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

The Isles of Shoals

MACE

The Isles of Shoals are a group of islands six miles off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire.  Both states have wrangled over the state line which now makes the border between Appledore Island, Smuttynose and Cedar Island in Maine and Lunging Island and Star Island in New Hampshire.

The island were used for fishing by the native Americans and the first European explorers in the 1600s.  It was “discovered” by Captain John Smith in 1614, and there is a monument with his map in Rye Harbor, New Hampshire that overlooks a nice view of the isles.  Fishermen first resided on Appledore and Star Island, where they formed a little town called Gosport.   The town was evacuated during the Revolutionary War, and the island remained more or less abandoned until the 1800s when a hotel was built by Thomas Laighton and Levi Thaxter. 

Robert Mace (1652 - ?) my 8^th great grandfather, was a resident of Gosport.  He appears in several court records testifying in cases involving his neighbors in Gosport who were accused of wife abuse, defamation and other crimes.  He was probably a fisherman, and he owned a pew at the meetinghouse in Ipswich, Massachusetts in 1700.

Robert’s son, John Mace (1693 – 1737), my 7^th great grandfather, was born on the Isles of Shoals.  He married his wife, Sarah Frost in Gosport, and was taxed in Rye in 1724.  According to the Essex County, Massachusetts Probate, he was a mariner.  His estate was administered in Newbury, Essex County on 5 July 1737. 

Ithamar Mace (1729 – 1806), my 6^th great grandfather, was born in Gosport and named after his maternal grandfather, Ithamar Frost.  He enlisted in the French and Indian War and was taken prisoner for nine years.  He married Rachel Berry in Rye, New Hampshire and had three children born in Rye.  Their daughter, Abigail (1767 – 1803), my 5^th great grandmother, married Simon Locke, a descendant of John Locke and Elizabeth Berry, first settlers at Locke’s Neck in Rye.

For more information on the MACE family, please contact Jan A. Koso.  I previously published a blog post about Jan’s Mace Genealogy Project (the link to Jan’s website is no longer valid, please contact him at jakoso@gmail.com or at mace-genealogy@comcast.net  ) :

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/01/jan-kosos-mace-genealogy-project.html

I'm also descended of Rev. Joseph Hull, an early minister at Gosport on the Isles of Shoals.  You can read my blog post about my HULL lineage (and the updated information on the HULL family) at this link: 

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/12/surname-saturday-hull-update.html

Click here to see the Capt. John Smith Monument in Rye Harbor
http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2015/01/400th-anniversary-of-john-smiths.html 

My MACE lineage:

Generation 1: Robert Mace, born about 1652 in England; married first to  Hannah Gibbons, daughter of James Gibbons and Judith Lewis, and had three children; married second to unknown and had two more children.  Hannah was born about 1669 in Saco, Maine. 

Generation 2: John Mace, son of Robert Mace and Hannah Gibbons, born about 1693 in Gosport, died before 5 July 1737; married about 1726 to Sarah Frost, daughter of Ithamar Frost. Three children. 

Generation 3:  Ithamar Mace, born about 1729 in Gosport, died before 9 November 1806; married to Rachel Berry, daughter of Jotham Berry and Mary Bates.  She was baptized on 3 July 1743 in Rye, New Hampshire and died 9 November 1806 in Rye, New Hampshire. Three children. 

Generation 4:  Abigail Mace, born 1 February 1767 in Rye, died 18 February 1803; married on 14 February 1792 in Greenland to Simon Locke as his first wife.  He was the son of Richard Locke and Elizabeth Garland, born in September 1770 in Rye, and died 31 July 1863 in Rye.  Seven children (he had eight more children with his second wife, Elizabeth Locke Allen, the daughter of Jude Allen and Dorcas Marden.)

Generation 5: Richard Locke m. Margaret Welch
Generation 6: Abigail M. Locke m. George E. Batchelder
Generation 7:  George E. Batchelder, Jr. m. Mary Katharine Emerson
Generation 8: Carrie Maude Batchelder m. Joseph Elmer Allen
Generation 9: Stanley Elmer Allen m. Gertrude Matilda Hitchings (my grandparents)

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Surname Saturday ~  MACE of the Isles of Shoals off the coast of New Hampshire and Maine", Nutfield Genealogy, posted June 4, 2016,  ( http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/06/surname-saturday-mace-of-isles-of.html: accessed [access date]).