Robert Harper

Abt 1630 - Aft 1704  (~ 74 years)

• Name	Robert Harper  [1]
  Birth	Abt 1630	England   [2, 3]
  Gender	Male
  Death	Aft Aug 1704  [2]
  Person ID	I4994	Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others
  Last Modified	13 Aug 2021

  
  

  Family	Deborah Perry,   b. Abt 1632   d. 10 Dec 1665, Sandwich, Barnstable, Massachusetts (Age ~ 33 years)
  Marriage	9 May 1654	Sandwich, Barnstable, Massachusetts   [2, 4]
  Children	+ 1. Mary Harper,   b. 25 Dec 1655, Sandwich, Barnstable, Massachusetts d. Aft 1740 (Age > 86 years)
  Family ID	F2975	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	13 Aug 2021

  
  

• Notes

  "[F]irst appears in New England records at the time of his first marriage in May 1654. About this time the first Quakers made their appearance at Sandwich and Robert soon joined the Society of Friends. [...] It seems probable that much of his land and personal property was taken from him because of his refusal to take the Oath of Fidelity and for absenting himself from the authorized church worship." [MacLean W. McLean, "Robert Harper of Sandwich, Mass.", citation details below] Listed as a Quaker in Boston, 1659, when he was sentenced to fifteen stripes. When Friend William Leddra of Barbados was executed in Boston on 14 Mar 1661, Robert Harper stood beneath the scaffold and caught Leddra's body after the hangman cut the rope. For this sign of respect toward his dead friend, Harper and his wife were banished from Boston. It was shortly after this that Charles II ordered the Bay Colony authorities to cease executing people for religious dissension. Living in August 1704, when he signed the marriage certificate of his granddaughter Deborah (Bowerman) Gifford.

  
  

• Sources

  [S399] The Settlers of the Beekman Patent by Frank J. Doherty. Ongoing multivolume series begun in 1990. [S515] MacLean W. McLean, "Robert Harper of Sandwich, Mass., and his Son Stephen of Falmouth." The American Genealogist 48:215, October 1972. [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. [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., date only.