

 Week # 11 - John Rider ( < 4 Dec 1636 - ~5 Jan 17095)

An ancestor a week for 52 Weeks!   #52ancestors

John Rider is the son of immigrants Samuel Rider and Anne Gamlett.  He was born in England and we find Samuel and family in Yarmouth, Plymouth Colony by 1639.  Samuel was called Lieutenant in the Plymouth Colony Records [1] in a discussion about the Counsell of Warr. On 10 October 1643, "It is ordered by the [Plymouth Colony] Court, that if the townesmen of Yarmouth cannot psently agree tp appoynt a place for defence of themselves, their wiues, and children, in case of a suddaine assault, that then the Court doth order and appount Leiftennant Willm Palmer, Anthony Thacher, Nicholas Symkins, and Samuell Rider, wth the constable, to appoynt a place, and forthwth to cause the same to be fortyfyed wth all speede."

There is a nice profile of John Rider, our 8th great-grandfather, at Wikitree.[2]  We don't know who his wife was although you will see trees that speculate that her name was Hester. She is thought to have died at Yarmouth on 23 October 1691.[3]  The American Genealogist say "John was baptized at All Saints, Northampton, Northamptonshire, England on 4 Dec 1636. Throughout his lifetime he was known as John Rider, Sr, since he was the eldest of that name in that town.  He appears with brothers Sachariah and Joseph who took the Oath of Allegiance in 1681."  Seems like I should make a visit to All Saints to see where grandpa was baptized?

His estate was inventoried and included a pair of looms, two oxen, two cows, land, meadow & housing at £ 140 and just a few debts.[4] Total value £ 200. The inventory was sworn to by Ebenezer Ryder on 19 Feb 1706.

My cousin Isaac was still running around Yarmouth with an ox cart in the 1880s and you could probably picture John Ryder in this same spot maybe with slightly different clothing in this photo from the Dennis Historical Society archives? [5]  Isaac's ox probably trod the same cartpaths that John Rider used.

[1] https://archive.org/details/recordsofcolonyo0102newp/page/64/mode/2up

[2] https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Rider-220

[3] Martin E Hollick, "The John Riders of Yarmouth, Massachusetts" in The American Genealogist. New Haven, CT: D. L. Jacobus, (Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2005) Vol 80, p 130 http://www.americanancestors.org/databases/american-genealogist-the/image/?pageName=130&volumeId=13263&filterQuery=BROWSE

[4] Barnstable County Probate 2:236-40; also abstracted in Bowman, "Rider-Ryder Notes" MD 11(1909):54 https://www.americanancestors.org/databases/mayflower-descendant-the/image?volumeId=12336&pageName=54

[5] https://dennishistoricalsociety.catalogaccess.com/photos/7204

#52 Ancestors - Deborah Willard (1638-1721)

 Week # 10 - Deborah Willard ( < 14 Sep 1645 - 13 May 1721)

An ancestor a week for 52 Weeks!   #52ancestors

Deborah Willard, our 6th great grandmother, is the child of a migrant to the Colonies.  I have been writing about children of migrants for 10 weeks now.  One interesting fact about Deborah is that we don't know her mother's name.  There have been speculations that mother was Dorothy Dunster but no records are showing up to prove either her given name, Dorothy, or that her father was a Dunster.  Harvard College President Henry Dunster made a reference in his 1658 will to his sister Willard of Concord. For years genealogists have puzzled over who that sister might be.

So failing our effort to know her mother's name we are pretty sure that her father was George Willard (1614-1656) who came to the colonies about 1638.  There are two sources for George's information in the Puritan Great Migration- Plymouth Colony Records [1] and Willard Genealogy by Joseph Willard and Charles Wilkes Walker [2]. Scituate plantation was composed chiefly of men from Kent with their minister John Lothrop.  We later find that same minister in Barnstable.

On page 11 of the Willard genealogy we see Baptisms in the Second Church of Scituate by the minister William Wetherell, Anno 1645 Deborah ye daughter of George Willard on Sept. 14 so we know Deborah was born before that.  Children were often baptised within a few years of their birth and often together as a family like Deborah and her brother Daniel.  "The two Willard children baptised that day were probably all that the Willard family then had."  George is later found in Maryland, "the home of real Christian liberty."

We know that Deborah moves to Barnstable county because it is there that she meets and marries our 6th Great grandfather Paul Sears (1637-1708) probably about 1658, the year before their first child is born.  If Deborah was 20 years old when she had her first child then she was probably born 1639 soon after her father arrived in Scituate. She would have been just a year younger than her husband Paul.  Deborah and Paul live in the east precinct of Yarmouth at what is now East Dennis.  In the map, circa 1700 below you can see a cross in the middle of the map denoting the Ancient Sears Cemetery and just a little north and east of that, the homestead of Paul Sears and Deborah Willard as imagined by Prof Jim Gould.  The land lies between Quivett Creek and what is now Route 6A, the Old King's Highway.

It is on this piece of land that Deborah [3] raised her ten children. We are descended from two of them. 

Mercy (1659), Bethiah (5th great grandmother)(1662)(wife of John Crowell who we just wrote about), Samuel (1664), Lydia (1666), Paul II (5th great grandfather)(1669), Mary (1672), Ann (1675), John (1678), Richard (1680) and Daniel (1682).  In the map we can find the homesteads of John, Daniel, Paul II, Samuel nearby so the kids were never far from home. They could stop by for a piece of Mom's clam pie just about anytime they wished?

[1] Plymouth Colony Records - 1 Feb 1638- Inhabitant of Scituate took the oath of allegience to the King. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo1.ark:/13960/t3mw31739&view=2up&seq=132

[2] Willard Genealogy - https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4446481&view=2up&seq=32

[3] Wikitree profile for Deborah Willard https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Willard-17