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JONATHAN BREWSTER (1593 -
1659) m. Lucretia Oldham | MARY BREWSTER (m. 1645), wife of John Turner |
PATIENCE BREWSTER (c. 1600 - 1634) m. Gov. Thomas Prence |
First Generation
WILLIAM BREWSTER of Bentley cum Arksey
Parents: Unknown
William married Maude, the sister of Christopher Man. [Ref]
He was taxed in 1524 at Bently cum Arksey. [Ref]
Children of William Brewster and Maude Man:
Second Generation
WILLIAM BREWSTER (d. 1590) of Scrooby
Parents: William Brewster and Maude Man [Ref]
William died in 1590. [Ref] He married first Mary, the daughter of William Smythe of Stainforth, Hatfield, sister of John Smyth, alderman of Hull and widow of John Simkinson of Doncaster. [Ref] He married second Prudence, who may have been Prudence Perkins or the widow of a man named Perkins. [Ref]
He was probably the William Brewster who, along with Thomas and John Simkinson of Doncaster, witnessed the will of his supposed uncle Christopher Man.
Children of William Brewster and Mary Smythe:
Children of William Brewster and Prudence Unknown:
Third Generation
ELDER WILLIAM BREWSTER (d. 1664) of Scrooby, Leiden and Plymouth
Parents: William Brewster and Mary (Smythe) Simkinson [Ref]
William Brewster was born about 1566/7 [Ref] probably in Scrooby. He died in Apr 1664. [Ref] He married Mary Unknown. She died on 17 Apr 1627 in Plymouth. [Ref] It is not known who Mary was; see the Great Migration Project for a discussion. [Ref]
Letters of Adminstration on his estate were granted to his sons Jonathan and Love on 5 Jun 1644. [Ref] His estate amounted to £150.0.07, including £42.19.11 of English and Latin books. He possessed 63 volumes in Latin and between three and four hundred volumes in English. [Ref]
William entered Peterhouse College, Cambridge, on 3 Dec 1580, but did not graduate. [Ref]
As a young man, William served as assistant to Queen Elizabeth's secretary of state William Davison. [Ref] When Davison was made scapegoat and imprisoned for the execution of Mary Quen of Scots, William returned home to Scrooby. [Ref]
William succeeded his father as postmaster in Scrooby, a tiny town near Austerfield - where William Bradford was born - in northern Nottinghamshire. [Ref] The Scrooby Separatists met at William's house. [Ref] He went to Leiden with the Separatists and established a printing press there which he ran with the assistance of Edward Winslow. [Ref] In 1618 Brewster and Winslow published a religious tract criticising King James and his bishops. [Ref] The King sent his agents to Leiden to arrest them and William was forced into hiding. [Ref]
William and Mary sailed on the Mayflower. [Ref] He was the religious leader of Plymouth Colony.
William Brewster received six lots on the south side of the brook to baywords in the 1623 Plymouth cattle division. [Ref] William, his wife Mary, and his children Love and Wrestling were in lot five of the 22 May 1627 Plymouth cattle division. [Ref]
The relations between the Plymouth colonists and the Adventurers became fraught as the colonists indebtedness to the Adventurers grew. In 1627 eight leading men of Plymouth joined four Adventurers in London in undertaking responsibility for the repayment of the entire debt in return for certain monopolies granted to them by other colonists. These eight men, who along with the four Adventurers called Undertakers, included William Brewster, Edward Winslow, Miles Standish William Bradford, John Howland, John Alden, Isaac Allerton and Thomas Prence. [Ref]
On 2 Jan 1632/3 and on 2 Jan 1633/4 the General Court asked the colonists to pay taxes, in grain or the equivalent. [Ref][Ref] William was assessed relatively high taxes in both years. [Ref]
In his will, dated 30 Jul 1633, Samuel Fuller the Elder left Mr William Brewster 'my best hat and band, wch I never wore.' [Ref]
He is in the Duxbury section of the 1643 list of those between 16 and 60 able to bear arms in Plymouth Colony. [Ref]
Children of William Brewster and Mary Unknown:
Fourth Generation
JONATHAN BREWSTER (1593 - 1659)
Parents: Elder William Brewster and Mary Unknown
Jonathan Brewster was born on 12 Aug 1593 in Scrooby. [Ref] He died on 7 Aug 1659 in New London. He married Lucretia Oldham on 10 Apr 1624 in Plymouth. [Ref] Lucretia was baptised on 14 Jan 1601 at All Saints, Derby, Derbyshire. [Ref] She died in Mar 1679. [Ref]
Jonathan Brewster was a ribbon weaver. [Ref] He arrived in New England in Nov 1921 on the Fortune. [Ref] He received a lot of land beyond the fort to the wood to the west in the 1623 Plymouth land division. [Ref] Jonathan and Lucretia were in lot five of the 22 May 1627 Plymouth cattle division. [Ref] On 2 Jan 1632/3 the General Court appointed Jonathan to a committee to assess taxes on the colonists, payable in grain or the equivalent. [Ref][Ref] He was assessed relatively high taxes both that year and the next. [Ref] He is in the Duxbury section of the 1643 list of those between 16 and 60 able to bear arms in Plymouth Colony. [Ref] Jonathan Brewster, Military Commissioner of Duxbury, was a soldier in the Pequot War of 1637-8. [Ref] He is in the Duxbury section of the 1643 list of those between 16 and 60 able to bear arms in Plymouth Colony. [Ref]
Children of Jonathan Brewster:
PATIENCE BREWSTER (c. 1600 - 1634)
Parents: Elder William Brewster and Mary Unknown
Patience Brewster was born about 1600, probably in Scrooby. She died in 1634 in Plymouth. [Ref] She married Gov. Thomas Prence in Aug 1624 in Plymouth. She came to Plymouth in 1623 on the Ann. [Ref]
Both small pox and influenza ravaged the Indians and the English in 1634. [Ref]
Fifth Generation
Parents: Jonathan Brewster and Lucretia Oldham
Mary Brewster married John Turner on 10 or 12 Nov 1645. [Ref]
References
Anderson, Robert Charles, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, Vol. 1-3, Boston, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995.
Ballou, Hosea Starr, "Dr. Thomas Starr, Surgeon in the Pequot War and his Family Connection," New England Historical and Genealogical Register 89, 1935, 172- .
Court Records, Laws and 17th Century Texts, Plymouth Colony Archive Project, http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/users/deetz.
Cushman, Henry, "Memoir of Isaac Allerton," New England Historical and Genealogical Register 8, 1854, 265.
Cutter, William Richard, Genealogical and Family History of the State of Connecticut: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Founding of a Nation, New York: Lewis Publishing co., 1911.
Davis, Albert Henry, History of the Davis Family, New York, T. A. Wright, 1888.
Dexter, Henry, "The True Date of Elder Brewster's Death," New England Historical and Genealogical Register 18, 1864, 18.
Editors, "Items from the City Records at Leyden," New England Historical and Genealogical Register 15, 1861, 30 - 32.
Hamlin, David, "First Settlers of Eastham, Mass.," New England Historical and Genealogical Register 6, 1852, 41-46, 167-170, 234-.
Hunt, John G., "The Mother of Elder William Brewster of the Mayflower," in Gary Boyd Roberts, ed., English Origins of New England Families, Second Series, v. I., selected from the NEHGR, Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co., 1985.
Philbrick, Nathaniel, Mayflower, Viking, New York, 2006.
Shurtleff, Nathaniel B., "List of Those Able to Bear Arms in the Colony of New Plymouth 1643," New England Historical and Genealogical Register 4, 1850, 255-259.
Shurtleff, Nathaniel B., "Plymouth Colony Rates," New England Historical and Genealogical Register 4, 1850 252-3.
Stratton, Eugene Aubrey, Plymouth Colony: Its History and People 1620 - 1691, Salt Lake City, Ancestry, 1986.
Whittemore, Henry, Genealogical Guide to the Early Settlers of America, Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, 1967. Online: Ancestry.com.
Winsor, Justin, "Abstract of the Earliest Wills in the Probate Office, Plymouth," New England Historical and Genealogical Register, various issues.