The WILLIAMS Family of Scituate

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JOHN WILLIAMS (living 1677) of Scituate m. Ann Unknown
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ANN WILLIAMS m. John Barker


First Generation

JOHN WILLIAMS (living 1677) of Scituate

Parents: Unknown

John Williams died after 19 Dec 1677, when he signed his will. [Ref] He married Ann Unknown.

It is claimed that John Barker and John Williams of Scituate arrived in 1632 and that John Barker married John Williams' daughter Ann that year. However, Anderson [Ref] argues that it is more likely that John Barker and John Williams arrived late in the decade.

John was one of the Conihassett Partners of Scituate. He was a freeman in Scituate in 1639. [Ref] He was a deputy from Scituate in 1643, 1644, 1647 and 1648. [Ref]

In his will, John Williams, Sr. of Scituate mentions his daughter Mary Dodson, his son John, [granddaughter] Ann, the wife of John Pratt, [granddaughter] Deborah, the wife of William Bordon, [granddaughter] Mary Barker, grandchildren John and Abraham Barker and Nicholas Baker of Scituate. [Ref]

Children of John Williams:

  1. Ann Williams was John's eldest child. [Ref] She married John Barker.
  2. Capt. John Williams died on 22 Jun 1694 in Scituate, age 70 or about 73. [Ref] He married married Elizabeth, who might have been a daughter of Rev. John Lothrop. On 7 June 1665 the court admonished John for his abusive behaviour toward his wife and his denial that her daughter was his. He returned to court on 3 Oct 1665 to answer charges by Mr. Barnabas Lothrop that he had behaved badly toward his wife, who was Barnabas's sister. On 5 June 1666 the court ruled that Elizabeth's complaints against her husband were true and ruled that she should live separately from him and that he should support her. [Ref] John left no children; his principal heir was his sister Ann's son Williams: he left him a 200-acre farm. [Ref]
    John is in the Scituate section of the 1643 list of those able to bear arms. [Ref] He was commander of a company in King Philip's War. [Ref] He was a deputy from Scituate in 1676 and 1681. [Ref]
    When James Cudworth, one of the Scituate residents who opposed the oppression of Quakers, was relieved of his command, Lt. James Torrey and Ens. John Williams were ordered to act in his place. Ens. John Williams was later fined forty shillings for entertaining a foreign Quaker and allowing a Quaker meeting in his house; he did not lose his office, however, as the court accepted his excuse that he had been hoping to reform some of the Quakers. [Ref]
    John Williams must have been one of the least likable characters in early Plymouth Colony. He was charged with misusing his niece Deborah Barker; fighting with John Bayley; erecting a fence that was prejudicial to Edward Jenkins's land and the common highway; he was plaintiff or defendant in almost a hundred pages of civil cases. See Stratton [Ref] for an entertaining and more complete account.
  3. Edward Williams died in 1671, leaving no family. [Ref] He had a house on Kent Street in Scituate. [Ref]
  4. Mary Williams married Anthony Dodson on 12 Nov 1651 in Scituate. [Ref]

Second Generation

ANN WILLIAMS

Parents: John Williams and Ann Unknown

Ann Williams died before 19 Dec 1677, as she is not mentioned in her father's will. [Ref] She married John Barker. [Ref]

References

Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633. Vol. 1-3. Boston, 1995, Note for John Barker.

Barker, Elizabeth Frye, Barker Genealogy, Frye Publishing Co., New York, 1927.

Deane, Samuel, History of Scituate Massachusetts, Digital Scanning Inc, 2002.

Massachusetts Vital Records to 1850. Online Database: NewEnglandAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001-2007.

Stratton, Eugene Aubrey, Plymouth Colony: Its History and People 1620 - 1691, Salt Lake City, Ancestry, 1986.

Winsor, Justin, "Abstract of the Earliest Wills in the Probate Office, Plymouth," New England Historical and Genealogical Register 7, 1853, 178