TOWNSEND / TOWNSHEND
The Townsend family has published genealogies going back in
time to Roger de Townshende and his wife Catherine Atherton who were born about
1325 AD. It is a noble lineage that includes
knights and ladies. One Roger Townshend
was knighted by King Henry VIII in 1518, and his son was also knighted by King
Henry VIII in 1545. Some are buried at the High Cancel of Ludlow Church with
recumbent figures in knightly armor.
Queen Elizabeth dined with Sir Thomas Townsend at Mergate Hall in July
1578. His grandson, also named Thomas
Townsend, left England and went to Lynn, Massachusetts. This noble lineage was confirmed when I read a
line by noted genealogist Gary Boyd Roberts, author of Genealogies of Connecticut
Families, Vol. III, page 497 “A mass of circumstantial evidence to be
embodied in a memorial volume when published has satisfied several expert
genealogists and myself that Thomas Townsend son of Henry and Margaret was
identical with the settler at Lynn.”
Thomas Townsend (1594 – 1677) was baptized at Bracon Ash,
Norfolk, England. He was granted 60
acres in Lynn, Massachusetts, near the ironworks. He was made a freeman in 1639. He had come to
America with three sons, and remarried to Mary Newgate. I descend from two of his six children-
Thomas and John. Mary Newgate was
described as “a cousin” to John Winthrop, but the true relationship has not
been found.
Thomas Townsend (1636 – about 1700) was a farmer. His daughter, Susannah (1672 – 1737) married
Daniel Hitchings. The Hitchings family has
lived in Lynn and Salem, Massachusetts since the 1620s through my great
grandfather, Arthur Treadwell Hitchings,
who was born in Salem in 1868.
Little is known about Thomas Townsend’s brother, John (about
1640 – 1726), and his son, John jr. (1675 – 1757) who removed from Lynn to
Reading (a contiguous town at that time).
His daughter married Deacon Brown Emerson of the Reading Congregational
Church.
Some Townsend sources:
The Essex Genealogist,
Volume 13, pages 152- 165, 218 – 228, Volume 14, 45 – 52.
Thomas Townsend Jr’s son Nathan can be found in the
Mayflower Silver Book Volume 23 for 3 generations (he married Elizabeth Howland
(about 1694 – 1707), granddaughter of Mayflower Passengers John Howland and
Elizabeth Tilley)
Medieval Heritage: A multi-ancestor genealogy of Thomas Townsend, 1597 –
1677, who emigrated to New England about 1637, showing his lineage back to the
time of William the Conqueror, by Rich Townsend, New Haven,
Connecticut: 1985. (at the NEHGS library)
The Townshend Family of Lynn, in Old and New England: Genealogical and
Biographical, by Charles Hervey Townshend, New Haven, Connecticut,
1882. (at the NEHGS library and also online
at Hathi Trust Digital Library)
The Townsend
Society of America (Genealogy and DNA studies)
21 West Main
Street
Oyster Bay,
NY 11771
My TOWNSEND genealogy:
Generation 1: Thomas
Townsend, son of Henry Townsend and Margaret Forthe, was baptized 8 January
1594 in Bracon Ash, Norfolk, England, and died 22 December 1677 in Lynn,
Massachusetts; married first to Unknown
in England; married second to Mary Newgate.
She was the daughter of John Newgate,
born about 1615 and died 28 February 1692 in Lynn. Six children.
Lineage A:
Generation 2: Thomas Townsend, born about 1636, died before
22 July 1700 in Lynn; married on 30
October 1661 at the Second Church in Boston, Massachusetts to Mary Davis,
daughter of Samuel Davis and Anna Norcross.
She was born 21 May 1647 in Roxbury, Massachusetts and died after 1700. Thirteen
children.
Generation 3:
Susannah Townend, born 5 November 1672 in Boston, died 12 May 1737 in
Lynn; married on 19 October 1708 in Lynn to Daniel Hitchings, son of Daniel
Hitchings and Eleanor Unknown. He was
born about 1660 in Lynn and died 15 January 1735 in Lynn.
Generation 4: Daniel Hitchings married Hannah Ingalls
Generation 5: Abijah
Hitchings married Mary Gardner
Generation 6: Abijah Hitchings married Mary Cloutman
Generation 7: Abijah Hitchings married Eliza Ann Treadwell
Generation 8: Abijah Franklin Hitchings married Hannah Eliza
Lewis
Generation 9: Arthur Treadwell Hitchings married Florence
Etta Hoogerzeil
Generation 10: Gertrude Matilda Hitchings married Stanley Elmer
Allen (my grandparents)
Lineage B:
Generation 3: John
Townsend, born about 1640 in Lynn, died 14 December 1726 in Lynn; married first
on 27 January 1669 in Lynn to Sarah Pearson, daughter of John Pearson and
Maudlin Bullard. She was born 20 January
1647 in Lynn and died 9 July 1689 in Lynn.
Three children. He married second
to Mehitable Brown.
Generation 4: John Townsend, born 17 March 1675 in Lynn,
died January 1757 in Reading, Massachusetts; married on 28 April 1698 to Sarah
Boutwell, daughter of James Boutwell and Rebecca Kimball. She was born 7 July 1677 in Reading and died
18 September 1737 in Reading. Six
children.
Generation 5: Sarah Townsend, born 25 March 1705 in Lynn;
married on 17 June 1725 in Reading to Brown Emerson, son of Peter Emerson and
Mary Brown. He was born 16 April 1704 in
Reading and died 16 March 1774 in Reading.
Ten children.
Generation 6: John
Emerson married Katherine Eaton
Generation 7: Romanus
Emerson married Jemima Burnham
Generation 8: George
Emerson married Mary Esther Younger
Generation 9: Mary
Katharine Emerson married George E. Batchelder
Generation 10: Carrie Maude Batchelder married Joseph Elmer
Allen
Generation 11: Stanley Elmer Allen married Gertrude Matilda
Hitchings (my grandparents)
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Copyright © 2015, Heather Wilkinson Rojo
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