Nielsen Hayden genealogy

Capt. John Gorham

Male - Bef 1676


Personal Information    |    Notes    |    Sources    |    All

  • Name John Gorham  [1, 2, 3, 4
    Prefix Capt. 
    Gender Male 
    Alternate death Bef 5 Feb 1675  Swansea, Bristol, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [5
    Buried 5 Feb 1675  Swansea, Bristol, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [5
    Death Bef 5 Feb 1676  [6, 7, 8
    Burial 5 Feb 1676  Swansea, Bristol, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [6, 7, 8, 9
    Person ID I153  Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others | Ancestor of LD, Ancestor of TNH, Ancestor of TSW
    Last Modified 2 Nov 2021 

    Father John Gorham,   b. of Huntingdonshire, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Marshfield, Plymouth, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Family ID F18103  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Desire Howland,   b. Abt 1624, Plymouth, Plymouth, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 13 Oct 1683, Barnstable, Barnstable, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location (Age ~ 59 years) 
    Marriage Bef 1644  Plymouth, Plymouth, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location  [2, 10
    Children 
    +1. Temperance Gorham,   b. 5 May 1646, Marshfield, Plymouth, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 12 Mar 1745, Yarmouth, Barnstable, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 98 years)
    +2. Joseph Gorham,   b. 16 Feb 1654, Yarmouth, Barnstable, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 9 Jul 1726, Yarmouth, Barnstable, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 72 years)
    +3. Mercy Gorham,   b. 20 Jan 1658, Barnstable, Barnstable, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 24 Sep 1725, Stonington, New London, Connecticut Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 67 years)
    Family ID F5079  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 2 Nov 2021 

  • Notes 
    • Grantee in Plymouth 18 Dec 1638. Captain of a company in King Philip’s War, 1675.

      Despite persistent assertions to the contrary, there is no evidence that he was the son of Ralph Gorham of Benefield, Northamptonshire, baptized there 28 Jan 1621. There was a Ralph Gorham in Benefield, who had a son John baptized on that date; and there was a Ralph Gorham in Plymouth between 2 Oct 1637 and 5 Apr 1642. But there is no evidence that the Ralph seen briefly in Plymouth was the Ralph of Benefield, or that Capt. John Gorham who married Desire Howland was connected to either the Benefield man or to Ralph of Plymouth.

      In 1737, Capt. John Gorham’s great-grandson Col. John Gorham (Shubael3, John2, Capt. John1), in command of a brigantine bound for London, made several notes in his journal of things to do while in that city. The journal survives. One of the notes was “to Look out for ye Gorhams Coat of Armes. Came from Huntingtunshear”. A later entry in the same notebook lists expenditures made in London, including 7s 6d to “Herralds office”. A further 1s 6d “paid a man for Looking out the Gorhams in the citty.” Several years later, during the 1745 siege of Louisbourg (present-day Cape Breton Island), Col. Gorham wrote further notes on his family history in a separate journal, which also survives:
      My Great Great Grand father & Family Came out of Some part of England and Lived att Marshfield and Had one Son Nam’d aftr him John Gorum, alias Gorham—which Son aftr Having Marryed With an Howland and Had Sevrall Children Went home to England and Returnd Soone again to his family—
      His Father Lived & Dyed att Marshfield and Whats Remarkable He Was a Joyner and Made his Coffin himself for sevrall Year before he Dyed and Used to Keep apples In It as a Chest Untill he dyed & used t
      the Soon John that maryd Desire Howland and Went to England Moved from Marshfieeld to Barnstable and Settled there in ordr to begin a township aftrwards Called Barnstable. Built Mills—tan fatts &c

      [All of the above is abstracted and/or quoted from George Ernest Bowman, “Col. John Gorham’s ‘Wast Book’ and His ‘Dayly Journal’,” Mayflower Descendant 5:172, 1903.]

      Capt. John Gorham (d. 1675) = Desire Howland (1624-1683)
      Desire Gorham (b. 1644) = Capt. John Hawes (1635-1701)
      Elizabeth Hawes (1662-1732) = Capt. Thomas Daggett (1658-1726)
      Jemima Daggett (1694-1732) = Malachi Butler (1689-1770)
      Zephaniah Butler (1727-1800) = Abigail Cilley
      Capt. John Butler (1782-1819) = Charlotte Ellison
      Gen. Benjamin Franklin Butler (1818-1893)

      Capt. John Gorham (d. 1675) = Desire Howland (1624-1683)
      Shubael Gorham (1667-1750) = Puella Hussey (b. 1677)
      Lydia Gorham (1701-1793) = Joseph Worth (1698-1790)
      Anna Worth (1721-1795) = Abraham Macy (1715-1746)
      Abraham Macy (1739-1820) = Priscilla Bunker (1746-1819)
      Eunice May (1773-1851) = Thaddeus Coleman (1771-1847)
      Judith Coleman (1804-1839) = Elijah Pound (1802-1891)
      Thaddeus Coleman Pound (1833-1914) = Susan Angevine Loomis (d. 1923)
      Homer Loomis Pound (1858-1942) = Isabel Weston (1860-1948)
      Ezra Pound [Ezra Weston Loomis Pound] (1885-1972)

  • Sources 
    1. [S756] Early New England Families Study Project: Accounts of New England Families from 1641 to 1700 by Alicia Crane Williams. Online database, New England Historic Genealogical Society.

    2. [S4249] The Mayflower Migration: Immigrants to Plymouth, 1620 by Robert Charles Anderson. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2020.

    3. [S3254] Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Volume 23, Part 1, John Howland: The First Four Generations of his Children Lydia, Hannah, Joseph, Jabez, Ruth, and Isaac by Ann Smith Lainhart and Robert S. Wakefield. Plymouth, Massachusetts: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 2006.

    4. [S101] The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, Volumes 1-3 and The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635, Volumes 1-7, by Robert Charles Anderson. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1996-2011.

    5. [S760] John Howland of the Mayflower, Volume 1: The First Five Generations: Documented Descendants from His First Child Desire Howland and Her Husband Captain John Gorham by Elizabeth Pearson White. Camden, Maine: Picton Press, 1990.

    6. [S4384] George Eldridge, Hydrographer, and Eliza Jane His Wife: Their Ancestors and Their Descendants by Henry James Young. Carlisle, Pennsylvania: 1982.

    7. [S1431] The Snow-Estes Ancestry by Nora E. Snow and Myrtle M. Jillson. Hillburn, New York: 1939.

    8. [S5881] Ancestral Lines, Fourth Edition: 232 Families in England, Wales, the Netherlands, Germany, New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania by Carl Boyer III. Santa Clarita, California, 2015.

    9. [S6029] William Proud Davis, "Gorham Families of Yarmouth." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 52:357, 1898.

    10. [S1647] The Pilgrim Migration: Immigrants to Plymouth Colony 1620-1633, by Robert Charles Anderson. Boston: New York Historic Genealogical Society, 2004.