Watertown Massachusetts

Genealogy of the Whitney Family of New Bedford, Massachusetts

1 Comment / Genealogy, Massachusetts, New York / 8 minutes of reading

The Whitney family of New Bedford, of which the late Amasa Whitney, one of the well known citizens of that place, was a worthy member, is one of the oldest and best known of the early families of America. Its members in every generation here from the Colonial ancestor have been noted for high attainments, vigorous intellect and the qualities which make for influential citizenship. Notable among the descendants of John Whitney, the emigrant ancestor, are Eli Whitney, whose fame as the inventor of the cotton gin and no less in other lines has won a place in the hall of fame; the late William Collins Whitney, lawyer and politician, famous as corporation counsel of New York City and secretary of war, 1885-89; and Henry M. Whitney, of Boston – illustrious names Which have added to the glory of their country as well as to the fame of an honored race.

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The Westport-Freetown-Fall River Massachusetts Tripp Family

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The Tripp family first at Portsmouth, R. I., among the earliest inhabitants there, soon spread into the adjoining territory both in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and in the march of civilization advanced with it until they became one of the numerous and substantial families of our country. Hon. John Tripp, the first American ancestor of the family in question, was one of the founders and proprietors of Portsmouth, R. I., 23d of 6th month, 1638. In the following is briefly considered a line of Tripps which descended through the settler’s son who located in Dartmouth, Mass., later generations settling in Westport, and a still later generation in Freetown and Fall River. It is with the special Westport-Freetown-Fall River family, the heads of which were Philip J. and Azariah S. Tripp, this article is to deal. These gentlemen were long substantial men and citizens of their respective communities, the former being a resident of Freetown, State senator and much respected citizen, and the latter especially prominent and useful, for years the cashier of the Metacomet National Bank from its inception, in 1853, for seventeen years a member of the school committee of Fall River, prominently identified with many of the manufacturing enterprises and at the time of his death president of the Fall River Savings Bank.

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Genealogy of the Reed and Loud Families of Abington, Massachusetts

1 Comment / Genealogy, Massachusetts / 18 minutes of reading

These families, Reed and Loud, allied by marriage, are still represented in the ancient town of Abington, where for three generations the Reeds have been engaged in the lumber business with other lines connected with it. Reference is made to the late Amos S. Reed, to his son, the late Maj. Edward Payson Reed, and to the present Arthur B. Reed, son of Major Reed, all active business men, prominent and influential citizens of what is now North Abington. Both the Reed and Loud were early Weymouth families, and we take up the records in order. There follows from William Reed, the immigrant ancestor of the North Abington Reed family alluded to, chronologically arranged, the genealogy of the family.

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Descendants of William Eddy in New Bedford, Massachusetts

1 Comment / Genealogy, Massachusetts, Rhode Island / 13 minutes of reading

Descendants of William Eddy. William Eddye, A. M., vicar of the Church of St. Dunstan in the town of Cranbrook, County of Kent, England, is the English ancestor of the Eddy family here treated. He was a native of Bristol, educated in Trinity College, Cambridge, England, and was vicar of Cranbrook from 1589 to 1616. He married (first) Nov. 20, 1587, Mary Fosten, who died in July, 1611, and he married (second), in 1614, Elizabeth Taylor, a widow. He died Nov. 23, 1616.

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Genealogy of the Fox Family of Taunton, Massachusetts

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The Connecticut-Massachusetts branch of the earlier family of this name of the old Bay State is one of long and honorable standing in New England, and as well of historic connection. The especial family here considered, and which for designation is styled the Taunton family, is that of pome of the descendants of Capt. Jabez Fox, of Berkley, Mass., one of whose sons was the late Henry Hodges Fox and the latter’s son the present Hon. William Henry Fox, lawyer and judge, who for forty and more years has been judge of the First District court of Bristol county and otherwise prominently identified with the public affairs of the city of Taunton.

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Ancestors of John Richardson Bronson of Attleboro, MA

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JOHN RICHARDSON BRONSON, M. D., who for over half a century was one of the best known practitioners of medicine in southern Massachusetts and part of Rhode Island, and who for upward of fifty years was a resident of Attleboro, was a native of Connecticut, born in the town of Middlebury, New Haven county, June 5, 1829, son of Garry and Maria (Richardson) Bronson.

The Bronson family was early planted in the New World. John Bronson (early of record as Brownson and Brunson) was early at Hartford. He is believed, though not certainly known, to have been one of the company who came in 1636 with Mr. Hooker, of whose church he was a member. He was a soldier in the Pequot battle of 1637. He is not named among the proprietors of Hartford in the land division of 1639; but is mentioned in the same year in the list of settlers, who by the “towne’s courtesie” had liberty “to fetch woods and keepe swine or cowes on the common.” His house lot was in the “soldiers’ field,” so called, in the north part of the old village of Hartford, on the “Neck Road” (supposed to have been given for service in the Pequot war), where he lived in 1640. He moved, about 1641 to Tunxis (Farmington) He was deputy from Farmington in May, 1651, and at several subsequent sessions, and the “constable of Farmington” in 1652. He was one of the seven pillars at the organization of the Farmington Church in 1652. His name is on the list of freemen of Farmington in 1669. He died Nov. 28, 1680.

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Descendants of William Swift of New Bedford, MA

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For an hundred years and more the Swift family in and about New Bedford has been one of prominence, wealthy and influential not only in their several local communities but out through the Commonwealth and into the nation, where their extensive enterprises have extended. These Acushnet-New Bedford Swifts, a branch of the Cape Cod family, brought to their new field of effort that activity, industry, ability and honesty that had for generations characterized their forefathers and also the line of business that had enriched earlier generations in the old home section – the dealing in live oak timber and its manufacture into water craft, in shipbuilding for not only the United States government, but for those across the water. Reference is here made especially to some of the sons, grandsons and great-grandsons of William Swift, of the town of Falmouth, this Commonwealth, among whose sons were Hon. Elijah, Thomas, William, John and Reuben E.; and among the sons of the latter Rodolphus Nye and William Cole Nye Swift, who with their sons together and in turn figured most prominently in and about New Bedford and abroad, as intimated; and some of their sons are yet active here and in the Massachusetts metropolis.

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The ancestry and posterity of Joshua Dow of Avon, Maine

1 Comment / Free Genealogy Archives, Genealogy, Maine / 1 minute of reading

The ancestry and posterity of Joshua Dow of Avon, Maine traces from John Dow and Johan Coop of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England. The first descendant in America, Henry Dow, came from England to America in 1637 with his wife, four children, and a maid. He first settled at Watertown, Massachusetts before relocating to Hampton, New Hampshire. He wrote his surname variously as Dow, Dow and Doue. One of the first Dow to settle in Avon, was Joshua, son of John and Betsey (Strout) Dow, who moved from Portland to Avon soon after his brother and sister, and settled before 1828 near Mt. Blue and Mt. Blue Pond.

Surnames: Briggs, Bryon, Crockett, Davenport, Dickey, Doue, Dow, Dowe, Dresser, Dunham, Esty, Hall, Harnden, Harradon, Hinkley, Kinney, Kittredge, Ladd, McLaughlin, Mitchell, Orberton, Pettingell, Richardson, Ross, Sampson, Sedgeley, Stinchfield, Vining, Walton, Webber, and Worthley.

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Lewis Jones Genealogy

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Last Updated on April 3, 2013 by Lewis Jones Lewis1 Jones, b. at Watertown, 1651; d. at Watertown, April 11, 1684. Will, dated Jan. 7, 1678-9, mentions wife Anna and son Josiah. Josiah Jones Josiah2 Jones, b. at Roxbury, Mass., 1642; admitted freeman, at Watertown, April 18, 1690; m. at Watertown, Oct. 9, 1667, Lydia

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Early New England People

Leave a Comment / Canada, Connecticut, Free Genealogy Archives, Genealogy, Maine, Massachusetts, New York / 2 minutes of reading

Sarah Titcomb over her years of study of various New England families had collected quite a bit of material of several early New England families. At the bequest of some of her friends, she prepared and published them in book form. When reading through the material I was impressed with the amount of material collected on each individual, and rather then a brief genealogical sketch, readers are provided an in-depth study of each early family: Ayer, Bartlett, Bradley, Chase, Dean, Dow, Dunster, Ellis, Fuller, Hope, Kilby, Martine, Les Dernier, Maverick, Mills, Montague, Pemberton, Pepperrell, Poore, Precott, Sewall, Longfellow, Spofford, Titcomb, Watmough, and Willard.

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Descendants of Nathaniel Newcomb of Norton, MA

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Mr. Newcomb was born April 12, 1797, of the sixth generation in descent from Francis Newcomb, who was born probably in Hertfordshire, England, about 1605, and came to America in the ship “Planter” in 1635, accompanied by his wife Rachel, then aged twenty, his daughter Rachel (aged two and a half years) and son John (aged nine months). After residing in Boston three years Francis Newcomb moved his little family to Braintree (now Quincy, Norfolk Co., Mass.), where he died May 27, 1692, his gravestone says “aged one hundred years.” Tradition says he came from Oxfordshire, England, and was of pure Saxon blood. He owned several tracts of land in Braintree. He had ten children.

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Knowles Family of New Bedford, MA

Leave a Comment / Connecticut, Genealogy, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island / 29 minutes of reading

The family bearing this name in New Bedford, where it is one of nearly one hundred years’ standing one, too, of prominence and wealth, is a branch of the ancient Knowles family of the town of Eastham, Barnstable county, this Commonwealth. Reference is made to some of the descendants of the brothers Thomas and James H. Knowles of Eastham, several of whose sons – at least two of the former and one of the latter – in their earlier manhood cast their lot with the people of New Bedford. The firm of Thomas Knowles & Co. for many years was one of the greatest engaged in the whale fishery business in New Bedford; and its members in turn have been succeeded in business by younger generations who have most worthily worn the family name and sustained its reputation; and today the name continues of record in and about the city of their birth connected prominently with many of the most extensive commercial establishments and banking institutions of the locality.

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Taber family of Dartmouth and New Bedford, Massachusetts

1 Comment / Genealogy, Massachusetts / 9 minutes of reading

The Taber family of Dartmouth and New Bedford, one of the oldest families in southeastern Massachusetts, is descended from Philip Taber, who according to Savage, was born in 1605, and died in 1672. He was at Watertown in 1634, and he contributed toward building the galley for the security of the harbor. He was made a freeman at Plymouth in 1639. In 1639-40 he was a deputy from Yarmouth, and was afterward at Martha’s Vineyard, and from 1647 to 1655 was at Edgartown, going from there to New London in 1651, but probably returning soon. He was an inhabitant of Portsmouth in February, 1655, and was a representative in Providence in 1661, the commissioners being Roger Williams, William Field, Thomas Olney, Joseph Torrey, Philip Taber and John Anthony. Later he settled in Tiverton, where his death occurred. He married Lydia Masters, of Watertown, Mass., daughter of John and Jane Masters, and his second wife, Jane, born in 1605, died in 1669.

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Genealogy of the Hitchcock family

1 Comment / Genealogy, Connecticut, Free Genealogy Archives, Massachusetts / 4 minutes of reading

The genealogy of the Hitchcock family who are descended from Matthias Hitchcock of East Haven, Conn. [1651], and Luke Hitchcock of Wethersfield, Conn., [1653]. Compiled and published by Mrs. Edward Hitchcock, Sr. Arranged for the press by Rev. Dwight W. Marsh, D. D. Amherst, Mass. : Press of Carpenter & morehouse, 1894. 8 vo, 555 pages, portraits, indexes.

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