Surname Saturday ~ GIBBONS of Oyster River, New Hampshire

A map of Berwick, Maine
from Stackpole's Old Kittery and Her Families

GIBBONS

Ambrose Gibbons (my 11^th great grandfather) was involved with John Mason as early as 1620 as part of his plan to settle northern New England.  He was an early settler in Maine, and one of the first settlers in the Piscataqua Region.  In 1630 he arrived aboard the ship Warwick with Roger Knight and Thomas Spencer. Their wives arrived the next year.  He was first granted land at Sanders Point (Newcastle) in 1634, and then he removed to Oyster River (Durham, New Hampshire).   I have another ancestor, Alexander Gould, who lived in the Newcastle, Maine area until 1672.  http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/10/surname-saturday-gould.html

According to Anderson in his Great Migration series, Ambrose Gibbons was well educated, and many letters survived that he sent back and forth to Mason in London.  The “Gibbons Papers” describe to John Mason a detailed account of life in New England, and many forgeries of letters exist.  You can see many of these letters in the New Hampshire Provincial and State Papers and in the Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, 1628 – 1686.

Gibbons built the “Great House at Newichawannock”, which was a garrison on the South Berwick, Maine side of the Piscataqua River.  He was succeeded as steward of the region by Humphrey Chadbourne.  The settlement did not flourish, and demands from London for goods and trade items were not met with success.  Ambrose Gibbons’ will bequeathed his entire estate to his grandson Samuel Sherburne (my 9^th great grandfather), with 21 pounds each to his other grandchildren Elizabeth, Mary, Henry, John, Ambrose, Sarah and Rebeckah. 

His only child, Elizabeth Gibbons (1620 – 1667) married Henry Sherbourne as his first wife.

GIBBONS resources:

Ancestry of Joseph Waterhouse 1754 – 1837 of Standish Maine, by Walter Goodwin Davis, 1949  (available to read online at www.archive.org)

The Great Migration Begins, Robert Charles Anderson, (New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995), Volume II, pages 745 – 749.

My GIBBONS genealogy:

Generation 1:  Ambrose Gibbons, born about 1590 in England, died between 11 July 1656 (date of will) and 9 May 1657 (date of probate) in Oyster River, New Hampshire; married to Rebecca Unknown by about 1617 in England.  She died 14 May 1655 in New Hampshire. One child.

Generation 2: Rebecca Gibbons, born about 1620 in England, died 3 June 1667 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire; married 13 November 1637 to Henry Sherborne as his first wife.  He was the son of Joseph Sherborne and Amy Cowelln, baptized on 28 March 1611 in Oldham, Hampshire, England, and died before 7 December 1680 probably on the Isles of Shoals, New Hampshire.  Eleven children.

Generation 3:  Samuel Sherburne, born a twin on 4 August 1638 in Portsmouth, died 4 August 1691 in Casco Bay, Maine; married on 15 December 1668 in Haverhill, Massachusetts to Love Hutchings, daughter of John Hutchins and Frances Unknown.  She was born 16 July 1647 in Newbury, Massachusetts and died February 1739 in Kingston, New Hampshire.  Ten children.

Generation 4:  Elizabeth Sherburne m. Jonathan Sanborn

Generation 5: Margaret Sanborn m. Moses Sleeper

Generation 6: Hepzibah Sleeper m. Samuel Lane

Generation 7: Sarah Lane m. Elisha Batchelder

Generation 8: Jonathan Batchelder m. Nancy Thompson

Generation 9: George E. Batchelder m. Abigail M. Locke

Generation 10:  George E. Batchelder m. Mary Katharine Emerson

Generation 11: Carrie Maude Batchelder m. Joseph Elmer Allen

Generation 12: Stanley Elmer Allen m. Gertrude Matilda Hitchings (my grandparents)

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Surname Saturday ~ GIBBONS of Oyster River, New Hampshire", Nutfield Genealogy, posted May 7, 2016,  (  http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/05/surname-saturday-gibbons-of-oyster.html: accessed [access date]).