Week # 14 - Jeremiah Howes (1637-1708 )
An ancestor a week for 52 Weeks! #52ancestors
I have been studying the Howes family for many years since it is such a big part of our family history. Jeremiah is son of Thomas and Mary Howes who migrated to New England about 1637 with two of their sons. There is a family legend that Jeremiah was born on the ship in the middle of the Atlantic ocean during the two month journey.
An interesting point is that we have traced our ancestors to all three of Thomas and Mary's sons. A bit of pedigree collapse occurring due to the small population in Plymouth Colony and the difficulty of travel during those times? Here is a chart showing the ways that we connect with the three sons of Thomas and Mary. It took a bit of maneuvering to draw this so that the lines do not cross.
There is an extensively sourced, 34-page pamphlet about this family by James W Hawes written in 1917 and published as part of a collection called The Cape Cod Library of Local History and Genealogy. I scanned part of my copy of the pamphlet and put it online.[1]
Jeremiah married about 1668 to Sarah Prence, daughter of the governor, and they had 12 children. We are also descended from two of her children causing more pedigree collapse as they married cousins. Jeremiah and family were very involved in the politics and government of the colony. "He was a deputy to the General Court at Plymouth for seven years, commencing in 1677; and for eleven years" was a selectman for the Town of Yarmouth. The Plymouth colony records are well preserved. There are also numerous wills preserved for this family. Jeremiah's father-in-law, "Gov. Thomas Prence by his will gave to his daughter Sarah Howes (wife of Jeremiah) his biggest beer bowl and a share of the residue of his estate." "Jeremiah Howes was appointed on the council of war for Yarmouth along with his neighbors Mr Edmond Hawes and John Miller.[2] June 7, 1676." This was not one of our finer times as "the councell of warr now assembled doe order, that the Namassachesett Indians be speedily remoued to Clarkes Island, and ther to remaine, and not to depart from thence without lycence from authoritie." There were three men from each of the 11 towns in the colony on this warr councell. There is no record of the individual votes. Clark Island is in Plymouth Bay and historians think that during King Philips War (1675-76), the colonists banished 1,000 Native people to the island.[3] It's hard to know what feelings were involved in making these decisions that resulted from the deaths of several hundred colonists, destruction of dozens of English settlements and thousands of indigenous people killed, wounded or captured and sold into slavery.
Jeremiah's will in 1708 is still available for reading and the extent of his family can be seen in bequests to grandson Jeremiah, son of eldest son Jeremiah, deceased;
daughter Mary Howes, relict of son Jeremiah;
two sons Prince Howes and Ebenezer Howes;
four granddaughters, the daughters of son Jeremiah: Hannah Howes, Sarah Howes, Mary Howes and Martha Howes;
grandson Thomas, son of Thomas;
daughter Rebeka Howes;
grandson Joseph Bacon;
eight daughters: Elizabeth Bacon (Baker?), Sarah Mayo, Mary Howes, Bethiah Howes, Marcey Sturges, Susanah Bassett, Thankful Miller, Rebeka Howes;
five grandchildren, children of son Jeremiah;
my children now in being: Prince Howes, Ebenezer Howes, Elizabeth Bacon (Baker?), Sarah Mayo, Mary Hawse, Bethiah Hawes, Mercy Sturgis, Susannah Bassett, Thankfull Miller, and Rebeka Howse;
son (son-in-law) Samuel Sturgis.[4]
I have added many branches to the old Howes Family Tree- you can see some of my latest cousins in this image -link to PDF below [5]
Well that story turned out sadder than I expected. The history is there for the reading, what do we do about it in these times to prevent repeating injustices of the past?
[1] Thomas Howes of Yarmouth- https://searsr.com/HowesThomas/howes02.pdf
[2]Vol 5 (1668-1678) Plym. Col. Recs. 185, 186 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x000500403&view=2up&seq=205
[3]Clark's Island / Cedarfield- https://duxburyhistory.org/lands/clarks-island-cedarfield/
[4] Jeremiah Howes wikitree profile- https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Howes-43
[5] Howes family tree- annotated https://www.wikitree.com/photo.php/5/54/Howes-67.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment