Surname Saturday ~ WALLIS of Gloucester (Rockport), Massachusetts

WALLIS

Most people think that John Wallis of Gloucester, Massachusetts is the brother of Nathaniel Wallis of Beverly, Massachusetts.  Both men lost family members during hostilities with the Native American Indians up in Maine. Both men moved to Massachusetts, and five of John’s nine children lived in Beverly with the children of Uncle Nathaniel Wallis.  Nathaniel’s death was recorded in Beverly as being born in Cornwall.  There is no proof one way or another if the two men were brothers. 

John Wallis (about 1627 – 1690) was my 8^th great grandfather. He lived in Falmouth, Maine until he became a refugee in Massachusetts during the Indian war of 1675,  and he lived in the Fifth Parish of Gloucester, also known as Sandy Bay, which is now Rockport, Massachusetts.  John Wallis was a fisherman in both Maine and Massachusetts. 

John Wallis married Mary Phippen, who had been born in Hingham, Massachusetts.  An interesting article in the NEHGS Register found that she remarried after John Wallis’s death to John Black of Beverly, Massachusetts.  In a 1771 document found in the Joshua Woodbury papers at the Maine Historical Society  was this tidbit:

“…the deposition of Jonathan Woodbury of Beverly who is now in the eighty ninth year of his age testifieth and saith that he well remembers that Josiah Wallis and James Wallis of Gloucester and Joseph Wallis and Benjamin Wallis of Beverly and Elizabeth the wife of Joseph Morgan were all the reputed children of John Wallis and that after the death of the said John his widow was married to my next neighbor John Black and their lived until her death and further says not”

Just a few years later another husband was uncovered in another NEHGS Register article (see below for the volumes and page numbers).  She married Samuel Morgan in 1692 and he died in 1698.  She married Black later.  Mary’s daughter, Elizabeth, married Joseph Morgan in 1700 in Beverly (step siblings) and Mary’s son, Joseph Wallis married Elizabeth Black on 13 January 1701/2 (step siblings again!)

Samuel Morgan (about 1650 – 1698) was previously married to Elizabeth Dixey (1641 – 1690), my 8^th great aunt in another lineage.  His mother, Margaret Norman (1615 – 1693) is my 9^th great grand aunt, sister to my 9^th great grandmother Alice Norman, and also sister to my 9^th great grandfather John Norman.  Mary’s third husband, John Black (born about 1642) is my 8^th great grand uncle in another lineage, too, brother of Persis (Black) Follett, my 8^th great grandmother.

Confused yet?

The Purpoodock settlement was located near what is now Cape Elizabeth, near Portland, Maine.  It was attacked in 1675 during King Phillip’s War.   His daughter, Elizabeth (Wallis) Morgan; daughter in law, Mary (Standford) Wallis, and her three children, were all killed in Purpoodock, Maine by Indians in 1703.  Purpooduck was abandoned after this attack and resettled again in 1719.   In 1724, during another attack in Fox Harbor, Maine, John Wallis lost 3 grandsons and the husband of a granddaughter.  

James Wallis (about 1668 – 1744) was born in Maine and married Martha Stanford of Maine about 1685.  He bought land in Gloucester around the time of the 1703 attack in Maine.  Later he lost three sons to the Fox Harbor attack in 1724, and his son Benjamin was captured.  In his 1731 will, James Wallis stated that if his son Benjamin returned he was to have a share equal to his brother Jonathan.  There are no further records of Benjamin.

For more information on the WALLIS family:

“The John Wallis Family of Cape Ann, Massachusetts” , The New England Historic Genealogical Register, Volume 152, pages 286-310, 391- 414,  Volume 153, pages 29 – 51, 183 – 206, 293 – 318, 489 – 98.

“Mary (Phippen) (Wallis) Black”, The New England Historic Genealogical Register, Volume 153, pages 291 – 293.

“Another Husband for Mary (Phippen) (Wallis) (Morgan) Black:  Samuel 2 Morgan (Robert1)  of Beverly, Mass.”, The New England Historic Genealogical Register, Volume 160, pages 99 – 100. 

My WALLIS genealogy:

Generation 1:  John Wallis, born about 1627, possibly in Cornwall, England, died on 13 September 1690  at the Fifth Parish in Gloucester (now Rockport), Massachusetts; married about 1660 to Mary Phippen, daughter of Joseph Phippen and Dorcas Wood.  She was baptized on 5 March 1643/44 in Hingham, Massachusetts and died after 29 April 1691.  Nine children.

Generation 2: James Wallis, born about 1668 in Maine, and died before 31 March 1744 in Gloucester, Massachusetts;  married about 1685 to Martha Stanford, daughter of Robert Stanford and Mary Howland.  She was born about 1672 in Maine and died after 17 August 1731 in Gloucester.  Seven children.

Generation 3: Elizabeth Wallis, baptized on 25 February 1694 in Beverly, Massachusetts and died before 7 November 1757 in Ipswich, Massachusetts; married on 6 December 1716 in Gloucester to John Andrews, son of Joseph Andrews and Sarah Ring.  He was born on 1 June 1691 in the Chebacco Parish of Ipswich, and died in October 1762 in the Chebacco Parish.   Eight children.

Generation 4:  John Andrews m. Martha Cogswell

Generation 5:  James Andrews m. Lucy Presson

Generation 6:  Orpha Andrews m. Joseph Allen

Generation 7: Joseph Gilman Allen m. Sarah Burnham Mears

Generation 8: Joseph Elmer Allen m. Carrie Maude Batchelder

Generation 9:  Stanley Elmer Allen m. Gertrude Matilda Hitchings

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Copyright © 2014, Heather Wilkinson Rojo