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Archiver > ESSEX-ROOTS > 1997-06 > 0866782523


From: Richard Smyth <>
Subject: Re: Rogers estate settled 105 years after death.
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 00:55:23 -0400


The deposition of 27 March 1669 is by Alexander Sessions: Kingsbury's son
told him that the hogs by the river belonged to his Uncle Gage.[Records
of the Essex Quarterly Court 4:117; see also NEHGR 54:260] Henry
Kingsbury the elder (possibly father of the Henry Kingsbury of Ipswich
who was brother-in-law(?) of John Gage) did make it to New England---he
and his wife, Margaret Alabaster Blyth, were admitted to the church in
Boston but she certainly and he probably died soon thereafter. Much of
what Anderson says about the elder Henry in New England in his "The Great
Migration Begins" is probably a confusion of the elder Henry with the
younger. The editors of the recent Harvard Press edition of The Journal
of John Winthrop say that the elder Henry probably was dead by December
27, 1630; they also seem confident that the younger Henry was his son,
rather than the son of Thomas Kingsbury.[727n.] The latter is on
Winthrop's
list of those planning to come to N.E., but probably did not come.
Thomas was brother of the elder Henry, and also of a Joseph and John
Kingsbury who settled in Dedham.

In regard to the ancestors of John Rogers, Jr.---First, I apologize for
saying he was a grandson of Daniel's father. He was a
greatgrandson; Rev. John of Kittery [Daniel's father], Rev. John of
Gloucester, John of Gloucester (Town Clerk), then John of Gloucester and
Newburyport. The line before Rev. John Rogers of Kittery is: John Rogers
of Moulsham, shoemaker, Rev. John of Dedham, England, Rev. Nathaniel of
Ipswich, and Rev. John of Ipswich (who was president of Harvard at his
death in July 1684). Cotton Mather wrote an epitaph for his tomb which
alludes to a descent from John the proto-martyr, but that is now regarded
as bogus. On the other hand, I have looked at the evidence for the
descent from Rev. John Rogers of Dedham ("Roaring John") and believe it
is solid. If anyone knows more about the English Rogers, I would be
delighted to learn about it.

Richard Smyth

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