The BEARDSLEYS: My Puritan Ancestors Who Were Part of The Great Migration

Last month I wrote about the Beardsley branch of my family, tracing my 5^th great grandmother, Elizabeth Beardsley, back to my 11^th great grandfather, William Beardsley. Today I am going to tell you more about William and his family.

Originally from Ilkeston, Derbyshire, England, William and Mary married there on January 26, 1631/2. Mary was the daughter of Richard and Ellen (Elliot) Harvey and was baptized at Ilkeston on June 5, 1605.

William Beardsley, his wife Mary and their three children were the first of this line to immigrate to New England. They swore an oath on April 1, 1635 at St. Albans, Hertfordshire and departed from London on board the ship “Planter” on April 2^nd arriving at Boston, Massachusetts on June 7^th.  According to this record William was 30 years old, his wife, Mary, was 26 (which is different from what her baptism record indicates), daughter, Mary, was 4, son, John was 2, and their youngest son, Joseph (my 10^th great grandfather) was 6 months old. This record also tells us that William was a mason from Leicestershire and was bound for Concord.

I’m going to take a step back here to briefly explain “The Great Migration” in order to give an idea as to why the Beardsleys would leave their home to start all over again in the New World. In 1620 the Plymouth Colony was founded by the Separatists, an extreme Puritan sect. Puritans wanted to purify and reform the Church of England, whereas, Separatists did just that – they separated from the Church of England altogether. They left England in 1609 to escape persecution, settling in Leiden, Holland. They wanted to start their own colony, and with the help of London merchants were able to procure a land patent in the New World. They set sail on board the famous Mayflower to Plymouth in September 1620, arriving in December and establishing the first New England colony. There were 101 passengers in total, made up of both Separatist believers and non-believers. This was the beginning of the Great Migration. The peak years of the Great Migration happened between 1629 and 1640. The reason for this was that King Charles I dissolved Parliament in 1629 resulting in Puritans being prevented from participating within the system to effect change. Over the next ten years more than twenty thousand men, women and children left England to settle in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Migration abruptly and drastically dropped in 1640 when Parliament reconvened.  

Like most new colonists who were mainly migrating due to religious concerns, the Beardsleys traveled as a family. In fact, it has been noted that the “proportion of Great Migration immigrants who traveled in family groups is the highest in American immigrant history”. Also, it was not just William’s immediate family who were on the Planter. Mary’s brother, Richard Harvie and sister, Anne Harvie were on board as well. It is also likely they knew others that were also relocating. It was quite common since they all came from the same vicinity and religious community.

In contrast to immigration to other areas in the New World, those who came to New England were relatively prosperous, making their decision to uproot their lives to build a new one in a strange land far away a significant economic risk. As Lynn Betlock writes in New England Ancestors, “From the colonists perspective, they traded economic advantages and stability in a corrupt England for a more precarious economic situation tempered by the opportunity to live more pious and worthy lives in a Puritan commonwealth.”

The key to having a good start once in New England was to move to a new town (within two years of being founded) in order to be a proprietor. This way they were a part of the original distribution of land, receiving the best land grants, in quality and size, and holding rights to future division. Holding rights to future division was very important as it would ensure success for their children. The Beardsleys would have benefited from this as they were one of the first families of Stratford, Connecticut, which was founded in 1639. It was first called Pequannock, but by June 1640 and as late as September 1640 it was called Cupheag, and by April 1643 the name was changed to Stratford. A plaque commemorating the first settlers reads:

“MAC’S HARBOUR Traditional Landing Place of STRATFORD’S FIRST SETTLERS In the spring of 1639 under leadership of the REV. ADAM BLAKEMAN On the right, at the inner end of the harbour, stood the FIRST MEETING HOUSE and burial ground, and across the harbour at the stone embankment was erected the first TIDE MILL In this village of CUPHEAG, In 1643 renamed STRATFORD after Stratford-On-Avon, England.”

As well, on the 300^th Anniversary descendants of William and Mary Beardsley placed a bronze plaque upon a boulder, near Sandy Hollow, which came from a nearby homestead of a Beardsley descendant, which reads:

“TO HONOR THE MEMORY OF WILLIAM AND MARY BEARDSLEY AND THE OTHER FIRST SETTLERS OF STRATFORD WHO LANDED NEAR THIS SPOT IN THE YEAR 1639. ERECTED BY THE BEARDSLEY FAMILY ASSOCIATION. YEAR 1939.”

There were twelve first families who settled Stratford, Connecticut:

·        Rev. Adam Blakeman
·        William Beardsley
·        William Willcoxson
·        Richard Harvey
·        Elizabeth Curtiss
·        Thomas Fairchild
·        Philip Groves
·        John Hurd
·        Richard Mills
·        William Judson
·        Francis Nichols
·        John Peat Robert Seabrook
·        Thomas Sherwood
·        William Crooker
·        William Quemby
·        Arthur Bostwick

In New Englanders to Nova Scotia (from americanancestors.org), it states William “settled in Stratford, Conn., and family tradition says, that he was a native of Stratford-on-Avon, the home of Shakespeare, and that he gave the name of Stratford to the settlement in which he located.” In A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut it states that descendants of William Beardsley from Avon, New York (named after Avon in Warwickshire, England by the Beardsleys who settled there) fervently claim William did come from Stratford on the river Avon in Warwickshire, the birthplace of William Shakespeare and named Stratford, CT after it. They also say that as well as being a mason by trade, he was also a Freemason. These descendants said they had visited England and Stratford-on-Avon and did careful research confirming these claims. However, research by Isaac Haight Beardsley found no evidence to support that William Beardsley was from Stratford-on-Avon or that he was responsible for Stratford, CT getting its’ name. I have found no documentation to support this claim either.   

William and Mary had the following children:

i.                    MARY, b. abt. 1631, m. Thomas Welles
ii.                  JOHN, b. abt. 1633, m. Hannah
iii.               JOSEPH, b. abt. 1634 (my 10^th great grandfather)
iv.                RUTH, b. abt. 1636, m. Joseph Smith
v.                  SAMUEL, b. abt. 1638, m. Abigail Clark
vi.                HANNAH, b. abt. 1642, m. Nathaniel Dickinson
vii.             DANIEL, b. abt. 1645, m. Ruth Goodwin
viii.           REBECCA, b. abt. 1646, m. (1) Israel Curtis, (2) James Beebe
ix.                SARAH, b. abt. 1648, m. Obadiah Dickinson

Besides being a mason by trade, it is clear William was active in his community in other ways which is evident by the multiple terms he served as Deputy for Stratford to Connecticut Court between 1645 – 1658. In 1649, he and Mr. Hull were appointed to assist Roger Ludlow in procuring provisions for soldiers that were drafted for the war against the Dutch at New York. In 1651, he was “propounded for an Assistant to join with the magistrates for the execution of justice in the towns by the sea side.” He was clearly an educated man, but other evidence to support this is that he signed his will and owned a book collection. He was a freeman (Dec. 7, 1636 “third in a sequence of five Concord men”), and a member of the Concord church prior to relocating to Stratford, where he surely helped establish the church there (since the Beardsleys were one of the first families) under the leadership of Reverend Adam Blakeman.

On the list of “Proprietors of Stratford” there are a few “Bearslye” names. I am confident most, if not all of these are ‘my’ Beardsleys, as their names line up with William and his children, with the exception of Thomas B.:

21. Joseph Bearslye
52. Samuel Bearslye
61. John Bearslye
75. Daniel Bearlsye
86. Widow Bearslye wife of Thomas B.
89. Widow Bearslye, wide of William, half proprietor of house lot and accommodations

In the book A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut (where the above information is extracted from) there is also a map of Stratford Village, 1639. It shows William Beardsley’s land on lot 2, located beside William Wilcoxson’s land (lot 3), along the Pootatuck River. On his other side there are two plots of land not allocated and then the “First Meeting House” is located just beyond with Rev. Blakeman’s land directly across. The book also has a description of the settlement:

“The First Meeting house stood on the east side of Front, now Elm street, at Sandy Hollow, on the southeast corner. This house must have been very plain, and of small dimension…It was built without a gallery at first, for the following vote is recorded: ‘Feb. 4, 1661. It was agreed that there shall be a gallery builded in the meeting house in the convenient place.’ The first burial ground was adjoining the meeting house and burials were probably made there until the new ground, which was laid by the town in 1677, was opened where it now is, in 1678, west of Main street.”

Of the families that settled in Stratford it states:

“This was the company that came from Wethersfield through the wilderness to Stratford on foot and horseback, and tradition says, forded the Housatonic river somewhere above Stratford village. What few articles of household goods, if any, which were too heavy to bring on horseback were doubtless sent around by water.

Their encampment on the plain – then an Indian field – near the harbor must have been picturesque as compared with the present… These families were all, probably communicants in the English or Episcopal Church when they left their native land, and brought their certificates as such, with them to America. In the list of the ship that brought three families that settled in Stratford – William Beardsley, William Willcoxson and Richard Harvie, it is said, ‘the parties have certificates from the minister of St. Albans in Hertfordshire, and attestations from the justice of the peace according to the Lord’s order.’”

It goes on to explain that back in England Rev. Adam Blakeman was suspended for nonconformity because he disagreed with some practices that were not in the prayer book. For example, one of these practices required a person taking sacrament to kneel, which was a practice from the Roman Catholic Church “in which they taught the ‘Worshiping of the Host’” which the Puritans refused to take part in, viewing it as idolatry. This gives some insight into the religious convictions the families who left England and then founded Stratford held, since they did so under the leadership of Rev. Blakeman.

There is conflicting information in regards to exactly when William died. According to New Englanders in Nova Scotia, William Beardsley relocated to Hadley, Massachusetts a few years before his death, and that he died in 1676. However, A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut says he died in 1660. As well, according to The Great Migration William’s will was dated September 28, 1660 and was proved on July 6, 1661. In searching for a William Beardsley in Hadley, MA on americanancestors.org there were zero results. All documentation regarding William Beardsley indicates he died in 1660. In searching for his wife, Mary, I was unable to find documentation for her death. It appears she died after 1674 as there is documentation for land owned by “widow Mary Beardslee”.

Until next time, happy hunting, fellow gene geeks!

Sources:

• A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut
• Bridgeport Library website (bportlibrary.org)
• GreatMigration.org, A Survey of New England: 1620-1640 (NEHGS)
• History and Genealogy of the Families of Old Fairfield, Vol. 1, compiled and edited by Donald Lines Jacobus
• New England Ancestors by Lynn Betlock
• New England Marriages Prior to 1700 (americanancestors.org)
• New Englanders In Nova Scotia (americanancestors.org)
• Pilgrim Ship Lists Early 1600s by Anne Stevens (Packrat-pro.com)