Martha Nickerson

Notes:

Also called Pattie. A History of Barrington Township (citation details below) makes her a daughter of Joshua Nickerson, son of Joshua, but The Nickerson Family (citation details below) makes the better case.

Family/Spouse: Hezechiah Newell. Hezechiah (son of Henry Newell and Eunice Smith) was born in 1793. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Zephaniah H. Newell was born on 3 Oct 1827 in Cape Sable Island, Shelburne, Nova Scotia; died on 23 Nov 1911 in Somerville, Middlesex, Massachusetts.

Scott married Lucretia Jane Nickerson on 16 Dec 1789 in Argyle, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Lucretia (daughter of John Nickerson and Jerusha Knowles) was born in Nova Scotia. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Abner married Elizabeth Baker on 25 Oct 1765 in Yarmouth, Barnstable, Massachusetts. Elizabeth (daughter of Shubael Baker and Lydia Stewart) was born on 2 Jan 1744 in Yarmouth, Barnstable, Massachusetts; died after 1800. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1740, Harwich, Barnstable, Massachusetts

Notes:

He was a Loyalist, and went to Woods Harbor, Barrington, Nova Scotia at the time of the Revolution.

John married Jerusha Knowles. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

"The evidences that Jerusha and Nathaniel were brother and sister are family statements of the descendants taken down around the year 1880 by the late Professor Arnold Doane of Barrington. The chief grounds for making them children of Enos Knowles are that Enos had a son not otherwise accounted for, that Jerusha and Nathaniel could not possibly have been children of Enos's brother Samuel or cousin Cornelius, that Nathaniel named a son Enos -- a name almost unused either in Eastham or Barrington, and that the name Jerusha prevailed among the proved descendants of Enos." [Charles Thornton Libby, citation details below.]

Her first husband was Simeon Crowell, who was lost at sea in the summer of 1768.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1705, Harwich, Barnstable, Massachusetts

John married Dorcas Bassett on 14 May 1728 in Harwich, Barnstable, Massachusetts. Dorcas (daughter of Nathan Bassett and Mary Crowell) was born in Chatham, Barnstable, Massachusetts; died in 1770. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Shubael married Lydia Stewart on 19 Jun 1733 in Chatham, Barnstable, Massachusetts. Lydia (daughter of Joseph Stuard and Mary) was born in 1717 in Chatham, Barnstable, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Enos married Sarah Sparrow on 12 Apr 1733 in Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts. Sarah (daughter of Jonathan Sparrow and Sarah) was born on 20 Jul 1708 in Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts; died in 1784 in Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1678, Yarmouth, Barnstable, Massachusetts
• Alternate birth: Abt 1680, Chatham, Barnstable, Massachusetts

Notes:

Drowned while canoeing.

William married Lydia Maker on 4 Nov 1703 in Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts. Lydia (daughter of James Maker and Rachel) was born about 1683 in Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts; died after 1765 in Harwich, Barnstable, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1684, Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts

Notes:

Said to have been born in Yarmouth 25 Sep 1677.

Nathan married Mary Crowell on 7 Mar 1710. Mary (daughter of Thomas Crowell and Deborah) was born on 2 Dec 1688 in Yarmouth, Barnstable, Massachusetts; died between 5 Nov 1741 and 6 May 1742. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Mary Crow.

Samuel married Patience Berry on 11 Jan 1710 in Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts. Patience (daughter of Samuel Berry and Elizabeth Bell) was born on 22 Jun 1687 in Harwich, Barnstable, Massachusetts; died in Jan 1750 in Yarmouth, Barnstable, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Joseph married Mary about 1712. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Eastham selectman, 1722-28, then moderator of the town meeting. Colonel of the Second Barnstable Regiment. Justice of the sessions court. Guardian of the native Americans in the lower part of Barnstable County. After his father retired, he was often a representative in the Massachusetts general court, and he died during a session of the court in Boston.

"On Wednesday the 30th of January died at his Lodgings in this Town, Samuel Knowles, Esq; One of the Members of the Honourable House of Representatives, from the Town of Eastham; in the County of Barnstable; and on Friday was decently interr'd, attended by the Honourable House of Representatives, and others. A Gentleman who was greatly belov'd and respected, and will be much lamented: As one of His Majesty's Justices, Col. Knowles was strictly Impartial in the Administration of Justice; was always for making up of Differences between Man and Man as soon as possible, and with as little Charge as might be; and was remarkable both for preventing and healing of any long and uncomfortable Debates among his Neighbours and others; and his Judgment greatly sett by; and that which crown'd all, A Man of strict Piety and Integrity." [Boston Weekly News-Letter, 7 Feb 1751]

Samuel married Bethia Brown on 7 Nov 1709 in Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts. Bethia (daughter of Samuel Brown and Martha Harding) was born on 9 Sep 1685 in Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts; died after 13 Jan 1751. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Jonathan married Sarah between 1706 and 1712. Sarah was born about 1674; died on 28 Nov 1746 in Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts; was buried in Orleans Cemetery, Orleans, Barnstable, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Her first marriage was to Henry Young (1672-1706), son of John Young and Abigail Howland. She may have been a daughter of Jabez Snow (1642-1690, son of Nicholas Snow and Constance Hopkins, daughter of Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower), and his wife Elizabeth Smith (1648-1732), who had a daughter Sarah born at about the right time. Jonathan Sparrow and the present Sarah did name a son Jabez. Unfortunately for proving this, the distribution of Jabez Snow's estate on 8 Apr 1695 lists the sons by name but the six daughters only by reference, and the Sarah who was the daughter of Jabez and Constance was married at this point. For what it's worth, as of 15 Oct 2003 the General Society of Mayflower Descendants has stopped accepting membership applications based on descent from Sarah the wife of Jonathan Sparrow.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Between 1726 and 1731

Joseph married Ruhamah Jones before 1677. Ruhamah (daughter of Teague Jones) was born about 1650 in Yarmouth, Barnstable, Massachusetts; died after 1735 in Chatham, Barnstable, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

"Ruhamah was evidently a great beauty, but 'of a disagreeable nature' and delighted in harassing others, so much so that her neighbors tried not to offend her. It was said that if provoked she would play havoc with their washing, their choice plants and the fruits of their harvest. She was ready for an argument at any time. She was even suspected when Edward Banks' barn was burned after they had quarrelled. Ruhamah said she was sick at the time of the trial and Joseph petitioned the court for an abatement. Joseph had given surety for Ruhamah to the sum of £50 and the court wanted to know whether or not to levy this fine. Joseph had failed to attend court and pleaded ignorance of the law of releases and stated that any adverse action at that time would cause him to lose his estate and render himself and his wife destitute in their old age. Col. Otis ruled tentatively in favor of Joseph 7 Mar. 1710/1. Joseph also petitioned the court to have his farm restored to him 27 June 1711. Ruhamah lived to a great age and on 21 Oct. 1735 the town of Harwich was ordered to pay £8/1/3 for her care, 'an aged impotent woman', in the home of John Eldredge. Evidently she had remained sitting for so many years that upon her death it was thought best to bury her in 'the same crooked position'." [Jeff Martin]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 8 Jul 1732, Harwich, Barnstable, Massachusetts
• Alternate death: 8 Jul 1732, Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts

Notes:

Abstracted by PNH from Judith Brister, "The Maker/Macors and Hopkins", citation details below:

James Maker first appears in Plymouth colony records 29 Oct 1668 when he and Edward Crowell, probably still minors, were accused by Samuel Worden of Yarmouth of breaking into Worden's home in his absence and "attempting the chastity of his wife and sister, by many laciuous carriages, and affrighting of his children." Maker and Crowell were sentenced to be "severally whipt" or, alternately, to pay fines of ten pounds and to cover Worden's legal costs. They chose the latter. Not long after, on 2 Mar 1669 James Maker, Richard Berry, and the brothers Benjamin and Jedediah Lumbert, were charged for smoking tobacco at the Yarmouth meeting house on the Sabbath, for which they were fined five shillings.

By 1673 James Maker was a landowner in Yarmouth; subsequent records show him as holding small patches of property up and down the lower Cape. He fought in the "Great Swamp Fight" in King Philip's War, 19 Dec 1675. By the end of his life he was respectable enough to have served as constable of Harwich for a year, from March 1720 to March 1721.

In 1970, Clinton Elwood Nickerson and Vernon Roscoe Nickerson published From Pilgrims and Indians to Kings and Indentured Servants: An Ancestry of the Brothers Clinton Elwood Nickerson and Vernon Roscoe Nickerson, and their Cousins, the Brothers James Elwin Nickerson and Leighton Ainsworth Nickerson, which made a case, more strenuous than convincing, that James Maker was himself a Native American and that this accounted for the distinctly Native American-ish facial features of various Nickerson descendants of James Maker and his wife Rachel, in particular Capt. Hezekiah Eldridge Nickerson (1816-1871) and his wife Mehitable Crosby (presumably herself a Nickerson descendant?) (1816-1892). In 2000, Nickerson Family Association member, historian, and genealogist Burton N. Derick published a counter-argument, "James Maker, Non-Indian," (Cape Cod Genealogical Society Bulletin, Volume XXVI, Number 2, Issue No. 88, Summer 2000), pointing out that James Maker's life was replete with events that would have turned out differently had he been a Native American. As a minor, he certainly would not have been let off with a mere fine for "attempting the chastity" of the wife and daughter of Edward Crowell. And it is impossible to believe that Harwich would have appointed him a constable in 1720 if there had been the slightest sense that he was of native ancestry. As Derick explains, these are things that simply didn't happen.

But the fact remains that James Maker and his wife Rachel were entangled all their lives with the Nickerson family and the Hopkins family, chancers all. The Nickerson family in particular were constantly in trouble with the law for doing expansive against-the-rules real-estate deals with natives. They and their closely-allied families, absolutely including the Makers and various Hopkins kin, were deeply comfortable with native people, and quite prepared to fight their fellow white people who wanted to put a halt to that sort of thing. The same Burton N. Derick who demolished the claim that James Maker was himself a Native American also maintained that James's wife Rachel most probably was a native -- citing, among other evidences, the fact that James and Rachel lived "on or bordering" the Indian reserve in Monomoit/Chatham, and then on the Potonumecot reserve in East Brewster.

In a different but eye-opening bit of collateral evidence, John Maker, born about 1692, son of James and Rachel Maker, married, on 5 Nov 1714, a Mary Hopkins of Harwich, Massachusetts. The General Society of Mayflower Descendants' "Silver Book" on Stephen Hopkins carefully notes that no direct proof has been found that the Mary Hopkins who married John Maker was the same Mary Hopkins who was a daughter of Stephen Hopkins and Mary Merrick, granddaughter of Giles Hopkins and Catherine Whelden, great-granddaughter of Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower. But with equal prudence, they note that no other Mary Hopkins, single or widowed, has been found in that region in 1714; and secondly, that Bursel Maker, a son of Mary Hopkins and John Maker, witnessed the 20 Jan 1747 will of Judah Hopkins, a proven descendant of the Mayflower passenger.

Mary (Hopkins) Maker and her husband John Maker had a daughter named Elizabeth (b. 22 Jun 1722). The Hopkins "Silver Book" states that she was "undoubtably not the Elizabeth Maker who m. Harwich 16 Apr 1759 Downing Cahoon." The "Silver Book" gives no proof for this assertion, although it's notable that Downing Cahoon, b. 1738, was sixteen years younger than Elizabeth Maker. What is noteworthy, though, about the Elizabeth Maker who married Downing Cahoon -- whether or not she was a daughter of Mary Hopkins and John Maker -- is that historian Josiah Paine, in his personal genealogical notes archived at the Boston headquarters of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, states that Downing Cahoon, presumably with wife Elizabeth and children, lived in East Harwich...in a wigwam.

From 1491 by Charles C. Mann:

In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, the aging John Adams recalled the Massachusetts of his youth as a multiracial society. "Aaron Pomham the Priest and Moses Pomham the King of the Punkapaug and Neponsit Tribes were frequent Visitors at my Father's House," he wrote nostalgically. "There was a numerous Family in this Town [Quincy, Mass., where Adams grew up], whose Wigwam was within a Mile of this House." They frequently visited Adams, "and I in my boyish Rambles used to call at their Wigwam, where I never failed to be treated with Whortle Berries, Blackberries, Strawberries or Apples, Plumbs, Peaches, etc." Colonist Susanna Johnson described eighteenth-century New Hampshire as "such a mix—of savages and settlers, without established laws to govern them, that the state of society cannot easily be described." In Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin was equally familiar with Native American life. As a diplomat, he negotiated with the confederacy of Five Nations in 1744; in those days, knowledge of Indian ways was an essential part of the statesman's toolkit. Among his closest friends was Conrad Weiser, an adopted Mohawk, and the Indians' unofficial host at the talks. And one of the mainstays of Franklin's printing business was the publication of Indian treaties, viewed then as critical state documents. [...]

In the most direct way, Indian liberty made indigenous villages into competitors for colonists’ allegiance. Colonial societies could not become too oppressive, because their members—surrounded by examples of free life—always had the option to vote with their feet. It is likely that the first British villages in North America, thousands of miles from the House of Lords, would have lost some of the brutally graded social hierarchy that characterized European life. But it is also clear that they were infused by the democratic, informal brashness of Native American culture. That spirit alarmed and discomfited many Europeans, toff and peasant alike. But many others found it a deeply attractive vision of human possibility.

James married Rachel. Rachel was born about 1664; died before 1703. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

She may well have been a Native American; see the entry for her husband, James Maker.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1628, Plymouth, Plymouth, Massachusetts
• Alternate birth: 1628, Yarmouth, Barnstable, Massachusetts
• Alternate death: 17 Jan 1710, Yarmouth, Barnstable, Massachusetts

Nathaniel married Dorcas Joyce about 1661. Dorcas (daughter of John Joyce and Dorothy Cochet) was born in 1640; died on 10 Jun 1707. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

He had a twin sister, Elizabeth.

Thomas married Deborah. Deborah died on 22 Apr 1722. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 20 Jul 1713, Yarmouth, Barnstable, Massachusetts

Daniel married Elizabeth Chase on 27 May 1674 in Yarmouth, Barnstable, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Samuel married Elizabeth Bell. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

At Falmouth, 1669; in Yarmouth a little later. From 1673 he appears to be in Chatham. "Hoo" Steward served as a soldier in King Philip's War, under Capt. William Turner, whose company marched from Boston to Medfield, June 24, 1676.

From "Steward Families of Cape Cod, Massachusetts" (citation details below):

Dr. Charles E. Banks of Portland, Maine, writing to George Sawin Stewart in 1911, said: "I enclose what I have on Hugh Stewart, as copied years ago by the late P. L. Pease, from the original records of Eastham, I presume. The Baker-Stuart marriage [Shubael Baker to Hugh Stuart's granddaughter Lydia Stewart] confirms the traditional story of descendants who lived on Martha's Vineyard. I believe Lydia was the daughter of Joseph2 because his daughter Alice married a Daggett of the Vineyard, May 2, 1756, Tisbury records, and the Baker descendants who moved there before 1800 called these Daggetts their cousins. Also, this old lady, writing in 1869, got her information from her mother, Naomi Crowell, who was born in 1766 and was the granddaughter of Lydia Stewart who married Shubael Baker in 1733. This lady states that the Vineyard Stuards were relations of her mother's, the Cape Stuards. She says they were Scotch and fled in the time of the rebellion, that they landed at Stewart's Landing, wherever that may be, and thinks the first one was James. She says a James Stuart was buried in Boston, 'an uncle of my grandmother and brother of Elsa [Alice] Stuart who married Sylvanus Daggett' and became the mother of Michael Daggett. If she be correct this was James3, son of Joseph2."

The rebellion referred to here may have been the uprising of the Irish in 1641, which drove many English and Scotch settlers out of Ireland. The rebellion was finally crushed in 1649 by Oliver Cromwell. In 1653 a number of Scotch Protestants left Ireland because of Cromwell's rigorous treatment, as he regarded Presbyterians as inimical to his government as royalists and papists. It is likely that a Stewart family including Alexander, Daniel and Hugh landed in New England some time around 1650, and the father may have been James.

Hugh married Wait about 1672. Wait died after 25 Jan 1716. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Eastham fence viewer, 1681; constable, 1687; petty juryman, 1691; selectman, 1692 on. Representative to the general court for many terms beginning in 1697. 1703, commissioner to try small causes.

Samuel married Mercy Freeman in Dec 1679 in Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts. Mercy (daughter of Maj. John Freeman and Mercy Prence) was born in Jul 1659 in Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts; died on 19 Jun 1737 in Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts; was buried in Orleans, Barnstable, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Samuel married Martha Harding on 19 Feb 1683 in Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts. Martha (daughter of Joseph Harding and Bethia Cooke) was born on 13 Dec 1662 in Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts; died in 1692 in Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts; was buried in Cove Burying Ground, Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

In Eastham he was a schoolmaster, constable, attorney, deacon, and belonged to a Troop of Horse. Deputy to the Plymouth general court at at least nineteen sessions between 1668 and 1686. Following the Andros interregnum he was deputy to the Boston general court at least eight times. Selectman of Eastham at least ten years between 1671 and 1686. Member of the council of war, 1681, 1685, 1689. Associate judge in 1690 and 1691.

Served as a lieutenant in King Philip's War, for which service his heirs received, in 1733, a share in Narragansett Township No. 7, now Gorham, Maine.

Jonathan married Rebecca Bangs on 26 Oct 1654 in Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts. Rebecca (daughter of Edward Bangs and Rebecca) was born about 1636 in Plymouth, Plymouth, Massachusetts; died before 19 Oct 1677. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]