Plymouth Colony Vital Records
[p. 22] Thomas King Marryed to Jane Hatch Widdow march the 31 1653
Marriage Intention Source: Barnstable, Mass., Vital Records p. 19 June 9, 1734 Marraige Source: Barnstable, Mass., Vital Records p. 169 also Barnstable, Mass., Vital Records
[p.352] Persons Married by David Crocker Justice peace Thomas Winslow of Rochester & Rebekah Ewer June 27 1735
Birth Source: FHL Film #947061
JOHN SNOW (Richard ) was born about 1640 at an unknown place and spent his life from early childhood until his death,2,8 on November 25, 1706, in Woburn.6 He married there by 1667 MARY GREENE (see Greene, P; 335) and in 1671 had occasion to sign a receipt to her uncle Capt. JOHN CARTER for her share of her father's estate.4 He had received during his father's life, and doubtless at the time of his marriage, land to live upon and meadow and this property was confirmed to him by his father's wills in January, 1676. He, in common with his three brothers, was bound to provide food and fuel for their mother. Search in published material has revealed no details of the life of JOHN . He, as well as his father, was evidently one of the pioneers who performed their daily work so unobtrusively that it attracted no comment,. did not stand out noticeably, yet such men were the back bone of the colony. So the only way we can approximate an understanding of the conditions he faced is through study of the history of Woburn during the period of his life, with the addition of a few incidents.
Apparently the purveying of sensational tales, regardless of authenticity, is not exclusively, a modern fault for about 1660 it was reported17 in England
"That 18 Turksmen of war [on] the 24 of Jan y 1659-60 landed at a town [referring to Charlestown, mother of Woburn] three miles from Boston, killed 40, took Mr. Sims minister prisoner, wounded him, killed his wife and three of his little children, carried him-away with 57 more, burnt the Town, carried them to Argier (Algiers?I their loss amounting to 12,ooo pound __the Turk demanding 8,000 pound ransom to be paid within seven months".17
The only discrepancies18 in the above tale are that Turkish men of war did not raid or burn Charlestown, The Rev. Symmes and others were not kidnapped or
SNOW FAMILY 555
held for ransom, none of his family were killed and his children were all adult by 1659-60 instead of being "little".18 When Josselyn visited the colony and reported this wild English tale to the pioneers it must have created a sensation!
The tragic losses by fire in those days, when every necessity, cost such a burden of effort, seem most appallingly heavy, and to our modern minds the methods of fighting fire seem needlessly crude. In this connection, we find a ruling of 1661 which would have had its bearing on every one of our Woburn families, for it was "Ordered that Thomas Brigden, sr., deliver the town buckets to any person upon notice of fire within the town; provided the said Brigden takes care for bringing them to the Meeting House again. And is to be satisfied for his pains and care therein".17 A home could have burned down while Brigden was searched for or awakened and the church visited.
In October, 1667, twenty-five citizens of Woburn petitioned the General Court "May it please this honorable court to vouchsafe some help to our town of Woburn in dividing a lump of this wilderness earth";17 and "The selectmen mette the 5. day of Octob. 1674, and agreed on the 15 day of this instant mo. to goe throo the Towne, and ecsarnin the familys about Catichisinge ".16
RICHARD SNOW would have experienced the earlier anxieties over the threatened loss of their charter (see Appendix "B", p. 694) and JOHN would have felt the injustice of Andros' regime in the greatly increased taxes, the threatened loss of their lands and other strictures.
About 1686 a farmer of Woburn was called to account for his wife's extravagance in dress. He answered, "That he thought it no sin for his wife to wear a silk hood and silk neck [neckerchief ?]; and he desired to see an example before him!"15,17 probably meaning that if it was to be considered a sin, he desired proof of the claim.
Kindly treatment of the aged or infirm is frequently seen in the Woburn records, in the remitting of taxes, in the restoration of land forfeited for non-payment of taxes, or in actual furnishing of food and clothing in cases of need.16
Of the seven children of JOHN SNOW, at least four married and reared families of well behaved children. Ebenezer died in young manhood; Nathaniel was probably crippled or ailing for he received his small share of his father's property in money19 rather than in land which the other sons shared. At the age of fifty-one, Mary was still unmarried;³ the life of Timothy was spent in Woburn, where he served the military company15 as sergeant from 1716 until 1737; HANNAH with her husband had removed 4 about 1715 to Killingly, Connecticut, (where some of her Snow relatives later followed her)15 and the two older Sons removed to New Hampshire, John , who became an ensign, settling permanently in what is now Hudson in that state and becoming one of the most useful men of the town until his death in 1735. Zerubbabel evidently lived for a time near Concord, New Hampshire20 but apparently returned to Woburn before his death.
JOHN SNOW died intestate in November, 1706, and on April iz, 1707, his widow
DAWES AND ALLIED FAMILIES
and children signed19 an agreement as to the disposition of his property. .At his death his estate owed £16 to his eldest son John and £12 to Timothy" as though they might have helped to maintain the family. JOHN CUTLER signed the agreement in behalf of his wife HANNAH . By this document, the widow MARY was to use for life all the household stuff and one-third part of the other movables, housing and lands; John was to retain the home and over twenty acres already in his hands on condition that he pay £12 to Timothy and £3 to his sister, HANNAH CUTLER. In view of their payment of certain amounts to the other heirs, Zerubbabel and Timothy were to divide between them, the remainder of the housing and lands, including the widow s third after her death.19 The description of land includes reference to the Hungry-plain field.
REFERENCES
1. New England Register, XIV, 358; Hotten's Emigrants, p.141, Barnstable [co. Devon, Eng.] Parish Register, Thos. Wainwright 1903, part I, P. 50
2. Savage, IV, 138-9; History of Woburn, S. Sewall, 1868,pp. 113, 115-9,640-1.
3. Manuscript Genealogy of the RICHARD SNOW Family cornpiled by G. B. Snow, Long Beach, Calif., deposited at Newberry Library, Chicago, pp. 3-17.
4. Woburn Historical Sites, W. R. Cutter, 1892, pp. 23-3, 37.
5. History of Middlesex Co., Mass., D. H. Hurd, 1890, I, 347-8; Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, Ser. 3, I, 38-45.
6. Vital Records of Woburn, Mass., I, 243; II, 180, pt. 2, pp. 29, 38; III, 259-60.
7. History of Philip s War, G. M. Bodge 1896, pp. 170-2, 434-6; Mss. Snow Genealogy; Hurd's Middlesex Co., I, 383, Sewall's Woburn, pp. 113, 115-8.
9. Vital Records of Chelmsford, Mass., p. 318; History of Hudson, New Hampshire, K. Webster, 1913, pp. 126-7.
10. Cutler Genealogy , N. S. Cutler, 1889, p. 21.
11. History of Lexington, C. Hudson, 1913, II, 142-3.
12. Pierce Genealogy, F. C. Pierce, 1882, p. 28.
13. History of Woodstock, Conn., C. W. Bowen, 1932, IV, 195.
14. Ibid., II, 258; Hudson's Lexington, II, 143; Putnam's Monthly Historical Magazine, 1895, III, 296.
15. Hurd's Middlesex, I, 350, 377, 383, 387-8.
16. Sewall's Woburn, pp. 49, 59-60, 66-8.
17. History of Charlestown, R. Frothingham, 1845, pp. 112-3, 210.
18. Savage, IV, 243-4; Pope's Pioneers, p. 444; Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, G. B. Wyman, 1879, p.927.
19. Search of Middlesex Co., Mass., Records by E. L. Moffatt, Allston, Mass., Probate File No. 20820, Vol. XI, 190.
20. History of Concord, N. H., J. 0. Lyford, 1896, I, 138, 143-4; History of Concord, N H N. Bouton, 1856, pp.68, 78, 124, 139, 543; Concord, N. H. Town Records, 1894, App. p.543, History of Merrimack and Belknap Counties, N. H. D. H. Hurd, 1885, pp. 57, 61-2.
21. Genealogical Bulletin, 1903-4, I, 171; Hartwell Genealogy, L. W. Densmore, 1895, p. 35.
22. Snow-Estee Ancestry, N. E. Snow, comp. by M. M. Jillson, 1939, I, 1-6, 49.
Zerubbabel was a famous Indian fighter in the early days. Later he would move to the area around Concord, New Hampshire, and live there for a while. While living in Concord, he was hunting one day and as he was heading back to camp, as night was starting to fall, he became the hunted. A large pack of wolves chased him, until he was able to climb a tree. Zerubbabel fired at the wolves until all the balls of shot he had with him were gone. Then he cut the buttons off his coat and fired those at the wolves. The wolves refused to leave and hung around the tree all night. Finally at daylight they gave up and left the tree. After the wolves left, Zerubbabel climbed down and made his escape. Because of this incident, a nearby pond just east of the Merrimack river was given the name "Snow Pond".
I have no other records of Zerubbabel's family except this, In the book " Snow Estes Journal" a grandson who had become the President of the University of Kansas told the same tale of him being a Famous Indian fighter. D.V.S.
Jemima is daughter of James Cutler RIN #206 and Phoebe Page RIN #207 Source: NEHGS NEXUS, Vol. XV, No. 6, p. 202-203
According to the source listed below, James had three wives; Anna, Mary King and Phebe Page. He had children with each wife. The AF has all the children linked to one wife.
Source: "A Genealogy of The Cutler Family of Lexington, Massachusetts James and some of his Descendants 1634-1964" National Genealogical Society. FHL #929.273 C973b
202 NEHGS NEXUS Vol. XV, No. 6
COLUMNS GREAT MIGRATION DIARY
by, Melinde Lutz Sanborn, F.A.S.C.
Just WHEN I THOUGHT it was safe to ignore the A-C sketches, RCA brings back the last three "C"s for Some detail work. James Cutler, Richard Cutting and William Cutting are all old friends: I met them all in the Same place, as a matter of fact, as James and Richard were featured in the first volume of The Ancestry of Eva Belle Kempton. (William just falls off the face of the earth, so he is fairly easy to handle.) Richard Cutting is a curious person. RCA wants some comment about why he waited until he was seventy before he joined the church, became a freeman, and served as a Watertown selectman. Fortunately, the minister quoted from Corinthians in his sermon, Unfortunately, the Corinthians quotation does not make any sense in this context. After a few minutes, it occurs to me that it needn't be l Corinthians. lt must be ll Corinthians, which describes a man who comes to an understanding of God before he becomes a member of the church. That leaves James Cutler, who really ought to be a snap but isn't. Everybody has worked on James Cutler: Mary Walton Ferris and J. Gardner Bartlett, to name but two. The problem is, they all come to the same conclusions. It should be safe to agree with them, but it turns out not to be.
I HAVE ALWAYS THOUGHT Cutler had too many daughters named Mary but the more I look at it, the more suspicious the whole farmily group looks. Jarnes Cutler had three wives and, by conventional wisdom, twelve children. The trick is to reconcile his will with what is known about the family from other records. After three days of working on a vague hunch - and looking at vital and probate records, deeds, town histories, compiled genealogies, and court records-it still does not add up. Finally, I decide to chuck everything and start from scratch. I hunker down with James's will and Torrey's New England Marriages Before 1700 and suddenly things start to happen. Cutler wrote his will in 1684 when he was 78 years old. He took care of his three eldest sons first, then said "the rest of my children, including with them the two children of my wife formerly the widow of Thomas King," were to have the rest of the estate divided between them. I list the people who got shares of the estate: John Coller, Richard Parks' wife, the wife of John Parmenter, Sarah Waite, Mary Johnson, Hannah Winter, Johanna Russell, Jemima [Cutler], and Thomas, John, and Samuel Cutler. Since they all got equal shares, I assume that all these people were children and not grandchildren representing deceased children. Given that, we can look for the two children of the second wife, Mary King. Clearly they were daughters, as none of the sons was named King. Torrey's index says that John Coller married first Hannah and second Mary Cutler. I tangled with John Coller's family in the Kempton book, and could never understand why the earlier genealogists picked Mary as John's wife when I could never find any evidence of another wife than Hannah. Sigh. I leave this blank, reserving room for John Coller's wife but not naming her.
Richard Parks' wife is another problem. There is little evidence of who she might be, although there is a deed in which she was called Mary. There is a birth record in Watertown for Mary Cutler in 1643. I go back to Mary Walton Ferris's analysis. Strangely enough, she did not connect Richard Parks' wife to the Cutler family. I assumed earlier that she believed that Richard's wife was one of the King girls. This is not right, either, and the Torrey entry reflects the confusion. Since there were three Richard Parkes alive at the time in question, someone chose the wrong Richard to connect to the Cutler and King families, asserting that a much too young Richard married a Sarah "King not Cutler."
I KNOW THE WIFE of John Parmenter was Elizabeth Cutler because they got into a little trouble before marriage, and James Cutler had to post bond for her. Sarah Waite was the wife of Thomas, She deposed in 1678 and died in 1743/44, so her age works out to make her a Cutler daughter of James's marriage to Mary King. Mary Johnson (another Mary!) was called Mary King when she married John Johnson. One King daughter down. Unless both King daughters were named Mary, the wife of Richard Parks must be Mary Cutler. This means Mary Cutler was not John Coller's wife. Hannah Winter. There is a birth record in Watertown for Hannah Cutler, She was the first daughter of james and first wife. It would be easy to match them up but I am suspicious now. If John Coller was not married to Mary Cutler, then his known wife Hannah could be Hannah King or Hannah Cutler. How to choose? I set the problem aside for the moment.
NEHGS NEXUS, Vol. XV, No.6 p. 203
Johanna Russell was born in 1661, based on an exact age at death, and was therefore necessarily a daughter of James' third wife, Phebe Page. Jemima was unmarried in 1684, but married soon after and had children. To be of childbearing age when Jemima Snow had her last recorded child, she must be the youngest of the Cutler daughters and a child of James and Phebe.
WHERE DOES THIS ALL LEAVE US? Clearly the King daughters were born before James married the widow King, so only the oldest girls could possibly provide the identity of the second King daughter. The only daughter old enough and mysterious enough is Hannah. The final clue lies in the phrasing of the will. When speaking of each of his daughters, James Cutler said "to my daughter," but in the case of Mary Johnson and Hannah Winter, merely said "I have already given to," never actually calling them his daughters. The order in which the daughters were named in the will also appears to proceed from eldest to youngest, given what else is known about them. This interpretation would mean that Hannah Cutler was the wife of John Coller; that Hannah King was the posthumous daughter of Thomas King and became the wife of John Winter; that Mary Cutler did not marry John Coller but was the wife of Richard Parks; and that Sarah Parks, wife of one of the other Richard Parkses, was neither a King nor a Cutler. PHEW! All of the pieces were there, they just needed some shulffling. This means five new Torrey entries and lots of new ancestry for many Cutler and King descendants. (Of course, it does not begin to address the curious situation of the woman James Cutler called "my daughter Phebe," who was undoubtedly not a Cutler at all, but rather a daughter of the notorious Phebe Page by a previous liaison; see The Great Migration, second series.) Just one final problem. It seems that the last time I struggled with the identity of John Coller's wife I agreed with the previous genealogists who married him to Hannah___and then Mary Cutler. I did not just privately agree with them: I did so in print in The Ancestry of Warren Francis Kempton, complete with color frontispiece, autographs, photographs of gravestones, and transcriptions of documents. How to tell the author of this hook, one Dean Crawford Smith, that his editor is fallible? Oh, well, maybe he reads "Great Migration Diary" in NEXUS....
Melinde Lutz Sanborn, F.A.S.G., joined NEXUS as a Consulting Editor with the September-October issue, and "Great Migration Diary" will appear henceforth in each issue of the magazine. Ms. Sanborn is co-author - with Robert Charles Anderson, C.G., F.A.S.G., and George Freeman Sanborn Jr., F.A.S.G. - of The Great Migration, second series.
Source: "A Genealogy of The Cutler Family of Lexington, Massachusetts James and some of his Descendants 1634-1964" National Genealogical Society.
Was actually a daughter of a previous husband.
Source: NEHGS NEXUS, Vol. XV, No.6, p. 203