Weathervane Wednesday ~ Weathervanes in Boston, England

I posted a series of weather vane photographs every Wednesday for the last several years.  This started with images of weathervanes from the Londonderry, New Hampshire area, but now I've found interesting weather vanes all across New England and across the globe.  This is the last weathervane post of the series!  I hope you've enjoyed these Weathervane Wednesday posts. 

Today's weather vanes were photographed in England.

Do you know the location of weathervane post #400?  Scroll down to find the answer.

These weathervanes were photographed on the tower above the "Boston Stump" or St. Botolph's church,  in Boston, Lincolnshire, England.  The name of the town "Boston" is thought to derive from "St. Botolph's town".  We were visiting Boston during our tour of England and Holland with the General Society of Mayflower Descendants Historic Sites Tour last year.

There appear to be eight weathervanes on the octagonal tower above the church.  Each is a gilded banner, and very shiny in the sunlight.  However, the tower is extremely tall at 272 feet height, and we could only see these weathervanes using the zoom lens on the camera.  You can see the sunlight glinting off the banners from a great distance.  This tower is so tall, sailors at sea use it as a landmark!

There is a "Puritan Path" of markers outside the
church, memorializing the Puritans who left
Lincolnshire for Boston, Massachusetts

"1630 John Cotton bids farewell to his parishoners on the the Arbella"

This church is very important in New England history.  The Puritan leader Rev. John Cotton was a vicar at St. Botolphs in the 17th century.  He encouraged a large number of his congregation, on board the ship Arbella and other ships in the Winthrop Fleet, to leave for New England in 1630.  By 1633 Rev. Cotton also left, and he founded and named Boston, Massachusetts.  There is a Cotton Chapel inside St. Botolph's church now, as well as a model of the Mayflower (the Pilgrim Fathers were imprisoned in Boston for trying to escape to Holland).   I had several ancestors believed to have been on board the Arbella, including Samuel and William Chesebrough, William Beamsley, Edward Converse, Mattias Irons, Edmund Lockwood, Thomas Mayhew, and Ezekiel Richardson.

Five men from Boston, England became Governors of Massachusetts - Richard Bellingham, Thomas Dudley, Simon Bradstreet, John Leverett and Francis Bernard.

I think that this church and it's weathervanes are a nice way to wrap up this series of 400 weathervane posts for "Weathervane Wednesday".  I can't think of a town or church in England that influenced migration and family history as much as the "Boston Stump".

I hope you enjoyed this series!

Click here to read about our day in Boston, Lincolnshire, England:
https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2017/11/along-pilgrim-trail-boston-lincolnshire.html

Click here to see the entire collection of Weathervane Wednesday posts!

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Weathervane Wednesday ~ Weathervanes in Boston, England", Nutfield Genealogy, posted January 30, 2019, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2019/01/weathervane-wednesday-weathervanes-in_23.html: accessed [access date]). 

Surname Saturday ~ LOCKWOOD of Cambridge, Massachusetts

The famous genealogist Donald Lines Jacobus thought that the Lockwood family originated in Combs, Suffolk, England and that brothers Edmund and Robert Lockwood arrived in New England with the Winthrop Fleet in 1630.  But the author of the Great Migration series, Robert Charles Anderson, believes that there is not any proof of this.  Edmund Lockwood, born about 1600, my 10^th great grandfather, is of uncertain origins.

Edmund’s first record in New England was 19 October 1630 when he was made a freeman.  He was third on the list of “Newtowne inhabitants” in 1632 (Newe Towne is now known as Cambridge, Massachusetts.   He was made the constable on 9 May 1632. 

Edmund Lockwood was married twice.  His first wife died before 1630, probably in England.  He was married by 1632 to Elizabeth, the widow of John Masters of Cambridge.   Edmund died soon after his second marriage, before 3 March 1634/5, and the court in Watertown was ordered on 2 June 1635  to “dispose his elder children” to their uncle, Robert Lockwood, who was living in Stamford, Connecticut.  These elder children were probably the offspring of the first wife.

Many Lockwood descendants believe that they are descendants of Robert Lockwood because of a very erroneous genealogy compiled in 1889 Descendants of Robert Lockwood (see below).    Donald Lines Jacobus (see above) corrected the mistakes, especially the children of Edmund who were previously assigned to be children of Robert Lockwood.  However, Jacobus’s journal articles were not read by the general public, who have perpetuated the mythical lineages online. 

This is a case of READ THE LATEST RESEARCH!  No one should depend on an 1889 genealogy without checking for more recent research. 

Also, in The Great Migration:  Immigrants to New England 1634 – 1635, Volume 1, page 234, Anderson states “Mary Lockwood [wife of Jeremy Belcher) was probably a previously unidentified daughter of EDMUND LOCKWOOD of Cambridge… These children of the immigrant’s first marriage were to be ‘disposed of’.  Since the son of Edmund, even though he eventually resided in Stamford, married a woman from Ipswich, this may be where he was placed, so it would not be surprising if we found other children in that town as well.)”

Mary Lockwood Belcher (about 1625 – 1700) is my 9^th great grandmother.  You can read all about the BELCHER family HERE. 

Some Lockwood resources:

The Great Migration Begins, by Robert Charles Anderson, Volume II, pages 1192- 1194 for the sketch of Edmund Lockwood.  See also Connecticut Ancestors, Volume 27, pages 9 – 18.

The Great Migration, by Robert Charles Anderson, Volume IV, pages 308 – 315 for the sketch of Robert Lockwood.  See also Connecticut Ancestors, Volume 48, pages 53-58.

“Some Descendants of Edmund Lockwood 1594 – 1635”, by Harriet Woodbury Hodge, 1978

“Early Records of Boston (Cambridge)”, NEHGS Register, Volume 4, page 181.

Do not rely on Descendants of Robert Lockwood, Colonial and Revolutionary History of the Lockwood Family from AD 1630, by Frederick A. Holden and E. Dunbar Lockwood, 1889 (online at Archive.org).     See instead the article “An Atrocious Lockwood Blunder” by Donald Lines Jacobus in The American Genealogist, 1954, Volume 31, pages 222 – 228.

My LOCKWOOD genealogy:

Generation 1:  Unknown Lockwood, lived in England, had two sons, Edmund and Richard Lockwood.

Generation 2:  Edmund Lockwood, born about 1600 in England and died before 3 March 1634/35 in Cambridge, Massachusetts; married first to Unknown (at least two known children, probably more); married second to Elizabeth, widow of John Masters of Cambridge (one child named John).

Generation 3:  Mary, daughter of Edmund Lockwood and his first unknown wife, born before 1625 in England, and died October 1700 in Ipswich, Massachusetts; married on 30 September 1652 in Ipswich to Jeremy Belcher.  He was the son of Thomas Belcher and Anne Unknown, born about 1613 in Wiltshire, England and died 21 March 1693 in Ipswich.  Eight children.  (Jeremy Belcher had four children with a previous wife, Mary Clifford).

Generation 4:   Mary Belcher m. Thomas Andrews

Generation 5:  Thomas Andrews m.  Mary Smith

Generation 6:  Mary Andrews m.  Stephen Burnham

Generation 7: Joshua Burnham m. Jemima Wyman

Generation 8:  Jemima Burnham m. Romanus Emerson

Generation 9: George Emerson m. Mary Esther Younger

Generation 10: Mary Katharine Emerson m. George E. Batchelder

Generation 11:  Carrie Maude Batchelder m. Joseph Elmer Allen

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

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Surname Saturday ~ LOCKWOOD of Cambridge, Massachusetts", Nutfield Genealogy, posted December 3, 2016,  (http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/12/surname-saturday-lockwood-of-cambridge.html: accessed [access date]).