Surname Saturday ~ WOTTON of Gloucester, Massachusetts

WOTTEN   WOOTEN   WOTTON   WOLTEN

There was an early settler named John WOTTON in the Piscataqua region in the 1600s.  According to Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary of New England, Volume IV, page 624 the General Court ordered him home to England in 1654 “to go home to his w. [wife]”.   There is no reason to believe this man was kin to my 7^th great grandfather, John WOTTON of Gloucester, Massachusetts.  There was also a John WOODIN of Ipswich, who appears to be a different man, too.  There was also a Revolutionary War pensioner, John Wotton, of Northfield, Massachusetts who appears to be no relation.

John Wotton, born about 1700 is of unknown origins.  I don’t have a birth or death record for him, just his marriage recorded in the Gloucester vital records and his son’s birth naming him as the father.  He also appears on a list of early settlers in Babson’s History of Gloucester, on page 261 under “a list of settlers from 1701 to 1750 inclusive, which contains all new-comers who are known to have been heads of families during that period.”

John Wotton, Jr. was born in 1720.  He is another mystery since I don't know much about him either.  I know that he had nine children in the Gloucester birth records, including Mary, born on 15 August 1755, my 5^th great grandmother.  She married to mariner Levi Younger, a Revolutionary War veteran, and had five children.  He died sometime before 1801 when she remarried to John Carter.  There is a guardianship docket 4776 in the Essex County probate records naming her as guardian for John and Mary Carter, dated 19 August 1828.

Some WOTTON resources:

I have only found WOTTON records in the Gloucester vital records, and in Essex County probate records.  There are no WOTTONs (nor any of the spelling variations) listed in FindAGrave, nor any other mentions in compiled genealogies, journals or local histories. 

My WOTTON lineage:

Generation 1:  John Wotton, born about 1700; married on 12 July 1720 in Gloucester, Massachusetts to Mary Allen.  . 

Generation 2:  John Wotton, jr., born 13 September 1720 in Gloucester; married on 6 October 1739 in Gloucester to Mary Hall.  She was born about 1720.  Nine children.

Generation 3:  Mary Wotten, born 15 August 1755 in Gloucester; married on 17 July 1784 in Gloucester to Levi Younger, son of William Younger and Lucy Foster.  He was born 7 February 1756 in Gloucester and died before 4 February 1806 in Gloucester.  Five children.

Generation 4:  Levi Younger m. Catherine Plummer Jones

Generation 5:  Mary Esther Younger m. George Emerson

Generation 6:  Mary Katharine Emerson m. George Batchelder

Generation 7:  Carrie Maude Batchelder m. Joseph Elmer Allen

Generation 8:  Stanley Elmer Allen m. Gertrude Matilda Hitchings (my grandparents)

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Surname Saturday ~ WOTTON of Gloucester, Massachusetts", Nutfield Genealogy, posted January 7, 2017 (http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2017/01/surname-saturday-wotton-of-gloucester.html: accessed [access date]).