The Great Allotment: Pullen Point's First Land Owners
Introduction, William Aspinwall, Edward Bates, William Brenton, Thomas Buttolph, Thomas Fayerweather, Edward Gibbons, Valentine Hill, Ralph Hudson, Thomas Matson, Elias Maverick, John Oliver, William Pierce, John Sanford, William Stitson, John Winthrop/Deane Winthrop
Edward Gibbons
|
Edward Gibbons (Gibones, Gibbones) emigrated from England to the Plymouth Colony in 1624 as an indentured servant to Thomas Morton. Unable to get along with the Pilgrim authorities, Morton established his own small colony at Mount Wollaston (Quincy, Mass.). Renamed Merrymount (Mare Mount), Morton's religious beliefs, social excesses (including the infamous Maypole revels), his trading with Native Americans, and his success, ran afoul of first the Pilgrims in Plymouth, and eventually the Puritans in Boston, leading to his banishment from the colonies first in 1628, and then finally in 1630.
Edward had a change of heart and allied himself with the Puritans, joining the Salem Church in 1628. In 1629 he was living in Charlestown near Cobble Hill, present-day Somerville, Mass., and was admitted to the Boston Church as member #113. This despite having been an associate of Morton, and possibly danced around the Maypole, Edward had redeemed himself to the degree that in 1630 he was trusted to arrest Morton and inventory his possesions.
By 1631 he took the Freeman's Oath and married Margaret (last name unkown), Boston Church member #134. They had five children; Jerusha (1631), Jotham (1633), Edward (1635), Metsathiell (1638), John (1641). Except for Jotham, no further records exist for their other children.
In 1635 John Winthrop learned that the Dutch were planning to occupy land at the mouth on what would become the Connecticut River. To block them, he sent the then Lieutenant Edward Gibbons, and Sergeant Samuel Willard, to seize control of land there and establish what became Fort Saybrook, one of Connecticut's oldest settlements and its first military fortification.
In 1636, Edward embarked on what was likely a privateering voyage. Given up for lost, he miraculously returned to Boston the next year with a French prize ship supposedly traded to him by an acquaintance, and with what was likely the first alligator every to be seen in New England.
Edward's allotment on Pullen Point in 1637 is recorded as:
"Mr. Edward Gibones, 110 Acrs of upland and marsh together: bounded towards the North by the Allottment of the said Thomas Matson, towards the East and South by Fishers Creeke, and the Common shore, and towards the West by the said highway." 1
In 1639. Edward was with John Winthrop when Squaw Sachem sold the colony land that would become Winchester. She had met Edward at Morton's Merrymount, and as a personal gift for his friendship, gave a large parcel (480 acres) on the Western shore of the Mystic River to Edward’s son, Jotham Gibbons.
Already a Liutentant, Edward advanced steadily through the military ranks of the colony. In 1644 he became Sergeant Major of Suffolk County, in 1649 he highest military rank in the colony, Major General. Edward was made a Boston Selectman in 1639, then a Deputy to the Court, and finally an Assistant Magistrate in 1650.
Edward was in a group of men who were the earliest inter-colonial traders in the New World. To be successful they had to navigate the volatile religious differences of the settlers in the communities on the Atlantic coast, and have good connections with traders in England, Europe and the West Indies.
Edward may have been the brother of Ambrose Gibbons, one of the first settlers on Piscataqua River at today's border between New Hampshire and Maine. There Edward collected fish and furs, and made contact with French Catholics from Canada. That lead to trade in tobacco, rice, and corn with Catholic settlers in the mid-Atlantic colonies. Connections with traders in the West Indies brought sugar and rum to Boston. In 1649, a ship carrying cargo from a Dutch company for Gibbons arrived in Boston accompanied by what is recorded as the first by a Jew to New England. Solomon Franco was a trading agent for the company. His stay was short, and he soon returned to Holland.
Edward's good relationships with the Catholic Lord Baltimore in Maryland, and Charles La Tour in Canada led him 1643 to finance an expedition by La Tour to retake a fort in Acadia. The venture failed, and Edward was bankrupted. In 1650 Lord Baltimore did appoint Gibbons Admiral of the Province of Maryland.
Edward died in Boston in 1654. His wife Margaret left New England returning to Plymouth, England. She died in 1656.
James Bill bought the Gibbons House and land in 1657.
Selected Edward Gibbons descendants, locations, and objects of note:
- Purchase of Land from the Indians - Mural by Aiden Ripley at the Winchester Public Library depicts the sale of the land to the colonists by Native-American Squaw Sachem. The four men are John Winthrop, Increase Nowell, John Wilson, and Edward Gibbons. - Squaw Sachem, History of American Women
- Gibbons Elm Tree, Winthrop, Mass. - In 1638 Gibbons had built a house on his Pullen Point land, and shortly thereafter possbily planted a tree that who would become known as the Gibbons Elm. Annual record of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts. No. 275, 1912/1913, pg 103 - ebook
- Bill House, Winthrop, Mass. - House Edward Gibbons built on his Pullen Point land. It was puchased by James Bill. - Historic Winthrop, 1630-1902, A Concise History of Winthrop Compiled by Charles W. Hall, 1902, pg 22, Winthrop Memorials
- Fowle-Reed-Wyman House, Arlington, Mass - John Fowle, the son of John Fowle and Love (Gibbons) Fowle, built the house on land his mother had inherited from the gift from Squaw Sachem - Wikipedia
- Thomas Heyward, Jr. (b. 1746). Signer of the Declaration of Independence as a representative of South Carolina. His second wife was a descendant of Edward Gibbons - Society of the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence
| Selected Edward Gibbons Descendants |
| Edward (b. c. 1600); m. Margaret ________ |
| Jotham (b. 1633); m. Susannah ________ |
| Love (b. ?); m1. William Prout, m2. John Fowle |
| Elizabeth Fowle (b. ?); m. Thomas Savage (b. 1693) |
| Thomas Savage (b. 1738); m, Mary "Polly" Elliott Butler |
| Elizabeth Savage (b.1769); m. Thomas Heyward Jr. |
- The Gibbons Elm at Winthrop - Annual record of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts. No. 275, 1912/13, pg. 103, Google ebook
- Edward Gibbons - History of New England, Vol II, John Gorham Palfrey, 1892, pg. 225, Google ebook
- Edward Gibbons - History of the Military Company of the Massachusetts, now called The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts, Vol. 1., 1637-1888, pg. 38, Internet Archive
- A History of Old Braintree and Quincy - William Samuel Pattee, 1878, pg. 542, Google ebook
- Major General Edward Gibbons, MA, 1623 - Genalogy.com
- 1 A Documentary History of Chelsea: including the Boston Precincts of Winnisimmet, Rumney Marsh, and Pullen Point, 1624-1824, Vol. 1, pg. 109 - Mellen Chamberlain, 1908, Internet Archive
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
