8:1 - Virginia Connections
Family connections in New England and Virginia
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John Mason, John Golding and Edward Bacon went to Barbados on the Ann & Elizabeth
In 1635 John Mason, John GOLDING and Edward Bacon are listed as passengers on the Ann & Elizabeth, traveling from London to Barbados. John Brookhaven was the Captain. There were two lines of the Mason family, one that went to Virginia, the descendants of Thomas Mason, Sr and Ann French and the other the descendants of Major John Mason, military leader and leader of the Pequod War and his wife Anne Peck, the daughter of Rev. Robert Peck and Anne Honniwood. It is undetermined who Edward Bacon was, but given the family connections between that generation of the Golding, Honniwood, Peck and Mason families, I assume but it is not proven that he was of some relation to the Bacon family of Suffolk, England. That is not documented, however.
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There were two men named John Mason, and either one of them might be the same Mason who went to Barbados with Bacon and Golding. The first is the renowned Major John Mason, the hero of the Pequod War who was also at the Saybrook Settlement in Connecticut and the other was his son Captain John Mason, who died in 1675, killed in the Great Swamp Fight. Major Roger Goulding, who may have been the brother of Captain Peter Goulding of Boston participated in that same military action. My undocumented conclusion is that he was either Captain John Mason of the Great Swamp Fight, the son of Major Mason or was connected to the Virginia line of the Mason family.
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John Mason of the Pequod War does not seem to have gone to Barbados and according to many sources he was in Connecticut by 1635. In 1634, Major Mason was elected to represent Dorchester in the Massachusetts General Court, where permission was granted for him to remove to the fertile Connecticut River valley and in 1635, he settled in Windsor, Connecticut at the confluence of the Farmington River and the Connecticut River where he lived for the next twelve years.
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Prentice, Fitch, Stanton, Denison, Mason and Peck families were connected by marriage
Thomas Prentice is named along with "Goldinge" in the will of Roger Harlakenden. He is the same man as Captain Thomas Prentice. The Prentice, Fitch, Stanton, Denison, Mason and Peck families of the time were all related by marriage, Captain Thomas Prentice being a 1st cousin (through his wife's family) of Major John Mason, but I think it is more likely family members knew each through their military service.
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How the various family lines are connected through marriage
1. The Fitch and Mason families were united in the marriage of Abigail Fitch, the daughter of Rev. James Fitch (1622-1702) with Captain John Mason, who was killed during the Great Swamp Fight. Captain Mason was the son of Major John Mason and Anne Peck, and Anne Peck was the daughter of Rev. Robert Peck and Anne Honniwood. Rev. Robert Peck emigrated on the same ship with William Ripley.
2. Abigail Fitch had a brother named Major James Fitch and he married Elizabeth Mason, likewise a daughter of Major John Mason and Anne Peck.
3. The Honorable Thomas Stanton of Wolverton, Warwickshire, England married Ann Lord and they had two children named Thomas III Stanton and Sarah Stanton, both born in Connecticut. They emigrated to New England and ended up at Stonington, New London, Connecticut. Hon. Thomas Stanton died in 1677.
a. Their son Thomas III Stanton, born about 1638 in Hartford, Connecticut married Sarah Denison. Sarah was the daughter of Captain George Denison and Ann Borodell and she was born on 20 March 1641 in Roxbury, Massachussets and died on 19 Dec. 1701 in Stonington, New London, Connecticut. Her father, George Denison came to America on the ship the Lion with his father William Denison and his brothers Daniel and Edward. With them was Rev. John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians who was also tutor in his father's family.
4. Captain George Denison and Ann Borodell, in addition to their daughter Sarah also had two sons, both of whom pursued military careers:
a. Their son Captain John Borodell "of Mystic" Denison was born 14 July 1646 in Roxbury, Suffolk, Massachusetts and he died on 26 April 1698 in Stonington. He married Phoebe Lay and their son was Captain John II Denison of Stonington. Captain John Denison further strengthened the bond between the Denison and Mason families when he married Anne Mason, the daughter of Captain John "Great Swamp Fight" Mason and Abigail Fitch and the granddaughter of Major John Mason and Anne Peck.
b. Their other son Captain William Denison was the second husband of Sarah Stanton. Sarah married him after the death of her first husband, Thomas II Prentice, the son of Captain Thomas Prentice (1620-1710) and Grace Bull. Captain Thomas Prentice was the same man named back in England in the will of Roger Harlakenden, along with "Goldinge", a man whose first name is unfortunately not given.
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It is interesting for me to note that all of these families are also connected to one of the known branches of my family, the Babcocks, or Badcocke as they were known in those days. That proves the concept that people who emigrated together generally stayed together, especially if they also had other ties that connected them such as a common background in military service.
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Captain John Mason was in King Philip’s War
Captain John Mason, the son of Major John Mason was killed in the Great Swamp Fight during King Philip's War. The role that Roger Goulding of Rhode Island, the probable brother of Captain Peter Goulding of Boston played in that same conflict is told in another section, along with that of Rev. Thomas Goulding, who may have been his father, although that connection is completely unproven to date.
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Mystic, Roxbury, Dorchester and the Saybrook Community
There are also several place-names that connect these different family lines, namely Mystic, referring to the area around the Mystic River in Connecticut, settled by colonists before the establishment of Stonington, New London, Connecticut.
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Mystic, New London, Connecticut
Control of the Mystic area ended as a result of the Pequot War and English settlements began to increase to the point that by the 1640’s the Colony of Connecticut began to issue land grants to the veterans of that war. John Winthrop the Younger, the son of the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was among those to receive property. Other settlers in Mystic included Robert Burrows and George Dension, who held land in the Mystic River Valley. The settlements As a result of the Pequot War, Pequot control of the Mystic area ended and English settlements increased in the area. By the 1640s, Connecticut Colony began to grant land to the Pequot War veterans. John Winthrop the Younger, the son of the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was among those to receive property, much of which was in southeastern Connecticut. Other early settlers in the Mystic area included Robert Burrows and George Denison, who held land in the Mystic River Valley.
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Mystic on the Mystic River, with Mason’s Island
The settlements grew slowly because the Connecticut and the Massachusetts Bay governments could not come to an agreement about boundaries or their respective governmental authority. Massachusetts Bay claimed to have authority over Stonington and into Rhode Island and Connecticut did not have a royal charter that formally separated it from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Given these conflicting views the authorities of each had to turn to the United Colonies of New England to settle the dispute, and their resolution was to establish a boundary between Massachusetts and Connecticut, with Connecticut claiming the land west of the river and Massachusetts Bay the land to the east, including the Mystic River.
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Mystic, Connecticut
Throughout the next decade, colonists including John Mason settled around the Mystic. Although he never actually lived on the property, Mason had been granted 500 acres on the eastern shore of the river and also received the island that still bears his name. George Denison was a veteran of Cromwell’s army and was given his own strip of 300 acres, just south of the land of John Gallup. Thomas Miner who immigrated to Massachusetts with John Winthrop was likewise granted many land plots as did Rev. Robert Blinman, the Beebe brothers, Thomas Parke and Connecticut Governor John Hayne. Like Captain John Mason, many of these men either sold their land for profit or hired an overseer to cultivate their property. Others brought their families with the intention of forming a community in the Mystic River Valley. (Mystic Connecticut)
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Connecticut connections
Members of allied families settled in five counties in Connecticut:
Fairfield in Fairfield County, Connecticut
John Applegate (1628-1712), Margaurite Goulding (1646-1717) and Thomas Skidmore "the Pilgrim" (1605-1684) are all associated with this place.
(1) John Applegate is associated with the Goulding family of Gravesend, Kings, New York because he married Avis Goulding, the daughter of William "of Gravesend" Goulding (also known as Goulder) and Anna Cathryn Smit. Like John Denison, William Goulder or Goulding may have been a refugee of Cromwell's army and he has quite an interesting history, but that is told in more detail in another section of this narrative. William Goulder was a merchant and was associated with George Holmes and Thomas Hall and ended up in New England when he was captured by the Dutch during a failed attempt to take Ft. Nassau on the Delaware. He married into a Dutch family and left numerous descendants, including Avis.
(2) 1b. Margaurite Goulding was another daughter of William "of Gravesend" Goulding and she died in Fairfield.
(3) Thomas Skidmore and his wife Ellen Whitehead of Fairfield are very important people in the story of how the Goulding/Golding family established themselves in the New World because their daughter Grace married John Golding, the only son of William "the Clergyman" Goulding and Elizabeth Chaddock his wife. The identity of John Golding of Huntington, New York was undeniably established by Louis Thorne Golding, who was himself a direct descendant of Arthur Golding, the renowned translator of Ovid's Metamorphosis who lived in Suffolk, England and was related by marriage to the 17th Earl of Oxford. John Golding of Huntington may be the same person as John Golding of Barbados, who was on the Elizabeth and Ann with Edward Bacon and John Mason and he may even have been in Virginia at some point, but the only facts proven by Louis Thorn Golding during his extensive search for his own American roots is that John Golding of New York probably came with Captain Higbee to Long Island and left descendants there and only there. He was neither my probable ancestor John Golding of Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex, England nor John Golding of Essex in Virginia who married Elizabeth Ripley. Louis Golding concluded that Arthur Golding the translator and Rev. William Goulding the Clergyman, who attended the Thursday lecture in Boston were probably related but not directly. He concluded they were probably cousins, and that they shared a common ancestor. The story of John of Huntington is told in more detail in the section of this narrative that tells about his father, William Goulding of Bermuda and Eleuthera Island. It is a very interesting story.
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Stratford in Fairfield County, Connecticut
i) Captain Edward Higbee, who probably brought John “of Huntington” Golding with him when he voyaged from Jamaica lived in Stratford. There’s no record of his actual transport, but that is conclusion Louis Thorn Golding came to. Stratford and Fairfield are not very far away from each other, both located on the current Interstate 95.
ii) Dorothy Skidmore was the sister of Grace Skidmore, who married John Golding, the son of William "the Clergyman" Golding. Grace Skidmore and John Golding were married in Huntington in 1673, and John Golding is named in the will of his father-in-law, Thomas Skidmore.
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Hartford County, Connecticut
a) The following people had associations with Hartford in Hartford County, Connecticut:
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John Applegate – His will was probated there in 1712.
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Avis Goulding – Her will was probated there in 1717
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Thomas “the Pilgrim” Skidmore – His will was probated there in 1684.
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Thomas III Stanton – He was born there in 1638.
Middlesex County, Connecticut
a) Captain John II Denison and Anne Mason both died at Old Saybrook in Middlesex County, Connecticut. Anne Mason’s grandfather, Major John Mason played an instrumental part in establishing the community at Saybrook.
New London County, Connecticut
a) Mystic in New London County – Captain John Borodell Denison lived at Mystic, New London County.
b) Norwich in New London County – In 1660 Rev. James Fitch helped found the town of Norwich. Anne Mason was born there in 1669.
Stonington in New London County – The Denisons and the Stantons came from Stonington. Captain John Borodell Denison, Sarah Denison, Hon. Thomas Stanton and Thomas III Stanton all died there. Captain John II Denison and Sarah Stanton were born there.
Canterbury in Windham County, Connecticut – Canterbury is the other place in Connecticut associated with these related family lines. Major James Fitch died there in 1727.
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The Golding/Goulding family as they were connected to John “of Huntington” Goulding, the only son of William “the Clergyman” Goulding of Bermuda are more closely associated with New York, and specifically with the counties of Kings, Nassau, New York, Queens, Rockland, Suffolk and Westchester.
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Roxbury, Massachusetts
The Massachusetts Bay Colony founded a group of six towns, including Boston, Cambridge, and Roxbury and for more than 200 years the only land route to Boston went through Roxbury and that made the town important for both transportation and as a center for trade. The first setters originally comprised the congregation of the First Church in the town, established in 1632, but the Roxbury group had no time to raise a meeting house for themselves before that first winter, so they met with the neighboring congregation in Dorchester. Among the founders was Richard Dummer and his wife Mary.
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Richard Dummer is referred to as one of the founding fathers of Massachusetts. He was born about 1598 in Bishopstoke, Hampshire, England and he died on 14 Dec. 1678 in Newbury, Essex, Massachusetts. He was a Puritan and like so many others whose points of view differed from that of the established church in England and the monarch, emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay where he set up a stock company, acquired estates and established a milling business. In 1632 he and his wife are listed among the founding members of the first church in Roxbury and the next year he built a water powered gristmill in that same place and it was the first mill of it's kind to grind corn in New England. In 1634 Dummer, along with Richard Saltonstall, Henry Sewall and others contracted for the importation of large numbers of cattle which they settled on the territory bordering the Parker River. Also in 1634 in England, a great body of people assembled from the Hampshire, Avon and Test valleys at Southampton and London with the intention to sail in a convoy of ten ships, and early in 1635 the Elizabeth arrived from London with Richard Dummer's sister Sarah aboard. She married John Brown.
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Richard Dummer of Roxbury married Mary Jane Mason, the daughter of Rev. Thomas Mason and Helena Batchelder. Rev. Thomas Mason was the original immigrant from Odiham in Hampshire, England and he was the son of Thomas Mason and Johanna Leighton and the half brother of Richard, Cecilia and Robert Mason.
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Dorcester, Massachusetts and Rev. Thomas Goulding
Dorchester, affectionately referred to by residents of Boston as "Dot" is today a suburb of that larger city but in the early 1630's it was a separate town, founded by Puritans who emigrated there in 1630 from Dorchester, Dorset, England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. There is a little book I obtained when it was self-published back in 1999 by a distant cousin of mine named Dr. Charles H. Gaulden. It is called The Gaulden, Gauldin, Gaulding Family History: A Seven Hundred Year Study, Volume One. As far as I know a Volume Two was never published. The book is concerned primarily with Dr. Gaulden's branch of the Gaulding/Gaulden/Gauldin family of Virginia, namely that of Matthew Gaulding who was probably the son of John of New Kent Gaulding, my immediate ancestor. Nevertheless, in the early portions of the book Dr. Gaulden makes several statements regarding who may have been the earliest immigrants of my family to America. These few, but generally undocumented, statements are what prompted me to try and find evidence of who the Thomas Goulding was that Sherburne Anderson was convinced was one of the founders of the family in America.
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"Dr. Sherburne Anderson, a descendant of Zachariah Gaulden has done extensive research on the Gaulden and Goulding family. His is convinced that the first Gaulden to come to America was Rev. Thomas Goulding in 1630, who came from Dorchester, England in the great migration of more than 1000 Puritans who helped establish Dorchester, Massachusetts. Dorchester preceded Boston as a town. In 1633 the settlers organized the first township form of government in New England." (Gaulden, 1999, pp. 17-18)
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Dr. John Sherwood Anderson was near the end of his life when Dr. Gaulden talked to him, because he died on 4 March 1998 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana at the age of 92. He was so convinced of his conclusions that when he submitted his application to the Sons of the American Revolution in the 1960's, he marked out the typed named "Gaulden" and wrote in "Goulding".
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Dr. Gaulden continued,
"Thomas Goulding had a son named Peter Goulding born circa 1640 in America and probated in 1703. Peter was in Boston in 1665 and was in Virginia in 1667. He had a brother Captain Roger Goulding, who was a sea captain of Rhode Island, 1676. Peter Goulding married for his second wife Sarah Palmer. Contemporaries were John Goulding of Long Island, New York and Jacob Goulding of Boston, Massachusetts." (Gaulden, 1999, p. 18)
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"John Goulding of Long Island" is of course John of Huntington Goulding/Golding, the son of Rev. William Goulding of Bermuda. The exact identity of Jacob Goulding of Boston, Massachusetts is however a mystery to me. As far as I know Dr. Anderson died without leaving a written record of his research. It would be very helpful if he had done so, so more's the pity. I exchanged a couple of emails with Dr. Charles Gaulden, but he said he could not expand further than the information he published in his 1999 book.
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He concluded Chapter One with the following statement:
"Dr. Anderson was in his nineties when we spoke. He had researched the family for many years but had not written on the family except in a few scattered letters. …all his research was lost. What a shame! This event spurred me on to write a small reference book, even with all its faults. Something flawed is better than nothing at all." (Gaulden, 1999, p. 18)
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The life of Captain John Mason, the hero of the Pequot War is detailed in the next section.
References
Gaulden, D. C. (1999). The Gaulden, Gauldin, Gaulding Family History, A Seven Hundred Year Study, Vol 1. Self Published.
Mystic Connecticut. (n.d.). Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystic,_Connecticut