Surname Saturday ~ FROST of the Isles of Shoals off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire

The Isles of Shoals

FROST

John Frost, my 10^th great grandfather, may be the son of George Frost, an early settler at Winter Harbor (now Biddeford), Maine. There is no proof, and there are no further records of George having descendants, although there are records of John and William Frost in this area.  John Frost received grants of land in York in 1663 and 1669.  He was killed by the Indians and his estate was divided between his widow, Rose, and children: John, Phillip and Annis, wife of Alexander Maxwell.

John Frost, Jr., my 9^th great grandfather, was presented at court for “abusing his father-in-law, Roger Kelly”.  He lived, along with the Kellys, on the Isles of Shoals off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire.  These islands were notorious for violence and lack of order.  Roger Kelly was the local constable assigned to the Isles, and he was often abused by the drunken sailors and Shoalers who were resisting arrest.  He was extremely unpopular on the Isles.

There is also a dearth of records on the births, marriages and deaths on the Isles.  What I have on these generations that lived there comes from court records or local history. Ithamar Frost, my 8^th great grandfather, has very few records and I don’t know the name of his wife.  But he had two children, including Sarah, my 7^th great grandmother, who married John Mace, another native Shoaler. Their son, Ithamar Mace, my 6^th great grandfather, left the Isles of Shoals to live on the mainland in Rye.  That makes a total of four generations of FROSTs who lived on the Isles. Today no one lives year round on the Isles of Shoals and the village of Gosport is gone.

This is not the FROST family which can claim the poet Robert Frost as a descendant.  The poet descends from Nicholas Frost (1592 – 1663), who also lived in York County, Maine after being banished from Massachusetts in 1634.  There is a good sketch of Nicholas Frost in the Great Migration books.

My FROST genealogy:

Generation 1:  John Frost, born in England and died 7 April 1677 in York County, Maine; married to Rose Unknown.  Three children.

Generation 2:  John Frost, born about 1635, and died 1718 on Star Island at the Isles of Shoals off the coast of New Hampshire; married in 1674 in York to Sarah Kelly, daughter of Roger Kelly.  Four children.

Generation 3:  Ithamar Frost, born about 1678 in the Isles of Shoals, married to Unknown.  Two children.

Generation 4: Sarah Frost, married first about 1726 to John Mace, son of Robert Mace and Hannah Gibbons (three children).  He was born about 1693 on the Isles of Shoals and died before 1737; married second on 17 March 1737 in Gosport on the Isles of Shoals to Arthur Randall, three more children.

Generation 5: Ithamar Mace, born about 1729 on the Isles of Shoals and died before 9 November 1806; married on 6 December 1764 in Rye, New Hampshire to Rachel Berry, daughter of Jotham Berry and Mary Bates.  Three children.

Generation 6: Abigail Mace m. Simon Locke

Generation 7: Richard Locke m. Margaret Welch

Generation 8: Abigail M. Locke m. George E. Batchelder

Generation 9: George E. Batchelder m. Mary Katharine Emerson

Generation 10: Carrie Maude Batchelder m. Joseph Elmer Allen

Generation 11: Stanley Elmer Allen m. Gertrude Matilda Hitchings (my grandparents)

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Surname Saturday ~ FROST of the Isles of Shoals off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire", Nutfield Genealogy, posted June 11, 2016,  (  http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/06/surname-saturday-frost-of-isles-of.html: accessed [access date]).