PICKWORTH / PECKWORTH / PIKWORTH / PICKWORD
My 10th great grandfather, John Pickworth (about
1606 – 1663) arrived in New England about 1631, and lived briefly in Plymouth
before settling in Salem, Massachusetts.
He eventually lived in that part of Salem known as “Jeffrie’s Creek”
which is now the town of Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts. On 6 February 1631/2 [Winthrop Papers, 1498 –
1654, Volume 3, page 65] the Governor of Plymouth, William Bradford, wrote to John
Winthrop, the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, that “John Pickworth, he came but as a sojourner to
work for a few weeks, in which time he got a wife, and so is long since returned
double, and hath no cause to complain, except he hath got a bad wife”. There is no description of why the Governor
thought Pickworth’s wife was “bad”. She
is known in records as Anne, but her maiden name is a mystery.
John Pickworth was a very active citizen of Manchester. He was elected to several town positions,
including selectman and constable. He
owned many parcels of land, and a share of the town sawmill. He was also in court a few times, and the records
show him being fined for drunkenness, and for fighting with John Norman (also
my 9th great grandfather from Manchester, Massachusetts). He was a member of the church in Salem, and
had eight of his nine children baptized there.
John Pickworth died in 1663, and he left a will which names
his wife, sons, and daughters. The
inventory of his estate included his land, house, meadows, and his share of the
sawmill. His wife died in 1682, named as
“the widow Ane Pickworth Of Manchester” who left items to her daughters and to
granddaughters “Ane Pickworth” (daughter of son Joseph), “Ane Killem” (daughter
of John Kilham), and “Ane Sibblie” (daughter of her daughter Rachel
Sibley). All three granddaughters who
were listed in the will were all named Anne.
I descend from John and Anne’s daughter, Ruth Pickworth
(1633 – 1716) who married Nathaniel Masters about 1653 and had seven children. Her husband was presented at court in Salem
for “his wife being with child by him before they were married, the act having
been committed in Pequott Harbor.” The
case was sent to Connecticut for trial (Pequot Harbor is the mouth of the
Pequot River (now the Thames River and the city of Groton, Connecticut). I have not seen a record of the trial in
Connecticut.
Some PICKWORTH resources:
For this blog post I used the sketch about John Pickworth in
The
Great Migration Begins, Volume III, pages 1462 – 1464. I also researched in the Essex Quarterly
Court records, the Winthrop Papers (see above), the Salem Town Records, and the
book History
of Manchester, Essex County, Massachusetts, 1645 – 1895 by Rev. Darius
Francis Lamson, 1895. See Alicia Crane
Williams’ blog post “Human Nature Writ Large” at the Vita Brevis blog of NEHGS 2 January 2014 for another account of
John Pickworth’s brawl with John Norman https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2014/01/human-nature-writ-large/
My PICKWORTH genealogy:
Generation 1: John
Pickworth, born about 1606 probably in England, and died between 27 June 1663
and 25 August 1663 in Manchester, Massachusetts; married about 1631 to Anne Unknown. Nine children.
Generation 2: Ruth
Pickworth, baptized in Salem, Massachusetts on 14 October 1638, died on 5 April
1716; married about 1653 to Nathaniel Masters, son of John Masters and Joan
Unknown. He was born about 1613 and died
1 July 1708 in Manchester. Seven
children.
Generation 3: Lydia Masters m. Josiah Littlefield
Generation 4: Anna Littlefield m. Jacob Perkins
Generation 5: Stephen Perkins m. Comfort Chesley
Generation 6: Mary Perkins m. Nathaniel Batchelder
Generation 7: Jonathan Batchelder m. Nancy Thompson
Generation 8: George E. Batchelder m. Abigail M. Locke
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)
----------------------------
Heather Wilkinson Rojo, “Surname Saturday ~ PICKWORTH of
Plymouth and Manchester, Massachusetts”, Nutfield Genealogy, posted December 8,
2018, (
No comments:
Post a Comment