Plymouth Massachusetts

Rounseville Family of Fall River, MA

1 Comment / Genealogy, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island / 7 minutes of reading

The Rounsville or Rounseville family of ancient Freetown is believed to be of French origin, and a family tradition has it that they left France on account of religious persecution. It is the purpose here to refer to a branch of the Freetown Rounseville family which in time found its way into the busy manufacturing center of southeastern Massachusetts – Fall River – and soon became a part of the great activity there. Reference is made to the family of the late Capt. Cyrus Cole Rounseville, a master mariner of Freetown, who sailed from New Bedford in the whaling service, whose son and namesake Cyrus Cole Rounseville has long been one of the leading manufacturers of Fall River as treasurer of the Shove Mills, prominent in public life and identified with the banking interests of the city.

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Clifford Family of New Bedford, MA

Leave a Comment / Genealogy, Massachusetts, Rhode Island / 15 minutes of reading

Among the most prominent law offices in southern Massachusetts is one which by lineal succession has existed for nearly, if not quite, a hundred years, and in which three generations of the Clifford family have been represented. The members of the Clifford family who have been such important factors in this old and prominent law firm came of a distinguished ancestry. The late John H. Clifford was a direct descendant in the eighth generation from George Clifford, who came with his wife Elizabeth and son John from Arnold village and parish, Nottinghamshire, England, to Boston in 1644.

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Ancestry of Herbert Isam Mitchell of Brockton, MA

Leave a Comment / Genealogy, California, Massachusetts / 10 minutes of reading

The family bearing the name of Mitchell is one of the oldest in the New World, its progenitor being Experience Mitchell, who came over in 1623 in the “Ann,” and from that time to the present the records of various towns of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, chiefly Plymouth, Duxbury and the Bridgewaters, bear mute testimony of the prominence in peace and war of the members of the family in the different generations, and the present head of the family in Brockton, Isam Mitchell, president of Isam Mitchell & Co., lumber dealers and contractors, and his son, the late Herbert Isam Mitchell, active in business with his father and prominent in fraternal circles, have proved themselves firm in purpose and able in business.

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Slade Family of Somerset-Fall River, Massachusetts

1 Comment / Genealogy, Massachusetts / 14 minutes of reading

For the past hundred years – during almost the lifetime, as it were, of Fall River and its entire industrial life – the name Slade has been continually identified with that industrial life and also prominent in other lines of effort in that great city of spindles. In 1812-13, when the real substantial pioneer establishments in the cloth making industry of Fall River were projected and completed – the Troy Cotton and Woolen Manufactory and the Fall River Manufactory – began the Slade name in this connection, Eber Slade of Somerset being one of the most prominent promoters of one of the corporations; he became its first treasurer and filled the position until in the middle twenties. William Slade of Somerset was one of the owners of the site of these first establishments, and was himself an original proprietor of the Pocasset and Watuppa Manufacturing Companies. The brothers Jonathan and William Lawton Slade were among the founders of the celebrated cotton mills of Fall River, both becoming presidents of the corporation. John Palmer Slade, another of Somerset’s sons, figured largely not only in the industrial life of the city but in other lines, becoming president of both the Shove and Laurel Lake Mills. George W. Slade, one of the “forty-niners” of the Pacific coast, was for full fifty years one of the extensive and wholesale merchants of Fall River and his name, too, is coupled with the city’s industrial life. And of younger generations one or more of the sons of some of these are at this time officially and otherwise connected with this industrial life and in other lines, notably Leonard N. and Everett N. Slade, of the firm of John P. Slade & Son, insurance and real estate; David F. Slade, member of the law firm of Slade & Borden; and Abbott E. Slade, now treasurer of the Laurel Lake Mills.

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Ancestors of the Rufus W. Bassett Family of Fall River, Massachusetts

Leave a Comment / Genealogy, Massachusetts / 12 minutes of reading

The family bearing this name in Fall River, to which belonged the late Hon. Rufus W. Bassett, long prominent in business and public affairs, for years a member of the board of police and much of the time its chairman, is a branch of the earlier Taunton family, it of the still earlier Rochester branch of the distinguished Bassetts of the Cape Cod towns of the Old Colony.

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Descendants of William Swift of Sandwich, MA

1 Comment / Genealogy, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey / 8 minutes of reading

William Swift, the founder of the family on Cape Cod, was a native of Bocking, County of Essex, England, and came to New England in 1634, stopping first at Watertown, of which he was a proprietor in 1636. He sold his property there in 1637 and removed to Sandwich, where he spent the remainder of his life and where he died about 1641. His wife Joan bore him two children, William and Hannah, and after the death of her husband she married Daniel Wing, Nov. 5, 1642. She died Jan. 31, 1664.

William Swift (2), son of William, born in England, came to the New World with his parents and settled at Sandwich, Barnstable county. He represented his town in the General Court, 1673, 1674, 1677 and 1678. He died in the latter part of 1705.

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Ancestry of the Mortons of East Freetown, Bristol County, Massachusetts

Leave a Comment / Genealogy, Massachusetts / 12 minutes of reading

The Mortons of East Freetown, Bristol Co., Mass., formerly quite numerous in that vicinity, but not now represented by many of the name, are the posterity of Maj. Nathaniel Morton and descendants of the eminent George Morton.

George Morton, born about 1585, at Austerfield, Yorkshire, England, came to New England in the ship “Ann” in 1623. He had married in Leyden, in 1612, Juliana Carpenter, daughter of Alexander Carpenter, of Wrentham, England. He is said to have served the Pilgrims in important relations before coming to this country, and published in England in 1621 the first history of the Colony, which was entitled “A Relation or Journal of the Beginning and Proceedings of the English Plantation settled at Plymouth in New England.” It is commonly known as “Mourt’s Relation.” He died in 1624.

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Hussey and Morgan Families of New Bedford MA

Leave a Comment / Genealogy, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania / 9 minutes of reading

HUSSEY-MORGAN (New Bedford families). These families, while not among those early here, are of approximately a hundred years’ standing in this community, and with their allied connections are among the very respectable and wealthy families of the locality, the heads of two of these families here considered being the late George Hussey and Charles Wain

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Descendants of John Washburn of Duxbury, MA

1 Comment / Genealogy, Massachusetts, Rhode Island / 13 minutes of reading

The Washburn name in this country is a distinguished one. Perhaps it is as yet only a tradition that John Washburn, the ancestor of the Washburns here considered, was he who first served as secretary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Several governors of our States have borne the Washburn name and at one and the same time four of the name occupied seats in the United States Congress. And the branch of the Massachusetts Washburns seated in Middleboro and vicinity have borne no small part in the annals of the Old Colony and later Commonwealth. Capt. Amos Washburn was in command of a company in the American Revolution; one of his sons, a graduate of Harvard, was a talented lawyer at Middleboro; Edward Washburn, brother of Capt. Amos, was another patriot in the Continental army; and his son, Gen. Abiel Washburn, was one of the leading men of his time in Middleboro, the acknowledged leader of the Federal party, and for thirty-six years held commissions through the different grades of office in the State militia; while Luther, Cyrus and the late Bradford Sumner Washburn, in turn, were substantial citizens of the town, and the latter’s son, Judge Nathan Washburn, lawyer and present Justice of the Courts of Plymouth county, is giving a good account of himself.

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Ancestors of Charles Jarvis Holmes of Marshfield and Rochester MA

Leave a Comment / Genealogy, Massachusetts, Rhode Island / 17 minutes of reading

The purpose of this article to treat with one branch only of the Marshfield-Rochester family, the head of which was the late Hon. Charles Jarvis Holmes, lawyer and public servant of distinguished official relation, as was his father before him, Hon. Abraham Holmes, and as was also the former’s son excepting that he was a banker and financier instead of a member of the legal profession, and a man of high standing and long service in his calling at Fall River, where he was succeeded by his only son, Charles L. Holmes, now treasurer of the Fall River Five Cents Savings Bank, an institution his father had served in the same official relation for approximately fifty years, and who is worthily wearing the family name and sustaining its reputation.

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Pierce Family of North Bridgewater, MA

Leave a Comment / Genealogy, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island / 15 minutes of reading

The Pierce families of this country are and have long been very numerous. Early in the settlement of New England came representatives from England, most of them not related, so far as now known. Among them were Abraham, of Plymouth, 1623, who became one of the original purchasers of Bridgewater in 1645; Daniel, of Newbury, blacksmith, who came from Ipswich, County of Suffolk, in 1634, aged twenty-three years; John, of Dorchester, mariner from Stepney, Middlesex, before 1631; another John, of Dorchester and Boston; John, of Watertown, 1638; Capt. Michael, of Hingham and Scituate; Richard, of Portsmouth, R. I.; Robert, of Dorchester; Thomas, of Charlestown, who was admitted to the church there in 1634; and Capt. William, of Boston, who was a distinguished shipmaster of his time.

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Ancestry of Capt. Jacob Taber of New Bedford, Massachusetts

1 Comment / Genealogy, Massachusetts / 6 minutes of reading

Capt. Jacob Taber, late of New Bedford, and long successfully engaged as a master mariner in the whaling industry, was a descendant of an early settled New England family. He was a direct descendant of Philip Taber, who was at Watertown in 1634, and contributed toward building the galley for the security of the harbor, was made freeman in that same year, and was later at Yarmouth among the first settlers and deputy to Plymouth, 1639-40. Still later he was at the Vineyard, and afterward at New London, Portsmouth, and at Providence and Tiverton, respectively, being a representative from Providence.

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Narrative of the Captivity of Nehemiah How

Leave a Comment / Canada, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, Military, New Hampshire, New York, South Carolina / 27 minutes of reading

A Narrative of the captivity of Nehemiah How, who was taken by the Indians at the Great Meadow Fort above Fort Dummer, where he was an inhabitant, October 11th, 1745. Giving an account of what he met with in his traveling to Canada, and while he was in prison there. Together with an account of Mr. How’s death at Canada. Exceedingly valuable for the many items of exact intelligence therein recorded, relative to so many of the present inhabitants of New England, through those friends who endured the hardships of captivity in the mountain deserts and the damps of loathsome prisons. Had the author lived to have returned, and published his narrative himself, he doubtless would have made it far more valuable, but he was cut off while a prisoner, by the prison fever, in the fifty-fifth year of his age, after a captivity of one year, seven months, and fifteen days. He died May 25th, 1747, in the hospital at Quebec, after a sickness of about ten days. He was a husband and father, and greatly beloved by all who knew him.

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Taber family of Dartmouth and New Bedford, Massachusetts

1 Comment / Genealogy, Massachusetts / 9 minutes of reading

The Taber family of Dartmouth and New Bedford, one of the oldest families in southeastern Massachusetts, is descended from Philip Taber, who according to Savage, was born in 1605, and died in 1672. He was at Watertown in 1634, and he contributed toward building the galley for the security of the harbor. He was made a freeman at Plymouth in 1639. In 1639-40 he was a deputy from Yarmouth, and was afterward at Martha’s Vineyard, and from 1647 to 1655 was at Edgartown, going from there to New London in 1651, but probably returning soon. He was an inhabitant of Portsmouth in February, 1655, and was a representative in Providence in 1661, the commissioners being Roger Williams, William Field, Thomas Olney, Joseph Torrey, Philip Taber and John Anthony. Later he settled in Tiverton, where his death occurred. He married Lydia Masters, of Watertown, Mass., daughter of John and Jane Masters, and his second wife, Jane, born in 1605, died in 1669.

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Thompson Family of Brockton, MA

Leave a Comment / Genealogy, Massachusetts / 18 minutes of reading

Albert Cranston Thompson, a resident of Brockton, Plymouth county, for over forty years, was a citizen of proved worth in business and public life. His influence in both is a permanent factor in the city’s development, a force which dominates the policy of at least one phase of its civil administration, and his memory is cherished by the many with whom he had long sustained commercial and social relations. As the head of an important industrial concern for a period of over thirty years, as chairman for nearly ten years, up to the time of his death, of the sewerage commissioners of Brockton, as president of the Commercial Club, as an active worker in church and social organizations, he had a diversity of interests which brought him into contact with all sorts and conditions of men and broadened his life to an unusual degree. Good will and sympathy characterized his intercourse with all his fellows. As may be judged from his numerous interests and his activity in all he was a man of many accomplishments, of unusual ability, of attractive personality and un-questionable integrity. He was earnest in everything which commanded his attention and zealous in promoting the welfare of any object which appealed to him, and his executive ability and untiring energy made him an ideal worker in the different organizations of every kind with which he was connected. Mr. Thompson was a native of the county in which he passed all his life, having been born Dec. 19, 1843, in Halifax, a descendant of one of the oldest and best known families of that town. The families of Thompson and Fuller were very numerous and prominent in that region, so much so that according to tradition a public speaker once, in opening his address, instead of beginning with the customary “Ladies and Gentlemen” said “Fullers and Thompsons.” So much for their numbers. The line of descent is traced back to early Colonial days.

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Ancestry of the Jennings Family from Fall River, Massachusetts

Leave a Comment / Genealogy, Massachusetts, Rhode Island / 7 minutes of reading

Several persons bearing the name Jennings (variously spelled) located in Massachusetts in its early settlement. Richard Jennings put himself as apprentice to Robert Bartlett, of Plymouth, in 1635, for a period of years. He is said to have lived at Sandwich, whence he moved to Bridgewater, and had a family of children. The Jennings family was long prominent and highly respected in the town of Sandwich, but in time became practically extinct there. Thomas Jennings was an early settler in Portsmouth, R. I. It is, however, the purpose to refer here to the special Fall River family of the name the head of which was the late William H. Jennings. The latter was a descendant in the seventh generation from John Jennings of Sandwich, Mass., from whom his descent is through Isaac, John, Isaac, Isaac and Andrew M. Jennings. These generations follow in the order named.

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Genealogy of the Reed and Loud Families of Abington, Massachusetts

1 Comment / Genealogy, Massachusetts / 18 minutes of reading

These families, Reed and Loud, allied by marriage, are still represented in the ancient town of Abington, where for three generations the Reeds have been engaged in the lumber business with other lines connected with it. Reference is made to the late Amos S. Reed, to his son, the late Maj. Edward Payson Reed, and to the present Arthur B. Reed, son of Major Reed, all active business men, prominent and influential citizens of what is now North Abington. Both the Reed and Loud were early Weymouth families, and we take up the records in order. There follows from William Reed, the immigrant ancestor of the North Abington Reed family alluded to, chronologically arranged, the genealogy of the family.

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Ancestors of Samuel Pearly Gates of Bridgewater Massachusetts

Leave a Comment / Massachusetts, Genealogy / 9 minutes of reading

Samuel Pearly Gates, of Bridgewater, probably best known in the business world as treasurer of the Eagle Cotton Gin Company, in which he holds the controlling interest, has been so intimately identified with the expansion of the various activities of that place during the fifty odd years of his residence there that he is justly ranked among the leaders in the development of manufacturing, banking and civic interests. Though well past the three-score and ten mark his faculties are undimmed, his energy unabated, his zeal unflagging, and he not only keeps pace with the times but is still in the van in the matter of progress in any line which enlists his attention or sympathy. Bridgewater is the home of his adoption, however, for he was born at Ashby, in Middlesex county, this State, and is a descendant of a family which has been settled in that county from early Colonial days. We herewith give the following records concerning the family since the emigrant ancestor landed this side of the Atlantic.

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Grinnell Family of New Bedford, MA

Leave a Comment / Connecticut, District of Columbia, Genealogy, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Virginia / 17 minutes of reading

Since the early settlement of Newport and Portsmouth, R. I., shortly after 1638, the Grinnells have been identified with Rhode Island and Massachusetts history, the earlier generations living largely in the towns of Newport county, R. I., and for the past hundred and more years branches of this southern Rhode Island family have been representative of the best citizenship in the old Massachusetts town of New Bedford. At New Bedford lived Capt. Cornelius Grinnell, a patriot of the Revolution, and long engaged in the merchant service, who married into the old historic Howland family, and one of whose sons, Joseph Grinnell, for almost a decade represented the New Bedford district in the United States Congress, and was long prominent as a merchant and manufacturer and banker of the town; and there lived the late Lawrence Grinnell, father of the late Frederick Grinnell, who so long was at the head of the Providence Steam and Gas Pipe Company and the General Eire Extinguisher Company, a man of genius in mechanical lines, whose inventions gave him distinction, and one of whose sons, Russell Grinnell, is at this time vice president of the General Fire Extinguisher Company. It is with this New Bedford branch of the Grinnell family this article deals.

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