Surname Saturday ~ Southwick of Salem, Massachusetts

SOUTHWICK

Shelter Island Map

Updated 7 December 2019

Lawrence Southwick does not appear in any official records until 1639 in Salem, when he was admitted to the church and given two acres of land for his glass and “earthenware” business.  He is supposed to be one of the first glass manufacturers in the New World according to family lore, although Jamestown, Virginia had an early glass business.  Lawrence, his wife Cassandra, and son Josiah and daughter Mary were fined, whipped and finally banished for being Quakers.    Lawrence and his wife died of exposure on Shelter Island, off Long Island, New York in 1659.

Their minor children, Daniel and Provided were sold into slavery by the General Court.  This episode was made into a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier called “The Ballad of Cassandra Southwick” (he switched the name of the mother and daughter, I guess the name Cassandra was more poetic than Provided).    See my blog post http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2009/11/ballad-of-cassandra-southwick.html for more on this story. 

Lawrence Southwick’s will, made before he was banished:

I, Lawrence Sethick, late of Salem in New England, now being at the house of Nathaniel Silvester, on Shelter Island, being weake in body but of sound mind and memory, do make and ordayne this my last will and testament, tenth day of fifth month, 1659.

I first give and bequeath unto my sonne Daniel Sethick my dwelling house at Salem, with all the houses, orchards, gardens and appurtenances; and Gyle's lot, provided that John Burnell shall have a house lott on the ground at the further end of the orchard newly fenct in.

Item. My will is that the lott which I had of Josiah Sethick shall return to him again.

Item. I give unto John Sethick the lott next to his owne.

Item. My will is that the great meadow which lyes at Ipswich River, fenct in, shall be divided Daniel Sethick and John Burnell equally.

Item. I give unto Samuel Burton forty shillings.

Item. I give unto John Burnell, if he stand faithful in the truth, two young steers and the first mare foal.

Item. I give unto Henry Traske Marshall's lott joining to his orchard, provided that Daniel may have liberty to mow a load of hay every year thereon.

Item. I give unto Mary Traske my daughter, wife of Henry Traske, ten pounds sterling.

Item. I give unto Deborah Sethwick and young Josiah, each of them fifty shillings sterling.

Item. I give unto Ann Potter forty shillings, in she thinks beneficial for her.

Item. I give unto Mary Traske, daughter to Henry Traske, one good serge suit of clothes; and unto Sarah and Hannah each of them a suit of clothes.

I give and bequeath unto Samuel and Sarah, John Sethick's children, to each of them thirty shillings sterling.

Furthermore my will is that Daniel my sonne, and Provided my daughter, shall possess and enjoy all that which remains of my estate after debts and legacies paid, and my will above mentioned fulfilled, equally to be divided between them so that Daniel may have that part which belongs to husbandry.

Lastly my will is that in case my wife survives me shee shall be my executrix and keep all possessions during her life, and after her decease my will to be performed according as above expressed; and I do ordayne William Robinson and Thomas Gardner to be overseers of this my last will and testament, signed and sealed by me the day and year above written with my hand and seal following.

In presence of

NATHANIEL SILVESTER, signed by

THOMAS HARRIS, LAWRENCE SETHICK.

WILLIAM DURAND,

This will was allowed by the court 29, 9 mo., 1660.

attest

HILLARD VEREN, Clericus.

The story of the Southwick family is exciting, and because there were many court records this family is fairly easy to trace.  I used the following sources:

Genealogical Dictionary of New England, by James Savage, Volume IV, pages 142 -3.

Genealogy of the Descendants of Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick of Salem, Massachusetts, by James Moore Caller and Maria A. Ober, Salem, Mass: JH Choate, 1881

A Study of Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick, by Janet Ireland Delorey, 1997

The Genealogist, Volume XII, pages 223-31 and Volume XVI, pages 40 -41.

Essex Institute Historical Collections, Volume 57, pages 177-179. (Burnap/Burnett family)

Note:  Sir Winston Churchill, President Richard Milhous Nixon and genealogist William Addams Reitwiesner were all descendants of Lawrence Southwick.

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My Southwick Genealogy:

Generation 1.  Lawrence Southwick, son of Edward Southwicke and Anne Shelley, born in Tetenhall, Staffordshire, England, died 10 May 1659 at Shelter Island, New York; married about 1619 in England to Cassandra Burnell, daughter of Humphrey Burnell and Margaret Unknown.  She was born about 1598 in Kingswinford, Staffordshire, England and died about 13 May 1659 at Shelter Island.  Five children:

1. Mary Southwick married William Nichols

2. John Southwick (see below)

3. Josiah Southwick, born about 1632 married Mary Boyce

4. Daniel Southwick, born about 1637 in Salem, married Esther Boyce

5. Provided Southwick, born 6 December 1641 in Salem, married Samuel Gaskill

Generation 2. John Southwick, born 6 March 1625 in Kingswinford, died 25 October 1672 in Salem, married first about 1642 to Sarah Unknown, widow of Samuel Tidd, three children; married second on 12 May 1658 to Ann UNKNOWN, widow of Thomas Flint.   Four children. He married third on 3 February 1668/9 to Sarah Burnap/Burnett/Burnell, daughter of John Burnap/Burnett.

Generation 3.  John Southwick, born January 1667, died about 1742; married  on 23 December 1687 in Salem to Hannah Follett, daughter of Robert Follet and Persis Black.  She was born on 23 December 1664 in Salem.  Seven Children.

1. John Southwick (see below)

2. Joseph Southwick, born 1 January 1691

3. Sarah Southwick, born 9 February  1694, married Thomas Hutchins

4. Abraham Southwick, born 27 July 1696

5. Hannah Southwick, born 6 November 1698, married Ebenezer Hutchinson

6. Benjamin Southwick, born 22 January 1702, married Sarah Southwick (first cousin, daughter of Isaac Southwick and Ann Unknown)

7. Isaac Southwick, born 23 September 1704, married Esther Clark

Generation 4.  John Southwick, born 13 December 1688, died before 7 October 1771; married on 8 January 1710 in Salem to Mary Trask, daughter of William Trask and Anna Unknown.   She was born in March 1683 in Salem, died before 1767. Seven children, and I descend from two:

1. John Southwick, born 1710, married Elizabeth Wilson

2. William Southwick, born 1715,  married Sarah Elizabeth King

3. Mary Southwick, born 1717, married Ebenezer King

4. Anna Southwick, born 1719, married Zachariah King

5. Elizabeth Southwick, (see below)

6. Joseph Southwick, born about 1723, married Mary Wilson

7. George Southwick (see below)

First Lineage from Elizabeth Southwick:

Generation 5.  Elizabeth Southwick, born 1721; married about 24 May 1744 in Salem to Robert Wilson, son of Isaac Wilson and Mary Stone.  He was born about 1724, died before 20 July 1782. Four children.

Generation 6. Robert Wilson m.  Sarah Felton

Generation 7. Robert Wilson m. Mary Southwick, daughter of George Southwick and Sarah Platts

Generation 8. Mercy F. Wilson m. Aaron Wilkinson

Generation 9. Robert Wilson Wilkinson m. Phebe Cross Munroe

Generation 10. Albert Munroe Wilkinson m. Isabella Lyons Bill

Generation 11. Donald Munroe Wilkinson m. Bertha Louise Roberts (my grandparents)

Second Lineage from George Southwick:

Generation 5. George Southwick, born about 1726, died before 1808 in Danvers, Massachusetts; married on 18 December 1670 in Danvers to Sarah Platts, daughter of Moses Platts and Ruth Williams, and the widow of Francis Shatswell.  She was born 26 August 1735 in Gloucester, Massachusetts, died after 1803.  Seven children:

1. George Southwick, born about 1761, married Betsey Ashton

2. Francis Southwick, born about 1764,  married Hannah Mitchell

3. Sarah Southwick, born abut 1766

4. Mercy Southwick, born 19 March 1767, married Joseph Brown

5. Nathan Southwick, born about 1771, married Molly Moulton

6. Rebecca Southwick, born about 1774, married James Raddin

7. Mary Southwick, born 3 June 1777, married Robert Wilson (see above)

Click here to read a blog post about Shelter Island (where Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick died)
http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-visit-to-shelter-island.html  

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Surname Saturday ~ Southwick of Salem, Massachusetts", Nutfield Genealogy, posted March 10, 2012, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/03/surname-saturday-southwick-of-salem.html: accessed [access date]).  

How the Women Went From Dover

Three Quaker women from England appeared in Dover, New Hampshire in 1662 to preach against the established church.  These women spoke out against the customs of the established minister John Reynor.   Major Richard Waldron, a local magistrate,  issued this decree:

“To the constables of Dover, Hampton, Salisbury, Newbury, Rowley, Ispwich, Wenham, Lynn, Boston, Roxbury, Dedham, and until these vagabond Quakers are carried out of this jurisdiction.

You, and every one of you, are required, in the King’s Majesty’s name, to take these vagabond Quakers, Anne Colman, Mary Tomkins and Alice Ambrose, and make them fast to the cart’s tail, and driving the cart through your several towns, to whip them upon their naked backs not exceeding ten stripes apiece on each of them, in each town; and so to convey them from constable to constable till they are out of this jurisdiction, as you will answer it at your peril; and this shall be your warrant.”

Richard Waldron

Dated at Dover, December 22, 1662

According to Sewall’s History of the Quakers:

"The women thus being whipped at Dover, were carried to Hampton and there delivered to the constable . . . The constable the next morning would have whipped them before day, but they refused, saying they were not ashamed of their sufferings. Then he would have whipped them with their clothes on, when he had tied them to the cart. But they said, 'set us free, or do according to thine order.' He then spoke to a woman to take off their clothes. But she said she would not for all the world. 'Why,' said he, then I'll do it myself.' So he stripped them, and then stood trembling whip in hand, and so he did the execution. Then he carried them to Salisbury through the dirt and the snow half the leg deep; and here they were whipped again. Indeed their bodies were so torn, that if Providence had not watched over them, they might have been in danger of their lives."

The order was carried out in Dover and at Hampton, (both now in New Hampshire) with the idea of running the women all the way to Rhode Island.   In the town of Salisbury, which is now on the Massachusetts side of the border) the constable, Robert Pike, refused to follow the order.   A man named Dr. Walter Barefoot convinced the constable to name him as a deputy, and he took them to safety in Kittery, Maine. 

Strangely, the women eventually returned to Dover, where over one third of the people converted to the Quaker religion.   The towns people prophesized that Waldron’s victims would be avenged.  Prophetically, he was killed in an Indian raid a few years later. 

John Greenleaf Whittier, a Quaker poet, wrote this poem for the Atlantic Monthly, Volume 51, issue 308, page 805 -6 in June 1883.  He was an ardent progressive, and the Atlantic Monthly was a liberal Boston journal.  Whittier lived in nearby Haverhill, Massachusetts, on the New Hampshire border.   Many of Whittier’s poems are based on New Hampshire legends, or Quaker history, such as the Ballad of Cassandra Southwick, which I blogged about at this link: http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2009/11/ballad-of-cassandra-southwick.html

Just like Cassandra Southwick, I am related to one of the characters in his poem about the three Quaker women from Dover, New Hampshire.  Unfortunately this time it is the villain, Richard Waldron.   Waldron married Ann Scammon, sister to my 9x great grandmother, Elizabeth Scammons who married Thomas Atkins.  Richard Waldron was born 6 January 1615 in Warwickshire, England, and died on 17 June 1689 in Dover, New Hampshire during the Cochecho Massacre.  His cruelty was not just a figment of Whittier’s rich imagination.  Even the Penacook Indians were so angry with his reign over them that:

 “The Indians rushed into Major Walderne's garrison. He attempted to defend himself with a sword but was quickly overpowered and tied to a chair. The furious Penacooks each slashed the 74 year old man across the chest with his own sword, crying out " I cross out my account!" They hacked off his nose and ears then thrust them into his mouth. Finally, they forced him to fall upon his sword. Even in death, the Indians were not done with vengeance: they cut off the hand that had cheated them by holding down down the scales during trading. The final act of revenge was to burn the house to the ground, and murder or take captive the rest of Walderne's family.”

From the 1909 Heritage Walk Tour Booklet at the Dover, New Hampshire Public Library, http://www.dover.lib.nh.us/DoverHistory/cocheco.htm 

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How the Women Went From Dover 
by John Greenleaf Whittier

The tossing spray of Cocheco's fall
Hardened to ice on its rocky wall,
As through Dover town, in the chill, gray dawn,
Three women passed, at the cart-tail drawn!
Bared to the waist, for the north wind's grip
And keener sting of the constable's whip,
The blood that followed each hissing blow
Froze as it sprinkled the winter snow.
Priest and ruler, boy and maid
Followed the dismal cavalcade;
And from door and window, open thrown,
Looked and wondered gaffer and crone.
"God is our witness," the victims cried,
"We suffer for Him who for all men died;
The wrong ye do has been done before,
We bear the stripes that the Master bore!
"And thou, O Richard Waldron, for whom
We hear the feet of a coming doom,
On thy cruel heart and thy hand of wrong
Vengeance is sure, though it tarry long.
"In the light of the Lord, a flame we see
Climb and kindle a proud roof-tree;
And beneath it an old man lying dead,
With stains of blood on his hoary head."
"Smite, Goodman Hate-Evil!--harder still!"
The magistrate cried, "lay on with a will!
Drive out of their bodies the Father of Lies,
Who through them preaches and prophesies!"
So into the forest they held their way,
By winding river and frost-rimmed bay,
Over wind-swept hills that felt the beat
Of the winter sea at their icy feet.
The Indian hunter, searching his traps,
Peered stealthily through the forest gaps;
And the outlying settler shook his head,--
"They're witches going to jail," he said.
At last a meeting-house came to view;
A blast on his horn the constable blew;
And the boys of Hampton cried up and down,
"The Quakers have come!" to the wondering town.
From barn and woodpile the goodman came;
The goodwife quitted her quilting frame,
With her child at her breast; and, hobbling slow,
The grandam followed to see the show,
Once more the torturing whip was swung,
Once more keen lashes the bare flesh stung.
"Oh, spare! they are bleeding!" a little maid cried,
And covered her face the sight to hide.
A murmur ran round the crowd: "Good folks,"
Quoth the constable, busy counting the strokes.
"No pity to wretches like these is due,
They have beaten the gospel black and blue!"
Then a pallid woman, in wild-eyed fear,
With her wooden noggin of milk drew near.
"Drink, poor hearts!" A rude hand smote
Her draught away from a parching throat.
"Take heed," one whispered, "they'll take your cow
For fines, as they took your horse and plow.
And the bed from under you." "Even so,"
She said. "They are cruel as death I know."
Then on they passed, in the waning day,
Through Seabrook woods, a weariful way;
By great salt meadows and sand-hills bare,
And glimpses of blue sea here and there.
By the meeting-house in Salisbury town,
The sufferers stood, in the red sun-down,
Bare for the lash! O pitying Night,
Drop swift thy curtain and hide the sight!
With shame in his eye and wrath on his lip
The Salisbury constable dropped his whip.
"This warrant means murder foul and red;
Cursed is he who serves it," he said.
"Show me the order, and meanwhile strike
A blow at your peril!" said Justice Pike.
Of all the rulers the land possessed,
Wisest and boldest was he, and best.
He scoffed at witchcraft; the priest he met
As man meets man; his feet he set
Beyond his dark age, standing upright,
Soul-free, with his face to the morning light.
He read the warrant: "These convey
From our precincts; at every town on the way
Give each ten lashes." "God judge the brute!
I tread his order under my foot!
"Cut loose these poor ones and let them go;
Come what will of it, all men shall know
No warrant is good, though backed by the Crown,
For whipping women in Salisbury town!"
The hearts of the villagers, half released
From creed of terror and rule of priest,
By a primal instinct owned the right
Of human pity in law's despite.
For ruth and chivalry only slept,
His Saxon manhood the yeoman kept;
Quicker or slower, the same blood ran
In the Cavalier and the Puritan.
The Quakers sank on their knees in praise
And thanks. A last, low sunset blaze
Flashed out from under a cloud, and shed
A golden glory on each bowed head.
The tale is one of an evil time,
When souls were fettered and thought was crime,
And heresy's whisper above its breath
Meant shameful scourging and bonds and death!
What marvel, that hunted and sorely tried,
Even woman rebuked and prophesied,
And soft words rarely answered back
The grim persuasion of whip and rack!
If her cry from the whipping-post and jail
Pierced sharp as the Kenite's driven nail,
O woman, at ease in these happier days,
Forbear to judge of thy sister's ways!
How much thy beautiful life may owe
To her faith and courage thou canst not know,
Nor how from the paths of thy calm retreat
She smoothed the thorns with her bleeding feet. 

For the truly curious:

This blog post is about the Cocheco Massacre, which was revenge by the native people on Richard Waldron.  The Quakers and the native population were just some of the victims of Waldron's cruelty:   https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2015/05/cochecho-massacre-27-june-1689-dover.html  

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To cite/link to this blog post:  Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "How the Women Went From Dover", Nutfield Genealogy, posted February 10, 2012, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-women-went-from-dover.html: accessed [access date]). 

Black History Month ~ Frederick Douglass in New Hampshire, 1842

The historic Old Meeting House in Pittsfield,
now the town Senior Center

In the 1840s not all of New England espoused Abolitionist beliefs, or embraced the idea that the African slaves were their brothers.  Most of New Hampshire did not follow the liberal beliefs found in Salem or Boston.  It was rural.  Most residents had never seen a black person. Remember, at this time the only president from New Hampshire was in office, and Franklin Pierce was infamous for signing the Fugitive Slave Act, and for being a copperhead.

In 1842 Frederick Douglass was sent by the Massachusetts Anti Slavery Society to speak at the church in tiny Pittsfield, New Hampshire. He was only 25 years old, recently freed from slavery.  He had to ride on the roof of the stage coach because “no colored person could be allowed inside” as he stated in his autobiography.  He was not met with open arms.  The Hilles family, who was asked to board him, subscribed to the Liberator.  They felt obliged to put him up but not to treat him well.  Douglass wrote that Mr. Hilles suffered from “colorphobia”.

One year earlier in Northfield, New Hampshire a pastor named George Storrs prayed at his pulpit for abolition.  He was arrested on a complaint of disturbing the peace!  This made national headlines.  He was arrested a second time in Pittsfield by the authority of a writ signed by the Democratic US Representative who lived in town.  The Reverend Storrs was sentenced to three months hard labor. Frederick Douglass knew he was facing a tough audience.

During Frederick Douglass’s lecture, the audience was polite, but did not applaud. During the lunch break no one invited him home, and the only tavern in town asked him to leave.  Douglass sat on a stone wall by the church in the rain to wait until the evening session of his lecture.  Finally, a gentleman passing by took pity and invited him to his home.  This was the US Representative Moses Norris, well known pro-slavery advocate who had signed the writ for Reverend George Storrs arrest!

Frederick Douglas sat on the wall or on one
of the tombstones here at the Meeting House cemetery

At the Norris home, the children ran screaming from the house when they saw a black man enter the door.  Mrs. Norris first acted cold, but then opened her heart when she saw Douglass was shivering and hungry.  By the end of the meal, Douglass quoted “from that moment I could see that her prejudices were more than half gone, and that I more than half welcome at the fireside of this Democratic Senator.  I spoke again in the evening and at the close of the meeting there was quite a contest between Mrs. Norris and Mrs. Hilles, as to which I should go home with.”

Hearts were turned in little Pittsfield, New Hampshire.  His evening lecture was a huge success and Douglass went on to become a famous speaker all over the north.  Moses Norris went on to become a US senator, succeeding Franklin Pierce. In this part of New England there are still few black residents, and few black tourists.  But Pittsfield has honored the stone wall, where a discouraged Frederick Douglas sat shivering, as part of their heritage trail with this a marker:

Transcription of the historical marker at Pittsfield, New Hampshire

1842 - Frederick Douglass' Visit
On one of these gravestones sat the black abolitionist Frederick Douglass in a cold, drizzling rain after giving an anti-slavery speech in the Old Meeting House. Having been refused service at a nearby hotel, he was hungry and without shelter. Pro-slavery Senator Moses Norris, Jr., in an act of humanitarian kindness, invited the disconsolate stranger into his house for the evening. Thereafter, Mr. Douglass was treated with great respect.

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From The Nation’s Problem by Frederick Douglass, 1889

“There is still a great deal of prejudice, even in the North, against colored people; but he has found out that the only way to cure it, is to treat them kindly. This he proved by the fact that at Pittsfield, New Hampshire, forty-eight years before, Mrs. Norris had been helped, by doing him a kindness, to shake off her prejudice against his color and his views so thoroughly as to be the first to shake hands with him after his lecture.”

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At Hampton, New Hampshire John Greenleaf Whittier wrote this tongue-in-cheek poem in honor of the election of 1846, as a coded letter from Franklin Pierce to Moses Norris.  It mentions the anti-slavery Free Will Baptists of New Hampshire, and abolitionist John P. Hale, who was elected senator as a dissident Democrat.

“ ‘Tis over, Moses!  All is lost!

I hear the bells-a-ringing;

Of Pharoah and his Red Sea host

I hear the Free Wills singing.

We’re routed, Moses, horse and foot,

If there be truth in figures,

With Federal Whigs in hot pursuit,

And Hale and all the ‘niggers’…

The ides of June! Woe the day

When, turning all things over,

The traitor Hale shall make his hay

From Democratic clover!

Let Hale exult and Wilson scoff,

To see us southward scamper;

The slave, we know, are “better off

Than laborers in New Hampshire!”

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For more information:

The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, by Frederick Douglass, Kessinger Publishing, 2004,  see pages 530 – 534 for the description of his days in Pittsfield, New Hampshire.

A post at SeacoastNH.com by historian J. Dennis Robinson, his primary source was the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail Resource Book by Valerie Cunningham and Mark Sammons, http://seacoastnh.com/arts/please021001.html

The Pittsfield, New Hampshire Heritage Trail website, and this link takes you to the page describing Douglass’s lecture at the Old Meeting House

 http://www.pittsfield-nh.com/publicinfo/parkstrails/historical_walking_trail_2.htm

The map and trail brochure can be printed out for visitors.

Jacksonian Antislavery and the Politics of Freedom, by Jonathan H. Earle,  University of North Carolina Press, 2003, pages 98 -99 for Whittier’s poem about Norris and Storrs.

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Black History Month ~ Frederick Douglass in New Hampshire, 1842", Nutfield Genealogy, posted February 9, 2012, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/02/black-history-month-frederick-douglass.html: accessed [access date]).