John Jessup (abt. 1602 - abt. 1640)

Born about 1602 in England [uncertain]

Ancestors

Husband of Joanna (Kerrich) Whitmore — married about 1620 (to 1638) in Leiden, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands [uncertain]

Descendants

Died about 1640 at about age 38 in Wethersfield, Hartford, Connecticut [uncertain]

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Puritan Great Migration Project WikiTree [send private message] and Ellen Gustafson [send private message]

John Jessup migrated to New England during the Puritan Great Migration (1621-1640). (See The Directory, by R. C. Anderson, p. 184) Join: Puritan Great Migration Project Discuss: pgm

Biography

John Jessop arrived in Massachusetts by 1637^[1][2][3].

"There is certainly space for a reasonable conjecture... that John Jessup... was in some way connected with those of their name in Yorkshire." NEHGR Vol. x, pages 357-358 notes..."that Rev. Richard Denton... had been a preacher at Halifax in Yorkshire, England and than another preacher was born in the same English county." Further quoting, "...while quite a number of the Stamford families besides those of Denton and Jessup bore well known Yorkshire names." Researchers will need to read the communications received from Rev. Augustus Jessopp, the well known antiquarian, respecting the English history of the family which begins at the bottom of page 21.^[4]

John married Joanna _____, and their probable children include the following (all mostly likely born in England):^[2][5]

• John b. most likely in the 1620s, removed from Wethersfield to Stamford in 1641, and to Southampton, Long Island by 1653.
• Edward b. probably in the 1620s, lived in Westchester County, New York^[6]
• a daughter who married John Burroughs b. say 1630
• Mary b. perhaps early 1630s m. George Harris by 1660 probably at Southampton.

Concerning the daughter who married John Burroughs: Jacobus separately named this daughter Joanna,^[7] but it is unknown what additional evidence, if any, allowed this determination. No primary source giving her forename is known. Concerning the daughter Mary, Harris’ argument has merit, but so far no other mention and no documentation of Mary Jessup has been found.

John removed to Wethersfield with the early settlers from Watertown in Massachusetts by December 1637.^[1][2]

There is some disagreement about the timing of John's death. He was long considered to have died by February 1637/8. This is based on the following court abstract from that month:^[8]

It is ordered that there shalbe a prticular Courte on the first Tuesday of M[ay] at Harteford, and that then Mr. Oldā businesses and John Jesopps are to be handled, therefore the several Creditors are then to come and make their claime.

Mr. Oldā was John Oldham, a trader who met his death at the hands of Native Americans in July of 1636. It is natural to suppose from this passage that both John Oldham and John Jessup had died in the months before. Harris called this into question, suggesting instead that John died in the early 1640s (see the research notes below).

Robert Charles Anderson in The Great Migration Newsletter (Vol 9, pg 4) discusses John Jessup as being among the founders of Hartford in 1640. Given the above court records and the remarriage of the widow by 1639, Anderson and likely R R Hinman in his work must be referring to John Jessup the son (Junior) although this is not explicitly stated by Anderson.^[9] Indeed, Harris has called this identification into question.

In October of 1640, a John Jessup and twenty other men including Rev. Denton, purchased the area known as Stamford for the Connecticut Company, from the Indians.^[10] Details in the book cited below by Hinman.^[11]

In 1652, the widow Joanna Whitmore sold land in Stamford.^[2] According to Steve Warling, citing Stamford Town records, v. 1-2, 1630-1806, in the 1652 land sale by the widow Whitmor, the land was sold by "attorney" John Burroughs as Mrs. Whitmor was then living in Masheag [Maspeth? i.e., Newtown].^[12] This supports the claim that John of Newtown's first wife Joanna was a Jessup. The original town record should be consulted and linked, if possible.

In a court case in 1657, it was testified that "Edward Jessup and his mother widdow Whitmore went from Stamford to live elsewhere". ^[2]

Research Notes

Parentage: Possibly the son of Francis Jessop and Frances (White) Jessop, although this has not been substantiated. Some speculative documentation is given by William H. Whitmore in his "Gleanings" series in NEHGR.^[13]

Walter Burgess mentions Francis Jessup being in Leyden in his book, Robinson, Pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers, a study of his life and Times. Burgess says Francis Jessup was a shopkeeper there, and he was granted citizenship in 1625 by his son in law, Roger White. He had in turn, been granted citizenship by Reverend John Robinson. White, born in England in 1589, had arrived in Leyden as a young man.^[14]

Henry G Jessup writes that Francis and his wife accompanied Robinson to Leyden, remaining there possibly throughout Robinson’s tenure as pastor for the English Church in Leyden. Given that, it is probable that their children were born there. He states that by the time Francis and Frances returned from Holland, the several children could take care of themselves. They settled in Beccles, an area that was sympathetic to those who did not follow the dominant religion.^[15]

Death: Harris argues that the court order quoted in the bio was indicating only the probate of John Oldham, and that the "business" involving John Jessup was something else. (Oldham's extensive probate record makes no mention of Jessup, so the Jessup business was probably not tied up in Oldham's estate.) To justify this, Harris adduces that a John Jessup witnessed a deed on 10 October 1638, eight months after the court order.^[16] According to the earlier accepted narrative, this would be John's son John Jr. witnessing the deed. Because he would need to be 21 years of age, this puts his birth year by 1617. Harris argues that this doesn't fit well with the son's chronology: John Jr. was still living in the 1680s and only in 1685 made a pact with his own son John to hand over all of his lands and goods in exchange for son John maintaining him in his old age and to provide for his sisters after his father's decease. In those days it was unusual for a man to wait until he was almost 70 to make such an arrangment. However, it is certainly within reason.

To strengthen the point, Harris notes that if John the father were passed already in 1638, then John Jr. would have been the man who joined a group of 20 "Wethersfield men" in 1640 who bound themselves to "begin and prosecute the design of a plantation" at Rippowam, now Stamford. According to Harris, most of these men were in their mid-40s, so born in the 1590s. Even if John Jr. was in this group, just on the younger side, this pushes him probably well into his 80s when he was making arrangements for his old-age -- unlikely.

Daughter Elizabeth To date, no reliable sources have been found to show that John had a daughter named Elizabeth, thus, neither Elizabeth (Jessup) Cornell (1635-1697) nor Elizabeth Ann (Jessup) Hunt (abt.1625-1677) are his children. The most recent article was in 2019 in The American Genealogist.^[17]

Other Notes: An earlier version of this profile contained this notice: This person may not have actually existed. For information on various Jessup families in 17th-century England, Holland, and Connecticut, see Edward Jessup of West Farms, Westchester Co., New York and his Descendants. The profile manager(s) are diligently researching this family to verify this person's place in this line of the Jessup family. This person is documented to have existed so this notice has been removed.

An earlier version of this profile listed John's birthplace as Leyden in April, 1602. Other previous versions indicated his birthplace was Somerset and/or Yorkshire.

Jessup is a Yorkshire name.^[18]Great Migration Newsletter indicates that not much is known about where John Jessup was from in England; however he resided in Wethersfield with people who were from Yorkshire and people from East Anglia and moved to Long Island with them in 1640, led by Rev. Richard Denton. He removed to Wethersfield^[1][2] with first settlers, and apparently was dead by Feb. 1637/8, when the Connecticut General Court ordered creditors to present claims.

In the following passage, Henry G Jessup claims John Jessup was not Edward’s father, but was a relation:

“Town of Fairfield (Un-quo-wa) was settled in 1639 by Lieutenant-Governor Roger Ludlow, who removed there from Windsor with eight or ten families, where they were joined by others, from Watertown and Concord, Mass. Stamford (Rippo- wam) was settled three years later (1641) by a colony from Wethersfield. One of these settlers was " John Jessop," who previously to Dec. 5, 1637" had been in the vicinity of Boston, Mass. He finally established himself in Southampton, New York, about 1653,* and his descendants are numerous and widely dis- tributed. Whether any ties of kindred existed between the above John and Edward is not known. Their common interests and residence in Stamford, and the family name they shared, suggest the probability at least of a common ancestry, and such is the received tradition. The associations and sympathies of both were strongly with New England, and they may appropriately be classed among her pioneer settlers. The homes which they finally made for themselves, the one on the farther side of Long Island, and the other in Westchester County, New York, were still in territory over which jurisdiction was claimed by Connecticut, and at one time they both held official positions in connection with this colony. It was only as New York also became an English colony that their allegiance was compelled in another direction. “^[19]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} The Great Migration Directory, by Robert Charles Anderson, page 184
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5} Jacobus, vol. 1, pages 336-337 available through American Ancestors (subscription site) or for free through Family Search
3. ↑ Stiles: Vol. 2 Page 461
4. ↑ Jesup, Henry Griswold. "Edward Jessup and His Descendants" Privately Printed for the Author by John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 1887. pp. 20 - 33.see at archive.org Note: See Jacobus and McCracken regarding errors in Henry Griswold Jesup's writing about the early generations of this family.
5. ↑ Harris, 52 and analysis on page 54
6. ↑ The American Genealogist. New Haven, CT: D. L. Jacobus, 1937-. (Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2009 - .) "Unfinished Jessup Business" by George E. McCracken. Vol. 63, No. 1 "George Englert Jc Cracken Memorial Issue" (January 1988) p. 28.subscribers$
7. ↑ Jacobus (1943), Page 215
8. ↑ Trumbull, J. Hammond. (transcriber). The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut Prior to the Union with New Haven Colony May 1665. (Hartford: Brown and Parsons, 1850.) AKA Colonial Records of Connecticut. Volume I. 1636-1665 https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Public_Records_of_the_Colony_of_Conn.html?id=X8VSAAAAcAAJ p. 12
9. ↑ Great Migration Newsletter, V.1-20.(Online Database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2018.)Vol. 9, p. 4.subscribers$
10. ↑ Finch, Paul R. (transcriber), Stamford Town Records 1641-1723, Vol 1 p 3-4, NEHGS, Boston, 2011
11. ↑ Hinman, RR, A Catalogue of the Names of the First Puritan Settlers of the Colony of Connecticut, their times of Arrival and their standing in the community and place of Residence. Collected from state and town records. Hartford, 1846. Republished by Genealogical Publishing, Baltimore, 1968. Page 150.
12. ↑ Steve Warling, Descendants of John Burroughs, personal website, archive copy
13. ↑ Whitmore: NEHGR Vol. 26, Page 404
14. ↑ Burgess, Walter H. John Robinson, Pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers, a study of his life and times. 1920, London, Williams. Pg 289.
15. ↑ Jessup, Henry Griswsld, Edward Jessup of West Farms, Westchester Co., New York and his descendants Pg23
16. ↑ Jacobus (1933), page 50; citing documents in "Connecticut Archives, Towns and Lands," vol. 2 pp.23–65
17. ↑ Harris, Gale Ion. John¹ Jessup of Wethersfield and Stamford, Connecticut: more 'Unfinished Business' , The American Genealogist (The American Genealogist, Barrington, RI, Jan. 2019) Vol. 91, no.1 (Whole no. 361), pages 47–58.
18. ↑ "The History of Ancient Wethersfield, Connecticut" by Henry R. Stiles. The Grafton Press, New York 1904. p. 461.link
19. ↑ Jessup, Henry Griswald. Edward Jessup of West Farms, Westchester Co., New York and his descendants : with an introduction and an appendix. 1884, pg 42

• Burgess, Walter H. John Robinson, Pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers, a study of his life and times. 1920, London, Williams. Pg 289.

• COLKET, MEREDITH B., JR. Founders of Early American Families: Emigrants from Europe, 1607-1657. Cleveland: General Court of the Order of Founders and Patriots of America, 1975. 366p. Found online at Hathi Trust but not searchable.

• Jessup, Henry Griswsld, Edward Jessup of West Farms, Westchester Co., New York and his descendants : with an introduction and an appendix, the latter containing records of other American families of the name with some additional memoranda including Hunt. 1826-1900 Publication date 1887. (Topics Jessup family, Jessop, Edward, genealogy Publisher Cambridge, Mass. : Priv. print. for the author by J. Wilson) Collection Allen County. Digitizing sponsor Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. Contributor Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. Available for download. See at archive.org here:see at archive.org.

• Whitmore, Henry, Genealogical guide to the early settlers of America. Publication date 1898, Publisher New York, Digitizing sponsor MSN Contributor Cornell University Library.

• Anderson, Robert Charles, F.A.S.G., The Great Migration Directory, (Boston, Massachusetts, NEHGS, 2015), "Concise entries for all immigrant families for the entirety of the Great Migration, from 1620 to 1640.", page 184 -- spelled "Jessop".

• Jacobus, Donald Lines. History and Genealogy of the Families of Old Fairfield (Genealogical Publishing Company, 1930)

• Jacobus, Donald Lines. "Strickland Notes in The American Genealogist 20 (1943) pp.207-215.

• Stiles, Henry. The History of Ancient Wethersfield, Connecticut (Grafton Press, New York, 1904)

• Whitmore, William H. Gleanings, The New England Historical & Genealogical Register (NEHGS, Boston, Mass., 1847-)

• Shurtleff, Nathaniel B. "Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England" Press of William White, Boston, 1853. Vol. 1, p. 218.link

Acknowledgment

• Thank you to Steve Warling for his thorough and careful research of the first generations of the family of John Burroughs, which has enabled a coherent narrative supported by documentary evidence, much of which is hard to obtain.