Eber Bunker's Hill in Australia, a Mayflower Descendant

The text on this plaque is below

Bunkers Hill

"Bunkers Hill was named after Captain Eber Bunker, father of Australian whaling, who had his house and store not far from here in the early 1800s.  This high ground, as outlined on the map below, was commonly called Bunkers Hill until the 1830s, but only received official recognition, at the request of the Sydney Cove Redevelopment Authority, in 1977.

Captain Eber Bunker was born to a Puritan whaling family in Plymouth, Massachusetts on 7^th March 1761.  He moved to England after the American Revolution where he married Margrett Thompson, second cousin to Admiral Collingwood, in 1786 and took his first command, the whaler “Spencer”, in 1788.  He first arrived in Sydney in 1791 as master of the “William and Ann”, a transport in the Third Fleet, and there upon engaged in the first whaling expedition in Australian waters in the company of the “Britannia”. 

He returned to Australia in 1799 with the new ship “Albion” and spent two winters whaling of the Australian and New Zealand coasts.  At the request of Governor King, he took presents to King Pomere of Tahiti in exchange for hogs, howls and fruits for the colony. On a second voyage from England in 1803 he discovered the Bunker Islands off Queensland.  The “Albion” accompanied the “Lady Nelson” from Sydney with stores and cattle, to found the new settlement of Hobart on the River Derwent, in Tasmania.

He was well rewarded for his services being given several land grants around Liverpool and the Hunter Valley and, after his last whaling voyage in 1824-25, he retired to his properties, dying at Collingwood (now part of Liverpool) on 27^th September 1836, aged 74.

You are standing on the high bluff that gave The Rocks its name and which marks the eastern edge of Bunkers Hill.  In front of you are the brickyards of Sgt. Major Row (1881), the stone buildings of the Counting House (1848), and Union Bond (1841) and below are the terraces of Atherton Place (1880 – 81).  Behind you, in Cumberland Street are under approaches to the Sydney Harbour Bridge, where Princes Street once lay, was the site of the solid mansions of worthy and well-to-do citizens of the 1850s.  Handsome homes of two or three storeys, with thick walls of squared stone and wide verandahs with graceful iron columns rose in grounds dotted with tall Norfolk Pines and Moreton Bay figs.

The Plague of 1900 led to a massive clean up of The Rocks and many of the old houses were torn down by the government of the day.  Work on the Harbour Bridge swept away much of what remained.

The walkway and lookout on which this plaque stands were put by the Sydney Cove Redevelopment Authority in 17979 – 80, transforming Gloucester Street to Gloucester Walk.

This Plaque was unveiled by the Minister for Planning & Environment the Hon. Eric Bedford BA MP on Wednesday 22^nd October 1980."

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These three photos were sent to me by a young genealogist friend in Australia. He is applying for membership to the Mayflower Society under the passengers John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley.  The new Australian Mayflower Society just formed a few months ago, and I wish him luck!  He is also a descendant of Eber Bunker.  Here is the lineage from John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley down to Eber Bunker.

Generation 1:  John Howland, Mayflower passenger, son of Henry Howland and Margaret Aires, was born 1592 in Fenstanton, England, died 23 February 1672 at Rocky Nook, Plymouth, Massachusetts; married on 25 March 1623 in Plymouth, Massachusetts to Elizabeth Tilley, Mayflower passenger, daughter of John Tilley and Joan Hurst.  She was born 30 August 1607 in Henlow, Bedfordshire, England and died 21 December 1687 in Swansea, Massachusetts. They had ten children.

Generation 2:  Desire Howland, born 13 October 1623 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and died 13 October 1683 in Barnstable, Massachusetts; married on 6 November 1644 in Barnstable to John Gorham, son of Ralph Gorham and Margaret Stephenson.  He was born 28 January 1620 in Benefield, Northamptonshire, England and died 5 February 1675 in Swansea. They had eleven children.

Generation 3:  Shubael Gorham, born 21 October 1667 in Barnstable, died 7 August 1750; married on May 1695 on the island of Nantucket to Puella Hussey, daughter of Stephen Hussey (grandson of Rev. Stephen Batchelder) and Martha Bunker (daughter of George Bunker and Elizabeth Godfrey).  She was born 10^th 10 mo. 1677 on Nantucket, and died in Barnstable before 23 September 1748. They had ten children.

Generation 4:  Desire Gorham, born 26 September 1710 in Barnstable, died 5 November 1801; married Zachariah Bunker on 2 September 1728 on Nantucket island. He was the son of Jonathan Bunker and Elizabeth Coffin.  Zachariah Bunker died on Nantucket 16 August 1757.  They had nine children all born on Nantucket island.

Generation 5: James Bunker, born 21 August 1733 on Nantucket island, was lost at sea in 1768; married Hannah Shurtleff in Plymouth, Massachusetts on 26 January 1757.  She was the daughter of James Shurtleff and Faith Jackson.  They had five children.

Generation 6: Eber Bunker, son of James Bunker and Hannah Shurtleff, was born on 7 March 1761 in Plymouth, Massachusetts and died on 27 September 1836 at Collingwood, now Liverpool, New South Wales. He married first on 16 November 1786 in England to Margrett Thompson, daughter of Henry Thompson and Isabella Collingwood, who died March 1808. They had children:  Isabella, Mary Ann, Charlotte, Charles Harris, Henry Edmund, Ernest, James Eber, and Henry Thompson.  He married second to Margaret Macfarlane.  He married third to Ann Howey, widow of William Minchin on 28 April 1823.

You might be wondering if Eber Bunker of Bunkers Hill in Australia is related to the same family of Bunker Hill in Boston (Charlestown).  The answer is “Probably!”. 

 The Bunker Hill in Massachusetts was named for George Bunker, who had a farm there in Charlestown.  The Bunker family lived on this land before the battle, and for generations afterwards.  George left the area a few years before the Revolutionary War, which was fortunate since the town of Charlestown was destroyed by the British during the battle.  The famous “Bunker Hill Monument” is on the top of Breed’s Hill in Boston, not Bunker Hill.  

George Bunker was born about 1600 at Bengeo, Hertfordshire, England and died about 1664 in Malden, Massachusetts; married Judith Major on 8 September 1624 at Odell, Bedfordshire, England.  He owned the land known as Bunker Hill in Charlestown and is buried at the Phipps Street Buring Ground in Charlestown.  His five children were baptized in Odell, Bedfordshire which is very close to Tingrith (see below for the lineage of Eber Bunker).  However George Bunker’s parents are unknown, so we cannot prove that these two Bunker branches were kin.  George Bunker’s last two children (he had seven children) were baptized at Charlestown, Massachusetts. 

Eber Bunker (1761 - 1836)

Eber Bunker’s Bunker Genealogy:

Generation 1: Tymothie Bunker and Elizabeth Hawkins, resided in Tingrith, Bedfordshire, England

Generation 2: George Bunker and Elizabeth Godfrey, 5 May 1644 in Maulden, Bedfordshire, England

Generation 3: William Bunker and Mary Macy

Generation 4: Jonathan Bunker and Elizabeth Coffin

Generation 5: Zachariah Bunker and Desire Gorham

Generation 6: James Bunker and Hannah Shurtleff

Generation 7: Eber Bunker of Australia

Isabella, daughter of Eber Bunker

For the truly curious:

Australian Dictionary of Biography website, a sketch about Eber Bunker:  http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bunker-eber-1849

The Bunker Blog – Website of the Bunker Family Association - https://www.bunkerfamilyassn.org/

Bunker Family History by Henry L. Bunker III, 1984.  [Information on Bunker Hill in Massachusetts is on pages 69 – 70, 72, and 99 – 100].

Australian Mayflower Society became official on 26 January 2020:
 https://www.themayflowersociety.org/blog/item/443-welcoming-the-australia-society

Australian Society of Mayflower Descendants Facebook group:   https://www.facebook.com/groups/736882643392129/

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Eber Bunker's Hill in Australia, a Mayflower Descendant", Nutfield Genealogy, posted March 20, 2020, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2020/03/eber-bunkers-hill-in-australia.html: accessed [access date]). 

Surname Saturday ~ TILLEY of the Mayflower

My 11^th great grandfather, John Tilley (1571 – 1620) sailed to the New World on board the Mayflower in 1620 with his wife, Joan Hurst, and his youngest child, Elizabeth.  His brother Edward and sister-in-law, Agnes, were also aboard the ship.  John Tilley signed the Mayflower Compact, helped with the first explorations of Cape Cod in the shallop, and participated in the “First Encounter” with Native Americans on the beach near present day Provincetown .  All these Tilley family members died during that first harsh winter in New England except for young Elizabeth, who was about 14 years old.

John Tilley was born in Henlow, Bedfordshire, England.  He was married there, and his children (Rose, John, Rose again, Robert and Elizabeth) were baptized there in Henlow at the parish church. There is no record of him living in Leiden, although Edward was recorded living there.  You can see John Tilley’s English ancestry at an article in The American Genealogist, Volume 52, pages 198 – 208.

John Tilley married Joan Hurst, the daughter of William Hurst of Henlow.  She was first married to a Thomas Rogers (not the Thomas Rogers of the Mayflower).  

John Carver, Governor of the Plymouth Colony, was named as guardian of the orphaned Elizabeth Tilley.  When he died a year later, his servant John Howland, became the head of the Carver household.  Elizabeth Tilley and John Howland were married about three years later.  Elizabeth lived fifteen years longer than her husband, and witnessed King Philip’s War, which began in 1675. .  Elizabeth Tilley gave her husband John Howland ten known children, 88 grandchildren,  and thousands, perhaps millions, of descendants including Presidents George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Franklin D. Roosevelt;  poets Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; actors Christopher Lloyd, Humphrey Bogart, Anthony Perkins, and the Baldwin Brothers;  and founder of the LDS church Joseph Smith.   

Some TILLEY resources

English origins in an article in The American Genealogist, Volume 52, pages 198 – 208.

Additional information on John Tilley The American Genealogist, Volume 60, 171 – 173.

The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620 - 1633, by Robert Charles Anderson, 1995, Volume III, (Edward Tilley on pages 1819 – 1820, and John Tilley on page 1822.

Pilgrim Migration, by Robert Charles Anderson, pages 462 – 463,

My TILLEY genealogy:

Generation 1: John Tilley, son of Robert Tilley and Elizabeth Unknown, born about 1571 in Henlow Bedfordshire, England, died during the winter of 1620 - 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts; married on 20 September 1596 in Henlow to Joan Hurst, widow of Thomas Rogers and daughter of William Hurst and Rose Marshe.  She was baptized on 13 March 1568 in Henlow, and died between Jan and April 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts.  Five children.

Generation 2:  Elizabeth Tilley, baptized 30 August 1607 in Henlow, and died 21 December 1687 in Swansea, Massachusetts (now Rhode Island); married about 1623 in Plymouth to John Howland, son of Henry Howland and Margaret Aires.  He was born about 1592 in Fenstanton, Huntingdonshire, England and died 23 February 1673 at Rocky Nook, Plymouth (now Duxbury), Massachusetts.  Ten children.

Lineage A:

Generation 3: Hope Howland m. John Chipman

Generation 4: Hannah Chipman m. Thomas Huckins

Generation 5: Hope Huckins m. Benjamin Hamblin

Generation 6: Hannah Hamblin m. Jonathan Crosby

Generation 7: Ebenezer Crosby m. Elizabeth Robinson

Generation 8: Rebecca Crosby m. Comfort Haley

Generation 9: Joseph Edwin Healy m. Matilda Weston

Generation 10: Mary Etta Healey m. Peter Hoogerzeil

Generation 11: Florence Etta Hoogerzeil m. Arthur Treadwell Hitchings

Generation 12: Gertrude Matilda Hitchings m. Stanley Elmer Allen (my grandparents)

Lineage B:

Generation 3: Desire Howland m. John Gorham

Generation 4: Desire Gorham m. John Hawes

Generation 5: Elizabeth Hawes m. Thomas Daggett

Generation 6: Elizabeth Daggett m. John Butler

Generation 7: Keziah Butler m. Samuel Osborn

Generation 8: Samuel Osborn m. Sarah Wass

Generation 9: Sarah Osborn m. Charles Skinner

Generation 10: Ann Skinner m. Thomas Ratchford Lyons

Generation 11: Isabella Lyons m. Rev. Ingraham Ebenezer Bill

Generation 12: Caleb Rand Bill m. Ann Margaret Bollman

Generation 13: Isabella Lyons Bill m. Albert Munroe Wilkinson

Generation 14: Donald Munroe Wilkinson m. Bertha Louise Roberts (my grandparents)

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, “Surname Saturday ~ TILLEY of the Mayflower”, Nutfield Genealogy, posted September 2, 2017, (https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2017/09/surname-saturday-tilley-of-mayflower.html: accessed [access date]). 

Surname Saturday ~ GORHAM of Massachusetts

John Gorham (1620 – 1675) is my 11^th great grandfather.  He is not the son of Ralph Gorham, who arrived in New England aboard the Phillip in 1635. The first record of John in New England is in 1643, just months before he married Desire Howland, the daughter of John Howland of the Mayflower.  After marriage they lived in Marshfield, then Yarmouth where he ran a grist mill, wharf and was also a tanner.

Captain John Gorman served in King Philip’s war in the winter of 1675, where he was injured when his powder horn, attached to his belt, exploded.    Then he was exposed to harsh weather and developed a fever.  He was brought to Wannamoisett in Rhode Island to the farm of John Brown.  He died there, and was buried on the Brown farm in the burial plot on 7 March 1675.  His wife is also buried with him.

Their daughter, Desire Gorham (1644 – 1700) is my 10^th great grandmother.  She married John Hawes in 1661.  He was a “cutler” by occupation, and an ensign in the militia. They lived in Yarmouth, on Cape Cod. By 1700 John Hawes was appointed Captain of the militia. He served in the legislature in Boston in 1698. John Hawes died after having his leg amputated.  I descend from their eldest child, Elizabeth Hawes (1662 – about 1732), my 9^th great grandmother, who married Thomas Daggett of Martha’s Vineyard.

Some Gorham genealogy resources:     

           

John Howland of the Mayflower: Volume I: Documented Descendants Through His First Child Desire Howland and her Husband Captain John Gorham, by Elizabeth Pearson White, 1990.

Capt. John Gorham of Barnstable, Mass., compiled by Henry S. Gorham, 1931, 18 volumes

"Gorham Family," Boston Evening Transcript, (in their famous genealogy query column) 15 May 1916

Genealogical Notes of Barnstable Families, by Amos Otis, Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, 1991

"Howland History Still Lives in Wannamoisett," by Clinton W. Sellew, The Howland Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 1, pp 10-11, March 1999

My GORHAM lineage:

Generation 1: John Gorham, born about 1620 in England, died 5 February 1675 in Swansea (now East Providence, Rhode Island); married on 6 November 1644 in Barnstable, Massachusetts to Desire Howland, daughter of two Mayflower passengers – John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley.  She was born 13 October 1623 in Plymouth, and died 13 October 1683 in Barnstable. Eleven children.

Generation 2: Desire Gorham, born 2 April 1644 in Plymouth, died 30 June 1700 in Yarmouth, Massachusetts; married on 7 October 1661 in Barnstable, Massachusetts to John Hawes, son of Edmund Hawes.  He was born about 1635 in Duxbury, Massachusetts, and died 11 November 1701 in Yarmouth.  Eleven children.

Generation 3:  Elizabeth Hawes m. Thomas Daggett

Generation 4:  Elizabeth Daggett m. John Butler

Generation 5:  Keziah Butler m. Samuel Osborn

Generation 6:  Samuel Osborn m. Sarah Wass

Generation 7: Sarah Osborn m. Charles Skinner

Generation 8: Ann Skinner m. Thomas Ratchford Lyons

Generation 9: Isabella Lyons m. Rev. Ingraham Ebenezer Bill

Generation 10: Caleb Rand Bill m. Ann Margaret Bollman

Generation 11: Isabella Lyons Bill m. Albert Munroe Wilkinson

Generation 12:  Donald Munroe Wilkinson m. Bertha Louise Roberts

My HOWLAND "Surname Saturday" blog post:

https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2017/08/surname-saturday-howland-mayflower.html   

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, “Surname Saturday ~ GORHAM of Massachusetts”, Nutfield Genealogy, posted August 26, 2017, (https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2017/08/surname-saturday-gorham-of-massachusetts.html: accessed [access date]). 

Surname Saturday ~ HOWLAND, A Mayflower Passenger

The Jabez Howland House in Plymouth, Massachusetts
home of John Howland's son. 

John Howland is my 11^th and 10^th great grandfather because I descend from two of his daughters. He was the famous passenger on board the Mayflower in 1620 who almost lost his life when he fell overboard during a storm.  Thankfully, he was saved with a rope and a boat hook, thus ensuring thousands, and perhaps millions of descendants.   The only first person account of this event reads that “a lusty young man called John Howland, coming upon some occasion above the gratings was, with a seele of the ship, thrown into the sea; but it pleased God that he caught hold of the topsail halyards which hung overboard and ran out at length. Yet he held his hold (though he was sundry fathoms under water) till he was hauled up by the same rope to the brim of the water, and then with boat hook and other means got into the ship again and his life saved. And though he was something ill with it, yet he lived many years after and became a profitable member both in church and commonwealth." [from Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford]

The Mayflower passengers are among some of the most studied and researched immigrants to America, and you can read much about them in books, scholarly journals and online.  I will summarize some of that research in a few paragraphs, and list some of the best genealogical sources below. John Howland was a cooper, who came aboard the Mayflower as a young servant to John Carver, the first governor of the Plymouth Colony.  He was one of the 41 men who signed the Mayflower Compact, and he is buried on Burial Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

John Howland was married about 1623 to Elizabeth Tilley, who was only about fifteen during her passage to Plymouth on board the Mayflower.  Elizabeth’s parents, John Tilley and Joan Hurst died that first winter in New England, 1620 – 1621, and Governor Carver became her guardian.  However, Governor Carver, died in April 1621 and his wife died in May 1621, which made John Howland the head of the Carver household, which included Mrs. Carver’s daughter Desire Minter (by her first marriage).  John and Elizabeth Howland named their first child (my ancestor) after Desire (see below).

John and Elizabeth Howland raised ten children at their home in Rocky Nook, which was part of Plymouth but is now in the town of Kingston, Massachusetts.  John’s brothers, Henry and Arthur Howland both came to New England and left descendants, too.  Famous descendants of John and Elizabeth Howland include Presidents George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as well as the writers Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, actors Christopher Lloyd, Humphrey Bogart, Stephen Baldwin, and the founder of the LDS church Joseph Smith.  Henry Howland is the ancestor of presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford.  Arthur Howland is the ancestor of Sir Winston Churchill.  

In the second generation I descend from sisters Desire (1623 – 1683) and Hope (1629 – 1684).  Desire married Captain John Gorham in 1644.  He was a tanner who lived in Barnstable on Cape Cod, and he owned a grist mill.  He served in King Philip’s war where he contracted a fever and died in 1675.  Hope Howland married John Chipman in 1646.  He arrived from England on board the Friendship with Isaac Allerton (one of my other Mayflower ancestors) as a servant to Richard Derby.  He became a resident of Barnstable and an elder of the church. (See the lineages listed below)

HOWLAND resources:

The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620 – 1633, by Robert Charles Anderson, 1995, Volume II, pages 1020 – 1024 for John Howland, and pages 1016 – 1019 for Henry Howland.

John Howland of the Mayflower: Volume 1, the First Five Generations, Documented Descendants Through his First Child Desire Howland and her Husband Captain John Gorham, by Elizabeth Pearson White, 1990.

John Howland of the Mayflower: Volume III: Documented Descendants Through His Third Child Hope Howland, Wife of John Chipman, by Elizabeth Pearson White, 1990

Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620 - 1647, by William Bradford (many editions)

The History of Arthur, Henry and John Howland and Their Descendants, by Franklyn Howland. 

The Pilgrim John Howland Society (Family Association) http://www.pilgrimjohnhowlandsociety.org/  

The English origins of the three HOWLAND brothers are in an article in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Volume 75, pages 105 – 116, and 2016 – 225.

For children, The Boy Who Fell Off the Mayflower: Or John Howland’s Good Fortune, by P. J. Lynch, 2015, (the story is good, but the illustrations portray John Howland in 1620 as a boy instead of the being “of age” and old enough to sign the Mayflower Compact).

My HOWLAND genealogy (two lineages):

Generation 1:  John Howland, son of Henry Howland and Margaret Aires, born about 1592 in Fenstanton, Huntingdonshire, England, died 23 February 1673 at Rocky Nook, Plymouth; married about 1623 in Plymouth to Elizabeth Tilley, daughter of John Tilley and Joan Hurst, born 30 August 1607 in Henlow, Bedfordshire, England and died 21 December 1687 in Swansea, Massachusetts.  Ten children (I descend from Hope and Desire):

Lineage A:

Generation 2: Hope Howland, born 30 August 1629 in Plymouth, died 8 January 1684 in Barnstable, Massachusetts; married 13 September 1646 in Plymouth to John Chipman as his first wife.  He was the son of Thomas Chipman, born about 1620 in Bryant’s Puddle, Dorsetshire, England, and died 8 January 1709 in Sandwich, Massachusetts. Twelve children.

Generation 3:  Hannah Chipman, born 14 January 1659 in Plymouth, died 4 November 1696 in Barnstable; married on 1 May 1680 in Barnstable to Thomas Huckins as his first wife.  He was the son of Thomas Huckins and Rose Unknown,  born 25 April 1651 in Barnstable, and died before 15 October 1714 in Barnstable. Nine children.

Generation 4: Hope Huckins, born 21 September 1689 in Barnstable, died after 4 January 1730 in Barnstable; married first to Benjamin Hamblin (4 children), son of John Hamblin and Sarah Bearse, born 11 February 1687 in Barnstable, died before 8 March 1718; married second to Ebenezer Childs, son of Richard Childs and Elizabeth Crocker, born March 1691 in Barnstable, died 17 January 1756 in Barnstable (2 children).

Generation 5: Hannah Hamblin, born about 1714 in Barnstable, died 26 July 1791 in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia; married before 7 March 1734 to Jonathan Crosby, son of John Crosby and Hannah Bangs, born 2 November 1705 in Harwich, Massachusetts, and died 26 July 1782 in Yarmouth.  Eleven children.

Generation 6: Ebenezer Crosby, born 26 August 1747 in Mansfield, Connecticut, died 26 February 1826 in Yarmouth; married on 8 September 1774 in Chebogue, Nova Scotia to Elizabeth Robinson, daughter of Jabez Robinson and Tabitha Green.  She was born 17 June 1750 in Falmouth, Massachusetts, and died 27 July 1837 in Nova Scotia.  Eleven children.

Generation 7:  Rebecca Crosby, born 19 December 1789 in Yarmouth, died 1889 in Nova Scotia; married 12 August 1808 in Chebogue to Comfort Haley, son of Comfort Haley and Abigail Allen.  He was born 9 October 1787 in Chebogue and died 3 December 1874 in Chebogue. Eleven children.

Generation 8:  Joseph Edwin Healy, born 12 August 1823 in Belfast, Maine or Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, died 17 June 1862 at the Battle of Saint Charles, Arkansas during the Civil War; married on 3 February 1848 to Matilda Weston, daughter of Zadoc Weston and Mary Clements.  She was born October 1825 in Yarmouth, and died 19 August 1909 at 43 Bartlett Street, Beverly, Massachusetts.  Four children.

Generation 9: 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, so of Peter Hoogerzeil and Eunice Stone.  He was born 24 June 1841 in Beverly, and died 10 May 1908 in Beverly. Six children.

Generation 10:  Florence Etta Hoogerzeil, born 20 August 1871 in Beverly, died 10 February 1941 in Hamilton, Massachusetts; married on 25 December 1890 in Beverly to Arthur Treadwell Hitchings, son of Abijah Franklin Hitchings and Hannah Eliza Lewis.  He was born 10 May 1869 in Salem, and died 7 March 1937 in Hamilton. Eight children.

Generation 11:  Gertrude Matilda Hitchings, born 1 August 1905 in Beverly, died 3 November 2001 in Peabody, Massachusetts; married on 14 February 1925 in Hamilton to Stanley Elmer Allen, son of Joseph Gilman Allen and Carrie Maude Batchelder.  He was born 14 January 1904 in Cambridge, Massachusetts and died 6 March 1982 in Beverly.  Seven children. (My grandparents)

Lineage B:

Generation 2: Desire Howland, born 13 October 1623 in Plymouth, died 13 October 1683 in Barnstable; married on 6 November 1644 in Barnstable to John Gorham, son of Ralph Gorham and Margaret Stephenson.  He was born 28 January 1620 in Benefield, Northamptonshire, England, and died 5 February 1675 in Swansea. Eleven children.

Generation 3:  Desire Gorham, born 2 April 1644 in Plymouth, died 30 June 1700 in Yarmouth, Massachusetts; married on 7 October 1661 in Barnstable to John Hawes, son of Edmund Hawes.  He was born about 1635 in Duxbury, Massachusetts and died 11 November 1701 in Yarmouth.  Eleven children.

Generation 4:  Elizabeth Hawes, born 5 October 1662 in Yarmouth, died between 25 December 1732 and 13 February 1734 in Edgartown, Massachusetts; married on 22 January 1684 in Bristol, Rhode Island to Thomas Daggett, so of Thomas Daggett and Hannah Mayhew.  He was born about 1658 in Bristol, and died 28 August 1726 in Edgartown.  Ten children.

Generation 5: Elizabeth Daggett, born about 1690 in Edgartown, died after 1753; married 16 December 1708 in Edgartown to John Butler, son of John Butler and Priscilla Norton.  He was born about 1674 and died after 6 February 1754.  Six children.

Generation 6:  Keziah Butler, born 1710 in Edgartown, died October 1768 in Edgartown; married on 9 September 1731 in Edgartown to Samuel Osborn, son of Samuel Osborn and Mercy Norton.  He was born about 1711 in Edgartown and died after 8 October 1753.  Ten children.

Generation 7:  Samuel Osborn, born 1732 in Edgartown, probably died in Nova Scotia; married on 28 April 1755 in Martha’s Vineyard to Sarah Wass, daughter of Wilmot Wass and Rebecca Allen.  She was born 24 January 1738 in West Tisbury, Massachusetts; and died 23 February 1813 in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia.  Five children.

Generation 8:  Sarah Osborn, born 22 July 1760 in Fredricton, New Brunswick, died 15 January 1848 in Pleasant Valley, Cornwallis; married on 24 November 1774 in Passamoquoddy to Charles Skinner, son of Aaron Skinner and Eunice Taintor.  He was born 3 January 1748/9 in Colchester, Connecticut, and died before 1837 in Nova Scotia.  Fifteen children.

Generation 9: Ann Skinner, born 9 March 1786 in Cornwallis, died 19 October 1815 in Cornwallis; married on 30 September 1802 in Cornwallis to Thomas Ratchford Lyons, son of David Lyons and Elizabeth Ratchford.  He was born 3 March 1780 in Cornwallis, and died 3 September 1859 in New Brunswick.  Six children.

Generation 10: Isabella Lyons, born 28 January 1806 in Cornwallis, died April 1872 in Carleton, New Brunswick; married on 20 April 1826 in Annapolis County to the Reverend Ingraham Ebenezer Bill as his first wife.  He was the son of Asahel Bill and Mary Rand,  born 19 February 1805 in Billtown, Cornwallis, and died 4 August 1891 in St. Martin’s, New Brunswick.  Five children.

Generation 11: Caleb Rand Bill, born 30 May 1833 in Nictaux, Cornwallis, died 30 December 1902 in Salem, Massachusetts; married 7 June 1858 in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia to Ann Margaret Bollman, daughter of Bremner  Frederick Bollman and Sarah Elizabeth Lennox.  She was born 11 September 1835 in Lunenburg, and died 1923 in Salem.  Nine children.

Generation 12:  Isabella Lyons Bill, born January 1863 in Machias  Maine, died on 19 January 1935 in Beverly, Massachusetts; married on 18 October Salem, Massachusetts to Albert Munroe Wilkinson, son of Robert Wilson Wilkinson and Phebe Cross Munroe.  He was born 7 November 1860 in Danvers, Massachusetts and died 12 May 1908 at the Corey Hill Hospital, Brookline, Massachusetts.  Two children.

Generation 13: Donald Munroe Wilkinson, born 23 October 1895 in Salem, died 24 July 1977 in Long Beach, California; married on 26 November 1926 in Beverly to Bertha Louise Roberts, daughter of John Peter Bawden Roberts and Emma Frances Warren.  She was born 30 September 1897 in Leeds, Yorkshire, England and died 17 March 1990 in Long Beach.  Three sons. (my grandparents)

I have posted another Mayflower lineage, the ALLERTON family:

https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2017/07/surname-saturday-allerton-mayflower.html  

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, “Surname Saturday ~ HOWLAND, A Mayflower Passenger”, Nutfield Genealogy, posted August 19, 2017, (https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2017/08/surname-saturday-howland-mayflower.html: accessed [access date]). 

Why are there Blue “Silver” Books?

If you are researching a Mayflower passenger, or if you are applying for membership in the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, you have probably used a “Silver Book”.  The GSMD investigates each application submitted, and these all become part of what was first known as The Five Generations Project.   There was a goal of publishing in book form the first five generations of each Mayflower passenger, and the Mayflower families in progress  (MFIP) booklets were known as “Pink Books”, and the finished products were bound in silver hardcovers and known informally as the “Silver Books”. 

  

You can order these books from the GSMD at his link: https://themayflowersociety.org/genealogy/explore-your-roots/silver-books-project/  The books are also available for sale at other book sellers such as the New England Historic Genealogical Society or even on Amazon.  Most good genealogy libraries have a set of these books.  The good news is that most of these books have been completed, and there is already progress on the sixth and seventh generation books, as well as books on some allied families that arrived after the Mayflower in 1620.  Some of the families are quite large, such as the descendants of Edward Doty, which are Volume 11, in parts 1, 2 and 3.

I’ve been collecting some of these books as I work out my Mayflower lineages.  I have two lines of descent from passenger John Howland, through his daughters Hope and Desire.  For Christmas I was asked which Silver Books I would like to see under the Christmas tree, and I told Santa that I’d love to have the Silver books for Hope and Desire Howland.  There was some confusion because on the GSMD website the Howland volumes were numbered 23 with several parts available (they had ten children, so the descendants in the first five generations couldn’t fit into one book), but I wasn’t sure which volumes were for which daughters.  The NEHGS catalog listed the Howland books as Volume 23, parts 1, 2, and 3 with no fine print describing which book was for which Howland line. Santa made two phone calls to Plymouth and to NEHGS and asked specifically for the Silver Books for Hope and Desire Howland.   

This is the confusing page from the NEHGS catalog

(You can see where I made notes for Santa - this is my favorite Christmas catalog!)

The books were delivered by the elves from NEHGS and I opened them on Christmas Day.  I was very excited and opened them right away and found my lineages and read them to the family.  It wasn’t until a day or two later when I re-opened the books at my leisure that I noticed the book covers were blue and not silver.  I had never seen a blue silver book.  Then I realized that they weren’t published by GSMD, but were published by Picton Press. Huh?

It was a weekend night, and I felt like I couldn’t wait until Monday to call NEHGS, so I did the next best thing… I got on Facebook.  Fortunately, I’m Facebook friends with some genealogists who knew what they were talking about.  I had an answer within five minutes of my original post.

From a Mayflower Facebook group on Dec. 27^th  my first reply was from Paul S. Bumpus.   (Paul is the former Historian General for GSMD.  There is probably only a handful of people who know as much about the Silver Books as Paul – and those people don’t hang out on Facebook)    I asked the group if anyone knew why I was sent the blue books instead of silver ones.  Were they the same books?  Here is Paul’s reply:

“Not exactly Heather, but they do "stand in" for Silver and are published "under the auspices" of the Mayflower Society as such, so they are THE recognized source for Howland Mayflower genealogy. What happened was that, in the beginnings of the Mayflower Families Through Five Generations project (i.e. the Silver Book project), in the 1960's,, the Howlands insisted that THEY would do Howland; it was envisioned as a 10 volume set, to be published by Picton Press (another example of bad planning by the GSMD.) Elizabeth Pearson White, compiler, got the first two books: DESIRE and JOHN, done, fairly well, but then she produced NOTHING more for years. In the early 2000's the GSMD informed the Howlands that since they had not produced any more volumes, the GSMD would have to take Howland over. At that point Ms. White said she had HOPE and ELIZABETH close to being done, and it was agreed that she would finish those (though they are not up to the standards met in Desire and John) She is now in her 90's I believe. And these later two books have many more mistakes in them than the first two books. The GSMD have gone forth with Howland Volumes 23: 1-3, with more coming, covering the six youngest Howland children.”

An email dated Dec. 27^th to the GSMD in Plymouth was answered right away by Carolyn M. Doyle, Publications and Sales Manager of the Mayflower Society:

 “You have the correct books; Santa was correct as always!”

And my phone call to Rick Park,  New England Historic Genealogical Society Sales Staff confirmed that there are volumes 23, parts 1, 2 and 3 of the Howland Family in the Five Generation (Silver Books) series, but they don’t contain the descendants of the daughters Hope and Desire Howland.  The only books that contain these descendants are the blue books by Picton Press written by Elizabeth Pearson White (which Paul Bumpus confirmed above).

There you have it.  All the MFIP books are not silver. And now you know why….

UPDATE 15 November 2022:

The four Blue Picton Press Howland volumes are available to read online:

• https://archive.org/details/johnhowlandofmay01whit (Volume 1 - Desire Howland Gorham) 
• https://archive.org/details/johnhowlandofmay02whit (Volume 2 - John Howland, Jr.) 
• https://archive.org/details/johnhowlandofmay03whit (Volume 3  - Hope Howland Chipman) 
• https://archive.org/details/johnhowlandofmay04whit (Volume 4 - Elizabeth Howland Hix Dickinson) 

My shelf of Mayflower books.

Silver, Pink and Blue

For the truly curious:

The General Society of Mayflower Descendants Silver Book Project:

https://themayflowersociety.org/genealogy/explore-your-roots/silver-books-project/   

UPDATE  - New information (2021) about the Silver Book Project: 

https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-mayflower-silver-book-project-update.html    

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To cite/link to this blog post:  Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Why are there Blue “Silver” Books?", Nutfield Genealogy, posted January 15, 2015, ( http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2015/01/why-are-there-blue-silver-books.html: accessed [access date]). 

Surname Saturday ~ HAWES of Duxbury and Yarmouth, Massachusetts

HAWES

Edmond Hawes was baptized in Solihull, Warwickshire, England on 15 October 1613, the son of Edmond Hawes.   He was apprenticed to a “cutler” (knifemaker) named Edward Warnet, and his records can be found in the London Company of Cutlers according to the Great Migration sketch of his life.  Edmond Hawes was a passenger on the James, which left Southampton, England about 5 April 1625.  His first residence in Massachusetts was the town of Duxbury.

He was made a freeman in Duxbury on 3 March 1644/5, and then removed to the town of Yarmouth by 1643.   He held many offices, which can be found in the Plymouth County Records, such as deputy, auditor, constable, selectman, and various committees.   The Plymouth County Records also record many land transactions in Duxbury and Yarmouth, and his will dated 5 May 1692 and proved on 20 July 1683. 

The name of his wife is unknown, and he had only one child, John, born about 1636, who married Desire Gorham, the granddaughter of John Howland the Mayflower passenger.  All of Edmond Hawes descendants are eligible for membership in the General Society of Mayflower Descendants.

John Hawes died in 1701, after having his leg amputated .   As a young man he had been brought before a jury on 5 March 1600/1 for accidentally causing an injury in a friend he had been wrestling.  He was found “not guilty” and released.   He grew up to also be a cutler, and served as a representative to the General Court.

The best sources for information on Edmond Hawes are The Great Migration, by Richard Charles Anderson, Volume II, pages 247 - 250.  Another good source of information is the book Edmond Hawes of Yarmouth, Massachusetts, by James William Hawes, 1914.  The Howland books published by the Mayflower Society’s Five Generation Project would also have the descendants of John Hawes and Desire Gorham. 

My HAWES genealogy:

Generation 1:  Edmond Hawes, son of Edmond Hawes, baptized 15 October 1613 in Solihull, Warwickshire, England; died 9 June 1693 in Yarmouth, Massachusetts; married with one known, surviving child.

Generation 2: John Hawes, born about 1636 in Duxbury, Massachusetts, died 11 November 1701 in Yarmouth; married on 7 October 1661 in Barnstable, Massachusetts to Desire Gorham, daughter of John Gorham and Desire Howland.  She was born 2 April 1644 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and died 30 June 1700 in Yarmouth.  Eleven children.

Generation 3: Elizabeth Hawes, born 5 October 1662 in Yarmouth, died between 25 December 1732 and 13 February 1734 in Edgartown on the island of Martha’s Vineyard;  married on 22 January 1684 in Bristol, Rhode Island to Thomas Daggett, son of Thomas Daggett and Hannah Mayhew.   He was born about 1658 and died 28 August 1726 in Edgartown.  Ten children.

Generation 4: Elizabeth Daggett m. John Butler

Generation 5:  Keziah Butler and Reverend Samuel Osborn

Generation 6: Samuel Osborn m. Sarah Wass

Generation 7:  Sarah Osborn m. Charles Skinner

Generation 8: Ann Skinner m.  Thomas Ratchford Lyons

Generation 9: Isabella Lyons m. Reverend Ingraham Ebenezer Bill

Generation 10:  Caleb Rand Bill m. Ann Margaret Bollman

Generation 11: Isabella Lyons Bill m. Albert Munroe Wilkinson

Generation 12: Donald Munroe Wilkinson m. Bertha Louise Roberts (my grandparents)

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The URL for this post is

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/12/surname-saturday-hawes-of-duxbury-and.html 

Copyright ©2014, Heather Wilkinson Rojo