The Second Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn

While I was digging into details about Justus and Harriet Harrison's arrival in Brooklyn for my previous post, I came across this interesting tidbit: the records of the Second Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn show them both joining that church on Sunday 31 March 1839.

The handwritten ledger, covering memberships for the first three decades at that church (1831-1861), was only 150 pages long so I decided to check through the full thing.  Twenty pages later, it lists Justus and Harriet's son George joining the church on Christmas Day, 1842.  Interestingly, his departure from the congregation is listed as his being "Licensed" - a term I didn't see anywhere else in the ledger.  I suspect this is a reference to his ordination as a minister.

As you may have spotted above, Justus' departure from the congregation is noted as his death in 1850.  Harriet's departure isn't noted at all.  She does appear one more time, in an antiquated sort of list... every so often in the ledger there would be an accounting of the "widows belonging to the church", and she is listed in one of these at the start of 1852, giving proof that she was still connected with the church at that time.

Frederick and Mary Harrison didn't appear as members, nor do any of their children appear among the baptisms at this church.  I am curious about their church life.  My current theory is that they attended this church with Frederick's parents while retaining memberships at a church in New Haven.  At always, there is more to uncover.  This church was located at the corner of Clinton and Remsen Streets.

Sources:
U.S., Presbyterian Church Records, 1701-1970, available from Ancestry.com (with a membership).
Image from the Brooklyn Eagle Postcard collection, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History.

The Harrisons Arrive in Brooklyn

The family records have long shown that my fourth great grandparents - Mary Mix and Frederick H. Harrison - moved from New Haven, CT to Brooklyn, NY some time after their wedding in 1840.  It's possible they made this move after the birth of their daughter Harriet in 1842 (I'll come back to this point in a minute).  As I've delved into Brooklyn records, I have been pleasantly surprised to discover that Frederick and Mary weren't the first Harrisons to make the move to Brooklyn... his parents - Harriet Hotchkiss and Justus Harrison - have that distinction.

Justus Harrison first appears in the Brooklyn city directory for 1839-40 (published in 1839) at 14 High Street, where he and his family lived for about three years.  The earliest detailed map of Brooklyn that I can find online, from 1855, shows that address immediately adjacent to a firehouse.  City directories do mention an engine company on that same block between 1839 and 1842.

Justus actually appears in the New York City directory for 1838-39 as well, listed as an insurance agent with an office at 63 and a half Wall Street.  No home address is given there, and he does not appear in the Brooklyn directory for that year.  I don't know where the family lived that year.  The earliest New Haven city directory I can find is for 1840, and it does not include either Justus or his son Frederick Harrison.

Justus and Harriet's children were:

• Elizabeth Eunice Harrison - who had married Rev. Lewis Foster in 1835, and was widowed in October of 1839 (at age 29).  She appears in the 1840 census, living in Clinton, CT with a boy between 5 and 10 years old, and a girl under 5 years old.  She therefore doesn't seem to have lived with the family in Brooklyn.  She remarried in 1842.
• Frederick Henry Harrison - who married Mary Mix on 2 Sept 1840 in New Haven.  The event was noted in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, suggesting that the family had established itself in Brooklyn by then.
• George Justus Harrison - who turned 16 in 1839 and had either already left or would soon leave home to pursue studies at Union College and Princeton Theological Seminary.
• Francis "Frank" Edwin Harrison - who turned 9 in 1839 and almost certainly still lived at home with his parents.

Other than Elizabeth, I haven't been able to locate any of these Harrisons in the 1840 census, which leaves city directories as the best source for where they lived.

I haven't seen any records indicating where Frederick and Mary lived in the first year of their marriage.  They appear separately from Justus and Harriet in the 1841-42 Brooklyn city directory, living just three doors down at 20 High Street.  They might have lived with either set of parents for a time, and secured that home soon after marriage.

Frederick and Mary welcomed their first daughter - Harriet Elizabeth Harrison - in June 1842 in New Haven.  I had previously thought this was an indicator that they were still living in New Haven at the time, and only moved to Brooklyn after that date.  I now suspect they set up house in Brooklyn after their wedding, and that Mary wanted the support of her parents (who lived out their lives in New Haven) and perhaps a calmer and more familiar environment when it came time to give birth.

One document which lends itself to the theory that Frederick and Mary came to Brooklyn after their first daughter was born is the 1855 New York State census for Brooklyn.  It shows Harriet, age 13, and her father Frederick (sadly, Mary had passed away by then), both only having lived in Brooklyn for 12 years, suggesting they moved there in 1843.  If that was the case, why is Frederick listed in the Brooklyn city directory starting with the published copies in 1841... and nowhere to be found in the 1840 through 1843 editions of the New Haven city directory?  I suspect that the census record is the one to take with a grain of salt in this case.

The Brooklyn city directories for 1842-43 and '43-44 show Justus (and Harriet and Frank) living with Frederick (and Mary and baby Harriet) at 20 High Street.  Starting with the 1844-45 city directory, this extended family moved to 194 Adams Street, just a few blocks away.  I'll have a bit more to say about that address in another post.

Frederick and Mary would welcome their second daughter - Mary Ellen Harrison - in Brooklyn in October 1844.

Justus and Harriet continued to live with Frederick and Mary at least until 1850, the year of Justus' death in Branford, CT.  They appear with the family in the census record for that year, as well as in city directories up to that year.

Frederick's mother seems to have moved back to New Haven after that.  She doesn't appear with his family in the 1855 New York State census.  There is a listing for a Harriet Hotchkiss of the right age in the New Haven census in 1860.  I would want to do more research before declaring for sure where she spent her remaining days.

This at least sheds some new light on how the Harrisons arrived in Brooklyn.

Attending Plymouth Church

I've recently been getting back into family history work, with a focus on ancestral activities in Brooklyn in the 1800s.  I figured this might be a good time to reactivate this blog, sharing some of the things that I've discovered.

To jump right in... we know that the Harrison and Williams families attended Plymouth Church, where they regularly heard the famous abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher preach.  Beecher presided over the wedding of Mary Ellen Harrison to Henry Clay Williams, in October 1866, and later at the funeral for their fifth son, William Street Williams, in December 1877.

Their eldest son, Frederick H. Williams, later wrote of his father:

"For many years he regularly attended Plymouth Church under the pastorate of Henry Ward Beecher, but whether he was a member I do not know.  He also attended the Wed. night prayer meetings but I think he never took any active part as he never spoke in public."

I've been particularly interested in finding any additional details about the family's involvement at Plymouth Church.  I have visited the church itself briefly (I hope to return for a full tour in the future), conducted research online, and made research trips to the New York Public Library and twice in the last year to the Center for Brooklyn History's Othmer Library.

I haven't found any clear record of Mary E. Harrison's parents joining Plymouth Church, though I feel quite confident that they attended.

I've had better luck with Mary and Henry.  Several sources show Henry C. Williams joining the church in 1869 as member number 2666.  This was a year after Frederick was born.

In my research at the Othmer Library, I came across a handwritten record of Henry C. Williams' admission.  From the Regular Meeting on April 2, 1869, the entry is as follows:

Meanwhile, Mary appears in a record of deaths among the congregation, listed as "Mrs. Mary Williams", member number 3410.  I haven't been able to find further documentation about her membership, but comparing that number against others suggests that she joined the church in 1873.  That was the year their third son, Francis, was born and then died, just shy of four months old.

Henry and Mary would instill strong religious principles in their sons.

Frederick H. Williams and Alice E. Corbett joined Plymouth Church, under pastor Lyman Abbott, not long after their 1893 wedding.

I'll share more of my findings on the family activities in Brooklyn, soon. 

 

Sources:

Henry C. Williams's membership record (the photo above) comes from the Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims and Henry Ward Beecher collection (1819-1980) at the Center for Brooklyn History, box 20, folder 14: Applicants to the Church, 1868-1870.

Mary E. H. Williams and Henry C. Williams's membership numbers come from Records of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn (Heights) at the New York Public Library. 

Proof of Frederick H. and Alice E. C. Williams's membership comes from family papers, as recorded by Frederick H. Williams.

Henry Peck in the Continental Navy

It's been a while since I've posted something here.  I recently got back into some family history work, after a dry spell.  Here's the first really interesting bit that I've come across:

I was recently searching for information on Henry Peck (my sixth-great-grandfather, who lived in New Haven) and happened upon a site which lists a Henry Peck of New Haven signing onto the Frigate Trumbull in March of 1777.  This was one of the first ships completed in the new Continental Navy and due to go up against the mighty British fleet during the Revolutionary War.  Of course, I had to dig deeper to learn more, and to confirm whether this might actually be MY Henry Peck.

This listing, from The Record of Connecticut Men in the Military and Naval Service During the War of the Revolution, 1775-1783 (Hartford, 1889, pp598-600), shows a Henry Peck signing on as a Landsman on 2 March 1777.  

The Trumbull had been built in Chatham, CT and was stuck in the Connecticut River because it had too deep a draft to get over the sandbar at the mouth of that river.  Trapped there, it was considered an easy target for the British (who don't appear to have made a serious attempt to capture it).  It was only floated over the bar a few years later.  

After some searching online and a visit to the Boston Public Library - where, as one often does, I received excellent assistance in trying to track down such a small detail - I found another book titled Supplement to The Record of Connecticut Men, During the War of the Revolution, 1775-1783 (Baltimore, 1997).  This had another crew listing (vol 2, pp365-8) for the Frigate Trumbull apparently transcribed from the same source document as The Record of Connecticut Men - and referring back specifically to the list in that book.

This supplement lists out the same men, in the same order, and gives the following additional details about Henry Peck: he was born in New Haven, shipped at New Haven at the age of 22, was 5'5", and of fair complexion.  

I am now fairly well convinced that this is, indeed, MY Henry Peck... who was born in New Haven in August 1755, making him close enough to list as 22 years old in May of 1777.  He was a block and spar-maker by trade, and probably had some notion of what naval life would be like.  

The documents don't show when or how Henry left the ship... they list neither a date for his discharge nor for desertion.  Many of the other men who joined in early 1777 were discharged after a year, so it's likely his term of service would have been up around then.  

I've found one mention that Captain Saltonstall and the men from the Trumbull were able to capture some prizes during this period (perhaps using a privateer which they took over and also referred to as Trumbull).  I want to check into that further.

Henry does not appear on any of the later lists of men I have been able to find, associated with the Trumbull, in particular the list of those taken prisoner by the British when the ship was captured in 1781.

There was a large group of men who left the ship in January 1778 to join the Frigate Warren (which was trapped by the British in Narragansett Bay, but soon broke past them and cruised successfully to the Caribbean, taking two prizes), and it's possible that Henry was among those men.  Their leader, the 2nd Lieutenant Daniel Phipps, happens to be an indirect ancestor... he was married to Mary English, daughter of my sixth-great-grandfather Benjamin English II.  Captain Saltonstall later took command of the Warren and used it to lead the disastrous Penobscot Expedition.

There's more to dig into here.  I want to try and find a list of the men who signed onto the Warren in early 1778, to see if Henry Peck was among them.  I'd love to get an idea of what he actually did while he was part of the Navy.  There are more resources to be explored.

Henry did return to New Haven, married Hannah Lewis in 1783, and they had five children - four of whom survived to adulthood.  Their daughter Esther married naval Captain Daniel Phipps (not the same man as the 2nd Lieutenant of the Trumbull, who did become a Captain as well).  Their daughter Grace married Eli Mix, who had a career as a merchant in New Haven.  Son Elisha Peck served in the Navy for five decades, spanning from the War of 1812 all the way up into the Civil War, and retired with the rank of Captain. So, this family was no stranger to the salt water, and now we can count Henry Peck among the naval veterans in our family tree!

I'll share more information as I learn it.

Hannah and Mary Lewis of New Haven, CT

Hannah Lewis (1756 - 1840) and her sister Mary Lewis (abt. 1758-60 - 1833) of New Haven, CT are often listed as daughters of Lois Bishop (1734 - 1813) and Nehemiah Lewis (abt. 1730 - abt. 1757).  Different information has been passed down through my family, and after studying the matter carefully, I am confident that Hannah and Mary were actually the daughters of Hannah Gorham (1733 - 1803) and Leonard Lewis (abt. 1728 - bef. Jul 1767).  As the facts around this have been a challenge to locate, I compile them here for the benefit of others.

Be aware that this post includes several different Hannahs.  I always refer to the mother as Hannah Gorham, even after her marriage to Leonard Lewis.  There are also two Nehemiahs mentioned.  I've included a family chart at the end of the post, showing the most accurate information that I have.

Our Hannah and Mary Lewis (who appears in some records as Polly) married two brothers, Henry and John Peck, respectively.  They lived near each other in New Haven.  They each raised several children.  The Peck brothers took over their father's business as spar and block makers.  Hannah Lewis and Henry Peck are my sixth-great grandparents.

Part I: Conflicting Records

The trouble begins with two primary sources:

The New Haven Vital Records list:

Hannah ye Daughter of Lennard & Hannah [Gorham] Lewis, born 7 Feb 1756.

Then, in the records of the First Church of Christ (Congregational, also called Center Church) in New Haven, we have:

Hannah, daughter of Leonard, died 19 Sept 1765 ae 9 mos in New Haven.

Working just from these two records, one might think that either Hannah's age at the time of her death was transcribed in error - being 9 years instead of 9 months old - or that the first daughter named Hannah must have died young, her parents reused the name (a common practice in those days), and then their second daughter named Hannah died in Sept 1765 at the age of 9 months.

The latter was the conclusion drawn by Donald Lines Jacobus in Families of Ancient New Haven, a voluminous and respected work.  He lists them as:

Lewis.  Family 10.  Leonard "[can he be Lent, son of Barnabas...?]", married Hannah Gorham on 10 Oct 1753.  She was the daughter of Hannah Miles and Isaac Gorham.  After Leonard's death she married Stephen Bradley on 19 July 1767.

Hannah and Leonard's children are listed as: 

1. Betty, born 31 July 1754, died 20 Aug 1754.

2. Hannah, born 7 Feb 1764.

3. Barnabas

4. Hannah, born "[Dec 1756]", died 19 Sept 1764 ae 0-9.

Note that Jacobus has misconstrued both the year of birth for the first Hannah (as compared with the vital records) and the year of death for the second Hannah (as compared with the church records).  Concluding that Hannah Gorham and Leonard Lewis did not have a daughter named Hannah who lived to marry Henry Peck and have children, he places that Hannah and her sister Mary in another family group:

Lewis.  Family 12.  Nehemiah (d. 1757), married Lois Bishop (1734-1813).  She was the daughter of Esther Dorman and Job Bishop.  After Nehemiah's death she married Isaac Bradley on 7 Apr 1763.

Lois and Nehemiah's children are listed as:

1. Joseph, born 20 Aug 1755, died young.

2. Hannah, born c. 1757, married Henry Peck on 22 Feb 1783, died 1 May 1840 ae 84.

3. Mary, born c. 1760, married John Peck on 26 Oct 1788, died 9 Apr 1833 ae 73.

Here, Jacobus makes no attempt to reconcile the listing of Nehemiah dying in 1757 (for which he also doesn't provide a source) and then having a daughter born around 1760.  His dates and citations leave something to be desired.  Many family trees still follow this listing of Hannah and Mary as daughters of Lois Bishop and Nehemiah Lewis.

I don't know how (or even if) Leonard Lewis and Nehemiah Lewis were related to each other.

Part II: The Mayflower

The information passed down through my family over generations is that the Hannah Lewis who married Henry Peck was the daughter of Hannah Gorham and Leonard Lewis, and through them traced back to several Mayflower passengers: John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley, and Elizabeth's parents John Tilley and Joan Hurst.

My uncle applied for membership in the Mayflower Society in 2019 using that information, and was denied with the claim that two daughters of Hannah Gorham and Leonard Lewis who bore the name Hannah had both died young.  This was not the first time this pattern has played out... over 25 years ago, another distant relative also sought admittance to the Mayflower Society using the same family information, and hit the same answer.

I strongly suspect that the Mayflower Society, in reviewing the information on both of these applications, turned to the thoroughly-researched John Howland of the Mayflower by Elizabeth P. White.  Volume One of this work traces the first five generations of descendants from John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley through their daughter Desire Howland.  When it reaches our Hannah Gorham and Leonard Lewis, it lists their children as:

1. Betty/Betsey, born 31 July 1754, died 20 Aug 1754.

2. Hannah, born 7 Feb 1756, died young.

3. ?Barnabas, listed by Jacobus; no other record found.

4. Nehemiah, born abt. 1760; ...

5. Hannah, died 19 Sept 1764 ae 9 months.

White largely follows the information compiled by Jacobus.  Note that she corrects the year of birth for the first Hannah - aligning it with the Vital Records - but not the year of death for the second Hannah.  

White does make two important contributions for this family.  First, she persuasively discredits the idea that Leonard Lewis might have been "Lent, son of Barnabas" as Jacobus posited.  This casts into doubt the inclusion of a child in the family named Barnabas, since no documentation has been found to support that claim.  Second, she locates compelling evidence that there was a son in this family named Nehemiah.  The use of this name suggests to me that Leonard Lewis was related to the older Nehemiah Lewis, who passed away around 1757.

One might look at these Lewis family listings from Jacobus and White and leave things there.  These are both respected genealogists.  Fortunately, when my distant relative was eager to join the Mayflower Society in 1993, they had the assistance of Michael Dwyer, State Historian for the Vermont Society of Descendants, who carefully pursued this question to get to the bottom of the matter.

Dwyer compiled a substantial list of evidence which suggests that both Hannah and her sister Mary were daughters of Hannah Gorham and Leonard Lewis.  Hannah Lewis was a baptismal sponsor for two of her half-siblings, children of Hannah Gorham and her second husband Stephen Bradley.  Mary's husband John Peck was one of the principals for the administration of that same Stephen Bradley's estate, and Hannah's husband Henry Peck was surety for that estate.  Dwyer also located this listing of two church admissions in the records of the First Church of Christ:

Admitted on 22 Feb 1807:

Member #1616, Hannah Lewis (widow of Henry) Peck / Daughter of Leonard and Hannah [Gorham]; born Feb 1756 / died May 1840.

Member #1617, Mary Lewis (widow of John) Peck / born 1760 / died Apr 1833.

Not only did the sisters join the church on the same day, but it happened to fall on Hannah Lewis and Henry Peck's wedding anniversary.

Dwyer also looked for any evidence that our Hannah and Mary could be daughters of Lois Bishop and Nehemiah Lewis.  He found none, beyond Jacobus.  He notes that when Lois Bishop remarried Isaac Bradley, they named one of their daughters Hannah... something they likely wouldn't have done if Lois still had a living daughter named Hannah from her first marriage.

With all of this evidence pointing to Leonard Lewis and Hannah Gorham as the parents of Hannah and Mary Lewis, and only one record of a second daughter of theirs being named Hannah and dying at 9 months old, Dwyer concluded that the single contradictory entry from the New Haven Vital Records must have somehow been incorrect.  No other record has been found which shows the death of the "first Hannah," nor has one been found showing the birth or baptism of the "second Hannah."  

Dwyer published his findings in The Mayflower Quarterly, and I highly recommend that anyone researching this topic find that article as it includes more details than I have listed here.  His corrected list of children for Hannah Gorham and Leonard Lewis is:

1. Betty/Betsey, born 31 July 1754, died 20 Aug 1754.

2. Hannah, born 7 Feb 1756, married Henry Peck on 22 Feb 1783.

3. Nehemiah, born abt. 1760; ...

4. Mary/Polly, born abt. 1758-60, married John Peck on 26 Oct 1788.

My distant relative was accepted into the Mayflower Society based on these findings.

Part III: Setting the Record Straight

Why doesn't the story end here?  Why, if it was proven conclusively in 1994 that Hannah and Mary Lewis were the daughters of Hannah Gorham and Leonard Lewis, in one of the Mayflower Society's own publications, was the Society still dismissive in 2019 of the link between our Hannah Lewis and those parents?

The person reviewing my uncle's application to the Society must not have known about Dwyer's article.  It seems highly likely that she or he turned directly to Elizabeth White's John Howland of the Mayflower, saw the listing there of Hannah Gorham and Leonard Lewis with two daughters named Hannah who both died young, and trusted that to be the best information available on the matter.  I easily found that same book early in my own search.

Several of us in the family looked into this question in late 2019, collecting some of the evidence that others had before us.  By the time I came across Michael Dwyer's article in The Mayflower Quarterly, I was feeling hopeful that Hannah Lewis really did belong as a daughter of Hannah Gorham and Leonard Lewis.  I was prepared for his article to prove otherwise, and it was a pleasant surprise to have a clear, firm answer laid out that agreed with the information handed down through our family.

Happily, I was able to reach Mr. Dwyer to discuss all of this.  He remembered working on this question and had not heard of any followup research which might alter his findings.  He also related how he had shared his findings with Elizabeth White, who was appreciative and supportive of the corrected information.  She herself had worked on this question at length, without solving it.  She promised to include his corrections in an upcoming (as of 1994) printing of John Howland of the Mayflower... and she made good on that promise.  By 2002, there were new printings of the first volume of that set which included additions and corrections, though they were still published under the same ISBN.  It took a bit of searching, but I was able to find a library with a copy of the sixth printing of that volume, from 2008.  They sent me an excerpt from the corrections at the back of the book, confirming that Dwyer's research really was included there.

It seems to me that most libraries have earlier printings of John Howland of the Mayflower, making copies with the corrections at the back a challenge to locate.  The information on those pages is therefore at risk of being overlooked.

I will add one final piece of information that I believe is related to all of this.  As I searched for any records of Lewis children in the 1750s or 60s, I found this in the records of the First Church of Christ in New Haven:

Sarah, daughter of Leonard, baptized 16 Dec 1764, by Rev. Chauncey Whittelsey.

If this entry is correct, and if Sarah was baptized soon after her birth (which wasn't always a given), the timing lines up extremely well with the record of that mysterious "second Hannah" dying at 9 months old on 19 Sept 1765.  I believe it was actually a daughter named Sarah who was born around December 1764 and died in September 1765.

We end up with the following list of children for Hannah Gorham (bp. 5 May 1733 - 1 Oct 1803) and Leonard Lewis (abt. 1728 - bef. Jul 1767), all of whom were born and died in New Haven, CT:

1. Betty/Betsey, born 31 July 1754, died 20 Aug 1754.

2. Hannah, born 7 Feb 1756, married Henry Peck on 22 Feb 1783, died 1 May 1840 ae 84.

3. Mary/Polly, born abt. 1758-60, married John Peck on 26 Oct 1788, died 9 Apr 1833 ae 73.

4. Nehemiah, born abt. 1760.

5. Sarah, bp. 16 Dec 1764, died 19 Sept 1765 ae 9 months.

And here's that promised family tree (click for a larger view):

Sources:

Connecticut Church Records (Congregational church indexes) (Hartford, CT, 1942-63) v78, available on Ancestry.com (paid account required).

• for the death of the "second Hannah", p328, transcribing v9 p177.
• for the baptism of Sarah Lewis, p330, transcribing v9 p33.
• for the marriage of Hannah Lewis and Henry Peck, p328 and 414, transcribing v9 p115.
• for the marriage of Mary (listed as Polly) Lewis and John Peck, p330 and 415, transcribing v9 p97.
• for the second marriage of Hannah (Gorham) Lewis to Stephen Bradley, p97 and 328, transcribing v9 p47.

Dexter, Franklin Bowditch, Historical Catalogue of the Members of the First Church of Christ in New Haven, Connecticut (Center Church) (New Haven, CT, 1914), p125, available on Google Books.

Dwyer, Michael F., "Hannah (Lewis) Peck, daughter of Hannah Gorham and Leonard Lewis", The Mayflower Quarterly, v60 n1 (Feb 1994) p19-21.

Family records.

Jacobus, Donald Lines, Families of Ancient New Haven (Rome, NY, 1929), v6 p1089-90, available on Archive.org.

Personal correspondence with Michael Dwyer.

Vital Records of New Haven, 1649-1850 (Hartford, CT, 1917), available on Archive.org.

• for the births of Joseph Lewis (son of Lois Bishop and Nehemiah Lewis), Betty (listed as Bele) and Hannah Lewis (daughters of Hannah Gorham and Leonard Lewis), v1 p340, transcribing Marriages - Births - Deaths, Book II, 1753-1790, p15.
• for the marriage of  Hannah Gorham and Leonard (listed as Lennard) Lewis, v1 p401, transcribing ibid, p141.
• for the death of Betty (listed as Bete) Lewis, v1 p439, transcribing ibid, p228.
• for the death of Mary (Lewis) Peck, v2 p677.
• for the death of Hannah (Lewis) Peck, v2 p753.

White, Elizabeth Pearson, John Howland of the Mayflower (Camden, ME, 1990-2011).  v1 (first printing, 1990) p428-31, available on Archive.org (free account required).  Also v1 (sixth printing, 2008) p734-5, courtesy of Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, IL.

Pirates!

I have gotten back into some family history work lately, after a long break.  I have been studying Mayflower ancestors and their first two generations of descendants in the New World... and I've come across not one, but two encounters with pirates!

In 1651, Elizabeth Howland (daughter of Elizabeth Tilley and John Howland, both Mayflower passengers) married Captain John Dickinson (sometimes spelled Dickenson, Dickarson, or other variations).  They - and several of Elizabeth's other married siblings, including my direct ancestors Desire Howland and Captain John Gorham - lived in Barnstable, MA.  By 1653, Dickinson was master of the 120-ton sloop Desire - the third vessel built in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  It was owned by Samuel Mayo, William Paddy, and John Barnes.

The ship was hired by Rev. William Leverich and the brothers Peter, Anthony, and Nicholas Wright, to take them, their families, and all of their possessions to Oyster Bay, Long Island, where they had purchased land from the Native Americans and intended to start a new town.  On arriving in Hempstead Bay, the ship was seized by pirate Thomas Baxter, an Englishman who had a letter of marque from the Rhode Island government to prey on Dutch shipping (the English and Dutch were at war at the time).  He allowed the passengers to disembark, then took the sloop and its cargo to Fairfield Harbor, Connecticut.  It is possible that John Dickinson had run past Baxter's blockade on previous occasions, doing trade between New England and New Amsterdam, and that this qualified the ship in Baxter's mind as a valid target.

Capt. Mayo brought suit against Capt. Baxter, who was arrested, tried, forced to return his booty and pay a fine for "disturbing the peace", and banished from New Haven Colony.  A further civil suit by Capt. Mayo won further damages, financially ruining Thomas Baxter, who is said to have gone to Nevis where he died.  John Dickinson and his family moved to Oyster Bay themselves around 1658.

A generation later, around May 1695, Desire Howland and John Gorham's youngest son, Shubael Gorham, was traveling with his friends and family to Nantucket for his marriage to Puella Hussey when "the members of the wedding party were taken prisoner by a French shallop from Port Royal and were stripped of all their valuables."  I have found a mention that Shubael's brother John was among that party, but nothing further to indicate which other family members might have been.  They had eight other siblings alive at the time, all married with children.  Their parents had passed.

While my brief research has not turned up more documentation and details of these events, they each must have been the talk of the family!

The Peck's George Street Estate

I have recently been working with new information researched by family members, and with a source we haven't worked with before: A Genealogical History of the Descendants of Joseph Peck, by Ira B. Peck.  Not only does this add four generations of Pecks to our family tree, it provides new details which connect to "A Plan of the Town of New Haven With all the Buildings in 1748" by James Wadsworth. 

The History traces back to a Henry Peck (1618-1651, my tenth great grandfather) who supposedly emigrated to Boston in 1637 in the company of Gov. Theophilus Eaton, Rev. John Davenport, and others, aboard the ship Hector.  Henry and a Deacon William Peck (probably a relative) were among the first settlers of New Haven in 1638.

Henry's home lot was on the first of the eight unnamed streets which were laid out to form the town's grid plan.  That street would be called Brick Street, then Leather Lane, then in 1784 George Street (after George Washington).  The lot was to the south of what was called Market Street, then in 1784 renamed Church Street.

The History provides details on how the "George Street Estate" was passed down through the generations, pointing out that at the time of publishing (1868), at least part of it was still occupied by Henry Peck's descendants.  In 1720, it had at least an old house, a new house, an orchard, and a barn.

By 1748 the "new house" was owned by Stephen Peck (1730-1802, a direct ancestor), who is shown on the Wadsworth map as a blockmaker.  In 1753 he married Esther Munson, daughter of Israel Munson (whose inn is also shown on the map, in the upper-right-hand part of the grid).  They had seven children.  Esther passed away in 1768 and Stephen remarried Lydia Miles, apparently not having further children.

Also worth noting here: Stephen's half-brother James Peck, Jr. was an innkeeper.  His inn is shown on the wharf on the Wadsworth map.

Two of Stephen and Esther's sons: Henry (1755-1802, a direct ancestor) and John (1759-1805) lived on or near the George Street Estate.  The History states that Henry lived on the estate, building a house which in 1868 was still occupied by Lewis Mix (1821-1906, brother of my fourth great grandmother Mary).  Henry and John "were spar and blockmakers; their shop was upon the same lot near their dwelling."  I suspect they inherited their father's shop.

Sources:

A Genealogical History of the Descendants of Joseph Peck, appendix: Descendants of Henry Peck, of New Haven, Connecticut, by Ira B. Peck (Alfred Mudge & Son, Boston, 1868)

A Plan of the Town of New Haven With all the Buildings in 1748, by Hon. Gen. James Wadsworth, Thomas Kensett Engraver.  Excerpt taken from the digital copy in Yale's archives.