THE RICHARD HAWES FAMILYTHE EARLY GENERATIONS
Generation 1 |
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RICHARD HAWES
The Emigrant
1606-1657
Generation 1
FROM ENGLAND
RICHARD HAWES was baptized at Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, England on November 2, 1606. His wife, ANN (born in 1609) and first two children were also baptized there.
GREAT MISSENDEN
Missenden had a Saxon origin. The "Mis" seems to come from the name of the stream which rises at Missenden. The end of the name "dene" means a place for feeding swine. Thus the name would mean "the dene on the Mis". Missendene is mentioned in Domesday Book. A tenant of William the Conqueror lived there. He, or his son, was created Earl of Buckingham. An abbey was founded there in 1133, of the Black Canons, a Benedictine Order. After the Dissolution (1539) it became the property of the Crown, and in 1612 King James granted it to Sir William Fleetwood, Jr. The Abbey church was destroyed long ago. Cowper, the poet, was of this county; as was Isaac Walton. Chequers Court, home of England's prime ministers, is reached by a lane from Great Missenden.
Map of Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, England GB
TO DORCHESTER
On the 19th of September, 1635, Mr. Hawes sailed from London, England, to America on the ship Truelove. The Captain, or Master, Joseph Gibbs, led sixty-seven passengers on the crossing. The ship’s list gives the ages of all four:
- RICHARD HAWES, age 29 years
- ANN HAWES, age 26 years
- ANNE HAWES, age 2½ years
- OBADIAH HAWES, age 6 months.
The family landed in Boston but soon settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts, probably drawn to Dorchester by friends already there or by agreement with fellow passengers. Richard operated a farm there. Dorchester is now a part of Boston.
RELIGION
The Dorchester church records (dated 23:6 mo:1636) list the names of Richard and Anne, opposite to each other, in two long columns, being “a list of such as since the constituting or gathering of the church has been added to the church and joyned thereunto as members of the same body, by profession of faith & Repentance & taking hold of the Cov’ent before the Congreation.”
CIVIL MATTERS
Along with Major Humphrey Atherton, on 2 May 1638, Richard Hawes became a freeman in the Colony. Besides the right of suffrage, freemen enjoyed advantages in the division of land, and within the representative system all were members of the General Court. The principal qualification seems to have been church membership.
7:12 mo: 1641 – Richard Hawes, with other Dorchester proprietors, signed a writ with reference to the assigning of Thomson's Island for school support.
In the Plymouth Court Files for March 2, 1651/2, Thomas Lucas complained against Richard Hawes in an action asking for damages of £3 12 sh. The jury found for the plaintiff, but later court proceedings showed this Thomas Lucas in an uncomplimentary light.
LAND
Most of the records pertaining to Richard Hawes have to do with land, as they do with most early inhabitants. Many of the references have to do with “viewing” respective properties. I wonder if this means individuals would view property lines by twos, to make sure that one farmer was not infringing on the property line of another. As well, perhaps it was to make sure cattle weren’t straying from one property to another. A town always had appointed a “fence viewer”.
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16 January 1637 – He was appointed, with William Sumner, “to view the feild where they dwell”.
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10 September 1637 – “Will: Sumner and Good: Hawes”, it was ordered, would have the part of the swamp “before their dore and end of their lotts”. They would pay their part to make a sufficient “Cart ridge over the water.”
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2 January 1638 – Richard Hawes got “1 aker”, to satisfy some claim against land from the Calves Pasture near the Burying place.
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18 March 1638 – In the list giving the proportion of each owner in “the Necke”, Richard Hawes has two acres, three quarters, and twenty-six rods. And in the list of those rated in the “cowes pasture” and other land, he has three acres, one quarter, and six rodes. Same date: “Will. Sumner and Good: Hawes to view the feild where they dwell.”
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15:1 mo :1642 – It was agreed at a town meeting that Richard should have one acre of ground added to his first division due to the acre that was give him above the burying place, he would not now have.
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27:11 mo: 1645 – “Nycho. Clap & Robert Pond to view the feild behind bro. Hawes”.
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2 :12 mo: 1646 – A list of those interested in the fence around the great lots has the name of Richard Hawes.
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23:12 mo: 1646 – A true account of the fence of the “great lotts”; and the manner of “lynge of itt”, assigns to our Richard 2 rods 12 feet.
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8:10 mo: 1651 – “For the feild behind Richard Hawes: Nicholas Clap and Tho: Andrues”.
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25 :10 mo: 1652 – Goodman Williams, Richard Hawes, Jasper Rush, “to view the feild behind Richard Hawes”.
- 10: 1 mo: 1656 – To view the fence “in the Comon feldes” for the year 1656, the lot behind Thomas “Burds” is assigned to Richard Hawes and Jasper Rush.
And the last date found in connection with Richard’s name was a deed (dated 4 December 1656) from Minot to Humphrey for land bounded on the south by Richard Hawes, etc. He died very shortly after this.
DEATH
Richard Hawes probably died in December 1656 or early January 1657. The Inventory of Richard’s estate was signed on 27 January 1657 and was valued at £151.12.08, with debts of £48.18.09. The eldest son, Obadiah, was given guardianship of the surviving children, who were later bound and placed out.
Richard Hawes had some influential friends connected with the settlement of his estate: Major Atherton and Captain Clap. He was in fairly good circumstances. Nowhere is he styled “husbandman” like many of the passengers of the “Truelove”, nor is his occupation hinted at. Doubtless he was a small farmer and like his neighbors in Dorchester, cleared the virgin soil that was allotted to him. On the records he is generally “goodman Hawes”, certainly not because of his age. Calling someone “goodman” or “goodwife” was fashionable in Dorchester for we see it in many documents of the period.
THE WIDOW
We don’t see any mention of Ann Hawes after last child was born. Not mentioned in the Inventory of Richard’s estate, we might infer either her death or a second marriage by 1662, when, without mention of her, son Obadiah took charge. Capt. Roger Clap’s interest in the family is evident. In Clap’s own will he mentions his “cousins” (meaning nephews or nieces). Among others, he mentions Ann’s daughter, Constant.
CHILDREN of RICHARD & ANN HAWES
- Anne Hawes, baptized 17 December 1632 at Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire County, England. She was named in her grandfather Richard’s will, thus was living in 1665. May have married in Connecticut or the Springfield, Massachusetts, area.
- Obadiah Hawes, baptized on 25 March 1635. He married Mary Humphrey. Upon his father’s death, Obadiah was granted administration of his father's estate on behalf of himself, his brothers and sisters. His wife, Mary, died 21 April 1676 at age 31, leaving behind all seven children, the eldest twelve. Obadiah mar. (2) Sarah Holmes. He was buried in the Dorchester Uphams Corner Cemetery. His estate was inventoried at £384.
- Bethiah Hawes, born 27 July 1637. She was 18 years old when her father died. Being unmarried, and her father made no plans for her, the administrators of his estate made arrangements for her to live with Zachariah and Sarah Whitman of Milford, Connecticut.* The Whitmans had sailed to America with the Richard Hawes family on the Truelove in 1635.
There was a court case in Milford, Connecticut, on 12 October 1658, concerning Bethiah Hawes and one John Baldwin. Evidently John Baldwin had to pass by Zachariah Whitman’s estate on his way to visit his infant son who was being wet-nursed by a woman in the household of Robert Denison, his young wife having died early on. Bethiah was employed as a milk-maid and laundress by Mr. Whitman. As the walks and weeks progressed, Bethiah and John Baldwin became more and more familiar, and in time Bethiah became great with child, but she did not know how she came by it.
Bethiah delivered her child in early spring [1659], and at a Court of Magistrates at New Haven, Connecticut on 23 May 1659, with both her and John Baldwin present, punishment was pronounced. Baldwin was fined 40 sh. And for Bethiah, “they looke upon her as a loose, vaine wench, who hath beene found to be with child, the sentence concerning her was that she be severly whipped, so as may sut her sex, which is to be done at Milford, that it may be a warning to any that have had sinfull familiarity with her.”
There was some suspicion that Richard Marshall also had some familiarity with Bethiah, but, as a first offender was let off with a 20 sh. fine. It was also Bethiah’s first offense, but in the court of “Christ’s Kingdom on Earth,” there existed at that time the double standard, whereby she was to serve as “a warning to any that have had sinfull familiarity with her”!! Baldwin left Milford in 1663 and was known as John of Stonington, Connecticut.
Bethiah met Obed Seward in Milford, and they married on 31 Oct 1660 or 1661 (the Milford vital records state both years). By him, Bethiah had one son, Obadiah, born at Milford on 1 November 1661 or 1662. Nothing is known about what happened to Bethiah after this, but Obed and his son, age 3 years, moved to Southold, Long Island, New York in 1664. He settled in Brookhaven, Suffolk County, Long Island, where he drew Lot no. 49 in 1664, and was a tax payer there as late as 1675.
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Jeremiah Hawes, born 1638/9 [unknown for certain that he was of this family; but his name accords well with his brother’s names, and Obadiah’s administration of their father’s will speaks of “brothers”]. “The sabbath before the day of fasting, 19 Feb 1659/60, Jeremy Haws, servant of Mr. Patten, and Thomas Lake, servant & kinsman of our brother Thomas Lake, for bad behavior in the meeting in the forenoon, were called before the Assembly in the afternoon and publicly reproved”.
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Deliverance Hawes, born 11 June 1640. She died in Middletown, Connecticut, on 12 June 1718, at 78 years of age.
Deliverance must have had infinite patience for much of her life she devoted to the care of children, both her own and those of her three husbands – a total of 30 children with an age difference of 37 years.
Husband 1 – In 1662, John Rockwell: At least 3 daughters from his first marriage; he and Deliverance had 4 children. Rockwell died in 1673.
Husband 2 – In 1674, Robert Warrener (Warner): 7 children from his first marriage; they had 4 children. Warrener died in 1690.
Husband 3 – About 1692, Nathaniel Bissel, as his third wife: 9 children by his first wife; 4 children by his second wife (total 13).
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CONSTANT HAWES, born 17 July 1672. She married Thomas Dewey.
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Eleazer Hawes, baptized on 9 March 1645. He married Ruth Haynes (Haines). Eleazer died in battle during King Philip’s War, on 21 April 1676, the same day as his sister-in-law Mary died.
CONSTANT HAWES
Generation 2CONSTANT HAWES was born at Dorchester, Massachusetts, on 17 July 1642.
At the age of twenty-one, Constant married THOMAS DEWEY on 1 June 1663 at Dorchester. He was a miller and a farmer.
Go to the
DEWEY FAMILY
PRIMARY REFERENCES
Boston Commissioners’ Reports (re. Dorchester), Vol. IV.
Hawes, Frank Mortimer. Richard Hawes of Dorchester, Mass. and Some of His Descendants (Hartford, CT: Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co., 1932).
Suffolk Probate General Register XI. Boston, Mass. 5:391; 9:138; 11:342.
For the probate matters of Richard Hawes, Dorchester, Massachusetts.
SECONDARY RESOURCES
Drake's History of Dorchester.
Glover, Anna. John Glover of Dorchester and his Descendants. (Boston, Mass: 1867).
Hawes, James W. Ancestors of Edmond Hawes. Mr. Hawes was the historian of the so-called Cape Cod Branch in this country.
Hawes, Frank Mortimer. New England Historical and Genealogical Register (July 1929 and July 1930).
New England Historial and Genealogical Register (NEHGR).
Trowbridge, Frances B. The Ashley Genealogy (New Haven, Conn: 1896) 26.
Virkus, The Compendium of American Genealogy, various volumes.
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Joann Saemann
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Last Updated – 28 October 2008
