William Harris (bef. 1616 - 1689)

Born before 12 Dec 1616 in Westbury on Severn, Gloucestershire, England

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 4 Feb 1689 after age 72 in Wethersfield, Hartford, Connecticut

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Biography

William Harris immigrated to New England as a child during the Puritan Great Migration (1621-1640).

William Harris, son of Thomas Harris (bef.1584-bef.1633) and Elizabeth (Unknown) Stilson (abt.1577-1670) was born, say 1620. His first marriage was to Edith ______ by 1645 (their first child was born in Rowley July 1, 1645). His second marriage was to Lydia (Wright) Smith, daughter of Thomas Wright and widow of Joseph Smith.^[1]

A recent publication reports that William Harris, son of Thomas and Elizabeth ( ) Harris, was baptized at Westbury on Severn, 12 Dec. 1616.^[2] William married first by 1642, Edith _______. He married second May 3, 1687, Lydia (Wright) Smith. William Harris died at Middletown or Wethersfield, Connecticut, before 4 Feb. 1688[/9].^[3]

On Febuary 4, 1688/9, "heirs of the widow Harris" were mentioned in conjunction with a deed of land that adjoined property given by Thomas Williams to his son John Williams in Wethersfield.^[4] William's inventory was presented in court March 7, 1689, and on that same day administration of William's estate was granted to Francis Whitmore, William's son-in-law and administrator.^[5]

William Harris married first, by 1642, Edith ______, who had been admitted to the First Church at Charlestown November 9, 1642, as "Eedy Harris". She died on August 5, 1685 at Middletown, Connecticut.^[6]

Willliam married second by May 3, 1687, Lydia (Wright) Smith,^[7] widow of Joseph Smith, and daughter of Thomas Wright of Wethersfield.

Immigration

William arrived in New England in 1630 with his parents and 5 siblings. They may have been passengers of the ship, Lyon, departing from Bristol, England.^[8]

Civic Life

William was granted a house lot of two acres in Rowley, Massachusetts in 1643, after moving there from Charlestown.^[9]

By June 12 ,1652 William was again in Charlestown where William Harris, "yeoman, Inhabitant in charltowne", and his wife, "Edee" sold property in Malden, Massachusetts, which he had purchased from William Stitson, his stepfather.^[10]

Children

Known children of William Harris and Edith ______ were:^[11]

1. Mary Harris, born in Rowley, July 1, 1645^[12]; deceased by September 1, 1721^[13]; married (1) John Ward, (2) Josiah Gilbert
2. Martha Harris, born, say 1647; died July 14, 1713, New London, Connecticut^[14]; married Joseph Coit^[15]
3. Elizabeth Harris, born, say 1650; died at Middletown, Connecticut October 7, 1684; married Edward Foster^[16]
4. Hannah Harris, born, say 1652; living in August 1722 when the court ordered the distribution of her father's estate.^[17]; married Francis Whitmore^[18]
5. Patience Harris, born, say 1654; died Middletown, Connecticut, March 19, 1732/3; married Daniel Markham^[19]

William Harris did not have a son, Thomas Harris, sometimes said (incorrectly) to be the second spouse of Sarah (Nettleton) Harris (abt.1642-1727).^[20]

1. WILLIAM2 HARRIS (Thomas1), born say 1620,[13] died in Middletown or Wethersfield, Connecticut, before 4 February 1688[/9], when “heirs of the widow Harris” were mentioned as in possession of adjoining land in a deed from Thomas Williams to his son John Williams in Wethersfield,[14] apparently in the neighbor-hood called Dividend in what is now the town of Rocky Hill. Contrary to early and repeated statements that William “died in 1717, at an advanced age,”[15] Middletown land records explicitly state that he was “dead” on 1 April 1689, when his son-in-law and administrator, Francis Whitmore, took a deed from Samuel and Mary Bow in favor of William’s estate.[16] William’s inventory had been presented in court on 7 March and administration was granted to Whitmore on the same day.[17] William married first, by 1642, EDITH ____, who died at Middletown on 5 August 1685.[18] She had been admitted as “Eedy Harris” to the First Church in Charlestown, Massachusetts, on 30 9m [November] 1642.[19] William married second, by 3 May 1687,[20] LYDIA (WRIGHT) SMITH, who died before 4 February 1688[/9],[21] widow of Joseph2 Smith (Richard1) and daughter of Thomas1 Wright of Wethersfield.[22] With her former husband, Lydia had five children: Lydia Smith, born about 1654; Elizabeth Smith, born in 1656; Joseph Smith, born in March 1659/60; Jonathan Smith, born in August 1663; and Samuel Smith, born in August 1666.[23]

William moved from Charlestown to Rowley, Massachusetts, about 1643, where he was granted a house lot that year[24] and where he recorded a daughter Mary in July 1645.[25] He returned soon to Charlestown where, on 12 June 1652 as “yeoman, Inhabitant in Charltowne,” he and his wife “Edee” sold property in Malden adjoining [his brother-in-law] Elias Maverick, which he had purchased from his stepfather, William Stitson.[26]

William had moved to Middletown before May 1654,[27] when he already owned properties there adjoining those of his brother Daniel.[28] Although one might wish for a better account of the circumstances behind a ruling of a Court of Magistrates at Hartford on 13 October that year, the brief record states only that “William Harris of middletowne” was fined 40l for the breach of an Order by Intermeddling to the Intangling of the Affectyons of Thomas Ossmores Daughter.[29]

It was agreed at a Middletown town meeting on 10 March 1654[/5?] that the meadow fence should be set up “in the old place where it stood the last year.” The work-assignment list included William Harris for “one day” and Daniel Harris for “halfe a day.”[30] In July 1662 William provided hay at Middletown for horses that John Pynchon of Springfield, Massachusetts, was shipping to Barbados.[31] On 22 August 1669, it “[b]eing the Lords Day Lieutenant [Daniel] Harris with the wife of our Bro: William Harris [was] recommended to us from the Church of Christ at Rowley.”[32] William’s property valuation of £200 at Middletown in March 1670 exceeded those of all fifty-one other householders and proprietors except £225 for Mr. Nathaniel Collins, the minister.[33] The record of the Middletown town meeting on 18 November 1679 includes a list of 64 “proprietors of the bell,” inhabitants who had contributed to the purchase of a bell for the meeting house. William Harris’s contribution, £1, was exceeded only by the merchant-mariner Mr. Giles Hamlin (£3), George Phillips (£2), and Sgt. William Ward (£1 6s.).[34] On 30 June 1685, nine men including William Harris and his brother Daniel were selected “to procuer a paten for the towne,” which was granted by the Governor and General Court of Connecticut on 11 March 1685/6. The next year, about the time of his second marriage, William was a deputy from Middletown at the October 1687 session of the General Court.[35] On 6 October 1687, William Harris traded the Middletown lot “where his house standeth” and other parcels to William Sumner for Sumner’s “house and land” in Boston’s North End, and another lot “neare Charlstowne fery.”[36] In December 1692, William Harris’s daughter Patience and husband Daniel Markham “of Middletowne” released their interest in this Boston property to Francis Whitmore, who appeared in Boston on 28 June 1693 to sell it to William Phipps.[37] Perhaps William Harris had intended to retire to Boston with his second wife, Lydia, but he died soon afterward and there is no evidence that they ever established residence there.

Sources

1. ↑ The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, Volumes I-III. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2010), (Originally Published as: New England Historic Genealogical Society. Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, Volumes I-III, 3 vols., 1995). Reference volume 2, page 865 via $American Ancestors, citing TAG 23:153 and Manwaring 1:233
2. ↑ Randy West, "The English Origin of Thomas1 Harris of Winnisimmet (Chelsea), Massachusetts." New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Volume 176 (2022), pages 365-367, citing Westbury on Severn, Gloucestershire, parish register, 1538–1664 [Gloucestershire, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538–1813, online at Ancestry.com, image 53]
3. ↑ West, New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 176:367, citing Gale Ion Harris, "The Brothers William2 and Daniel2 Harris of Middletown, Connecticut," Register 164 (2010):165–174, 281–291; 165 (2011):62–67, at 164:166–167.
4. ↑ Gale Ion Harris, "The Brothers William2 and Daniel2 Harris of Middletown, Connecticut, The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. Boston, MA: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1847-. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001-2018.) Reference volume 164 (2010), page 166 citing Wethersfield Deeds 3:285, via $American Ancestors
5. ↑ Harris, NEHGR 164 (2010), page 167, citing Records of the Particular Court of the Colony of Connecticut: Administration of Sir Edmond Andros, Royal Governor, 1687-1688, published 1935, page 32
6. ↑ NEHGR 164:167, citing Donald Lines Jacobus, "Middletown Connecticut Vital Records in Land Records" Vol 1, The American Genealogist, volume 12 (1935-36), page 156, "Eudith"
7. ↑ NEHGR 164:167, citing Helen Ullman, Hartford County Connecticut, County Court Minutes, Volumes 3-4, 1663-1667, 1697, page 434, in which it is reported that "Lydia Harris, relict of Joseph Smith, late of Rocky Hill" asked for a settlement of Joseph's estate
8. ↑ Walter Goodwin Davis, The ancestry of Bethia Harris, 1748-1833, wife of Dudley Wildes of Topsfield, Massachusetts, published 1934. Reference page 6 via InternetArchive
9. ↑ The early records of the town of Rowley, Massachusetts, 1639-1672 : being volume 1 of the printed records of the town, published 1894. Reference page 5 via InternetArchive
10. ↑ Boston (Mass.). Records Commissioners, A report of the record commissioners : containing Charlestown land records, 1638-1802, volume 3, published 1883. Reference page 127 via InternetArchive
11. ↑ NEHGR 164:170-174, with additional references as cited
12. ↑ NEHGR 164:170, citing Vital Records of Rowley, 1:89, Note 25
13. ↑ NEHGR 164:170, citing Charles Manwaring, A Digest of the Early Connecticut Probate Records [Hartford District, 1637-1750], Vol 1, page 451 (Settlement of Josiah Gilbert's estate)
14. ↑ NEHGR 164:171, citing Barbour Collection of Vital Records, New London Vital Records, 1:20
15. ↑ NEHGR 164:171, citing Barbour Collection of Vital Records, New London Vital Records, 1:5
16. ↑ NEHGR 164:172, citing "Middletown Vital Records" note 18, The American Genealogist 13:41 (Elizabeth's death and marriage)
17. ↑ NEHGR 164:172, citing Manwaring, Early Connecticut Probate, Note 41, 2:398
18. ↑ NEHGR 164:172, citing "Middletown Vital Records" Note 18, The American Genealogist 13:45
19. ↑ NEHGR 164:172, citing "Middletown Vital Records" Note 18, The American Genealogist 13:45
20. ↑ NEHGR 164:172, citing Gale Ion Harris, "Thomas Herris, Merchant of New England; Reassembling a 'Split Identity'" National Genealogical Society Quarterly 80 (1992):50. Also "Walter Harris of Wethersfield", Note 14, 326

• The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. Boston, MA: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1847-. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001-2013.) The Brothers William(2) and Daniel(2) Harris of Middletown, Connecticut by Gale Ion Harris, [Concluded from NEHGR Vol 164 (2010), page 291] NEHGR Vol 165 (2011), pp62

• Wethersfield Deeds, 3:285, the date of which provides reason to correct my earlier state- ment that William Harris died “during March 1688/9” (Gale Ion Harris, “Walter Harris of Weth- ersfield, Connecticut,” Register 142 [1988]:323–49 at 326). See also Gale Ion Harris and Norman W. Ingham, “Thomas1 and Rebecca (Waterhouse) Williams of Wethersfield, Connecticut,” TheAmerican Genealogist 79 (2004):38–56, at 42. William was presumed to be alive on 12 April 1688, when his stepfather, William Stitson of Charlestown, left him 5s. in his will (Anderson, Great Migration Begins [note 2], 3:1765), but had died before next February.

• “Will of Richard Hills” [note 4], Register 2:219; James Savage, A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, 4 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1860–62; repr. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1965), 2:365.

• Middletown, Conn., Deeds, 1:106; 2:68, 299.

• Records of the Particular Court of the Colony of Connecticut: Administration of Sir Edmond Andros, Royal Governor, 1687–1688 (Hartford, Conn.: Case, Lockwood & Brainard, 1935), 32.

• Donald Lines Jacobus, “Middletown (Conn.) Vital Records in Land Records, Volume I,” The American Genealogist 12 (1935–36):155–70, 210–22; 13 (1936–37):32–45; at 12:156 (“Eudith”).

• James F. Hunnewell, “The First Record-Book of the First Church in Charlestown, Massachusetts,” Register 23 (1869):187–91, 279–84 et seq., at 280;

• Thomas Bellows Wyman, The Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown . . . 1629–1818, 2 vols. (Boston: D. Clapp and Son, 1879), 1:467.

• The date of a court held at Hartford where “Lydia Harris relict of Joseph Smith late of Rocky Hill” asked for a settlement of Joseph’s estate (Helen Schatvet Ullmann, Hartford County, Connecticut, County Court Minutes, Volumes 3 and 4, 1663–1667, 1697 [Boston: NEHGS, 2005], 434).

• On 4 February 1688[/9], Thomas Williams conveyed to son John Williams seven acres at Rocky Hill bounded by “land of the heires of Joseph Smith Deceased north, and heirs of the widow Harris west.” An appended note in 1692 mentions the same property then bounded on Lydia Cole south, Jonathan Smith north, Samuell Smith west. (Wethersfield Deeds, 3:285.) Apparently, widow Harris had died and the bounding property then was in the hands of her three surviving Smith children.

• Donald Lines Jacobus, “Richard Smith of Wethersfield,” The American Genealogist 25 (1949):126–39, at 128. On 21 February 1652[/3], Richard Smith wrote from Wethersfield to John Winthrop Jr. in New London describing the strange symptoms of “[m]y sons wife Lidia Wright,” who was suffering from an ailment modernly diagnosed as pulmonary echinococcosis (Malcolm Freiberg, ed., Winthrop Papers, Volume VI, 1650–1654 [Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1992], 251–52, note 3). The editor unfortunately followed confused and superseded accounts in Henry R. Stiles, The History of Ancient Wethersfield, Connecticut, 2 vols. (New York: Grafton Press, 1904; repr. Somersworth, N.H.: New England History Press, 1987), 1:299, 2:645, for remarks about the identity of this Richard Smith.

• Jacobus, “Richard Smith of Wethersfield” [note 22], The American Genealogist 5:128; Gale Ion Harris, “The Doubtful English Ancestry of Richard Smith of Wethersfield, Connecticut,” Register 143 (1989):240–46, at 245; Neil D. Thompson, “Isaac Buswell and Rebecca (Buswell) Smith of Husbands Bosworth, co. Leicester, and New England,” Register 158 (2004):33–39.

• 27 When he was made a freeman (Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut [note 5], 1:256).

• 28 Middletown Deeds, 1:3, 8, 9. An early statement that William Harris bought a house and land in Hartford from William Williams in 1659 before settling in Middletown (“Will of Richard Hills” [note 4], Register 2:219, and repeated in some later works) confuses him with a different person, William Ayres. See Gale Ion Harris, “William1 and Goodwife Ayres of Hartford, Connecticut: Witches Who Got Away,” The American Genealogist 75 (2000):197–205.

• 29 Records of the Particular Court of Connecticut, 1639–1663 , Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, vol. 22 (Hartford, Conn., 1928), 138. The wording of this entry shows that the fine was based on an order of the General Court of Connecticut on 5 July 1643 (and included verbatim in the Code of 1650) concerning the “government and ordering” of families. It provided that persons, male or female, “that remaineth under the government of parents, masters or guardians, or such like,” are forbidden to “make, or give interteinment to, any motion or sute in way of marriage without the knowledge and consent of those they stand in such relation to,” and moreover, “nor shall any third person or persons intermeddle in making any motion to any such, without the knowledge and consent of those under whose government they are, under the same penalty” (Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut [note 5], 1:92, 540). It seems that William Harris was such a “third person” in this case. “Thomas Ossmores Daughter” apparently was Hannah Hosmer, born say 1636, daughter of Thomas Hosmer/Osmore of Cambridge and Hartford, who married Josiah Willard in Concord, Massachusetts, on 20 March 1656/7 (Anderson, Great Migration Begins [note 2], 2:1004).

• 30 From a transcription of the town record in “Settlement of Middletown,” History of Middlesex County, Connecticut (New York: J. B. Beers & Co., 1884), 66.

• 31 Carl Bridenbaugh and Juliette Tomlinson, The Pynchon Papers, Volume II: Selections from the Account Books of John Pynchon, 1651–1697 (Boston: Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1985), 157. Large ships could not sail up the Connecticut River beyond Mattabesett, the early name for Middletown.

• 32 Middletown First Congregational Church Records [FHL 0,048,48], 1:31.

• 33 “Settlement of Middletown” [note 30], 67–68.

• 34 Ibid., 68–69. The list also includes William’s brother Capt. Daniel Harris (16s.), and nephews Daniel Harris Jr. (10s.), and Thomas Harris (4s.).

• 35 Ibid., 69, 73; Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut [note 5], 3:239 (“Capt. Wm Harris”).

• 36 Middletown Deeds, 1:138.

• 37 Suffolk County Deeds, 15:53; 16:125, 242.

Also see:

• Find A Grave: Memorial #194604975 NOTE: Town Memorial Headstone only

• Randy A. West, "The English Origin of Thomas1 Harris of Winnisimmet (Chelsea), Massachusetts" New England Historical and Genealogical Register 176 (2022): 364-368.