Many of these family lines - the Howes, the Perleys, the Fowlers, the Putnams - have already been already been throughly researched and well documented by other descendants, and I've been lucky enough to stumble across their published genealogies while doing my own research.
And ever since attending Salem State College, I've been fascinated by the witch trials of 1692. As surnames that I knew were connected to the witch trials began showing up in my research into our own family history, I wanted to dig deeper and figure out what kind of ties we had to this historical event.
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As I documented in my earlier post on our Chase ancestors, Grampy's grandmother, Martha Luella (Chase) McGlew's parents were Charles Frederick Chase and Mary Ricker. Charle's mother was Mary Thayer Fowler. She was born in 1829, and passed away in 1857 at the age of 30. Her parents were John Page Fowler and Lydia S. Brown. Lydia was born to John Brown and Mary Mitchell on July 27, 1807. After John passed away, she eventually remarried. Her second husband was John S. Morse of Amesbury, MA. Lydia passed away on April 6th (or 10th), 1864, in Amesbury MA.
John Page Fowler was born on April 25, 1801, to John and Martha (Page) Fowler, in Danvers, MA. He married Lydia Brown on June 24th, 1828, and they had at least four children together. John was recorded as being a "master mariner" (the captain of a merchant ship), and died on Jan 11th, 1840, in the Gulf of Mexico.
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John Page Fower's parents were John Fowler and Martha Page. Martha was born to Jeremiah and Martha (Crosby) Page on Oct 15th, 1780, in Danvers.
John Fowler was born in Danvers on Sept 15th, 1778. He attended Philips Academy in Andover, and later Dr. Manasseh Cutler's School in Hamilton, MA, where he studied surveying. I have not yet been able to verify his date of death, although one very unclear record states that either he or his wife Martha may have passed away on March 13th, 1827.
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John Fowler's parents were Samuel Fowler and Sarah Putnam. Sarah was born in Danvers, MA, on Sept 14th, 1755, to Deacon Archelaus and Mehitable Putnam. I can follow this Putnam line further back to more ancestors who were connected to the 1692 witch hysteria in Salem, as well as those who first immigrated to the New World from Great Britain, and will be happy to follow that line back in a future post.
Samuel Fowler was born in Ipswich, Ma, on Jan 9th, in either 1748 or 1749 (record unclear). He left Ipswich in 1765 and became one of the settlers of the Danvers New Mills, later called Danversport. Samuel was a shipwright, and assisted in the building of many vessels, including those of which he was a part owner, and was a merchant and trader of goods imported from the West Indies. On March 4th, 1773, Samuel married Sarah Putnam, and they had six children together (two of which died before their first birthdays). Samuel was a private in Capt. Jeremiah Page's 3rd militia company, and responded to the Lexington Alarm on April 19, 1775. Capt. Page's minutemen were unable to reach Lexington or Concord in time to participate in the battle there, but joined the action at the Battle of Menotomy (the area now known as Arlington), at Jason Russell's Homestead. Samuel was one of the survivors of that battle, and died years later, on April 20th, 1813, in Danvers, MA.
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| Samuel Fowler was with Capt. Jeremiah Page's 3rd militia company, which joined the Lexington Alarm in Menotomy, and participated in the battle at Jason Russell's house. |
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| Detail of painting by Ruth L. Berry: “The Fight at the Jason Russell House" |
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Samuel Fowler's parents were Joseph Fowler, Jr. and Mary Prince. Mary was born on June 6th, 1772, in Ipswich, MA, to Johnathan and Hannah (Rogers) Prince. Mary passed away on July 26th, 1771.
Joseph was born in Ipswich, MA, on Oct 9th, 1715. He married Mary Prince in 1739. They had at ten children together, four of whom died in childhood. In 1745, during King George's War, Joseph traveled to Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, with hundreds of other Colonial soldiers, and participated in the siege and capture of Louisburg.
After his wife Mary passed away on July 26, 1771, Joseph quickly remarried. On Nov 29th of the same year, he married the widow Esther Huse. They had three children together, one of whom died in early infancy. Esther passed away on Jan 31st, 1807, in Ipswich MA. Joseph passed away the very next day, and they were laid to rest together in the same grave.
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The parents of Joseph Fowler Jr. were Joseph Fowler, Sr. and Sarah Bartlett. Sarah was born in Newbury, MA on Nov. 27th, 1687, to John and Mary (Rust) Bartlett. Sarah and Joseph married in December of 1707, and had six children together, before she passed away sometime before August of 1722.
Joseph was born on August 7th, 1683, in Ipswich, MA. He was a carpenter, and was later involved as a backer in the Land Bank scheme of 1740-41. He purchased property on High Street in Ipswich, and that house is still standing today.
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| More information about Joseph Fowler and the Joseph Fowler house at 100 High Street, in Ipswich MA |
Joseph passed away in Ipswich on December 28, 1745.
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Joseph Fowler, Sr.'s parents were Philip Fowler and Elizabeth Herrick. Elizabeth was born in Salem, MA, in 1647. Her parents, Henry Herrick and Editha Laskin immigrated to Salem from England in 1629, as part of the Puritan Great Migration. They were some of the founders of the First Congregational Church of Salem, and later moved to Beverly, MA, where they were again founders of a church in their new community. However, Henry and Editha may have been more liberal than most Puritans of the era, for they were fined a few shillings for “comforting an excommunicated person.”
While their daughter Elizabeth (our direct ancestor) was not personally involved in the Salem Witch Trials, three of her siblings were. Her brother Ephraim's son John was married to Bethia Solart, who was Sarah (Solart) Poole Good's sister. Sarah Good was one of the first to be accused and condemned as a witch. Elizabeth's brother Henry Herrick testified against Sarah Good, and also served as a juror during the trials. Shortly after the trials were halted, Henry, along with the other members of the Jury, signed a statement which stated that they had been “sadly deluded and mistaken...and distressed in our minds and do therefore humbly beg forgiveness.” And another brother, Joseph Herrick, was a constable of Salem Towne, and arrested many of the accused witches. He was initially involved in the hysteria, and even served as a witness against Sarah Good, but soon spoke out against the trials.
Philip Fowler was born on Dec. 25, 1648, in Ipswich, MA. He was adopted by his grandfather in 1651, when he was around age three, "as his sonne." He is was a "husbandman" (small farmer with both crops and livestock), surveyor, and attorney. Philip married Elizabeth Herrick in Beverly, MA, on Jan 20th, in either 1672 or 1673, and they had eight children together. He was strongly opposed to the Salem Witch Trials, and vocal in his support of many of the accused. He was witness to John Proctor's will (Proctor was one of the nineteen people who were executed as witches in 1692), and after the trials were stopped, he was employed as an attorney by Salem Village in their lawsuit against Samuel Parrish. Philip died on Nov 16th, 1715, and was laid to rest in Ipswich's Old Burying Ground, where his gravestone still stands today.
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| HERE LYES INTARRED WHAT WAS MORTALL OF Mr PHILIP FOWLER WHO DIED NOVEMBER Ye 16th 1715 AGED 67 WANTING 39 DAYS |
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Philip Fowler's parents were Joseph Fowler and Martha Kimball. Martha was born in Rattlesden, Suffolk County, England, about 1629. Her parents were Richard Kimball, who was a wheelwright, and Ursula Scott. In 1634, at age 5, she immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony with parents and siblings on the ship "Elizabeth" (their surname was recorded on the passenger list as "Kembell"). The crossing took almost three months and they landed in Boston. They settled first in Watertown, before eventually relocating to Ipswich.
One of Elizabeth's siblings, Thomas Kimball, was killed while protecting his family in an attack on his home by three Native Americans on May 3rd, 1676. Thomas' wife and five of his children were abducted, but were released 41 days later when Chief Wanalancet of the Penacook Indians interceded and ordered that the family be freed.
Joseph Fowler was an incredibly interesting ancestor to learn about. He was born around 1629 in England, and immigrated to the New World in 1633 with his parents and siblings on the ship "Mary and John."
According to court records, Joseph was a rebellious troublemaker in his deeply Puritan community. In 1647, Joseph was sentenced to either pay a considerable fine or sit in the stocks for a day, for saying there were liars in the church and wondering they were not cast out, “and if one would lye soundly he was fit for the church.” In the Essex Court records of July of 1649 is the following: “We present Joseph Fowler, Thomas Cooke, Thomas Scott, and two of ye sons of Richard Kimball, for goeing into ye woods, shouting and singing, taking fire and liquors with them, all being at unseasonable time in ye night, ocasioning yr. wives and some other to go out to them.” The sons of Richard Kimball were Thomas and John, and all of these men had probably met to celebrate the twenty-first birthday of Thomas Scott, who was Joseph Fowler’s cousin. In 1651, his father Phillip took Joseph’s child 2 or 3 year old son Philip away from Joseph and adopted him in 1651.
Joseph participated in the the Battle of Turner's Falls (also known as the Peskeompscut massacre), which took place on May 19, 1676, during King Philip's War. He was one of the thirteen soldiers under the command of Captain Turner who were slain in the garrison near Deerfield, MA, by Native American warriors, during their retreat from this fight.
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Joseph's parents were Philip Fowler and Mary Winsley or Winslow. Philip was born around 1591 in Marlborough, Wiltshire, England. He immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1633/4 on ship "Mary and John" with his wife and five children (his sixth child Thomas, was born in Ipswich around 1636), and received a grant of land on High Street in Ipswich, MA, and he lived there until his death on June 24, 1674. He was a "clothworker" (weaver), and took the Freeman's Oath in September of 1634 (in the Mass Bay Colony, man had to be a Puritan to become a freeman; and only then could become a member of the church, own land, become a member of the governing body, and have the right to vote). In 1651 he adopted his grandson Philip Fowler (b. 25 Dec 1648) and raised him as his own son. His wife Mary passed away on August 30, 1659. He remarried, in either 1659 or 1660, to the widow Mary Norton.
Philip died on June 24, 1679, in Ipswich, MA. One court record of his death states: "during his long life, we find no record that a descendant would regret to see."
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