Taunton Massachusetts

Ancestors of George Mitchell Hooper of Bridgewater, MA

The Hooper family, to which belonged the late George Mitchell Hooper, one of Bridgewater’s well-known citizens, is an old and distinguished one in New England. George Mitchell Hooper, son of Mitchell, was born in the town of Bridgewater Sept. 1, 1838. He received his education in the public schools and Bridgewater Academy, later attending Peirce Academy and the State normal school at Bridgewater, graduating from the latter institution in 1857. After leaving school he engaged in teaching, a profession he followed for one year and then began the manufacture of brick with his father, a business in which he engaged for half a century. He was also a surveyor. He was identified with the banking interests of Bridgewater, having been one of the trustees of the Bridgewater Savings Bank, also filling the office of clerk. He was clerk and treasurer of the Bridgewater Cemetery Association; a member of the Plymouth County Agricultural Association, of which for years he was treasurer, and was secretary; and trustee of the Memorial Public Library. He died July 2, 1909, in his seventy-first year. On Oct. 16, 1861, Mr. Hooper was married to Mary E. Josselyn, who was born at Hanson, Mass., daughter of Hervey and Elizabeth (Howland) Josselyn. She died Jan. 30, 1884, and was buried in Mount Prospect cemetery. Eight children were born of this marriage.

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Ancestors of Everett Clinton Hall of Brockton, MA

EVERETT CLINTON HALL, wholesale grocer at Brockton, is one of that thriving city’s enterprising and progressive young business men, one who by his own efforts has risen to a position of affluence through his energy and ability to take the initiative combined with natural-born business acumen. Mr. Hall is a descendant of several of the earliest settled families of this Commonwealth, numbering among his ancestors several of the country’s most noted Pilgrims, among these being John Alden and Priscilla Mullins. The Hall family ancestry following is given in chronological order.

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Descendants of Rev. James Keith of Bridgewater, MA

The name Keith has been a conspicuous one in the history of this Commonwealth since the first interior settlement was made, and the descendants of this time-honored family have been prominently identified with the development and growth of this community from the time of the ordination of the first minister of the settlement – Rev. James Keith, in 1664 – down to the present time, covering a period of nearly 250 years. This article is to treat particularly of the branch of descendants of Rev. James Keith to which belonged the late Simeon Cary Keith, who was an honored citizen of West Bridgewater, and his three sons, Warren R. Keith, who is president of the Independent Oil Company, of Brockton; Edward H. Keith, who is ex-mayor of the city of Brockton, and general inspector of the George E. Keith Company’s shoe factories; and S. Elliott Keith, who was a foreman in the extensive shoe manufacturing plant of the George E. Keith Company for a number of years and is now secretary of the Independent Oil Company. The ancestry of this branch of the family follows in chronological order.

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Hartshorne-Hartshorn Family of Taunton, Massachussetts

One branch of the earlier Reading Hartshorne family, and the one to which this article is more especially directed, found its way into what is now the town of Foxboro, Mass., and a later generation removed to Taunton, Mass., where the name has long been representative of substantial men and women and useful citizenship. Reference is made to some of the posterity of Jeremiah Hartshorne, who was of Foxboro prior to the Revolution, and maybe the Jeremiah whom records of Reading show connected with lengthy service in that struggle. Notably at Taunton have lived and figured in its social and business life the late Charles Warren and George F., sons of the late Jesse Hartshorne, and of a still later generation the late George Trumbull Hartshorne, a liberally educated gentleman, who for a period was an instructor in his alma mater – Harvard – and later an analytic chemist of his native city, in fine, a cultured gentleman prominent in the social life of Taunton.

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Pierce Family of North Bridgewater, MA

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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Ancestors of Mereitt G. Perkins of Bridgewater, MA

The Perkins family is one of long and honorable standing in America, being one of the oldest in New England, where it is first found of record in Hampton – then in Massachusetts, now in New Hampshire. This family has numbered among its members men who have been prominent in the learned professions as well as in the business and financial circles of this country. This article is to particularly treat of that branch of the family through which descended the late John Perkins, of Bridgewater, of which town his ancestors were early settlers, and where he was actively identified with the iron manufacturing industry for a number of years. The ancestral line of this branch of the family is here given in chronological order from the first American settler, Abraham Perkins. Through his grandmother, Huldah Ames Hayward, who became the wife of Asa Perkins, Mr. Perkins is also descended from another of the oldest and best known families of Massachusetts. The progenitor of this family, Thomas Hayward, came from England to New England, becoming one of the early settlers of Duxbury before 1638. In the early part of the eighteenth century many of the Haywards changed their name to Howard, the two names in all probability having been the same originally, as both have the same Norse origin. Among the distinguished descendants of this Hayward or Howard family may be mentioned William Howard Taft, president of the United States. The branch of the family through which Mr. Perkins descends is herewith given, in chronological order.

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Clifford Family of New Bedford, MA

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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Fall River Branch of the Lincoln Family

From its earliest history Taunton has been an important manufacturing center, from the building of the first dam on Mill river, near what became Cohasset street, and the first mill. Thomas Lincoln from Hingham became the owner of this mill in 1649, and soon after removed his family hither. As stated elsewhere he came from old England to New England in 1635, locating at Hingham. He continued proprietor of the mill about thirty-three years, when at his death his sons John and Samuel Lincoln came into possession of it. Caleb Lincoln, the farmer and miller of Westville village, was of the sixth generation in descent from Thomas Lincoln the “miller,” and it has been through his family and his descendants that the manufacturing proclivities of the earlier, family have been kept alive, and, too, in a conspicuous manner, as several of his sons and grandsons have long together and in turn been largely and successfully identified with some of the extensive manufacturing enterprises of that city of great industries – Fall River – and as well been among the substantial men and prominent citizens of that place; notably the late Jonathan Thayer Lincoln, long recognized as a man of superior business ability – to whose mechanical ingenuity and business sagacity was largely due the successful building up of the firm of Kilburn, Lincoln & Co., of which he was long a member, and of which concern later, on its incorporation, he became the executive head; and the latter’s sons Henry C. Edward and Leontine Lincoln, all of whom were reared and trained under the direction of the father in the concern, Henry C. Lincoln succeeding his father on the latter’s death to the presidency of it; while Leontine Lincoln has been for nearly forty years treasurer, and has been long identified with other extensive enterprises of Fall River.

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French Genealogy of Fall River Massachusetts

The Fall River French family here considered springs from the early Rehoboth family of the name, and it, as will be observed further on, according to Savage, perhaps from the Dorchester family. John French, the head of the Dorchester family and the immigrant ancestor, was a native of England, born in 1612. He had land granted him at what became Braintree for five heads Feb. 24, 1639-40. He was admitted to the church in the adjoining town of Dorchester, Jan. 27, 1642, and the births of his first two children are recorded in Dorchester. He became a freeman May 29, 1639. He was active and prominent among the early settlers. His son John was born Feb. 28, 1641.

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Baker Family of Taunton Massachusetts

The Baker family of Taunton, the head of which was the late Charles F. Baker, who for years was one of the successful business men of Taunton, his adopted city, esteemed and respected for his many noble qualities of mind and heart, springs from the old Swansea-Rehoboth family of the name, the progenitor of which was John Baker. Little is known of the latter save that his wife was formerly Susannah Wood, and that he died in 1767. From this (I) John Baker of Swansea and Rehoboth the descent of the late Charles F. Baker, the head of the Taunton family under consideration, is through Nathaniel, Joseph, Levi and Caleb W. Baker.

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Descendants of Chauncey Sears of Fall River, MA

As will be seen in what follows the Fall River family of Sears here considered – to which belongs Chauncey Howe Sears, an extensive mason contractor and builder and one of Fall River’s well-known citizens and substantial men – is one of some two hundred and sixty and more years’ standing in this Commonwealth. The family history and genealogy of the Fall River family follow in chronological order from the immigrant settler.

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