Surname Saturday ~ HEALEY of Lynn and Cambridge, Massachusetts

Comfort Healy, d. 1821
Chebogue, Nova Scotia

HEALEY / HELE / HEALY / HALEY / HALY

My 8^th great grandfather, William Hele, first arrived in Massachusetts about 1640 when he joined the church at Lynn.  In 1643 he was dismissed from the church at Lynn to join the church in Cambridge.   He lived near where the Harvard Observatory is located, and there is still a Healey Street nearby off Concord, Avenue.  William Hele was a controversial figure. He had five wives and twelve children. His wives all died young, and he bragged of killing them. He was the Cambridge jailor from 1672 until 29 December 1682, when he was found with a pregnant inmate inflagrante delicto. Hele was arrested, “sentence to be severely whipped 20 stripes”, was imprisoned in his own jail, where he later died.

His fourth wife was my 8^th great grandmother, Phebe Green.  Her brother and father filed a complaint against him in 1666 for abusing his wife.  Two servants gave testimony against William Hele, as well as Elizabeth Green, her mother. Phebe died in childbirth a few years later.  In 1677 he married his last wife.

In the second generation I descend from Paul Healy (about 1664 – 1717), my 7^th great grandfather, who served in the militia with his brother in New Hampshire. Paul eventually removed to Rehoboth, where he married a woman named Elizabeth and had 14 children. 

Next, I descend from Paul Healy’s son, Ebenezer (1708 – 1777) who first lived in the 3^rd parish of Dedham, which is now the town of Norwood, Massachusetts. He was part of the building committee to construct the first Norwood meetinghouse.    He married Grace Bullen and had 8 children.

In the next generation I descend from Comfort Haley (1754 – 1821), my 5^th great grandfather, who removed to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.  He owned a fleet of ships and is buried at the Old Cemetery in Chebogue, near Yarmouth, behind the Congregational Church. I visited his grave in 2008.  He married Abigail Allen in 1777, near Chebogue.  She was a descendant of William Allen of Manchester, Massachusetts. They had seven children born in Chebogue.

Comfort Haley, Jr. (1787 – 1874), my 4^th great grandfather, was a mariner like his father, and he operated the fleet of ships with his brother, Jeremiah.  He is listed in a census record as a tanner.  He married Rebecca Crosby in Chebogue in 1808.  She was the descendant of Cape Codders.  They had eleven children.

Their son, Joseph Edwin Healy (1823 – 1862) was my 3^rd great grandfather.  He removed back to Massachusetts with his wife, Matilda Weston (another descendant of Cape Codders and Mayflower passengers).  They settled in Beverly, Massachusetts where they had four children.  Joseph Edwin Healey was another mariner and fisherman.  He enlisted in the navy during the American Civil War, where he died aboard the iron clad ship Mound City when it was hit with bombs during the Battle of Saint Charles in Arkansas.  He died, as did most of the men aboard the Mound City, when it exploded and burned or scalded most of the sailors, on 17 June 1862.  He was 40 years old and has a Civil War gravestone in the Central Cemetery in Beverly, next to his wife, Matilda.

My great great grandmother was Mary Etta Healey (1852 – 1932), who was born and died in Beverly, Massachusetts. She married Peter Hoogerzeil, Jr. and had six children. Peter was the son of a Dutch immigrant and his mother, Eunice Stone, had Colonial roots going back to the 1620s in Massachusetts. Peter Hoogerzeil was another fisherman, and he started an express business (moving merchandise by wagons) with his brother-in-law John E. Healey in 1867 on Bartlett Street in Beverly. Peter was also a prolific inventor and tinkerer.  He held at least seven patents for his inventions.

Some HEALEY resources:

The New England Historic Genealogical Society Register, Volume 27 (1873), pages 138 - 140.

Haley & Healy Family Ancestry of Ebenezer Haley, by Col. James Bayard Haley, 1964

Yarmouth Genealogies, page 131

My HEALEY genealogy:

Generation 1:  William Hele, born about 1613 possibly in Devonshire, England, died on 18 November 1683 in Cambridge, Massachusetts; married on 15 August 1661 in Cambridge to Phebe Green, my 8^th great grandmother, daughter of Bartholomew Green and his wife Elizabeth.  She was born about 1629 and died before 1677.  Phebe was his fourth wife, he was also married to Grace Ives about 1643, Mary Rogers in 1650, Grace Butterice on 14 October 1653, and his fifth wife was Sarah Cutting, widow of James Browne, on 29 November 1677.  He had thirteen children in all.

Generation 2:  Paul Healy, born about 1664 in Cambridge, died 3 December 1717 in Rehoboth, Massachusetts; married about 1695 to Elizabeth Unknown.  Fourteen children.

Generation 3:  Ebenezer Healy, born 21 January 1708 in Rehoboth, died 14 February 1777 in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia; married to Grace Bullen, daughter of John Bullen and Sarah Underwood.  She was born about 1727 in Brimfield, Massachusetts.  Eight children. 

Generation 4:  Comfort Haley, born about 1754 in Brimfield, died 15 May 1821 near Chebogue, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia; married on 21 July 1777 in Chebogue to Abigail Allen, daughter of Jeremiah Allen and Eunice Gardner.  She was born 23 July 1753 in Manchester, Massachusetts, and died 16 June 1799 in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.  Seven children. 

Generation 5: Comfort Haley, Jr. , born 9 October 1787 in Chebogue, died 3 December 1874 in Chebogue; married on 12 August 1808 in Chebogue to Rebecca Crosby, daughter of Ebenezer Crosby and Elizabeth Robinson.  She was born 19 December 1789 in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia and died in 1889.  Eleven children.

Generation 6:  Joseph Edwin Healy, born 12 August 1823 in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, died 17 June 1862 at the Battle of Saint Charles in Arkansas during the Civil War; married on 3 Feb 1848 in Canada to Matilda Weston, daughter of Zadoc Weston and Mary Clements.  She was born in October 1825 in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and died 19 August 1909 in Beverly, Massachusetts. Four children.

Generation 7:  Mary Etta Healey, born 19 May 1852 in Beverly, died 23 July 1932 in Beverly; married on 14 March 1870 in Salem, Massachusetts to Peter Hoogerzeil, son of Peter Hoogerzeil and Eunice Stone.  He was born 24 June 1841 in Beverly, and died 10 May 1908 in Beverly.  Six children.

Generation 8:  Florence Etta Hoogerzeil m. Arthur Treadwell Hitchings

Generation 9:  Gertrude Matilda Hitchings m. Stanley Elmer Allen (my grandparents)

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, “Surname Saturday ~ HEALEY of Lynn and Cambridge, Massachusetts”, Nutfield Genealogy, posted April 7, 2018, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2018/04/surname-saturday-healey-of-lynn-and.html: accessed [access date]).