John Launce

Notes:

John Launce was described by Cotton Mather in Magnalia Christi Americana as "a Puritan gentleman [...] whose lands in Cornwall yielded him fourteen hundred pounds a year. He was a Parliament man, a Man learned and pious, and a notable Disputant; but once disputing against the English Episcopacy [...] he was worsted by such a way of maintaining the Argument, as was thought agreeable; that is, by a Wound in the Side, from his furious Antagonist; of which Wound at last he died."

John married Isabella Darcy about 1619. Isabella (daughter of Edward Darcy and Elizabeth Astley) was born about 1600; died between 29 May 1668 and 4 Aug 1669. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

One of AP's two proven gateway ancestors.

Cotton Mather, in Magnalia Christi Americana, called Mary Launce, second wife of the Rev. John Sherman, a "young gentlewoman [...] a Person of good Education, and Reputation, and honorably descended," whose mother was "daughter to the Lord Darcy, who was Earl of Rivers." She certainly was not, and in his pioneering 1860-64 Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, James Savage took delight at exercising his well-known animus against Mather, who "tells of this wife calling her mother daughter of Darcy, Earl Rivers, one of the Popish Counsellors of Charles I who had no daughter that married a Launce." Savage continues: "If [Mary Launce Sherman] did give [her husband] these myths of her noble descent [...] either she was insane, which he had not sanity enough to discover, or she was irreverently playing on his bottomless credulity." It was left to the great Donald Lines Jacobus, founder of the twentieth-century "Jacobus School" of skeptical, fact-based genealogy, to point out, in a 1944 article, "The Family of Rev. John Sherman" (citation details below), that Mary Launce's mother really was a Darcy, albeit one of the Darcy family of Kent. Isabella Darcy of London, daughter of Sir Edward Darcy, a confidant and ally of Elizabeth I, first married John Launce of Cornwall and, secondly, the Rev. Sydrach Simpson, master of Pembroke Hall at Cambridge University. Her 1668 will names, with others, her sons James Launce and Darcy Launce, and her daughter Mary Sherman. In a subsequent article, "The Darcy Ancestry of Mrs. John Sherman" (citation details below), Jacobus put forth further proofs of Mary Launce's parentage, calling it a "perfect chain of evidence" and remarking that "Few English lines of early colonists are so thoroughly proved."

Descendants of the Rev. John Sherman and Mary Launce include Norman Rockwell, Declaration of Independence signer Robert Treat Paine, and the 68th governor of Massachusetts, William Weld.

Regarding the date of her death, the Early New England Families Study Project (citation details below) states only that she "[d]ied probably at Watertown between 15 October 1705 and 24 December 1712. She was living on 20 October 1704, when she acknowledged a deed." But Watertown records (citation details below) clearly state "m^s Mary Sherman (widow of mr. John Sherman Late: R^d: pastor of the church in watertown) deceas^t march : 9 : 1709/10".

Mary married Rev. John Sherman about 1647. John (son of Edmund Sherman and Grace Makin) was born on 26 Dec 1613 in Dedham, Essex, England; was christened on 4 Jan 1614 in Dedham, Essex, England; died on 8 Aug 1685 in Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts; was buried in East Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 1645

Notes:

Minister at Sudbury, Massachusetts, Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and Salem, Massachusetts.

James married Mary Walker on 13 May 1680 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts. Mary (daughter of Thomas Walker and Mary Stone) was born on 9 Aug 1661 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts; died after 11 Mar 1709. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

He and his wife Abigail Stone "settled in Springfield, Mass., where he was a schoolmaster and physician; but about 1722 they removed to the region which in 1731 became the town of Brimfield, where he was a physician, town clerk for thirty successive years, representative three years, and captain of militia." They were married for nearly seventy years.

John married Abigail Stone on 9 Nov 1703 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts. Abigail (daughter of Daniel Stone and Mary Moore) was born on 13 Feb 1681 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts; died on 9 Mar 1772 in Brimfield, Hampden, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]