Redemption Rock- who was redeemed, and why?

Redemption Rock is located in a tiny quarter acre park in Princeton, Massachusetts, near the Westminster border on Route 140.   It is a small park with a big colonial history. 

During King Philip’s War, the town of Lancaster, Massachusetts was attacked by Native Americans on 10 February 1676. Mary White Rowlandson (1637 – 1711) and three of her children, and twenty other settlers were kidnapped for many months until a 20 pound ransom was arranged by John Hoar, a Concord resident.  The release and ransom of Mary happened in April right here at this large boulder, which was on the boundary between the white settlers and the wilderness where the native people lived.  

Later, she wrote a book called The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson published in 1682 in Boston and also in London.  It was considered a bestseller of its time. 

A first edition of Mary Rowlandson's book
published in Boston in 1682

John Hoar was the missionary to the praying Indians of the region.  He negotiated for her ransom, which was paid by some wealthy Boston women.  Hoar took Mary back to Boston to be with her husband, the Reverend Joseph Rowlandson, and two surviving children.  In 1677 he was called to be the minister at Wethersfield, Connecticut, where he died in 1678.  Mary took her children back to Boston where she wrote her memoir.  She married Captain Samuel Talcott in 1679, and died in 1711.

John Hoar (1622 – 1704) is the father of my 9^th great aunt, Elizabeth Hoar who married Jonathan Prescott (1643 – 1721) of Concord, Massachusetts.   Jonathan’s sister, Mary Prescott, is my 8^th great grandmother.  Mary’s second husband, Captain Samuel Talcott is my 2^nd cousin, 9 generations removed.

My genealogy link to Mary White Rowlandson:

                                                                        William Skinner m. Margery Trotter

                                                                                                I

                                                John Talcott m. Anne Skinner John Skinner m. Mary Loomis

                                                                        I                                               I

John Talcott m. Dorothy Mott     Joseph Skinner m. Mary Filley

                                                                        I                                               I

Joseph Rowlandson m.1 Mary White m.2. Samuel Talcott                John Skinner m.  Sarah Porter

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                                                Aaron Skinner m. Eunice Taintor

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                                                Charles Skinner m. Sarah Osborn

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                                    Ann Skinner m. Thomas Ratchford Lyons

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                                      Isabella Lyons m. Ingraham E. Bill

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                                  Caleb Rand Bill m. Ann Margaret Bollman

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                             Albert Munroe Wilkinson m. Isabella Lyons Bill

                                                                                                                        I

                                                                          Donald Munroe Wilkinson m. Bertha Louise Roberts

                                                                                                       (my grandparents)

For more information:

Redemption Rock Park  http://www.thetrustees.org/places-to-visit/central-ma/redemption-rock.html

The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, by Mary Rowlandson, Cambridge, Massachusetts: University Press, 1803 (facsimile reproduction of the original) available to read online at Google Book Search.

New England Captives Carried to Canada Between 1677 and 1760 during the French and Indian Wars, by Emma Lewis Coleman, (originally published in two volumes in 1925) Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2012.  

The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity, by Jill Lepore, New York: Alfred A. Knopf publishers, 1998.

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The URL for this post is

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/12/redemption-rock-who-was-redeemed-and-why.html

Copyright © 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Surname Saturday ~ Kettell of Charlestown

 

Charlestown, Massachusetts
From Britannica.com

KETTELL/KETTLE

Richard Kettell’s origins are unknown, but he was probably from England.  The first record of him was when he and his wife were admitted to the church in Charlestown, Massachusetts on 30 July 1633.  He was made a freeman on 4 March 1634/5.  He was a cooper and a sergeant in the militia. His wife was “Atherton Haulghe’s maid servant”. 

Richard Kettell owned about 33 acres, which was a lot of land in Charlestown.  In his will he mentions his children, grandchildren, and the division of this land. In his will he lists land near the mill pond, which you can see in the map above.  His son, John Kettell, removed to Gloucester, and lived for a time in Lancaster where his wife was carried off by the Indians in 1676 during one of the raids, and she spend some time with the captive Mary Rowlandson.   There is a Kettell's Cove in nearby Gloucester in the town of Manchester-by-Sea, very close to the house where my Uncle Robert Wilkinson lived for many years. 

I am descended from two of Richard Kettell’s children, Hannah and Jonathan.

Some sources for Kettell information:

The Great Migration Begins, by Richard Charles Anderson, Boston: NEHGS, 2000, Volume II, pages 1124 – 1128. You can also see Charlestown Genealogies by Thomas Bellows Wyman, 1879, Volume 2, page 574, and the Thayer Genealogy by Ruther Thayer Ravenscroft, Colorado Springs, 1943.

Genealogy:

Generation 1: Richard Kettell, born about 1609 in England, died 20 June 1680 in Charlestown, Massachusetts; married about 1636 to Hester Ward, born about 1612 in England, died 5 July 1679 in Charlestown.  Six children.

Lineage A:

Generation 2: Hannah Kettell, born 27 October 1637 in Charlestown, died 27 August 1708 in Charlestown; married on 26 June 1656 in Charlestown to John Call, born 6 March 1636 in Faversham, Kent, England, died 19 April 1697 in Charlestown, Massachusetts.  Eight children.

Generation 3: Mehitable Call m. John Rand

Generation 4: Caleb Rand m. Katherine Kettell ( his second cousin)
Generation 5: Caleb Rand m. Mary Mayhew
Generation 6: Mary Rand m. Asahel Bill
Generation 7: Reverend Ingraham Ebenezer Bill m. Isabella Lyons
Generation 8: Caleb Rand Bill m. Ann Margaret Bollman
Generation 9: Isabella Lyons Bill m. Albert Munroe Wilkinson
Generation 10: Donald Munroe Wilkinson m. Bertha Louise Roberts (my grandparents)

Lineage B:

Generation 2:  Jonathan Kettell, born 1646 in Charlestown, died 18 December 1720 in Charlestown; married on 30 March 1676 in Charlestown to Abigail Converse, daughter of James Converse and Anna Long.  She was born 13 October 1658 in Woburn, and died 25 January 1691 in Charlestown.  Five children.

Generation 3.  Jonathan Kettell, born 23 August 1681 in Charlestown, died 21 January 1764 in Charlestown; married first on 8 May 1707 in Boston to Katherine Hands, daughter of John Hands and Mary Bell.  She was born about 1681 and died on 8 March 1748.  He married second to Eunice Treadway on 24 October 1748.  He had ten children with his first wife.

Generation 4: Katherine Kettell and Caleb Rand (see above)

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Surname Saturday ~ Wright of Woburn, Massachusetts

John Wright was another early settler at Woburn, Massachusetts, like many of the other ancestors I’ve been writing about these past months. It is unknown when he arrived from England and he first lived at Charlestown.  In 1640 he signed up for the new parish which became Woburn, and  was settled by many families from Charlestown and Malden.  In the early Woburn records he was a selectman and a deacon.

John Wright married Priscilla, the daughter of Reverend Richard Byfield.  Reverend Byfield had fourteen children, and named the Wright grandchildren in his will.

Some sources for researching John Wright:

There is a sketch of John Wright in the book The Ancestry of Eva Belle Kempton, Volume II: The ancestry of Amanda Spiller 1823 – 1873, by Dean Crawford Smith and Melinde Lutz Sanborn,  Boston: NEHGS, 2008 on page 366 – 395.   I used the Charlestown and Woburn Vital Records, Torrey’s New England Marriages Prior to 1700, the book The History of Woburn, and the Lancaster, Massachusetts records for the Sawyer family records.

There is a website http://www.wrightfamily.ca/genealogy/index.php that outlines a branch of the Wright family that went to Canada. 

My Wright genealogy:

Generation 1: John Wright, son of John Wright and Jane Belchenden, baptized on 15 September 1601 at St. Dunstan’s, West Peckham, Kent, England, and died 21 June 1688 in Woburn, Massachusetts;  married about 1627 in England to Priscilla Byfield, born about 1610 and died 10 April 1687 in Woburn, Massachusetts.  Six children.

Generation 2: Sarah Wright, born 16 Feb 1652 in Woburn; married on 2 January 1678 in Concord, Massachusetts to Joshua Sawyer, son of Thomas Sawyer and Mary Platts alias Gawkroger.  He was born 13 March 1655 in Lancaster, Massachusetts, and died 14 July 1738 in Woburn.  Seven children.

Generation 3:  Mary Sawyer m. Robert Convers

Generation 4: Susanna Converse m. Caleb Simonds

Generation 5: Ruth Simonds m. Andrew Munroe

Generation 6: Luther Simonds Munroe m. Olive Flint

Generation 7: Phebe Cross Munroe m. Robert Wilson Wilkinson

Generation 8: Albert Munroe Wilkinson m. Isabella Lyons Bill

Generation 9: Donald Munroe Wilkinson m. Bertha Louise Roberts

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Surname Saturday ~ Prescott of Lancaster, Massachusetts

PRESCOTT

John Prescott was a blacksmith in Sowerby, in the parish of Halifax, Yorkshire, England.  He came to Barbados in 1628, and then to Watertown Massachusetts about 1640 with his wife and first four children.  In about 1645 or 1646 they removed to the Nashaway Plantation, which became the town of Lancaster, Massachusetts.  He was admitted as a freeman in 1669.  He built the first gristmill and sawmills in Lancaster.   In 1900 a bronze marker was placed near where John Prescott’s mill once stood. 

Lancaster was several miles inland from the Massachusetts coast, in an isolated area of Worcester County.  Because of the remote location it was attacked by the local Indians during King Phillip’s War on 10 February 1676, and the town was abandoned for several years.  Eventually the Prescott family removed back to Lancaster.   There are legends of John Prescott going about in his chain mail and sword to defend himself against another Indian attack.   Unfortunately he was killed in another Indian massacre in 1681, along with his grandson, Ephraim Sawyer.  There were many Indian raids through the years, killing many members of the Prescott family in Lancaster.

One of those legends is in the book The Wheeler Family of Rutland, Massachusetts by Daniel Merrick Wheeler, 1924 : “John was a sturdy, strong man of stern countenance, and whenever he had any difficulty with the Indians he would clothe himself with his coat of mail, helmet, cuirass, and gorget, which gave him a fierce and frightful appearance.  They having once stolen from him a horse, he put on his armour and pursued them; and in a short time overtook the party.  They were surprised to see him along, and a chief approached him with uplifted tomahawk.  John told him to strike, which he did, and finding the blow made no impression on his cap, he was much astonished… They gave him up his horse, thinking him to be a supernatural being.”

John Prescott has no surviving headstone, but a memorial was erected at the Old Burial Ground in Lancaster and it reads:

“Here with his children about him lies John Prescott Founder of Lancaster and first settler of Worcester County Born at Standish Lancashire England Died at Lancaster Massachusetts Dec. 1681 Inspired by the love of liberty and the fear of God This stout hearted pioneer Forsaking the pleasant vales of England And encountered wide beast and savage to secure freedom for himself and his posterity His faith and virtues have been inherited by many descendants who in every generation have well served the state In war, in literature, at the bar, in the pulpit, in public life, And in Christian homes”

There are many books about John Prescott and his family history.  There is an old book The Prescott Memorial or a Genealogical Memoir of the Prescott Families in America in Two Parts, by William Prescott, MD, 1870 that is fairly reliable.  You can read it at Google Books.   There is another book The Descent of John Prescott, Founder of Lancaster, Massachusetts, 1645, from Alfred the Great, King of England by Frederick Lewis Weis, 1948 is less reliable on the English origins of this family, as is the update published in 1957.  You will have better luck reading up on the descendants of John Prescott in the town histories of Lancaster, the town military annals, and in the various vital records of the town. 

Randy Seaver, author of the genealogy blog “GeneaMusings” www.geneamusings.com is also a descendant of John Prescott, and has written several blog posts about him.  Another descendant is genealogy blogger Bill West at “West in New England”  http://westinnewengland.blogspot.com/   There are many famous Prescott descendants including Colonel William Prescott of the Battle of Bunker Hill, Doctor Samuel Prescott who accompanied Paul Revere during the Lexington alarm, and William H. Prescott, historian of Mexico and Peru. 

My Prescott genealogy (note that at least five people named below died in massacres):

Generation 1:  John Prescott, born about 1604 in Standish, Lancastershire, England, died 20 December 1681 in Lancaster, Massachusetts; married on 11 April 1629 in Sowerby, Halifax, Yorkshire, England to Mary Platts alias Gawkroger.  She was born 15 May 1607 in Halifax, Yorkshire, England and died after 1678 in Lancaster, England.  Eight children, the first four baptized in England.

1. Mary, (see below)  My 8^th great grandmother.

2. Martha, bap. 11 March 1632, m. John Rugg, died after childbirth in 1656

3. John, bap. 1 Paril 1635, m. Sarah Hayward

4. Sarah, bap. 1637, m1. Richard Wheeler who was killed in the Lancaster Indian massacre of 1676, m2 Joseph Rice

5. Hannah, probably b. Barbados 1639, m. John Rugg her sister’s widower.  He was killed in the Lancaster Indian massacre of 1697.

6. Lydia, b. 15 August 1641 m1 Jonas Fairbank who was killed with son Joshua in Lancaster Indian massacre of 1676. (see below)   She is my 8^th great aunt and also my 9^th great grandmother.

7.  Jonathan, b. about 1640 m1. Dorothy Unknown, m2 Elizabeth Hoar, m3 Rebecca Bulkeley, m4 Ruth Brown

8. Jonas, b. 1648 in Lancaster, m. Mary Loker

1^st lineage:

Generation 2: Mary Prescott, baptized on 24 February 1630 in Sowerby, died in April 1716 in Lancester, Massachusetts; married on 2 July 1648 in Rowley, Massachusetts to Thomas Sawyer, born 1616 in England, died 12 September 1706 in Lancaster.  Thirteen children.

Generation 3:  Joshua Sawyer m. Sarah Wright

Generation 4: Mary Sawyer m. Robert Converse

Generation 5:  Susanna Converse m. Caleb Simonds

Generation 6:  Ruth Simonds m. Andrew Munroe

Generation 7:  Luther Simonds Munroe m. Olive Flint

Generation 8:  Phebe Cross Munroe m. Robert Wilson Wilkinson

Generation 9:  Albert Munroe Wilkinson m. Isabella Lyons Bill

Generation 10:  Donald Munroe Wilkinson m. Bertha Louise Roberts (my grandparents)

2^nd lineage:

Generation 2: Lydia Prescott, born 15 August 1641 in Watertown, d. 31 December 1723 in Watertown; married Jonas Fairbanks on 28 May 1658 in Lancaster.  He was the son of Jonathan Fairbanks and Grace Smith, born 6 March 1625 in Dedham, Massachusetts, died in the Lancaster Indian massacre of 10 February 1676, along with his son Joshua.  Six children.  Lydia remarried to Elias Barron.

Generation 3:  Grace Fairbanks m. Ephraim Bullen

Generation 4: John Bullen m. Sarah Underwood

Generation 5: Grace Bullen m. Ebenezer Healey

Generation 6: Comfort Healey m. Abigail Allen

Generation 7:  Comfort Healey m. Rebecca Crosby

Generation 8: Joseph Edwin Healy m. Matilda Weston

Generation 9: Mary Etta Healey m. Peter Hoogerzeil

Generation 10:  Florence Etta Hoogerzeil m. Arthur Treadwell Hitchings

Generation 11: Gertrude Matilda Hitchings m. Stanley Elmer Allen (my grandparents)

This means that I am descended from John Prescott on both my maternal and paternal side!

UPDATE:   There is a great blog post with lots of photos of John Prescott's gravesite and other views of the Old Settler's Burial Field in Lancaster at Michael Auger's blog:
http://michaelsgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/11/old-settlers-burial-field-lancaster.html

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To Cite/Link to this post:  Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Surname Saturday ~ Prescott of Lancaster, Massachusetts", Nutfield Genealogy, posted March 9, 2013, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/03/surname-saturday-prescott-of-lancaster.html: accessed [access date]). 

Surname Saturday ~ Sawyer of Lancaster, Massachusetts

SAWYER

This is another case of “three brothers came to America”.  There were three Sawyer brothers, and they settled in Rowley, Newbury, and Lancaster, Massachusetts.   Tradition is that they came together, but there is only proof that Thomas arrived early and Edward and William do not appear in records until after 1643.
 

Thomas Sawyer lived first in Ipswich, and appears in the records in 1636.  In 1643 some land in Rowley, Massachusetts was set off to Thomas Sawyer and to Edward Sawyer.  Thomas left Rowley to settle Nashaway Plantation, now known as Lancaster, where he is on the list of proprietors in 1647.  He was admitted as a freeman in 1654.  His house was on the East side of Main Street near  today's Seventh Day Adventist School (Atlantic Union College).   

During King Phillip’s War the local native Indians held several raids on Lancaster.  On 10 February 1675 there was a massacre which killed Thomas Sawyer’s son, Ephraim, and his father-in-law, John Prescott.  The town was abandoned for several years, and when it was re-settled Thomas Sawyer was a local leader in the growth of the town.  In 1705, another war broke out between England and France and there was another raid on the town.   Thomas Sawyer was able to survive all this and died in 1706, at age 90.  He has a very primitive gravestone in the Lancaster burial ground.

Thomas Sawyer's headstone
from FindAGrave.com

Thomas’s son, Joshua removed to Woburn in 1670 and was elected a freeman.  He fought in King Phillip’s War as a member of Captain Henchman’s company in 1676. 

For more information on the Sawyer family, see the History of the Town of Lancaster, Massachusetts by Abijah Perkins Marvin and the book The Birth, Marriage and Death Register, Church Records and Epitaphs and Lancaster, Massachusetts 1643-1850 by Henry S. Nourse, 1890.  There are two articles in The American Genealogist,  “Mary Carter, First Wife of Nathaniel Sawyer of Lancaster, Massachusetts” by Frank G. Lesure, 2000, Volume 75, pages 51 – 54 and also “The Children of Thomas Sawyer of Lancaster” by Claude W. Barlow, 1954, Volume 30.  See also the book Sawyer Familes II: Edward, William, Thomas, 1636 – 2005 by Eleanor Grace Sawyer, Penobscot Press, 2005.  There is a manuscript at NEHGS “Genealogy of the Sawyers of England, from which the American line descended” by Fannie Sawyer Quinn call number Mss A 4631 (8 typed pages).

My Sawyer genealogy:

Generation 1:  Thomas Sawyer, son of John Sawyer and Agnes Sharpe, born in 1616 in Lincolnshire, England, died on 12 September 1706 in Lancaster, Massachusetts; married on 2 July 1648 in Rowley, Massachusetts to Mary Prescott, daughter of John Prescott and Mary Platts alias Gawkroger, baptized on 24 February 1630 in Sowerby, Yorkshire, England and died in April 1716 in Lancaster, Massachusetts.  Thirteen children.

Generation 2: Joshua Sawyer, born 13 March 1655 in Lancaster, died on 14 July 1738 in Woburn, Massachusetts; married on 2 January 1678 in Concord, Massachusetts to Sarah Wright, daughter of John Wright and Priscilla Byfield.  She was born on 16 February 1652 in Woburn.  Seven children.

Generation 3:  Mary Sawyer, born about 1681, died 1766; married on 19 December 1698 in Woburn to Robert Convers, son of James Convers and Hannah Carter.  He was born 29 December 1677 in Woburn, died on 20 July 1738.  Twelve children.

Generation 4:  Susanna Converse m. Caleb Simonds

Generation 5: Ruth Simonds m. Andrew Munroe

Generation 6: Luther Simonds Munroe m. Olive Flint

Generation 7: Phebe Cross Munroe m. Robert Wilson Wilkinson

Generation 8: Albert Munroe Wilkinson m. Isabella Lyons Bill

Generation 9: Donald Munroe Wilkinson m. Bertha Louise Roberts (my grandparents)

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Surname Saturday ~ Ball of Watertown, Massachusetts

BALL

John Ball went to Nashaway Plantation, later called Lancaster, Massachusetts.  He was one of three men sent to occupy the land.  He was a tailor, and his first wife, Elizabeth Pierce, went insane about 1660.  The court gave guardianship of three children to her parents, and gave his in-laws guardianship of his wife. She died and he remarried to Elizabeth Fox.  They removed to Lancaster where in 1675 he, his wife, and infant son Joseph were slain during an Indian massacre and two other children (Esther and Abigail) were taken captive. The surviving children were probably living with his Pierce in-laws in Watertown.

His son, also called John Ball, administered to his father’s estate after the massacre. He was a weaver, and learned his trade from his grandfather Peirce.

Some sources for researching the descendants of John Ball include the History of Watertown by Henry Boston, 1860, Stone-Gregg Genealogy by Alicia Crane Williams, 1987, and Divided We Stand: Watertown, Massachusetts 1630 – 1680, by Roger Thompson, 2001, pages 1008 – 109.  There is a book The Descendants of John Ball, Watertown, Massachusetts, by Frank Densmore Warren and Mrs. George H. Ball, 1932 available to read online at Archive.org.  There is a fairly accurate family tree at the website www.newenglandballproject.com

One famous descendant of John Ball is the actress Lucille Ball (1911 – 1989).

My Ball family lineage:

Generation 1.  John Ball, born 1620, died on 10 September 1675  at Lancaster, Massachusetts; married Elizabeth Pierce, daughter of John Pierce and Elizabeth Hart, who died about 3 October 1665 in Lancaster. Five children, including Mary Ball who was the second wife of my 7x great grandfather William Munroe.  John Ball married second on 3 August 1665 to Elizabeth Fox and had three more children.

Generation 2. John Ball, son of John Ball and Elizabeth Pierce, born 1644 in Watertown, Massachusetts, died 8 May 1722; married on 17 August 1665 to Sarah Bullard, daughter of George Bullard and Beatrice Hall. Nine children.

Generation 3. Daniel Ball, born 2 August 1683 in Watertown, died 9 March 1718 in Watertown, married on 10 November 1708 to Mary Earl, daughter of John Earl and Mary Lawrence, born 9 January 1690 in Watertown. Two children.

Generation 4. Mary Ball, born 27 December 1709 in Watertown, married on 4 May 1726 in Watertown to Joseph Mixer, son of Joseph Mixer and Anna Jones, born 14 December 1705 in Watertown. Eight children.

Generation 5. Lucy Mixer m. Andrew Munroe

Generation 6. Andrew Munroe m. Ruth Simonds

Generation 7. Luther Simonds Munroe m. Olive Flint

Generation 8. Phebe Cross Munroe m. Robert Wilson Wilkinson

Generation 9. Albert Munroe Wilkinson m. Isabella Lyons Bill

Generation 10. Donald Munroe Wilkinson m. Bertha Louise Roberts (my grandparents)

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Copyright 2012, Heather Wilkinson Rojo