Bissell Family History

[------- John French, b. 26 May 1622

[          SEE Searle Chart 3.3

[

[------- Jonathan French, b. 30 July 1667, Ipswich, MA

[                   [

[                   [------- Freedom Kingsley, b. 1636

[                              SEE Searle Chart 3.4

[

[------- Ebenezer French, b. 2 Nov 1705

[                   [

[                   [                                       [------- Andrew Warner [GMD] -- See much more on the Settlers of Northampton page

[                   [                                       [          SEE Ruth Warner Chart 1.0

[                   [                                       [

[                   [                   [------- Isaac Warner, b. 1645, Hartford, CT.

[                   [                   [                   [

[                   [                   [                   [                   [------- Ann Holland

[                   [                   [                   [                   [

[                   [                   [                   [------- Mary Humphrey

[                   [                   [                                        [

[                   [                   [                                        [------- Robert Humphrey

[                   [                   [

[                   [------- Sarah Warner, b. 28 May 1668, Hadley, MA

[                                       [

[                                       [                   [------- Robert Boltwood, b. Abt 1620, Essex, Eng.

[                                       [                   [

[                                       [------- Sarah Boltwood, b. 1650, Hadley

[                                                           [

[                                                           [------- Mary Gernor, b. 1626, Northfield, MA

[

Sarah French, b. 25 May 1735, Andover, CT, 6th Great-grandmother

[

[------- Mary Edwards, b. 26 Oct 1707, Northampton, MA

           SEE Searle Chart 9.1

 

Notes.

 

Jonathan’s sister Elizabeth, b. 1673, was Anna Pomeroy’s grandmother.  SEE Searle Chart 3.

 

Robert Boltwood’s father Thomas Boltwood was born about 1596 in Essex, England.

 

Isaac Warner's brother Robert, b.1632 in Cambridge, MA was married second to Deliverance Rockwell Bissell.  SEE Ruth Warner Chart 1.0.

 

Andrew Warner was a maltster.  A maltster is someone who prepares barley for use in brewing (which requires water, malted barley, hops and yeast).  Malt is germinated grain that has been dried, the process known as "malting."  The grain is first soaked in water to make it germinate, then dried with hot air to stop the germination process. The malting process produces enzymes that allow the starch in the grain into sugar and also converts the proteins in the grain into forms that can be used by yeast in the brewing process.  Malted grain is used to make beer, whiskey, malt vinegar and a variety of food products.  

 

Malt-houses were established early in New England, and they continued in some of the villages on Connecticut River more than a century. Andrew Warner leased a malt-house in Hadley, and it was burnt in 1665. He then built malt-works for himself, and was the maltster of Hadley, and his son Jacob seems to have succeeded him.  In addition to being a maltster, Andrew Warner had a still.  Small stills, often called limbecks, were common in England at that time and housewifes distilled coridials, sweet waters and medicinal waters, from herbs, flowers, spices, etc. The early settlers of Massachusetts had many of these small stills in their houses, which appeared in their inventories, valued at from 15 to 45 shillings each. There were some at Hartford and Windsor.  Andrew Warner, when he lived in Hadley, had a small still valued at 10 shillings.  Court records in Hadley, (Mass Cases in Court 1665) include a lawsuit between John Barnard and Andrew Warner over who should pay for a malt-house, which was burnt down while Warner leased it (malting required fires to produce the heat necessary to dry the germinating barley).  The parties agreed Warner would pay.

 

It is very probable that Warner learned the brewing business in his childhood, for in his mother's will is recorded this item: "I give unto Thomas Warner, my eldest sonne, the somme of Twentie shillings and also my brewing Leade."  The evidence that he was a maltster is further shown by the following entry on an account book of John Pynchon, the leading citizen and merchant of Springfield: "Goodm: Warner of Hadley, ye Maulster Dr." The credit side of the account, covering a period from Feb 29, 1671 to Sept 1674 reads thus: "By 7 bush of Malt 1672 at 4s3d, July 5, 1673. By 33 bush # 1/2 malt at 4s6d, Sept 10674 by 30 bush of malt at 4s."

 

REFERENCES on the Andrew Warner information include the Fulton-Hayden-Warner Ancestry: Desc. of Andrew Warner, pp. 4-30, 40-44, 62, 63, 113-114, 193, 308, 446. Pope's Pioneers of Massachusetts, p. 480. Savage's Geneal. Dict., Vol 4, 418, Hist. of Haley, Mass., p 588.BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE: In 1915 Frank Farnsworth Starr compiled an excellent and exhaustive study of Andrew Warner and his family, with much greater detail than is given above on all aspects of his life, including his landholding [ Goodwin Anc 1:17-37]. http://www.newenglandancestors.org/research/database/great_migration/w.asp#ANDREW_WARNER.  References for the malting process information are on Wikipedia under "Malt."