Settlers of Springfield and Longmeadow, Mass. and
Enfield and Suffield, Connecticut
This piece lists most of the Bissell family ancestors who were settlers of Springfield, Mass. and some who settled the nearby towns that were principally founded by Springfield’s founders. A few may be inadvertenly omitted. Some of these early pioneers moved frequently and so were involved in the founding of several towns: Elder John Strong moved from Hingham, Mass. to Taunton, Mass. to Windsor, CT. to Northampton, Mass. (Accordingly, some of the ancestors may be listed more than once or not listed where you might expect to see them -- for example, they were founders of Windsor but are listed under Northampton because that's where they ended up. And don't forget that every important ancestor is listed in the "Ancestors" alphabetical pages, with links to any other important location they have on this website.) What is included here on this page is a summary of each of these "Springfield ancestors." Because there were so many in these towns, there is a shorter separate piece on "Settlers of Northampton, Hatfield and Hadley, Massachusetts."
These are direct links to some biographical information on specific Bissell ancestors listed below who were founders of Springfield.
Rowland Stebbins and Sarah Whiting
Lt. Thomas Stebbins and Hannah Wright
William Warriner & Joanna Searle,
The original charter for Springfield came on March 4th, 1629 when King Charles I of England granted land from the Merrimack River to just south of the Charles River, extending “from the Atlantick and western sea and ocean on the east parte, to the south sea on the west parte.” This grant was to a group of investors who became the Massachusetts Bay Company. These capitalists – merchants and landed gentry – were from London and elsewhere. In the Charter, the king styled them the “Governor and Company of the Mattachusetts Bay in New England.” A few times, the document calls these investors “Adventurers.”
Of the elected officers, one of the Assistant Treasurers was William Pynchon. Pynchon was born in 1590 at Springfield, Essex County, England. He became a man of wealth, education and piety, and was described by his contemporaries as a “gentleman of learning and religion” for he knew Latin, Greek and Hebrew.
Springfield was established in 1636, led by Pynchon, as the northernmost settlement of the Connecticut Colony. (Much of this information comes from Wikipedia, and some from the Springfield, Mass. website.) It was an agricultural settlement and a trading post in its earliest days. The extent of the company’s authority were clearly stated in the charter, which included an unwritten premise that the management of the company and thus the charter itself would remain in England. The King reserved one-fifth of all the gold and silver found within the vast domain governed under the charter. Pynchon had originally settled in Roxbury, Mass. but left with others to establish Springfield.
They located Springfield at the confluence of the Westfield River and the Connecticut River. Up to that point, Windsor, CT was the farthest north the settlers had come up the Connecticut River valley. The first settlement, on the east side of the river, was called Agawam Plantation.
Originally part of the Connecticut Colony in 1636, in 1640 Springfield defected from the Connecticut colony and joined the Massachusetts Bay Colony. This happened largely as a result of two things. First was William Pynchon’s refusal to buy corn needed and as requested by the Hartford, Wethersfield and Windsor Connecticut settlements for their starving animals. Pynchon thought the native Indians were demanding too high a price. When the Connecticut settlers sent Captain John Mason to get the grain, by force if necessary, he got the grain but only by threats of violence against the Native Americans and by chastising Pynchon publicly. Mason’s History of the Pequod War tells a slightly kinder version of this event, noting that they encountered “some discouragements from some English” but ending with the Indians happily bringing fifty canoes of corn to Hartford and Windsor.
The second event was an attempt by the Connecticut Colony to tax ships heading north up the Connecticut River past Old Saybrook towards Springfield. When the Massachusetts Bay Colony learned of this controversy, it imposed a tax on all Connecticut ships entering Boston Harbor. The Connecticut Colony dropped its tax immediately, but the Springfield colonists voted to separate from the jurisdiction of the Connecticut Colony and the Massachusetts Bay Colony reasserted its jurisdiction over that section of land along the Connecticut River. The settlement was renamed Springfield in honor of Pynchon, after his hometown in England.
Major historical activity in the first few decades of Springfield's history included King Philip's War fought against Native Americans; the founding of other nearby settlements such as Northampton and Enfield; and some of the earliest witch trials in colonial America, in which Bissell ancestors participated. In King Philip's War in the winter of 1675, 45 of Springfield’s 60 houses were burned and the Native Americans laid seige to the town that winter. The settlers were rescued only when settler soldiers from Hadley, Mass. arrived to relieve the seige.
Benjamin Parsons and Sarah Vore.
Benjamin Parsons, the Bissell 3G generation’s 9th Great-grandfather, was born in Beaminster, Dorset County, England, christened 1 May 1625. His brother Jospeh (Cornet) Parson was in America at least by 1636, in which year he (along with William Pynchon) witnessed the deed concluding the purchase of the land from the Indians for the town of Northampton. It is unknown whether Benjamin was also in America at that time. He was recorded as being in England in 1649 when he sold property there, but he soon came to (or returned to) America, as he was appointed “fence viewer” in Springfield 4 Nov 1651. He remained a resident there until his death 24 Aug 1689.
The map above is of the home lots set out in the earliest days of Springfield. Expansion later created nearby towns. According to a chronology of the Longmeadow, Mass. Historical Society, part of the land that was settled as Springfield was set aside as “common land” for cattle grazing in 1636. As early as 1645, the common land in “long meddowe” was divided into individually owned farm lots and the erection of houses had begun at “long meddowe.” Names shown on the map include at least ten Great-grandfathers (linked here to their Family Tree Chart): Jonathan Burt, Henry Burt, Dea. Samuel Wright, Rowland Stebbins, Alexander Edwards, Thomas Stebbins, William Warriner, Thomas Cooper, Benjamin Cooley, George Langton and John Searle.
Benjamin married Sarah Vore on 6 Oct 1653. By 1669, Benjamin owned a grant of 30 acres of land in what later became Enfield, CT as well as a grant at Stony River, what is now Suffield, CT. The next year, in October 1670, Benjamin (along with John Pynchon and others) petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts for permission to create the plantation of Suffield, CT. He was also one of a group of Springfield men to layout and establish the town of Longmeadow. Sarah died in 1676 and Benjamin remarried in 1677.
In 1679, Benjamin and four others managed the laying out of the proposed plantation at the area that is now the town of Enfield, CT. The deed to purchase the land from the Indians was finalized in 1680. Several lots were granted to Benjamin Parsons and two of his sons settled in Enfield. In most of these towns, lots were given on the condition that the recipient live on the land for a period of years. In Springfield, the period was five years or the land would be forfeited back to the town. Town records show that in 1689 Parsons purchased land and was granted other land for the erection of a saw mill at Scantick, probably on the Scantic River between Enfield and Windsor. He died in 1689, with an estate valued at 222 pounds. His and Sarah Vore’s daughter Sarah, born 18 Aug 1656, married James Dorchester in 1676.
Anthony Dorchester and Martha Chapman Kitcherel.
Anthony Dorchester was probably born about 1620 in Dorchester, Dorsetshire, England. Some of the early American settlers had left Dorchester and England because of religious persecution for their Puritan beliefs. Information from the Dorchester, England history website notes that Dorchester was a “hotbed of Puritanism” and was caught in the armed struggle between Parliament and the King, in 1643 being captured and plundered by the King’s supporters.
Anthony was known to be in Windsor, CT by 1642, as he was married there to his first wife, named Sarah. Their son James, b. 1646 in Windsor, is the Bissell ancestor from that family, through Eunice Olcott. (Much of this information about Anthony Dorchester comes with permission from the family history website of Dauna Arlene Blezard.) Martha Chapman came to Windsor in about 1642. She married Samuel Kitcherel in 1643 and they had three children Samuel, Martha and Hannah. After selling his property in Windsor, Anthony Dorchester and Sarah sold their property in Windsor and went to Springfield in1649, the same year in which Sarah died (on November 8th). Meanwhile, Samuel Kitcherel of Windsor also died in 1650 and Anthony married his widow Martha Kicherell on 2 Jan 1651.
Anthony was active in Springfield. He was approved by the town in 1653 and again in later years (Springfield town meetings at this time were each year in early November) as a fence viewer. According to The Handbook on Fence Viewers and Laws on Fences in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and to Wikipedia, the position of Fence Viewer in Massachusetts dates to 1647.
That's when the Colony passed a law ordering the Selectmen of all Towns to ensure that fences be properly upheld and maintained, in those times particularly to protect corn crops from cattle. The Fence Viewer had authority to view common fences (most often made of stones from the fields, as in the picture at the right), to require repairs or to issue fines and to handle complaints about damage caused by wandering cattle.
Anthony took the Oath of Fidelity in Springfield in 1655 or 1656. He was named Deputy Constable in 1657. He took the freeman’s oath in 1661. Only adult male church members in good standing in the community could vote and were designated "freemen." Anthony was first assigned a seat in the meeting house (church) in 1659. Where one sat in the congregation depended upon one’s status in the community. Anthony's seat moved forward in 1662, 1673 and again in 1678. He was listed as Surveyor of Highways in 1664 and 1665. In 1670, along with Benjamin Parsons, he was one of the men who petitioned to settle Suffield. He was a Selectman in Springfield in 1672 and 1676. In 1672 Anthony was selected along with William Pynchon, Elizur Holyoke and two others to negotiate with the Native Americans over the purchase of additional land for the town of Springfield. He and Sarah had two sons, John and James, and a daughter Mary.
These two pictures give one idea of what an early colonial saw mill might have looked like.
Anthony was a miller by occupation and for many years appears to have had charge of a corn mill and the saw mill of William Pyncheon (leasing the mills from Pynchon for about 3 - 8 pounds annually). Anthony may have established his own mill in 1652. In 1673, he was still involved in leasing the saw mill from Pynchon. He performed extensive tasks as teamster and laborer; carried corn, and brought up goods from the foot of the falls; and sawed lumber, ferried on the river and scoured ditches. In 1674 town records show was given two pounds for killing 4 wolves, a constant threat to cows and sheep.
Some mills soon became more elaborate, but the basic principle is to use water (often dammed up in a mill pond or captured in a mill race parallel to a river) directed over a mill wheel and use the motion of the turning of the wheel’s shaft for powering belts or a series of gears to operate a mill, in the case of a saw mill to move a large saw blade up and down as pictured above right, cutting logs into planks and beams.
In 1674, Anthony was chosen to be on the committee to build a new meetinghouse in Springfield in that same year, along with Elizur Holyoke and Jonathan Burt. (see meetinghouse picture below under Benjamin Cooley). Elizur Holyoke married (as her third husband) Editha Stebbins Day Maynard, 3G 10th Great-grandmother with Robert Day, in 1658. Additional information on Elizur Holyoke is found in the write up of Editha Stebbins.
The "Old Fort," the home of John Pynchon and the first brick house in the Connecticut Valley, about 1662.
Dorchester was granted a military deferment during King Philip’s War for health reasons (lameness), but was still runnng the ferry across the Connecticut River and keeping a tavern where he sold beer and cider, with his victualling license for the tavern renewed in 1680. He served as a witness in several trials, was fined for minor violations of colonial rules and had a run in with a black man called Negro Jacke who allegedly stole Dorchester’s knife and who was imprisoned for two weeks as a result.
The impregnable home of John Pynchon, built about 1662, was the first brick house in the Connecticut Valley, later known as the "Old Fort." At one of these three garrisoned houses, Bissell Great-grandfather Ensign Benjamin Cooley would have been on duty as a leader of the militia during the raids by Native Americans on Springfield in the winter of 1675-76, during King Philip’s War. The town’s grist mill was burned to the ground during the Indian raid on October 5, 1675 and likely was a mill that was worked by Dorchester.
In April 1669, when the youth began misbehaving in the meetinghouse, the Selectman voted Niles Morgan and Jonathon Burt to sit in the galleries to check on the disorderly youth at the time of worship and Anthony Dorchester was to sit in the Grand Seat to watch over the troublesome mischief-makers.
Anthony, who with his wife Martha resided for some time with Hugh Parsons and his wife, testified during the witch trials of the Parsons' that Hugh Parsons "never feared either to grieve or displease his wife any time." Dorchester declared that "I saw nothing Parsons did to comfort his wife, but he did often blame her that she did not throw corn." See Witchcraft trials elsewhere on this site.
Benjamin Cooley and Sarah Colton.
Ensign Benjamin Cooley was born 25 Feb 1615/16 in England, possibly at St. Albans or Bap At Tring Per, Hertfordshire, England. In the 1600s, it had been a milling town for at least several hundred years, with a market (held on St. Peter's Day) governed by a charter of King Charles II who decreed that straw plait should be sold in the mornings. Tring has a long history of being a center of weaving, so perhaps that was where Benjamin Cooley learned his trade as a linen weaver. From about 1650 - 1680 in Springfield, his principal occupation was as a weaver of linen.
According to Early Springfield and Longmeadow, Massachusetts by Henry Andrew Wright, by 1643, when we know Cooley was in Springfield, there were 22 settler families. William Pynchon intended that the town include rich and poor, gentlemen and yeomen. It was designed to be a self-supporting industrial center, with carpenters, brick masons, tailors, weavers and blacksmiths. Pynchon recruited his settlers accordingly. Benjamin Cooley definitely worked as a weaver, because in 1650 a new recruit (Samuel Terry) was assigned as an indentured worker to Cooley to learn weaving. Cooley was obligated to "find the said Sameell Terry meate drink and lodginge fitting as such servants ought to have" and to teach him "the trade of linnin weaving...provided he will be willinge and carefull to learne it." (Samuel Terry's great-grandson Eli Terry would be born in South Windsor, CT. in 1772 and become one of the most famous clockmakers in America.)
Cooley died 17 Aug 1684 in Longmeadow, Springfield, Massachusetts, at age 67. The title Ensign indicates that Cooley had a position as a leader of the Springfield militia. For many decades, any such military or governmental title (“Lt.,” “Sgt.,” etc.) was carried by the recipient for the rest of his life. He married Sarah Savage Colton sometime between 1640 and 1644. It’s unknown whether they were married in England or after coming to Massachusetts. (Sarah was born in England, probably in Wiltshire. She died Aug. 23, 1684 in Longmeadow. I have been unable to determine, other than the “belief” expressed by the writer above, whether she was the sister of George Colton, but George and Benjamin were extremely close friends their entire adult lives in Massachusetts. A George Colton and Sarah Colton, about five years apart in age, were both in Springfield in the 1640s.
Benjamin helped to build the first church in 1643, which also functioned as the town meetinghouse in Springfield. The church was described later as having been, “...forty feet long and twenty five feet wide, and faced south...it had two large windows on each side and one smaller one at each end; it had a shingled roof -- a rare thing in that day -- and two turrets, one designed for a bell, the other for a watch tower.”
Cooley was chosen 19 times, and served 18 times, as a Selectman of Springfield, between 1646 and 1680. After Benjamin Cooley removed permanently to the Long-meadow, he sold his original Springfield home, built about 1644, to Richard Sikes, in 1667/8, and both house and barn were burned by the Indians during the sack of the town on October 5, 1675.
Again from Harry Wright's Early Springfield, Chapter IV, "there is ample evidence that Cooley was a skilled worker in both flax and wool...The inventory of Cooley's estate, taken after his death in 1684, includes..." two looms, weavers' reeds and warping bars; serge, kersy, say, penistone and linen cloth; cotton wool and sheep's wool; a crop of flax; and yarns, spinning wheels and dye vats.
From the entries in Pynchon's account books, Wright also concluded, "This [Benjamin Cooley's weaving] would seem to be the source from which John Pynchon obtained material for the two blue coats, the blue waistcoat, the red cotton and the breeches that he gave to the Indian, Umpanchela, in part payment for the land that became the town of Hadley. The efforts of Benjamin Cooley as weaver, plus those of Thomas Stebbins [Bissell 8th Great-grandfather] and Samuel Marshfield, the local tailors, would seem to have played their part in the bedecking of the Indian chieftain."
Benjamin was an extraordinarily successful business person in Springfield; he was a principal founder of Longmeadow, Massachusetts near Springfield. At his coming to Springfield he acquired forty acres of mediocre land. At his death he owned 524 acres of the choicest. He had houses and barns to meet his own needs and those of his eldest sons. Of livestock, gear and equipment and the merchandise of his trade he had a sufficiency. The inventory of his estate totaled over 1,241 pounds sterling. Perhaps of special historical interest, he was involved in the witchcraft trials that swept the Connecticut River Valley settlements nearly half a century before the trials at Salem, Mass. and which are described elsewhere on this web page. Benjamin was in attendance at more than one of these, testifying against his neighbors. As Ensign, Benjamin Cooley was often required by the court to "watch" citizens accused of witchcraft and was asked to report on any strange behavior.
Lt. Thomas Cooper and Sarah Slye Cooper.
Lt. Thomas Cooper was born about 1617 in England and sailed from London on the Christian, March 16, 1634-5, at the age of 18. He was apprenticed to carpenter Francis Stiles, 35, who had been hired by London investors (Sir Richard Saltonstall among them) to establish a plantation in Connecticut. Once in America, the Stiles party made its way to Windsor, CT. where the chosen site for the new plantation was found to be already occupied by Plymouth Colony settlers (who had purchased land from the Indians, but had not obtained an English permit or “patent” for it) as well as by freelance squatters from Dorchester, Mass. [Likely many of these squatters were some of the other early Bissell ancestors, as they had come to Windsor from Dorchester!] More information about Thomas and Sarah Cooper and the sources of this information about them is in the Ancestors A-L section of this website under Lt. Thomas Cooper. Cooper was recruited by William Pynchon to move to Springfield, Mass. to be part of the settlement established there. Cooper appears in Springfield in about 1641, the year he married Sarah Slye in Windsor.
Thomas and Sarah are the 3G Generation’s 10th Great-grandparents. Their great-great-granddaughter was Silence Burt, who married Noah Bissell. Thus, Silence and Noah are sixth Great-grandparents. Cooper was elected a Selectman of the Town; built (along with Benjamin Cooley and a few others) Springfield’s first meetinghouse; and was the Town’s appointed surveyor of lands. His name is on the deed as a witness by which the land now comprising Northampton and Hadley, Mass. and other towns was purchased from local Indians. He surveyed the town of Longmeadow, laid out the road from Springfield to Chicopee, was town clerk, constable and Lieutenant of the local militia.
Cooper did a great deal of trading with the Indians around Springfield, dealing in land, beaver pelts, wampum, trading cloth and other conventional media of exchange. He also served as commercial intermediary between William Pynchon (and later Pynchon’s son John) and the Indians, obtaining goods from the Pynchons and trading them to the Indians for furs.
He was a combination of extraordinary talents, energy and skills. In addition to his manifest abilities as farmer, carpenter, engineer, surveyor, soldier, trader, public administrator, translator and agent in Indian affairs, he also was a practicing attorney who represented many clients before the County court.
Finally and perhaps most amazingly, he was the best-known setter of broken bones in the region, at a time when there was no surgeon in the Massachusetts portion of the Connecticut Valley. He traveled anywhere among the river settlements on such emergency errands whenever he was sent for. Only after several years, when the costs of this work and travel began to tell on him, did he petition the General Court for permission (which was granted) to charge a fee for his medical services. (Some of this information comes from the Slye Family Genealogy Forum on Genealogy.com.)
In 1675, with King Philip’s War sweeping across New England, all the Connecticut River settlements were in constant danger. On October 4, Cooper was quietly warned by an Indian friend that Springfield was surrounded by 500 warriors who planned to annihilate it on the following day. He thought to use his 30 years of friendly Indian relations to persuade the hostile force to disband. Accompanied by one other settler, he rode out of the palisaded village to negotiate with Indian leaders. Before they had gotten to the edge of the woods, Cooper’s companion was shot dead and Cooper himself was wounded by unseen snipers. Shot again as he struggled back to the stockade, he was barely able to reach a house where the villagers had taken refuge. He died there of his wounds while the Indians pressed their attack.
The Indians killed all the livestock, burning the corn mill, sawmill, crops and storehouses, stables, barns and more than forty houses with everything in them. However, the advance warning given to Thomas Cooper and passed along by him had enabled most of the settlers to save a few possessions and gather for their defense and safety in a handful of fortified houses. As a result of this preparation only three settlers were killed and four wounded, but the plantation was left so destitute of food and shelter on the verge of winter that it nearly had to be abandoned. Some families, thoroughly demoralized, did return to the safety of the Boston area.
The Springfield Massacre, as it came to be called, was one of the key episodes in King Philip’s War. At the war’s end the tribes of southern New England were decimated, their best leaders dead, their villages and their social order in ruins. They would never again mount a serious threat against the encroaching colonists.
Sarah Slye Cooper married Lt. William Clarke, widower of Sarah Strong, 15 Nov 1676 in Northampton, MA. He died 19 Jul 1690 in Northampton. Sarah Slye Cooper Clarke died in Northampton 8 May 1688.
William Warriner and James Warriner
The following information is from The Warriner Family of New England Origin, Being a History and Genealogy of William Warriner, by Rev. Edwin Warriner, 1899.
William Warriner, the Bissell 3G 8th Great-grandfather, settled in Springfield in 1638. His birthplace and ancestry are unknown, although tradition says he came from Lincolnshire, England. Canterbury Cathedral records in Kent county also show records of a William Warriner family.
William Warriner was made a freeman, or voter, in Springfield in 1638. According to Springfield town records, he married Joanna Searle, 8th Great-grandmother, in Hadley, Mass. in 1639; she died 7 Dec 1660. There was some thought that her name was “Scant,” but well-documented research on the web establishes that she was the daughter of Thomas and Agnes Searle, likely of Warwick, England. William Warriner was given a legacy in the 21 Dec 1641 will of Joanna’s brother John Searle in Springfield, “First I give to my brother-in-law William Warriner my best coate & my cullord hatt...” After Joanna’s death, William married Elizabeth, the widow of Luke Hitchcock of Wethersfield, CT 2 Oct 1661. William Warriner died 2 Jun 1676.
He was fined in the early 1640’s for selling his canoe to someone who was not part of the Springfield plantation. In 1649, he was ordered to pay one and a half bushels of marsh wheat to Henry Burt for damage Warriner’s team of oxen did to Burt’s field. He served as a juror on several occasions. He was taxed in 1664 on 40 acres of land “on ye Mile River...” He owned a considerable part of what is now the heart of Springfield. He was a farmer but records also indicate he did a substantial amount of hauling of barrels of salt, bushels of wheat and lumber for John Pynchon. In 1668, he signed a petition protesting English customs fees on goods going in and out of the Massachusetts colony.
William Warriner was chosen Constable of the Towne in 1652 and a Selectman in 1658.
His son James (3G Generation 7th Great-grandfather) filed an agreement with the Court in Springfield regarding the disposition of his father’s estate, as William had died without making a will. Here is the language of the agreement verbatim:
“James Warriner, of Springfield Presented to this Corte Sepr 26, 1676 ye agreement of ye Persons Concerned as to ye Distribution of ye Estate of Wm. Warriner Deceased which Articles of agreement is upon file, & ye Corte haveing considered it have confirmed it... Legates of ye Estate of Wm. Warriner Deceased what each persons part of ye estate shall bee. Bee it known to all whome it may Concern that it is mutually agreed between Elizabeth Widdow on ye One part, & James Warriner, Joseph Warriner and Thomas Noble [Thomas was the husband of William’s daughter Hannah, born in 1643 at Springfield, and Thomas and Hannah later helped settle Westfield, Mass.] ye children of Wm. Warriner, her late husband on ye Other part what as to ye Devition of ye Estate of ye sayd Wm. Warriner the sayd widdow shall have & enjoy the third of her Husband’s whole Estate during her naturall life, and moreover she is to enjoy ye whole house and house lott, ye half of ye homelott & ye whole meaddow it lyeth against ye homelott & ye whole orchard except one Row of trees and alsoe so much of ye Barn as she needes to Bestow ye Product of her part of ye Land in & ye Lott on ye other side of ye River Right against ye house Conteining three acres three Roods or thereabouts all these to be to her with ye Preveledges & Appurtenances thereto belonging During her naturall life or Widdowhood moreover ye sayd Widdow shall Receive out of ye state of her sayd Husband the sum of fifteene Poundes (which shall presendy be set Out to her) to be hers and at her free Dispose for ever, also shall have ye whole Produce it she can Rayse out of ye Premises by her Own Diligent & Prudent Labor & to be to her & at her free dispose for ever.
And ye Rest of ye Estate of ye sayd Wm. Warriner shall all & every part of it be to ye children of ye sayd Wm. Warriner wholdly free & quit from all Claime or Challenge it may be made by ye sayd widdow or any other by, from, or under her.
Hereto as our free and voulentary act & Deed we have for ye Preventing qarrl & Discord & for ye maintaineing of mutuall love & peace between us, given our free & full Consent except ye Corte see Cause to alter ye same or part thereof, and in Confirmation here of we have subjoined our handes & scales ye Day & yeare above written.
In Presence of Elizabeth F. her mark Thomas Noble Warriner
John Russell Jur James Warriner Joseph Warriner”
Elizabeth Warriner died 7 Jun 1686.
James’ brother Joseph was recorded as being in the Battle of Turners Falls on 19 May 1676 and was also a founder of Enfield, CT. James may have fought at Turner's Falls but the records are not clear on this point. The Battle was a turning point in King Philip’s War. The Battle was also later known as the Peskeompscut Massacre. It took place on May 19, 1676 in Western Massachusetts. Indians had attacked Springfield, Hadley and Northfield, with a raid on Deerfield on May 12. About 150 men mustered at Hatfield and marched under Captain William Turner towards the Upper Falls on the Connecticut River, arriving undetected at a large Peskeompscut Indian fishing village at dawn.
The Battle of Turners Falls
May 19, 1676
As many as 300 inhabitants, including women and children, were slaughtered. Some of the Indians who were not shot drowned while attempting to escape across the river, others escaped and regrouped with other Indians nearby and attacked the settlers as they retreated towards Hatfield, killing about 40 of the 150, including Capt. Turner. CALEB POMEROY, 9th Great-grandfather, born in 1641 in Windsor, CT, took part in the Turner Falls fight, as did Lt. THOMAS STEBBINS, 8th Great-grandfather. James Warriner was also a Deacon of the first Congregational Church in Springfield.
This statue is of Deacon Samuel Chapin, a founder of Springfield but no relation to the Bissell family. Deacon Samuel Wright, a Great-grandfather, was his contemporary and so would likely have looked very similar in dress and perhaps countenance.
Deacon Samuel Wright.
Samuel Wright, Sr., is a Bissell 3G 10th Great-grandfather, born 29 Jun 1606 in England. He may have been from Wrightsbridge, South Weald parish, County Essex and been the son of John Wright, barrister. His wife was Margaret, her maiden name may have been Stratton. Their son James, born in 1639 in Springfield, is the 3G's 9th Great-grandfather.
Samuel, Sr. was a Puritan who came to America somewhere between 1635 and 1638. Samuel settled in Agawam (later renamed Springfield) on what is now Main Street, a little below the historic First Church. He was Deacon of the first Congregational Church, “...exhorting the people until such time as another could be got for the job...” and eventually an ordained minister was found. This information comes from “themorrisclan.com” genealogy website.
He served on the first jury recorded in court records in Springfield in November 1639 and again in June 1640 hearing a case between William Warriner and Henry Gregory involving a dispute over a contract they both had with a man named Richard Everit. He served on other juries, including at least one case with fellow juror and Bissell 10th Great-grandfather Henry Burt in which the jurors apparently determined that one of the witnesses (Goody Gregory) was not truthful and ordered that she pay a fine or sit three hours in the stocks. Later during his time in Springfield, in 1654, Wright and others founded Northampton, Mass.
Wright took the Oath of Freeman in 1648. The next year he was ordered to pay one and a half bushels of wheat to Henry Burt for damage his oxen team did to Burt’s field. He may have done some work as a laborer, in one case helping build a mill dam; in another instance, John Pynchon’s account books show payment to Wright “...for Sawing of the Timber for the Corection house...” Presumably this was the first town jail.
Emmanuel College in Cambridge, England, attended by Deacon Samuel Wright.
Samuel had attended Emmanuel College at Cambridge University in England and studied the ministry before coming to the New World. When their minister returned to England in 1652, Deacon Wright, Elizur Holyoke, Henry Burt and others conducted the religious services. In 1656, the town voted to have Deacon Wright alone be the minister and he was paid 50 shillings per month for that work.
Henry and Eulalie Burt.
Henry Burt, 10th Great-grandfather, arrived in Springfield sometime in 1638 or 1639. He was a Selectman in 1644, took the Oath of Allegiance in 1648 and was sworn a freeman. He was in charge of milita training and was appointed a town clerk (“the Clark of ye Writts”) in 1649. (Wouldn't Richard Bissell, Town Clerk of Groton, MA in the 1960s, have smiled at that if he knew one of his great-grandfathers had been a town clerk in Massachusetts!) Burt served in 1660 on a jury investigating an accidental death from drowning and other juries as well. When he died in 1662, he made his testamentary wishes known to Thomas Cooper and his son Jonathan Burt. His wife Eulalie lived until 1690. In her will, she gave to her son Jonathan (9th Great-grandfather) a plot of land “...and my best brasse kettle to bestow upon his son Henry.” Jonathan had one of the three garrison houses in Springfield that was used as a fort and survived the raids during King Philip’s War.
This is probably as good a place as any to mention the presence of several of these ancestors’ names in the criminal records of colonial Springfield for what was then regarded as inappropriate behavior. According to a University of Missouri at Kansas City law review article by Joseph H. Smith, William Pynchon (and later his son John) were both involved in administering the criminal laws for the Court of General Sessions in Springfield, Mass. As early as 1642, the colonial criminal law made a crime of fornication by any man with a single woman. This crime was punishable by a ban on marriage, fines or corporal punishment or such other punishment as the judges determined appropriate.
In one of the earliest cases in the Court, a John Hobell was ordered whipped “for getting promises of marriage from [Great Aunt] Abigail Burt, despite her father’s prohibition, and for offering and attempting fornication with her.” Abigail was likewise ordered whipped, perhaps for perceived participation in unchaste or unclean behavior.
In the Springfield Court in 1654, Abigail's sister Great Aunt Mary Burt brought charges against Samuel Wright, Jr. as the father of her child. This was especially unfortunate because Samuel was at that time married to Mary’s younger sister, Great Aunt Elizabeth Burt. Samuel was found guilty and ordered to pay for the child’s upkeep and to receive “12 lashes on his naked body.” Samuel Wright, Sr. provided a bond of four Pounds to ensure his son’s performance of the support order.
Mary received the same 12 lashes and 12 more for “Comitting wickedness with Joseph Bonde.” She received the first 12 but was able to pay a fine in lieu of the second 12 lashes. (This information is from Court records and further recounted in the Burt Family Genealogy website.) Abigail, Mary and Elizabeth were the sisters of Bissell 9th Great-grandfather Deacon John Burt, and thus are 9th Great-Aunts of the 3G Generation. Abigail’s first husband drowned in the Connecticut River. Her third husband was Bissell 8th Great-grandfather Lt. Thomas Stebbins.
It was not only in the Burt family nor only in Springfield that sexual conduct was punished by the Courts. Eighth Great-grandparents Henry Merritt and Deborah Buck were charged with "carnal copilation with each other before marriage" 26 Oct 1686, Plymouth Court Records, 1:190. Additional source information is in Research Notes for Bisbee Chart 2.2. Click Here to go to Bisbee Chart 2.2 for Henry Merritt.
Springfield’s early Court records from around 1680 also record that “a John Riley of Springfield” was required by Major John Pynchon to post a bond for the sum of twenty pounds to assure his daughter Margarite’s appearance at the same court “to answer to her foul Crime of Fornication.”
The court, “being desirous to beare due Testimony against this Growing and provoking sin of whoredom and to restrain the like abhorend practices,” ordered the offender forthwith whipped with fifteen lashes and to receive a further fifteen stripes when Pynchon saw cause to have them inflicted or to pay a fine of four pounds to the county. Roco, a man in the town, being examined by Major Pynchon, acknowledged to him and later to the Court “that he had (upon the said Riley’s tempting him) the carnal knowledge of her body” and was sentenced to fifteen lashes or to pay a fine of three pounds. Your author duly notes that Bissell 7th Great-grandmother Margaret Riley was born 8 Feb 1661 in Springfield to 8th Great-grandfather John Riley. Enough said.
Rowland Stebbins
Rowland Stebbins, 9th Great-grandfather, was baptised in St. Mary’s Church, Bocking, County Essex, England 5 Nov 1592. He was the son of Thomas Stebbing. He married Sarah Whiting at Bocking on 30 Nov 1618. The church’s Parish Registers show that a number of residents of Bocking joined the Puritan emigration to New England in the 1630s. Rev. Thomas Hooker, the founder of Hartford, CT. in 1636 was located in the next parish to the south, in Braintree, England, and often came to preach in Essex.
Rowland sailed from Ipswich, County Suffolk, England on the Francis on the last of April 1634, aged 40 with his wife Sarah, 43; Thomas, 14; Sarah, 11; John, 8; and Elizabeth, 6. They settled first in Roxbury, Mass. and then became early settlers of Springfield, in 1639. Rowland may have known William Pynchon in England. He received land in Springfield in December 1640, eventually owning land on both sides of the Connecticut River. He had a seat in the meetinghouse (church) reflecting his status in the community and he was a surveyor for the town. Sarah died 4 Oct 1649. Sometime after 1664, he moved to Northampton to live with his son John, where he died 14 Dec 1671. After some specific bequests to other children and grandchildren, he left his estate equally to his sons John and Thomas.
Lt. Thomas Stebbins
Thomas Stebbins, 3G 8th Great-grandfather, probably lived most of his life in Springfield MA. He was, however, also one of the original proprietors of Brimfield, Massachusetts. (Brimfield was surveyed in 1657 by Benjamin Cooley and several others from Springfield, along with Stebbins, were the ones to whom the original grant of land for Brimfield was given.) He was a participant in the organization of Northampton, but was granted extra land by the town of Springfield as an inducement for him to remain in Springfield, and he did so. He was also exempted from a requirement that he dwell upon land he had in Westfield in order to own the property. He married in 1645 to Hannah Wright, perhaps a relative of Deaon Samuel Wright but apparently not his daughter. They had nine children, but Hannah died 16 Oct 1660, two weeks after the last child was born.
The primary occupation of Thomas was as a tailor and he had many business dealings with John Pynchon, a wealthy merchant in Springfield and friend of his father Rowland. The records of John Pynchon that were kept of his business dealings show that Thomas opened an account with him in August of 1652. This record shows that Thomas purchased cloth from Pynchon. Thomas was given credit by taking that cloth and making it into 12 waist coats, 10 dozen caps, 11 dozen and 9 waist coats 3 dozen plus 1 coat, and one dozen stockings. On this same credit transaction he was also given credit on his account with Pynchon for 2 days of tailoring, mending Pynchon's clothes, and 4 days of work harvesting. In addition to his work as a tailor, Thomas was also a surveyor.
A law in Massachusetts even in the earliest days stated that persons whose estates did not exceed £200 and those dependent upon them, should not wear gold and silver, or lace above 2 shillings per yard or silk hoods or scarves. The penalty was 10 shillings. In 1673, 25 wives and 5 maids in Springfield were fined and Hannah Stebbins was among them. She was fined 10 shillings and costs, 2 shillings & 6 pence. Thomas, along with his wife and others, were presented by the grand jury to the Court at Northampton, for “wearing of silk...in a flouting manner... for Long haire & other extravagancies not becoming a wilderness state.”
As another small example of colonial laws, when Thomas married the second time to Abigail Burt Ball Munn, his stepson Samuel Ball at age 18 had been sentenced to be whipped for saying to his late stepfather Benjamin Munn, “A father indeed, you are no better than an old Indian” but was able to pay a fine of fifty shillings in lieu of the lash.
Thomas was a Sargeant in the militia during the King Phillip’s War with the Indians and was a participant at the Turner's Falls fight (more on Turner's Falls in Family Military History).
He was appointed as Constable in Springfield in 1647 and sworn a Freeman in 1654. He helped Samuel Wright, Sr. post the bond for Wright’s son related to the child support ordered by the Court. He served on several juries (one investigating the accidental drowning of a child in a brook) and was involved as a party in at least one lawsuit, in 1662, winning to recover a debt. In another case at about the same time, he served as an attorney representing a “Mr. Goodwin of Hadley” against the Widow Sackett for debts owed to Goodwin from the estate of the Widow’s late husband Symon Sackett. He signed the 1668 petition prostesting English taxes on goods coming in and out of the Massachusetts colony. Like most men in Springfield, he worked occasionally for William or John Pynchon on something other than tailoring, for example harvesting, and records show that he received payment from John Pynchon in March 1671.
He was also one of five men appointed to manage the affairs of Enfield, CT when it was first founded (named originally Freshwater Brooke). At his death his estate was worth nearly 300 Pounds.