USA > Massachusetts > Dukes County > Marthas Vineyard > The history of Martha's Vineyard, Dukes County, Massachusetts, Volume II > Part 9
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Sixtly I give that whole Commonidg which was Arys to my aforeSayd Son Beniamin Norton
Seventhly I give to Elizabeth Norton my wife all my Catle Coues oxen Steeres & Sheepe also all my hors kind & furder I give my Sayd wife Elizabeth Norton all my houeshold goods Beding pewter bras Iron
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tin wood wood as Chests trunks tables Chayers and all other things not named, also all plowes Carts Chayns yoks and all other utensells with all lumber: furder I leve my Sayd wife to give my dafter pese and my dafter wil (Wollong or Williams) and my dafter Stanbridg & my dafter Butler Something to Every one of them as much as shee sese cause: as also my dafter huxford to her my wife knows my mind
Eithly. my medow at the neck Caueled the Manado I leve to my wife Elizabeth Norton
Ninthly I doe apoynt my Sayd wife Elizabeth Norton to be. my Sole Execitor and to performe my will as abof whritin.
The mark of N Nicklis
Norton
Witness
Richard Sarson Joseph Norton.
His widow did not long survive to carry out the pro- visions of her husband's will. She died a few months after him, between June 8, the date of her will, and Oct. 8, 1690, when it was proven in Court. The following is a copy of her will :-
[Court Records, Vol. I, 1690.]
Edgartown in Marthas Vineyard June 8, 1690
The Last will and testament of me Elizabeth Norton widow I doe give to my fouer dafters named in my husbons will, five Shillins to Each of them.
I give that houes & land to Ester huxford that my Son benjamin Norton lives in and to be delevered before his Entering into mine I dwell in acord- ing to my Said husbons will & mind he left with me to performe & I give my Sd dafter Ester huxford that pese of medow laying between Izak Nortons meadow and the medow of Moses Cleveland nere Mortols Neck. Then my will is after my death Christian buryall & funerall Rights be performed first I give that pese or parsoll of medow laying at a place Caueled Mana- doo to my Son Joseph Norton
Secondly I give to all and Every on of my gran-Children on Shillin in money to Every one of them and to be payd wthin ten days after my buriall thirdly I give all my lands houeses medows fences Commons Cattle Sheep horses and horskind & monys with all my household goods as beding & bed furnyture with all my Chests trunks tables Chayers with all my pewter bras Iron and tin vesels with all my plews Carts Chayns yoks wedges Siths with all other things and goods that is mine to all my Sons and dafters to be Equally devided amongst them to Every on alick Equall por- tion and sher
fourthly I doe apoynt my Son Joseph Norton to be Execitor to this my will to pay all my depts and delever out all my legasys treuly and faythfullv acording this my mind and will.
fifthly I doe Request Richard Sarson to be overser to see this my will performed soe far as he is able: and in witnes to this my will I have put too my hand and Sele the day and yere abof whritin
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Sixtly I doe Request my beloved son Izak Norton to be overser with Richard Sarson to this my will
Witness here untoo mark
mark The U Elizabeth Norton. of
The X Johnnathan danham
gershom donham
This abof mentioned will be profed in Coart is Exepted Court held Octobr the Eight: 1690 pr Curiam
Tho Butler Clarke
Whereas by the last will and testament of Elizabeth Norton is mentioned as bequeathed to hester huxford an hous and land according to the will of Nicolas Norton left with his wife sd Elizabeth Isaac Norton
The maiden name of his wife is not known. He married her probably in Weymouth, and she must be sought for in that locality. Their descendants have constituted one of the largest families on the island from the earliest times.1
THOMAS PAINE.
sho paint This young man was the step-son of Thomas Mayhew, Senior, and was brought to the Vineyard as a boy when about fourteen. He was born Feb. 8, 1632, the son of Thomas and Jane [Gallion ?] Paine of London. His father was a London merchant, who died after May, 1631, and before July, 1635, by which latter date the widow had become the second wife of the elder May- hew.2 Thomas Paine, the father, must have been a well-to-do business man, as he owned property outside of London, in Whittlebury, Northamptonshire, and Greensnorton, same county, which descended to the son. The latter estates were declared to be worth £140 per annum, a goodly sum in those days.3 It was this property in part, which led the Rev. Thomas Mayhew to go to England with his brother-in-law Paine, on
1A century ago there were thirty-three separate families bearing this name on the Vineyard, the second largest numerically at that time.
2Savage states that Mayhew married the widow Paine in London. (Gen. Diction- ary, III, 337.)
3The wife of Sir William Bradshaw had an interest in the Greensnorton property, but though Sir William "challenged some interest during his Ladyes life, yett none to the Inheritance." Mrs. Jane Mayhew went to England in 1642, "to settle her sons Rights." (Records, Commissioners of the United Colonies, II, 165; comp., Lechford Note Book, 117; Aspinwall, Notarial Record, 14, 35, III, and Suffolk Deeds, I, 86.)
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the fatal voyage, when both were lost. Young Paine became of age in 1652, and his name appears in the first division of common land in town the next year. His patrimony had evidently been invested by his parents in the purchase of land on the island, as he owned the largest number of rights in Great Harbor (three) of all the early settlers. He took no part in the public affairs of the town or island, in spite of his relationship to the proprietors, and beyond the records of his property holdings nothing about him remains to be said. He sailed for England in November, 1657, with his brother-in-law, Rev. Thomas Mayhew, and as before detailed, the ship was never heard from. He owned the home lot bounded northerly by Main street, but it is not known that he ever married, or lived on it.
JOHN PEASE.
Juan peaje The relations which this pio- neer bears to the legendary and actual history of Edgartown has made it necessary for the author to institute researches in the English Archives and bestow an equal amount of careful investigation of the records in New England, to establish the identity of John Pease of Great Baddow, County of Essex, England, and John Pease of Salem, County of Essex, Massachusetts. These researches have a definite bearing upon the alleged settlement of John Pease and some companions upon our island in 1632, or thereabouts, which is elsewhere discussed; and as part of the collateral evidence in this mooted question, the results of these searches must have a detailed exposition for the better understanding of the case. In no other instance has so much time and labor been spent.
In Great Baddow, as early as 1540, and doubtless a much earlier period, there lived a numerous family of the name of Pease, as evidenced by the frequent occurrence of the name in the parish registers of that place. In the entries of bap- tisms, marriages, and burials, this name occurs eighty-four times between 1540 and 1654, the earliest one recording the death of a daughter of Robert Pease "the Smythe." It will only concern us to consider the branch from which our John descends, and this line begins with John2 Pease the clothier, who was the son of John1 "the Smythe," of the same parish.
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History of Martha's Vineyard
He married Margaret, daughter of Richard Hyckes, June 23, 1560, and had two children, of record, namely Robert3 and a daughter Mary, who married Benjamin Carter in 1586. John the clothier died in November, 1612, and Margaret, his wife, deceased in the previous month.
Robert3 Pease probably lived and certainly died in Great Baddow, where he was buried April 16, 1623, leaving a widow Margaret and several children. The following is a record of his children as taken from the parish registers. His marriage
STREET IN GREAT BADDOW, ENGLAND.
is not entered, and it is to be inferred that his wife was a resident of some adjoining parish: -
i [daughter] bapt. Dec. 10, 1587.
ii [son-Robert ?] bapt. Oct. 28, 1589.
iii William4, bapt. Sept. 26, 1591.
iv John4, bapt. May 24, 1593, d. 1600.
V Mary4, bapt. Jan. 10, 1600.
vi Elizabeth4, bapt. Sept., 1602; m. Abraham Page.
vii Richard4, bapt. 4 and d. 5 April, 1607.
viii. JOHN‘, bapt. Nov. 20, 1608.
Robert3, the father, made his will May 10, 1613, and it was proven June 12, 1623, two months after his death. In this testament he names his wife Margaret, sons Robert' and John4, daughter Elizabeth4, and her husband Abraham Page. The widow Margaret and her family continued to
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reside in Great Baddow for ten years after the death of her husband. Robert4, the elder son, had married a wife named Lydia, and two children of theirs are recorded as baptized at Great Baddow, viz :. Robert5, April, 1630, and John5, Feb. 11, 1631-2, both of whom will be referred to later.
The next we learn of the two brothers, Robert4 and John4 Pease, is when they embarked in the ship Francis, which sailed in November, 1634, from Ipswich, a seaport town not far from Baddow. Their names are entered as follows: John Pease, twenty-seven years; Robert Pease, twenty-seven years (doubtless an error for forty-seven, as he was about twenty years older than his brother John) and Robert Pease, aged three years, the child whose baptism we have just noted. The widow Margaret remained in Great Baddow for some time, as her name appears as witness to a bond given in August, 1636, by William Vincent of Bromfield (a Parish adjoining Great Baddow), to be paid to Abraham Page when he should come of age. This minor was a grandson of the widow Margaret, the child of Abraham Page and Elizabeth Pease, whose marriage we have stated. (The young boy was then an orphan, his father having died in 1628.) It will thus be seen that the widow Margaret and her grandson, Abraham Page, were the only ones, in all probability, left of a numerous family in this little English Parish; and we shall later hear of them both following her emigrant sons to the new world.
The ship Francis arrived in New England late in 1634, and landed her passengers at Boston. Where the two brothers, Robert4 and John4, first took up their residence is not known, but early in 1637, they were at Salem, when the land of "Robert Pease and his brother" is mentioned in the early records of that town. The considerable difference in the ages explains this form of entry in the town books. On Jan. 2, 1636-7, Robert Pease was granted ten acres, and John Pease twenty acres of land. On the 23d of April, 1638, the town granted John Pease "five acres of land next adjoining to Samuell Cominge neer unto the watermill."1 John was con- cerned in a maritime transaction in October, 1638, for which he was wanted as a witness in August, 1639; 2 but he was absent from his place of abode as appears by the following record: -
1Salem Town Records.
2Lechford, Notebook, 103.
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25: 4 mo: 1639:
It is ordered that wheras Mr Gervas Garford had a Cowe of John Pease for hire for a year, the tyme now being expired, and the said John Pease not returned whereupon the sd Mr Gervas requested advice from this Court wt to doe with hir: upon which the Court ordered him to keepe the Cowe untill the ptie shall returne upon the same tearmes he kept hir before.1
He may have been on a voyage to England to bring back his aged mother, as she appears for the first time in New England in that year (1639), when she was admitted a mem- ber of the church in Salem. She lived but a few years in her new home, and we may bring consideration of her to a close, in so far as her record has any bearing upon the person im- mediately concerned in our researches. She died in 1644 and her will, dated September I of that year, mentions only her grandchildren, Robert and John, the fatherless sons of her deceased son Robert. Of the elder brother Robert' we shall have but brief concern. He joined the Church in 1643, and on October 15 of that year three of his children were baptized. He died before his mother, the next year, as on Nov. 3, 1644, an inventory of the estate of Robert Pease of Salem, late de- ceased, was taken, and the widow Marie Pease appointed administratrix 3: II mo: 1644. Robert5 Pease was named as the eldest son of the deceased, and John5 Pease the second son. There were other young children by this second marriage.1
Thus of the Great Baddow family there were left John4 and his nephew Robert5, who had come over with him in the Francis ten years previously. The further history of these two persons is all that will now engage our attention, as both became residents of the Vineyard, the first named being the progenitor of our island family, and the latter a temporary sojourner where his uncle had previously settled. At this date (1644) John4 Pease was thirty-six, and Robert5 fourteen years of age. By order of the Court young Robert remained with his mother for a year, at the end of which time he applied for permission to learn a trade. In 1645 he was thereupon bound as an apprentice to Thomas Root of Salem, weaver, for the term of five years, to learn the art of linen and woolen weaving. This fact is of significance as will be shown later.
We can now return to follow uninterruptedly the further history of John Pease of Great Baddow and Salem, stopping
1Records, Quarterly Court, Vol. I.
2Files, Essex Court Records.
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only to refer to a collateral incident occurring in this year (1645), which has a circumstantial relation to the subject. Abraham Page, the son of his sister Elizabeth4, before referred to, emigrated to Boston.1 The last reference to John Pease was under date of 1639, and related to his absence from Salem. The next recorded entry concerning him is under date of January 25, 1641-2, when Elias Stileman, Sr., appears as plaintiff in a civil suit against him, and again under date of Dec. 26, 1643, he appears as plaintiff in a civil suit against Thomas Trusler. 2 These suits indicate dealings in maritime business, and doubtless he was engaged in coastwise trading, which may account for the infrequent references to him, owing to absences on voyages. On June 18, 1644, John Pease sold to Richard Ingersoll of Salem "one house & 75 acres of Land adjoyning to the fearme whereon the said Richard dwelleth,"3 and thenceforth his name disappears completely from the Essex County and the town records of Salem. The next appearance of his name occurs in the records of Edgartown two years later, under date of March 23, 1646-7, when he sold ten acres of land at Mattakeeset to Mr. John Bland, and we may safely conclude that following the disposal of this Salem land in 1644, he came hither with his family to settle. His eldest son James was born March 15, 1637, and this presupposes his marriage in Salem or elsewhere, and the bringing of a wife and young children to take up their life work in the island home. The identity of this wife is fully established, in the opinion of the author, but this is a view which contravenes the conclusions to be found in the published genealogical accounts of the early Peases in Salem.4 A court record dated Nov. 3, 1635, contains the following statement: -
Ordered that John Pease shalbe whipt & bound to his good behaviour for strikeing his mother [in law] Mrs Weston & deryding of her & for dyvers other misdemeanors & other evill carriages.5
1Savage, III, 330. 2Essex County Court Records.
3Suffolk Deeds, I, 53. This was "the one moytye of the fearme wch the towne of Salem graunted unto Frances Weston," and was probably held by Pease at this date.
"There are two genealogies of the Pease families. The first was compiled by Frederic S. Pease and printed in 1847, and this author adopts the legend of the land- ing of John Pease on the Vineyard in 1632. The second was prepared by Austin Spencer Pease and published in 1869, and is an enlarged and more critical work. This author discards the legend as improbable and advances many arguments to show the fallacy of it.
5Mass. Col. Rec., I, 155.
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History of Martha's Vineyard
The compiler of the Pease genealogy, without any evi- dence cited or reason given, states that this particular John Pease was another one of the name residing in the same town. There is not a scintilla of proof that two of this name resided there 1635-1644, and the Salem records make no mention of a "Senior" or "Junior" John, which was absolutely nec- essary and customary for distinguishing persons bearing the same name involved in land grants or legal proceedings. Otherwise there would be inextricable confusion of titles to property. It is therefore certain that our John Pease married Lucy, daughter of Mrs. Margaret Weston, wife of Francis Weston of Salem, a fact which is of interest because of its collateral bearing on our subject. Weston was an early set- tler at Salem, originally a friend and supporter of Roger Williams, whom he followed in exile to Rhode Island. He was unfortunate, however, in his second marriage, as Mrs. Margaret Weston was afflicted with one of the religious whimsies of the period, and incurred the opposition of the authorities, not then famed for charity and tolerance, and she was made to sit in the bilboes for her schismatic "notions."1 The particular doctrines she imbibed were those promulgated by Samuel Gorton, for which he and others suffered persecu- tion and were driven from Salem to seek an asylum in Rhode Island. The nature of these doctrines is imperfectly under- stood now, as they were a part of the abstruse hair-splitting theological controversies of that period. Sufficient to say they were regarded as heretical by ecclesiastical authorities, and that was enough to condemn those who subscribed to them. In a few years Weston himself became a disciple of Gorton, and his step-daughter, Lucy Pease, likewise joined the sect, all of which was doubtless to the disadvantage of John Pease, socially and commercially, in orthodox Salem. In addition to this Mrs. Weston was undoubtedly unbalanced mentally, and later became of hopelessly unsound mind.2 We are thus enabled to see the environment of John Pease, and considering the stress of the times and the religious in- tolerance of the period may not harshly judge his unlawful chastisement of his mother-in-law. Doubtless she deserved forcible repression, and invited it by her actions. Weston was banished in March, 1638, from the jurisdiction of Massa-
1Felt, Ecclesiastical Annals, I, 341.
2She died in 1651 in Rhode Island.
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chusetts for promulgating the tabooed Gortonian doctrines, and took up his residence at Shawomet, Rhode Island, whence he continued to spread them by whatever means he could employ. The magistrates of the Massachusetts colony tol- erated this defiance for five years, and then determined to silence him, by forcible measures if necessary, and place him under arrest for teaching heretical doctrines. John Pease heard of this in the fall of 1643 at Salem, and undertook to give his wife's father a warning of the approaching danger. The following account of this affair, written by Samuel Gorton himself, discloses John Pease in a highly favorable light con- sidering all the circumstances. A letter dated Shawomet, Sept. 26, 1643, signed by Gorton and others of his sectaries, addressed to the military emissaries of Massachusetts, was sent. by the hand "of one John Peise who lived amongst them in the Massachusetts, who having a father-in-law amongst us was willing to come and declare unto his father, out of the tenderness towards him, of the nearness of the soldiers ap- proach, and as near as he could the end of their coming, to persuade his said father to escape for his life."1 From this letter we glean the most convincing fact about John Pease which bears so conclusively upon his alleged settlement on this island before the coming of the Mayhews. Manifestly, he could not have been a prior settler here because as late as September, 1643, he "lived amongst them in the Massachu- setts."
This expedition resulted in the seizure and return of Weston as a prisoner to Boston, where he suffered incarcera- tion with hard labor in the Dorchester jail.2 Doubtless this caused the wife of John Pease to consider her own safety, and shortly after her husband's return from the mission above related, she recanted her heretical views, as appears by the following records: -
Luc(i)e Pease the wife of ..... Pease, p'fessing that she doth abhor & renounce Gortons opinions & confessing her fault in bloting out some things in the booke wch she brought & in showing the same before shee delivered it & p'fessing shee was sorry for it, shee was dismissed for the p'sent to appear when she shall bee called for.3 [17 October 1643.]
1Simplicities Defence, London, 1647. The italics are used by the author to emphasize this important statement about John Pease. This letter was delivered to the Massachusetts Commissioners, who answered it, addressing their reply "To our friend John Peise."
2He died in prison before June, 1645, after a confinement of two years.
3Mass. Col. Records, II, 50; comp., Felt, Ecclesiastical History, I, 492.
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History of Martha's Vineyard
From these facts and resulting conditions we are now able to explain why John Pease left Salem to seek a home elsewhere outside the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. The religious atmosphere was too threatening and his wife would be constantly menaced with the fear of arrest, being held under bonds by the court for the future determination of her case. Consequently, he sold his property and that of his father-in- law in the summer of 1644, and left Salem forever.
The removal of John Pease from Salem about 1644, following the arrest of his wife, the death of his mother and elder brother, is a natural effect of causes easily understood, and the appearance of a John Pease on Martha's Vineyard immediately thereafter are consecutive facts too significant to be mistaken for mere coincidences. They might be classed as such but for a further confirmation of these evidences of identity afforded us in connection with the subsequent history of Robert5, nephew of John of Great Baddow and Salem. It will be remembered that this young lad had been appren- ticed to a weaver to learn that trade. His term of service ex- pired in 1650, and records of his residence in Salem are extant, showing that in 1652 and 1655 he was an inhabitant of that town. The next year a Robert Pease appears in Edgartown; and if anything were waiting to establish the relationship between him and the John Pease already a resident here, the following entry from the town records will furnish it: -
['Edgartown Town Records, i, 138.] February 1, 1656.
Richard Sarson will give Robert Pease 100 and half of fish every year so long as he liveth upon the Island and the same will be given him by John Burchard, Edward Lay, William Weekes, Thomas Burchard and Thomas Bays, "if the said Robert Pease doth Ingage to weave the Cloth of the town for such pay as the town can raise among them selves, except wampam."
What more natural thing could occur than this? The new settlement needed a weaver, and John Pease made it known to his nephew in Salem, and he forthwith came to con- tinue his fortunes with an uncle whom he had accompanied from England as a boy and with whom he had been associated much of his life. Robert Pease remained here several years, but had removed before 1660. The connection between the Salem and Vineyard Peases thus seems to be established, and family tradition is not wanting, if it were needed, to sub-
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stantiate this. The late Captain Valentine Pease, an aged man in 1849, stated that he had heard his father and grand- father speak of James5 and John5, the two eldest sons of John4 as having lived in Salem or having come from that place. This is undoubtedly true, as these two boys must have been born in Salem, the only children (surviving at least) by his first wife.1 Accordingly, the demonstration of the identity of John of Great Baddow, Salem, Mass., and Martha's Vineyard is left at this point for the impartial judgment of the historical student. It is a clear trail.
On March 23, 1646, John Pease sold to John Bland "a Parcell of Land about Ten acres and Two acres of Meadow" at Mattakeeset.2 The circumstances surrounding this sale can only be surmised; whether it comprised all his property or a part of it, but the records afford us no further insight. It is probable that the former is most likely and that he left the island for Connecticut after this sale. He is next found at New London, in 1650, in connection with business matters, in which Governor John Winthrop of that colony was interested, but the historian of that town confesses that "of John Pease little is known."3 It will be remembered that about 1645 to 1650 the new settlements at Saybrook, New London, and New Haven were being founded and were attracting hundreds from the old towns in Massachusetts and probably our John Pease was prospecting and trying his fortune on the main land. Whether at this time or later, it is known that he ac- quired land at Mohegan, in the town of Norwich, Conn., and on it he probably established his second son, John, Jr., and it appears that he retained it until his death, bequeathing it to this son, "with that frame of a house I set up upon some part of that land,"" But the island proved to be more at- tractive to the father, and he returned here before March 5,
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