We promised in the last newsletter to trace the ancestry of Thankful Barnes, wife of Capt. Jabez. The sources for the following article are “History of East Brookfield, Massachusetts 1686-1970”, by Louis E. Roy, M.D., Published by the Town of East Brookfield, Mass., 1970, and "History of the Town of Marlborough, Middlesex, Massachusetts, From its First Settlement in 1657 to 1861; With a Brief Sketch of the Town of Northborough, and a Genealogy of the Families to 1800, and an Account of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Incorporation of the Town", by Charles Hudson. Press of T. R. Marvin & Sons, Boston, 1862.
The ancestry of Capt. Jabez OLMSTED is not known
at present. However, this does not apply to that of his wife, Thankful BARNES.
The Genealogy of the Olmsted Family in America
says, in debunking the notion that Capt. Jabez was part Indian, says
"Furthermore a part blood Indian would never have married into a family
like the family of Thomas BARNES". However, there is no indication what
this means.
The first BARNES in the colonies was Thomas BARNES
(BARENCE), who was born in Barkling, Essex, England, about 1636. He came to
America at the age of twenty, on the Speedwell,
arriving on June 27, 1656. He came in the company of Shadrack HAPGOOD, John
FAY, Nathaniel GOODNOW, and Thomas GOODNOW, whose daughter he later married. He
bought land in Marlborough in 1662 or 63, from Jonathan JOHNSON.
He
married Abigail, the daughter of Thomas and Jane (RUDDICK) GOODNOW, of Sudbury,
on February 2, 1661. His house was burned down in 1678 by the Indians during
King Philip's war, and all his goods were destroyed. He lived in Concord
temporally and moved back to Marlborough after the war, and died in 1697.
He and Abigail had seven children: Thomas, March
23, 1662/63; Dorothy, February 6, 1664; John, December 25, 1666; William, April
3, 1669; Abigail, June 14, 1671, Theophilus, February 10, 1673-74 (died
February 1675), and Susanna, February 2, 1676. All were born in Marlborough,
except Susanna, who was born in Concord.
The first son, Thomas, was married on April 14,
1685, to Mary, the daughter of Samuel and Martha (BENT) HOWE, of Sudbury. Mary
was born on March 2, 1665, and died February 4, 1718/19.
Thomas and Mary had five children born in
Marlborough: Martha, born about 1685; Samuel, born about 1686; Prudence, date
of birth not recorded; Lydia, born October 9, 1692; and Thankful, born May 1,
1695. Two sons were born in Brookfield; Noah, about 1697; and Comfort, about
1706.
Thomas and Mary, with Thomas's brother William,
moved to Brookfield in 1691, where Thomas became a leading citizen, and was
granted considerable land. His first recorded grant was on August 27, 1691, for
eleven acres at the junction of Five and Seven Mile Rivers, in what is now East
Brookfield. He later sold this to John HAMILTON, great grandfather of Nathan
HAMILTON, husband of Abagail OLMSTED, daughter of Capt. Jabez.
In 1692, he was one of the signers of a petition
to the Great and General Court (the Massachusetts Colonial Legislature)
requesting that the Committee for Brookfield (governing body of the
as-yet-non-incorporated town) be granted authority to confirm or deny present
or former grants so that those who owned land could be made to bear their share
of the tax burden and the cost of supporting or acquiring a minister. This was
granted.
In 1695, William BARNES, the uncle of Thankful,
became the father of the first child born in Brookfield after the town was
resettled. (The town was originally settled in 1665, but was destroyed by the
Indians in 1675 during King Phillips's War.) He was judged by the court to be
the father of Captivity JENNING's child, Stephen. The settlement was 2s 3p a
week child support.
In 1699, Thomas BARNES purchased the land of
Richard COY, west of Foot's Hill. He received a land grant in 1701. In 1703, he
and Samuel OWENS purchased the land of Thomas PARSONS, from the first
settlement of Brookfield, on the Hill. Also, in that year, he purchased the
rights of John SCOTT of Suffield to the land of John AYRES.
He was one of eight men commissioned to build the
first sawmill in Brookfield in 1709, on Sucker Brook, at what was later called
the Malt Mill Bridge. The nine men received a grant of 40 acres, to be divided
among them, for their encouragement to build a new mill, and they had liberty
to cut all sorts of lumber in any part of the town for the use of the mill.
In
1710, BARNES and four others petitioned the Great and General Court for a grant
to repair the gristmill dam, stating that Indian troubles made it impossible to
travel 30 miles to the nearest gristmill, and furthermore, winter was coming.
In 1713, BARNES and two others reported to the town that the owner of the
gristmill was not living up to the terms of his contract, and had forfeited his
grant of land and mill rights.
On
September 18, 1714, the Committee for Brookfield appointed Thomas BARNES and
two others as members of a special commission to settle a dispute between the
minister and his neighbors over a plot of land. There was some controversy over
the report of the commission. Finally, the minister left town.
In
1715, Thomas BARNES and eight others were appointed to a commission to oversee
the construction of a Meeting House.
In
1717, another mill grant, on Mill Brook, was made to Thomas BARNES, and one to
his son Samuel (no location specified).
In
1717, he was the largest resident landowner in Brookfield, owning over 1100
acres. The property tax on his land that year was 4£, 8p, (the second highest
in the town, out of 121 tax payers) out of the total tax raised of 200 £. (In
the same year, Capt. Jabez's tax was 1£ 5s 4 p, the 18th highest.)
His
house was the meeting place of the Committee when they met in Brookfield.
In
1718, he was elected an assessor of the town, and in 1719, after the
incorporation of the Town, he and his son Samuel were both elected to the first
Board of Selectmen and also to the first Board of Assessors. (The five members
of both Boards were the same!) In December of that year, he and the other selectman
petitioned the Great and General Court for confirmation of a plot of eight
square miles denoting the boundary of the town and granting of township
privileges, which was granted.
He
also owned land in Hardwick, as well as a sawmill in New Braintree, for which
he received a grant of 40 acres.
Later
in his life, he lived with his youngest son, Comfort. Thomas died in Brookfield
on April 23, 1734, after been gored by a bull!
Descendants
of Thomas and Mary still live in Brookfield.
See
page 6 for genealogical details of his family.