USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > Rehoboth > Early Rehoboth, documented historical studies of families and events in this Plymouth colony township, Volume III > Part 21
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"ABIGAIL HOLBROOK, aged seventy eight yeares or thereabouts, 4 who dwelleth at Scituate but now being at roxbury made oath Novembr 4th 1701 that she was about eight yeares of age when she came first into this country with her father Richard Wright &c. &c. Her deposition is to the same purport as her sister's.
"NEHEMIAH WALTER aged 38 yeares or thereabouts testifyeth & saith that there came over with him from Ireland in ye same ship of wch Capt. Grecian of Boston was Comander in ye yeare 1680 the widow of mr. Palmes in Ireland, who had with her foure children (viz) Jonathan, Ann, Elizabeth and Susanna Palmes who were her reputed children and acknowledged by her to be her children, and farther saith not.
"Mr. Nicholas Lang & m's Ann Palmes were maried on the tenth day of January 1687/8 Mr. Samuel Avery of New London was maried to mrs. Susannah Palmes on the 25: of October 1686.
"Transcribed out of the Register of Swanzey, May 25: 1701 P WILLIAM INGRAHAM Town Clarke"
[Suffolk County Court Files, original papers No. 5,400.]
1. RICHARD WRIGHT, of Lynn, Boston, and Braintree, Massa- chusetts, and of Seekonk, Plymouth Colony, was born in England probably about 1598. He married in England, but the name of his wife is not known. He came to New England in the first fleet with Winthrop in 1630, accompanied by at least three, and perhaps four daughters, and probably Margaret Wright who may have been his mother.
Banks in his Planters of the Commonwealth said that Richard Wright came from Stepney (Ratcliffe), co. Middlesex, England, but as that statement is unsupported by original source record, it has no importance, for the name was common in England and Stepney had many inhabitants named Richard Wright. Walter Goodwin Davis of Portland, Maine, suggests * as worth investigating the possibility that Richard Wright of Rehoboth may have been a son of Rev. Richard Wright, a Fellow of Eton College and rector of Everdon, county Northampton, 1613-1638. In his will dated 1 Apr. 1633 he left a house and land in Wargrave, county Berks, to his wife Frances for life and after her death to his son Richard "if he be in England". His other children were Francis, Theodore, John,
* The Ancestry of Joseph Neal (1769-c1835), by Walter Goodwin Davis, Portland, 1945, footnote p. 97.
t Wargrave, a parish in the hundred of Wargrave, co. Berks, bounded on the north by the river Thames, is about 45 miles south of Everdon [Lewis's Topographical Dictionary, vol. IV, p. 388].
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Samuel, Nathaniel, and Anthony. Rev. Richard Wright was buried at Everdon on 16 June 1638.
Everdon, in the county of Northampton, is twenty miles from the eastern boundary line of the county of Warwick and about forty miles east of Lemington Priors where Richard Wright of Rehoboth visited on his return to England in 1646/7. Everdon is also four and one-quarter miles southeast of Daventry,* county Northamp- ton, where several generations of the family of Thomas Bliss of Rehoboth lived and where he himself married, on 22 Nov. 1614, his first wife Dorothy, daughter of John Wheatly. After coming to New England, Thomas Bliss was associated with Richard Wright in several different settlements. In his will made at Rehoboth 7 Oct. 1647, Thomas Bliss entreated his well beloved friends Richard Wright and Stephen Payne to be overseers.
Richard Wright was in the employ of Col. John Humfrey, who lived mostly in London, and also had an estate in Sandwich, co. Kent, so that there is a wide range of places in which he might have contacted Colonel Humfrey. Here again is plenty of opportunity for research. Where, or when Richard Wright died is not known. There is no record of his estate settlement in either the Suffolk or Bristol County records.
In 1643 we find Richard Wright and his three sons-in-law and families all settled in the new plantation at Seekonk. He had a 12- acre home lot in the northwest end of the "ring of the town" on the north side of the present Hoyt Avenue near Wannamoiset Golf Clubhouse in the Rumford section of the town of East Providence, R. I. His three sons-in-law each had 8-acre home lots. Richard Wright's lot adjoined Robert Sharpe's on the east; William Sabin's on the west; and James Clarke's adjoined William Sabin's.
At the same time we also find in Seekonk a George Wright who apparently had a wife and one child. He had been a lieutenant at Braintree and came to Seekonk with Richard Wright. What the relationship was is unknown.
Children, order of birth uncertain:
i. ,2 d. about 1661; m., perhaps about 1639, WILLIAM SABIN, who was buried at Rehoboth 8 Feb. 1686/7. He m. (2) at Medfield, 23 Dec. 1663, Rev. Ralph Wheelock officiating, Martha Allen, b. 11 Dec. 1641, dau. of James and Anna Allen, of Medfield, Mass. Widow Martha Sabin m. (2) at Rehoboth, 20 Jan. 1689/90, Rich- ard2 Bowen of Rehoboth. William Sabin had twelve children by his first wife, eight by his second, a total of twenty.
Children (surname Sabin) all except first two born at Rehoboth: t 1. Samuel, b. -
2. Elizabeth, b. -- 1642 (gravestone).
3. Joseph, b. 24 June 1645.
4. Benjamin, b. 3 July 1646.
* Daventry, a market town and parish having separate jurisdiction, locally in the hundred of Fawsley, co. Northampton, is 1214 miles (W. by N.) from Northampton, and 72 (N.W.) from London, on the road to Holyhead [Lewis's Topographical Dictionary (1831), vol. II, p. 11].
t Cf. Sabin Family in America, by Rev. Anson Titus, Jr. (1882), REGISTER, vol. XXXVI, p. 52. In the original Rehoboth Records the months for the births of these children are all given in figures. In converting these to months, Mr. Titus unfortunately counted from January, instead of March, with the result that the months given in his genealogy are three months too early.
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5. Nehemiah, b. 28 May 1647.
6. Experience, b. 8 Aug. 1648.
7. Mary (Mercy), b. 23 July 1652.
8. Abigail, b. 8 Nov. 1653.
9. Hannah, b. 22 Dec. 1654.
10. Patience, b. 28 Feb. 1655[/6].
11. Jeremiah, b. 24 Mar. 1657.
12. Sarah, b. 27 Sept. 1660.
ii. ELIZABETH. Between 1644 and 1647, "Elizabeth Clarke, wife of James Clarke, she is bro Wrights daughter", joined the Roxbury Church [Printed Roxbury Church Records, p. 86]. This is the only record of James Clark having a wife named Elizabeth. When he made his will in 1667 his wife was Elinor Wright, dau. of Richard Wright. His first child baptized in the Roxbury Church is named % Elizabeth, and no recorded child is named Elinor. It may be, as Savage and other writers have stated, that the church record is wrong and that the name "Elizabeth" was mistakenly entered for "Elinor". It is also possible, of course, that Elizabeth was his first wife and that her sister Elinor was his second. Additional research is necessary.
iii. ELINOR, b. in England about 1621; d. after 1701; came to New Eng- land with her father in 1630; m. JAMES CLARK, d. at Muddy River (now Brookline) 19 Dec. 1674 [Ch. Rec.], son of John Clarke, alias Kingman, of Wells, England [REGISTER, vol. LI, p. 115].
On 24 Oct. 1640, James Clark was listed at Braintree for 2 heads and 8 acres of land. He was one of the first settlers at Seekonk in 1643. After 1645 he left Rehoboth and settled at Roxbury where on 28 June 1668 he became a member of Rev. John Eliot's church.
In his will dated 11 Sept. 1667, and probated 7 Jan. 1674/5, James Clark bequeathed to wife, without naming her, also, his sons James, eldest son, Samuel, John and Aaron. No daughters are mentioned in his will, but it would seem that there must have been several living at the time it was written. Friends Peter Aspinwall, James Pemerton, and son-in-law, Walter Morey, were named over- seers [Suffolk County Probate Records, 715, vol. VI, p. 74].
On 29 Jan. 1674 Elinor Clarke made oath in court as to the inventory (£158 6s.) of her late husband James Clark [Suffolk County Probate Records, vol. V, p. 224].
Children (surname Clark), first child probably born at Rehoboth, rest at Roxbury .*
1. Elizabeth, bapt. 24 Jan. 1645.t
2. Mary, bapt. 24 May 1646.į
3. Martha, bapt. 25 Apr. 1648.
4. Hanna, bapt. 23 Dec. 1649. .
5. James, bapt. 11 Apr. 1652.
6. Samuel, bapt. 9 Apr. 1654.
7. John, bapt. 23 Mar. 1655/6.
8. Abigail, b. [?] 21 Mar. 1657/8.
9. Mercie, bapt. 2 Sept. 1660.
10. Aaron, bapt. 1 Mar. 1662/3.
11. Sarah, bapt. 14 Oct. 1666.
iv. ABIGAIL, b. in England about 1623, came to New England with her father in 1630. She m. probably at Braintree, before 1640, as his second wife, ROBERT SHARPE, b. in 1615, d. in July 1653 or 1654, son of Richard Sharpe of Islington, co. Norfolk, England.§ He came in the Abigail in July 1635 and settled at Braintree. It would appear that he had two children by his first wife, for at Braintree on
* Church records in Roxbury printed Vital Records.
+ The printed church record also gives another date of 24 Mar. 1646.
# The printed Vital Records also give another date of 8 Jan. 1645.
§ N. E. Hist. & Gen. Register, vol. XCVIII, pp. 204, 5.
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12 Feb. 1640 he was granted 16 acres of land for 4 heads. From Braintree he went to Seekonk as one of the first settlers.
The inventory of Robert Sharpe's estate was taken 19 Jan. 1654 by Peter Oliver and Edward Clap; amount £172 7s. 6d. Estate indebted to Elder Colbren; debt due from Mr. Pilbeame* of Rehoboth; payed to Peter Aspinwall for so much as he lent ye Sharp; to Robert Hake, Abraham Hoe, William Fugrame, for labor; Mr. Gore, for goods; to Mary Read for sereuice; to Goodman Dunckin; Goodman Voysy; Capt. Johnson of Rox, for a horse coller; Edward Devotion, Thos. Clarke, Peter Oliver. Whole es- tate £172 7s. 6d. Debts, £83 6s. 8d. The house & land, prized at £110, at the request of the widow & her friends set apart for the childrens portions so farr as it goes, the rest the widdow is to make good. Said land & house is bound over to the court for the sd childrens portions, the Sonne paying his sisters theire portions; the house & land sd Robert Sharpe his father desyred is to be wholy his. 26 Jan. 1654 [REGISTER, vol. VIII, p. 276; cf. vol. X, p. 84, and vol. XXXI, p. 103].
Widow Sharpe m. (2) about 1657 THOMAS CLAPP, b. at Dorches- ter, England, in 1597, d. at Scituate 20 Apr. 1684. He moved from Weymouth to Scituate. Widow Clapp m. (3) about 1696 Capt. WILLIAM2 HOLBROOK, t b. in England about 1627, d. at Scituate 3 July 1699.
Children (surname Sharpe) :
1. John, b. at Braintree 12 Mar. 1642/3; m. in 1665.
2. Abigail, b. at Rehoboth in 1647.
3. Mary, bapt. at Roxbury 5 Dec. 1652.
Children (surname Clapp), t born at Scituate:
4. John, b. 18 Oct. 1658; d. in 1671.
5. Abigail, b. 29 Jan. 1659/60.
The only known autographs of Richard Wright and his two sons-in-law, William Sabin and De faul sonyft willian platin Jauver flaske James Clark, here first repro- duced, are photographed from the Rehoboth Compact which they signed in 1644. Thirty men signed this compact which is an original source for their autographs. In most cases these are their only extant signatures.
Mr. Bodge, in his Soldiers in King Philip's War (3rd Ed., 1906), page 59, said that "in 1668 Capt. Samuel Mosely was one of the commissioners sent by the Massachusetts General Court to treat with the Sachems of the Narragansets, in company with Richard Wayt and Captain Wright".
This was not the Rehoboth Richard Wright, but Capt. William Wright who accompanied Captain Mosely and Sergt. Richard Wayte as messengers from the Court bearing complaints of Massa- chusetts Bay against the inimical attitude of the Narragansett Indians [Mass. State Archives, vol. XXX, pp. 150, 151].
Some eleven years earlier, in February 1656/7, this same marshal, Sergt. Richard Waite (Wayte), and Richard Wright (the Rehoboth man) were sent by the Massachusetts Court to Pawtuxet to arrest Richard Chasmore. See ante, page 124.
* This was Mr. James Pilbeame of Rehoboth, father-in-law of Rece Leonard.
t George Walter Chamberlain, Hist. of Weymouth, vol. III, pp. 159, 60.
CHAPTER V
CAPTAIN GEORGE WRIGHT
This study* of the life of Capt. George Wright of Rehoboth proves for the first time that he is identical with George Wright of Salem and Braintree, Massachusetts Bay Colony; Providence and New- port, Rhode Island Colony; and of Gravesend, Westchester, and Flushing, Long Island, New Netherland. It also proves that George was the progenitor of the Wright family of Flushing, Long Island, and that Jonathan Wright of Salem, who was born in co. Essex, England, in 1620, was not the progenitor as first stated in print; some thirty years ago. The thousands of descendants of this Long Island Wright family will here find for the first time the name and record of their colorful first American ancestor.
In this chapter will be found an account of the close relations and movements between the Rhode Island towns and the western end of Long Island and New Amsterdam in the middle of the seventeenth century. This connection is much closer than has hitherto been suspected, and the study of the career of Captain Wright enables us to treat of this movement more extensively than has heretofore been done by Rhode Island and New York historians.
Capt. George Wright had numerous affairs with women, resulting in court cases, the records of which, read three centuries later, blaze for him a clear trail through four colonies, and show why it was necessary for him to move from one colony to another.
At a meeting of the Massachusetts Court of Assistants held at Boston on 5 Dec. 1643, he was bound over in the sum of £40 to appear at the next March term of the court for his attempted affair 'with a married woman". He probably "jumped" his bail and came to Seekonk [Rehoboth] before 10 Mar. 1644, for at a town meeting held on that day he drew a lot of land in the first division of the Neck. He remained quietly in Rehoboth until 2 Mar. 1646/7, when he was before the Plymouth Colony Court "for attempting the chastity of divers women" at Rehoboth.
He "jumped" his Plymouth Court bail, and shortly after 20 Apr. 1647, fled to Rhode Island, where on 16 May 1648 he had Daniel Gould and Henry Stephens, both of Newport, before the General Court of Election, held at Providence, for circulating a "scandelous report" (probably about his actions in Rehoboth). This matter was cleared up and the Rhode Island court wrote the Plymouth court asking "that his [Wright's] bonds may be taken off".
* This study is a typical example of what persistent research in the original records will do in reconstructing the events in the lives of the people who lived in New England three hundred years ago. In this case, starting with a few isolated records, which by themselves mean little, and building up a chronological list of every mention of the name found in the original records, we have a clear picture of the man; his travels through four colonies; and of the times in which he lived.
t The Norton-Lathrop-Tolles-Doty American Ancestry, etc. (1916), compiled by James E. Norton.
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Early Rehoboth
On 29 Jan. 1648/9 Capt. George Wright was in jail* for "stabbing Walter Lettice at Newport with a pike, and if not dead not like to live".
It will probably never be known whether Walter Lettice lived or died, for the Newport records for this period are irretrievably lost. Roger Williams, a doctor, tells his friend John Winthrop, another doctor, that if Lettice is "not 'dead he is not like to live", so that it would seem very likely that he died.
As both men were soldiers, the stabbing may have been the result of a fair fight with pikes. Unfortunately, Roger Williams does not say. Walter Lettice was before the Portsmouth court in 1646 charged with circulating scandalous stories, and it may well be that he circulated one story too many, this time about Captain Wright.
We next find a George Wright of Gravesend, Long Island, men- tioned in court cases at New Amsterdam in 1654/5. In 1657 a George Wright was banished from Westchester County "for at- tempted adultery". Four and a half months later we find our Capt. George Wright of Rehoboth located across the East River, seven miles south of Westchester, in the town of Flushing, Long Island. He permanently located there, where he deeded all his Rehoboth lands to his eldest son, Jonathan Wright.
There can be no doubt that the four George Wrights found from 1654 to 1657 in the four towns in New Netherland and Long Island are identical with the Capt. George Wright of Rehoboth. These four towns form the corners of a parallelogram roughly 812 miles wide by 1312 miles long, comprising about 114 square miles. Gravesend is on the southwest corner, New Amsterdam about 10 miles north, Westchester about 13 miles northeast, and Flushing about 7 miles south.
From the few records we have it would seem that of all the swash- buckling young military blades in New England three centuries ago, Capt. George Wright of Rehoboth, who left a clear trail across four colonies, must have stood well up on the list. In those early days the military officers appear to have been a closely knit fraternity, and it does seem that if not especially privileged, they were able to transgress some of the more important Puritanic laws with less risk of prosecution than was possible for the average plain citizen.
In a way this is understandable, for the soldier represented a par- ticular type of man. The successful military officer had to be a dominating leader possessed of a reckless fighting spirit, mixed with a good deal of daring which was not entirely confined to fighting. He was chosen from the strongest and most intelligent of the male population, and the women knew that they and their children were dependent on his fighting leadership and organizing ability for protection against the ever present savage.
Among these early seventeenth century officers were many blus- tering, drinking, roistering characters whose spare time, between fighting, seems to have been mainly taken up with liaisons with
* At this time the common jail for the whole colony was in Newport.
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Captain George Wright
women, frequently resulting in the forced removal of the officers from the colony.
History is full of accounts of these affairs with women, perhaps best exemplified by the record of that doughty fighter Capt. John Underhill* who was so closely connected with Rhode Island and its interests in the Dutch plantations. His mother and stepfather, Capt. Richard Morrice, and sister Lettice Morrice, wife of Richard Bulgar, all lived at Portsmouth, R. I. Captain Underhill was the first full-time professional commander of the military forces in Massachusetts Bay; sent to Salem in January 1635 to arrest Roger Williams and place him on board a ship then anchored at Natascut
* In the otherwise detailed history of Capt. John Underhill, Underhill Genealogy (1932), vols. I and II, the compiler has omitted all of the original records showing his various affairs with some half dozen women (cf. Winthrop's Journal, Savage Ed. (1858), vol. I, pp. 210, 324, 325, 333, 393; vol. II, pp. 16, 17). In writing genealogies it seems to be a common practice to omit all unfavorable court records. This is an untruthful way of writing family history, and, of course, is indefensible for the original records stand and cannot be ignored. Every known record should be included, favorable or otherwise, for it is only by a study of all the records that we are able to arrive at a correct evalua- tion of the individual, and through him construct a history of the times in which he lived.
In the case of Captain Underhill, nothing printed about him in the Underhill Genealogy even suggests that he was the blustering, swaggering braggart so clearly shown in that three-hundred- year-old record of his confession of his affair with the cooper's wife, "who had withstood him for six months . .. which he thought no woman could have resisted".
John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem of twenty-five stanzas on "Capt. John Underhill". This poem is printed in the Underhill Genealogy, vol. II, pp. 28-32. Four of these stanzas indicate that there were some interesting events in his life, no mention of which is found in the Underhill Genealogy. If these original records are to be ignored in the genealogy, the compiler, to have been consistent, should have also deleted four stanzas from Whittier's poem. These stanzas are:
"Then a whisper of scandal linked his name With broken vows and a life of blame; And the people looked askance on him As he walked among them sullen and grim, Ill at ease, and bitter of word, And prompt of quarrel with hand or sword.
"Jeer and murmur and shaking of head Ceased as he rose in his place and said: 'Men, brethren, and fathers, well ye know How I came among you a year ago, Strong in the faith that my soul was freed From sin of feeling, or thought, or deed.
"'I have sinned, I own it with grief and shame, But not with a lie on my lips I came. In my blindness I verily thought my heart Swept and garnished in every part. He chargeth His angels with folly; He sees The heavens unclean. Was I more than these?
"""I urge no plea. At your feet I lay The trust you gave me, and go my way. Hate me or pity me, as you will, The Lord will have mercy on sinners still; And I, who am chiefest, say to all, Watch and pray, lest ye also fall.'"
Capt. Daniel Patrick was a professional soldier under Captain Underhill in Massachusetts Bay. Winthrop says that he was of a vain and unsettled disposition and grew very proud and vicious. Also, that he had a wife, a good Dutch woman and comely, yet he despised her and followed after other women. Perceiving that he was discovered and that such evil practices would not be ap- proved, he set down within twenty miles of the Dutch and put himself under their protection. In the Indian uprising he fled to Stamford. In Captain Underhill's house a Dutchman charged him with treachery. Captain Patrick gave him ill language and spit in his face. As he turned to leave the room, the Dutchman shot him in the back of the head and killed him [Winthrop's Journal, Savage Ed. (1858), vol. II, p. 182].
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Early Rehoboth
to be sent to England; one of the captains in the punitive expedition against the Narraganset Indians at Block Island in 1636; with Maj. John Mason co-conqueror of the Pequot Indians in 1636/7; chief commander of the Dutch army at New Amsterdam, destroying the Indian encampment at Greenwich in 1644; sheriff of Flushing, Long Island, 1648; and conqueror of the Dutch in 1653. Between fights, Captain Underhill rode high, wide, and handsome with various women as recorded so fully by Governor Winthrop in his Journal.
The General Court of Election held at Providence on 16 May 1648 was momentous to the Colony of Rhode Island. At this session of the General Assembly Mr. William Coddington was elected Gov- ernor of the colony and immediately thereafter Capt. Jeremy Clark of Newport was elected President Regent to act as governor in the place of Governor Coddington "pending his clearance of certain accusations".
At this busy session the court took time out to consider the simple petition of Capt. George Wright of Rehoboth who complained that two Newport men were telling stories about him. Pressure was apparently brought to bear on these two men and they retracted. Not satisfied to stop here, the court then proceeded to order Mr. Nicholas Easton (elected President of the Colony two years later) and Capt. Robert Jeffrey to write the Plymouth magistrates asking them to release Captain Wright from his bonds.
This request by the Rhode Island court was made in spite of the fact that Capt. George Wright had been found guilty at the Ply- mouth Court by a jury of twelve men, including one Rehoboth man, on the charge of "attempting the chastity of divers Rehoboth women" and had been released under £40 bonds. As a condition of his release he agreed not to leave Plymouth Colony and to appear at the next session of the Plymouth Court. He returned to Reho- both, sold his property, "jumped" his bail, and fled to the Rhode Island Colony. In addition to this record, Captain Wright had been bound over by the Massachusetts Bay Court in 1643 for an af- fair "with a married woman" and had fled or left the colony and had gone to Seekonk.
Thus it will be seen that in Rhode Island Capt. George Wright suddenly emerges from semi-obscurity and becomes a man of im- portance and power altogether out of proportion to anything that could be surmised from any previously known records. As pointed out, the military officers seem to have been a closely knit fraternity. They were loyal and when occasion demanded were able to muster considerable political backing.
The knowledge of this fact led the writer to an examination of the composition of the Rhode Island court. This examination solved the mystery, for it disclosed that about twenty-five per centum of the court was composed of military officers, including in their num- ber most of the important and influential men in the colony.
These military officers were: Capt. Jeremy Clarke, of Newport, President Regent of the Colony; Capt. Richard Morrice,* of Ports-
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