MAMIDDLE-L Archives

Archiver > MAMIDDLE > 2012-02 > 1329306903


From: Ms Betty Fredericks <>
Subject: [MAMiddle] Charlestown, MA
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2012 03:55:03 -0800 (PST)


Hello,
 
Many of us have an ancestor who arrived in the MA Bay Colony in the very early 1600's.    (I have several.) *    And, many of us had an ancestor who first settled in Charlestown.     The ancestor I am specifically interested in is  George HUTCHINSON.     He and his brother, Thomas, arrived in 1630 with "The Winthrop Fleet."   Unfortunately, Thomas died upon arrival, leaving a widow and 5 children.  **   George and Margaret HUTCHINSON had their only child ~2 years later, a son, Nathaniel, bapt.  1633.    I've posted many times about George, and they are mentioned in this old posting:
 
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/ma-bay-colony/2006-04/1146227712
 
But, this week, I went to the web site for NEHGS and discovered a new book has been published about "Charlestown in the 1600's."     I wrote to NEHGS and asked if my HUTCHINSON's were mentioned in the book.   They responded the next day and said he is, and offered a few more details.    George died in 1660 and seems to have been active in the town for the whole 30 yrs., and probably his son was also.
 
http://www.americanancestors.org/home.html
 
At this second, I can't remember whether there is a list of the residents of Charlestown from 1620's to 1650's.  
 
FYI:
 
Thomas and Jane Walford were the original English settlers of Mishawaum (later Charlestown); they settled there in 1624. They were given a grant by Sir Robert Gorges, with whom they had settled at Wessagusset (Weymouth) in September 1623. John Endicott, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, had sent William, Richard and Ralph Sprague to Mishawaum to lay out a settlement. Thomas Walford, acting as an interpreter with the Massachusetts Indians, negotiated with the local sachem Wonohaquaham for Endicott and his people to settle there. Although Walford had a virtual monopoly on the region's available furs, he welcomed the newcomers and helped them in any way he could, unaware that his Episcopalian religious beliefs would cause him to be banished from Massachusetts to Portsmouth, New Hampshire within three years.
Originally a Puritan English city during the Colonial era (a time to which many of the neighborhood's structures date), Charlestown was founded in 1628, and settled July 4, 1629, by Thomas Graves, Increase Nowell, Simon Hoyt, Rev. Francis Bright, Ralph, Richard and William Sprague and about 100 others who preceded the Great Migration. John Winthrop's company stopped here for some time in 1630, before deciding to settle across the Charles River at Boston.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlestown,_Boston
 
Betty              (near Lowell, MA)
 
(on Lists and Boards for 10 yrs.;  now an Admin for 9 Lists and 3 Boards,
including a Board for  New-England-Research)
 
*Some of my ancestors from 1600's were HUTCHINSON, CROSBY, KIDDER, RICE, WILKINS, etc.   The others were involved with 1600's Cambridge and .West Cambridge, MA.
**  There is much discussion about this Mrs. Thomas HUTCHINSON and her children.    The children have been confused with the children of the other patriarch, Richard HUTCHINSON.     (There were several HUTCHINSON patriarchs.)
 
FYI:   One of my genealogy-frustrations is that no one ever wrote a book about the descendants of George HUTCHINSON in Charlestown (1630-1660).   I just asked NEHGS if anyone was interested in starting such a project.


This thread: