Rebecca Colburn

Rebecca married John Pratt on 26 Jun 1661 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA. John was born in 1636 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA; died on 4 Aug 1707 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Rebecca Pratt was born on 1 May 1662 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA; died on 6 Aug 1682 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA.
2. Marie Pratt was born on 24 Jan 1664 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA; died on 5 Sep 1743 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA.
3. John Pratt was born on 29 Dec 1665 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA; died on 17 Nov 1744 in Reading, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA.
4. Samuel Pratt was born on 2 Jun 1668 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA; died on 14 Feb 1674 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA.
5. Hannah Pratt was born on 14 Dec 1670 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA; died on 17 Jun 1721 in Reading, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA.
6. Timothie Pratt was born on 21 Feb 1672 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA; died on 21 Feb 1672 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA.
7. Nathaniel Pratt was born on 21 Feb 1673 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA; died on 15 Mar 1673 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA.
8. Priscilla Pratt was born on 7 Feb 1675 in Andover, Essex, Massachusetts, USA; died in Andover, Essex, Massachusetts, USA.
9. Joseph Pratt was born on 30 Oct 1677 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA; died on 23 Nov 1677 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA.
10. Mehitabell Pratt was born on 31 Dec 1678 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA; died on 2 Jan 1679 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA.
11. Sarah Pratt was born on 1 Jan 1680 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA; died on 22 Aug 1750 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA.
12. Elizabeth Pratt was born on 20 Oct 1682 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA; died on 21 Sep 1702 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA.
13. Deborah Pratt was born on 20 Sep 1684 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA; died on 5 Aug 1706 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: , , , USA
• Fact 1: 1630; Came to Dedham, Massachusetts from England in Governor Winthrop's fleet.
• Residence: 1670, Dedham, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA
• Residence: 1672-1706, , Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA

Notes:

Nathaniel Colburn first appears 11 Aug 1637 at Dedham MA, where he was granted the lot formerly assigned to Philemon Dalton. Signer of the covenant founding the Dedham church. He married 25 Jul 1639 Priscilla Clarke, daughter of Rowland Clarke and Mary Hobart, with whom he had 11 children, each of whom lived to marry. 29 Jan 1640, "Nathaniell Colburne was received into ye church after long & much inquisition into his case." Admitted freeman 2 Jun 1641. He died at Dedham 14 May 1691.

See Hill's Dedham town records, in which he is frequently mentioned from 1637 on. A facsimile of his signature is found on p. 221.

Family
Priscilla Clarke b. s 1620, d. 12 Aug 1692 Children
Sarah Colburn b. 15 Apr 1640, d. 24 Aug 1716
Rebecca Colburn b. 17 Feb 1641/42
Nathaniel Colburn b. 3 Mar 1643/44, d. 18 Sep 1689
Priscilla Colburn b. 1 Apr 1646
John Colburn b. 29 Jul 1648
Mary Colburn b. Sep 1650, d. 17 Dec 1685
Hannah Colburn b. 20 Jan 1652, d. 3 Apr 1728
Samuel Colburn b. 25 Jan 1654, d. 18 May 1694
Deborah Colburn b. 28 Jan 1655/56, d. 30 Aug 1684
Benjamin Colburn b. 24 Sep 1659, d. 30 Sep 1714
Joseph Colburn b. 1 Dec 1662

Nathaniel married Priscilla Clarke on 25 Jul 1639 in Dedham, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA. Priscilla (daughter of Rowland Clarke and Mary Hobart) was born in 1613 in West Dedham, Norfolk, England; died on 12 Aug 1692 in Dedham, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

The Clarke Family
It was a warm and sunny Sunday morning in the early spring of the year 1620 and seven year old Joseph Clarke was enjoying his ride in the back of his family’s wagon traveling down the narrow dirt country road. He was dressed in his best and only Sunday church clothes and Joseph knew that his mother would complain once she saw how dusty he had gotten his pants from dangling his legs off the back of the wagon. But he did not care. It was too nice a day. Riding with Joseph were his parents, Thomas and Mary, and his two older brothers, 16 year old Thomas, who was holding the reins of the steer pulling the wagon, and his 13-year old brother, Rowland. His 10-year old sister, Rebecca, sat quietly next to her mother. Joseph knew that once they reached their destination, the small farming village of Banham and St. Mary the Virgin Church, he would have to spend the next two boring hours inside the church.

Joseph’s father also reminded him that Joseph’s grandparents, his great grandparents, and even his great, great grandparents had attended this same church in Banham and when they died they were buried in the graveyard next to the church. Joseph knew this to be true for he had seen their gravestones. It was hard for him to imagine that his great, great grandfather, John Clarke, had died two hundred years earlier. Although Joseph did not know this, St. Mary the Virgin Church had been constructed in the early part of the fourteenth century, almost three hundred years before Joseph was born. St. Mary the Virgin Church still exists in Banham to this day. It is not known whether any of the old Clarke gravestones have survived to the present time.There was another reason that Joseph enjoyed his Sundays. While the family farm had orchards of fruit trees that had to be picked and taken to market each spring, most of their summer work consisted of planting, cultivating, and finally cutting, baling, and hauling to the mills, their large crop of hemp, the sale of which was the main source of their family’s income. They also had the farm animals and vegetable gardens that had to be cared for. The growing and particularly the cutting of the hemp was back breaking work and it was a great deal more difficult to produce hemp than wheat, the other main crop in the area. Wheat was grown by some of their neighbors, but hemp production was far more profitable as it was in great demand for its use in making the rope and sails used in England’s ever growing maritime fleet, and in the manufacture of durable textiles used in the making of working clothes and sacking, as well as paper and oil. It was said that hemp was so important that in the 16th century King Henry VIII had passed an Act of Parliament which fined farmers who failed to grow the crop. For the next ten years Joseph lived and worked with his family on the farm and he rarely traveled more than a few miles from his home and from the land that had been in his family for many generations.

Banham was a village and civil parish located in the English County of Norfolk situated in the low-lying area on the east coast of southern England known as East Anglia, about hundred miles north of the City of London. The two counties marked in red on the adjacent map of England are Norfolk on the north and Suffolk on the south. Norfolk was first settled by English tribes in pre-Roman times and despite occupation by the Romans in the first century and later by Viking invaders in the ninth century, by the time of the Norman invasion in 1066, the area had become one of the most densely populated lands in the British Isles. By the early 16th century, the City of Norwick, located about twenty miles east of the Village of Banham, had become the second largest city in England following London and the area had highly developed arable agriculture and woolen industries. While the origins of the Clarke family are not known, it is likely that their family ancestors had been in the area since before the Norman Conquest and maybe even earlier than the Roman occupation. It is believed that the derivation of the name Clarke came from the work “Clerk” or “Clericus” in Latin and was first used to describe a person’s occupation or employment probably as a scribe in the church. The first use of the word Clericus in England next to a person’s given name is found in the Doomsday book, the Norman census book that was written following the Norman invasion. It is doubtful that young Joseph Clarke in 1620 knew anything of the origins of his family, his family name, or this history of his country. In all probability, Joseph assumed he would be a farmer in the Banham area for the rest of his life like his father and his ancestors before him.

All of that was about to change however, when Joseph met Ralph Wheelock in the year 1630. Ralph Wheelock came from a completely different background than Joseph Clarke. He was born into a wealthy family; his father was the Earl of Shropshire with a large estate in the English midlands bordering Wales and his family could trace their Norman ancestry back to the tenth century. Joseph’s family were middle class people of Anglo-Saxon heritage and for generations their family had been farmers and tradesmen. Ralph Wheelock was educated and had earned a degree from Cambridge University. Joseph could sign his name but probably he could not read or write at least not to any great extent. Ralph Wheelock was ordained a priest in the Norfolk Diocese on May 6, 1630 only eleven days before he married Joseph’s 20-year old sister, Rebecca. Ralph was thirty at his marriage and Joseph was only seventeen. During the years of the 1620s while Ralph was attending Cambridge, the school was the center of the dissenting new religious movement that later gave rise to Puritanism. It is said that Ralph was disinherited by his father when he became a non-conforming clergyman, dissenting from the Church of England and supporting the unpopular belief of Puritanism. It is not surprising that Ralph chose to serve in a small church in the Village of Eccles, located a few miles to the west of Banham in Norfolk County. The East Anglia area of England which encompasses a six county area including Norfolk County, is said to be the birthplace of Puritanism and it is estimated that 60% of the Puritans who immigrated to America between 1630 and 1642 were from this area of England.

Ralph Wheelock had a strong influence on the Clarke family and Joseph was in awe of his new brother-in-law who was educated, worldly, a leader, and outspoken in his enthusiasm for his religious beliefs. Over the next few years following Ralph’s marriage to Rebecca Clarke, Ralph told the Clarke family stories about the new colony that was being settled in Massachusetts in America where Puritans could worship freely without fear of persecution from the hierarchy of the Church of England and the British Crown. Ralph’s enthusiasm was so infectious that he convinced Joseph and all of his brothers and sisters with the exception of Thomas Clarke, Joseph’s oldest brother, who stood to inherit his father’s land, to make the long journey to the New World that was now being called New England. The Clarke family consisting of two brothers and three sisters including Rebecca Wheelock, her husband Ralph and their three children departed for America in early spring of 1637.

The ship may have carried as many as 60 to 80 passengers with each passenger responsible for a payment of around 5 English pounds sterling, which equates to a cost today of around $600 in US dollars.

The first ships that crossed the Atlantic from England to reach what would later be called the Jamestown Colony in Virginia, sailed southward out of England to the Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa. Here they gathered fresh supplies for the Atlantic crossing. The prevailing winds at this point blew from the east to the west which made the voyage over to the West Indies rather smooth as the winds were generally blowing into the sails from the stern of the ship. Once the West Indies were reached the ship would be resupplied for the trip northward. The entire voyage took up to four months. Ship-owners however, soon concluded that it was more cost effective to cross the north Atlantic rather than to travel the long southern route. This change cut their travel time down to two months or less with favorable winds. Unfortunately, the voyage for the passengers, while shorter, was far more uncomfortable as the prevailing winds in the north Atlantic blew from west to east. This meant that the ship had to head almost directly into the wind, constantly “tacking” back and forth, in order to maintain their westerly direction. For the most part the ship sailed into the waves which usually resulted in very rough sailing.

If Joseph Clarke thought that the ride from Banham to London was “uncomfortable” he was not at all prepared for the trip across the Atlantic. Within days, perhaps hours, of leaving the coast of England he was sick, seasick, and he was not alone. Seasickness was an experience that none of the passengers who were mostly tradesmen and farmers, had ever experienced and for many, the weeks at sea meant being seasick for weeks on end. To make matters worse, the voyage took longer than expected as the winds were strong and it was impossible to hold the westerly direction. Rather than taking eight weeks to cross, the voyage took twelve weeks. Their food and water supplies ran low; isolated cases of scurvy and dysentery broke out, and many passengers came down with pneumonia as a result of their close, cramped quarters and lack of fresh air. The closeness, the sickness and the constant pounding of the ship in the waves made sleeping difficult to impossible for many. This in turn wreaked havoc with the emotions of the passengers. When land was finally sighted, Joseph, perhaps for the first time in his life without hesitation dropped to his knees, as did the other passengers, to thank the Lord that their passage was almost over.The ship dropped anchor in the Boston Harbor in late June of 1637. While Boston had been settled only seven years earlier it was already a thriving community of homes, warehouses, shops, taverns, and churches and was it not for the fact that almost all structures were constructed of wood which was readily available in the area, Boston could have been any English town duplicated in America.

As the main disembarkation port for the Massachusetts Bay Colony over 10,000 new settlers had passed through the community since the first wave of immigration began in 1630 with the first arrival of Winthrop’s fleet of 11 ships and almost 1,000 settlers. Joseph and his family were met at the port by friends whom they had known back in England. After gathering their possessions they traveled by dugout canoe up the Charles River to Watertown, a farming community located about six miles to the southwest of Boston where they assumed temporary lodging until a permanent home could be built or located. Unfortunately, while Watertown which was first settled in 1630 and was a thriving community like Boston, most of the good farm land had already been settled and what was available was being sold at prices that the family could not afford. In July of 1637, the Wheelocks and Joseph Clarke participated in a plan to create a new settlement further up the Charles River and in early 1638 the Wheelocks and the Clarkes as well as several hundred other new settlers relocated to the new settlement that was to be called Dedham.

The “Covenant of Dedham” is an interesting historical document that judged by the standards and laws of today would probably be found to be unconstitutional. In 1637, if you wanted your family to be part of the new settlement of Dedham, the male head of each family was required to sign the Covenant of Dedham. The document in effect set out the religious and political rules of the community but what makes it an interesting document is that it required all of the Dedham citizens to accept only the Puritan religion and be subjected to a public inquisition to determine their suitability to join the community. It reads in part “we shall by all means labor to keep off from us all such as are contrary minded, and receive only such unto us as may be probably of one heart with us . .” Considering that the Puritans left England to find religious freedom, the Covenant seems a strange contradiction. Nevertheless, 125 settlers signed the document including Ralph Wheelock, who was the tenth signer, and Joseph Clarke, who was the eighty-first signer.

In September of 1637, Joseph was finally granted about eight acres of free land in Dedham upon which he cleared trees, built a home, and plowed his fields and planted crops. All the skills he had learned working for his family in England were again put to use. In 1640, Joseph fell in love with Alice Pepper, a young girl from London who had immigrated to America with her brother in 1634 following the early death of her parents. Joseph, age 27, and Alice, age 17, were married in late 1640 and they moved into their new home that Joseph had recently constructed. Their first child, Joseph, was born in Dedham on July 27, 1642. Many of the early Dedham public records have been lost in history and in those that have been found, Joseph Clark’s name is seldom mentioned. It is assumed that he was a quiet man, probably very religious, but he kept to himself and rarely it seems, was involved in public affairs. One record that has survived lists the value of the Clarke’s house in Dedham in 1648 as 5 pounds, 4 shillings. This was a modest sum and clearly reflects the fact that he was not a wealthy landowner. In contrast, Joseph’s brother-in-law, Ralph Wheelock, was very active in the community and he is credited with helping to found the first taxpayer-funded public school in America and was its first teacher. Joseph and Alice’s second child, Benjamin, was born in Dedham on December 9, 1644 (This is our daughter-in-law’s 9th great grandfather). In total, Joseph and Alice were to have nine children; their last child was born in the year 1660.By the year 1649, the population of the Massachusetts Bay Colony had grown to over 25,000 and Dedham, once a small community created a little over a decade earlier had now becoming quite populous. By 1647, it had become obvious to some that the original Dedham Covenant was becoming impossible to enforce especially with respect to the requirement that all citizens were to be of one faith. Furthermore, in the beginning it was expected that all [adult male] citizens attend the town meetings and participate in the town governance, however as the town grew especially geographically, this expectation became unrealistic and more and more the control of the town feel into the hands of a few large landowners.

In 1649, a few of the Dedham citizens upset with what they were seeing happening to their village appointed Ralph Wheelock leader of a group to form and govern a new village apart from Dedham that was to become the Town of Medfield. Medfield was located about twelve miles southwest of Dedham also on the Charles River. In May of 1651, Ralph Wheelock and his family, Joseph Clarke and his family, and about twelve other families moved their homes to this new settlement. Joseph Clarke and his wife Alice were to spend the remainder of their lives in this new settlement.

Joseph was 38 years-old when he relocated for the final time to his new land in Medfield. While not old by the standards of today, it was still rather late in life for a pioneer in the 1600s to have to start all over again to clear land and build a new home. Besides planting crops (grain primarily), he was also expected to help his neighbors build the new church and the community center and help clear the land for the roads and public square in the new village. Their family in May of 1651 now consisted of four boys, ages 4 through 9, and two girls ages 3 months and 2 years old.

Joseph Clarke’s original home was burned by Indians in 1676 as was his son’s home located nearby. Joseph remained a quiet unassuming man for the rest of his life. He served as a “selectman” (like a councilman) in the year 1660. In 1678, he donated “two bushielles Endian Corn” towards the building of the “new collidg at Cambridge [Harvard]”, and he and his wife remained steadfast members of the Old Parish Church in Medfield until his death in 1684 at the age of 71. Alice outlived her husband by 26 years finally passing away in 1710.

Life had been hard for Joseph and his wife but their accomplishments are a reflection of the American spirit that helped build our country to the greatness that it is today.

THE SECOND GENERATION: Benjamin Clarke (1644-1724)Twelve-year old Benjamin turned his head just enough to sneak a look at Dorcas Morse, her father, who had been a good friend of his father’s, had died when Dorcas was only eight. What Dorcas’ grandfather, Samuel, her grandmother, Elizabeth (Jasper), and her father, Joseph, had emigrated from England on the ship “Increase” out of London in 1635. Samuel Morse was the 3rd signer of the Covenant of Dedham and her father Joseph was the 28th signer. Her grandfather Samuel, who had died in 1654, only two years earlier, was one of the leading citizens and original settlers of Dedham and later of Medfield where he had relocated in 1651 along with the Clarkes, Wheelocks, and others. Samuel Morse was born in Boxted in Essex County, England on June 12, 1576. He and his family were devoted Puritans and had left England “due to the persecutions of Bishop Lund” and the other “Royalists.”

On November 19, 1665 they would be married in this same church. Their first child, Hannah Clarke, the namesake of Dorcas’s mother, Hannah [Phillips] Morse, was born on October 22, 1666. In 1668, Benjamin was granted land on Main Street in Medfield, across the street from the intersection of Pound Street and Main and here he built their home and his business establishment. On the modern map of Medfield to the left, the location of Joseph and Dorcas’ home can be found at Main and Pound Streets. The Joseph Clarke home can be located on the west side of South Street at the intersection of Oak Street. In total, Joseph Clarke owned 161 acres of land in Medfield.

Benjamin was by trade a wheelwright. He was also a prominent man in town affairs serving for a period of seventeen years on the Board of Selectmen in Medfield and for a two year period as a deputy to the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Participation in the colonial militia was essentially compulsory for males between the ages of 18 to 50 and the militia had been playing an essential role in the defense of in the Colony since the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620.

Benjamin was in his early 30s at the time of the King Philip’s War and since Medfield was a battle site during the war, it would therefore be unrealistic to assume that he did not participate. Fortunately, since the time of the landing of the Pilgrims the relationship between the Native Americans and the Colonists had been relatively peaceful. In 1637, there was a short conflict between the combatants called the Pequot War; however it consisted mostly of a few Indian raids followed up with a one-sided attack on an Indian village by the Puritan forces that resulted in the deaths of over 600 Indian men, women, and children.The King Philip’s War on the other hand was a far larger conflict which resulted in almost the complete annihilation of one tribe of Indians and the death of hundreds of colonists. One historian estimated that 7 out of 8 Indian combatants were killed and 30 out of 65 colonial combatants were killed. If true, this would make the King Philip’s War (named after the Indian leader depicted to the left) proportionately the most costly American war ever fought. The conflict lasted less than two years between 1675 and 1576. For the town of Medfield the war was a terrible loss especially on the day of February 22, 1675. The 200 militia soldiers defending the town did not deter an Indian attack and it did not prevent the Indians from burning close to fifty houses and killing more than a dozen inhabitants.

The Joseph Clarke house was burned; the Benjamin Clarke house was burned; the Joseph Morse house (Dorcas’ parents) was burned, and most of their neighbor’s homes were burned. Even more tragic, Benjamin’s brother Daniel was killed and his sister Sarah’s husband, John Bowers, was killed. Fortunately most of the women and children had been able to escape just before the attack.

Benjamin and Dorcas Clarke were to have a total of eleven children. Benjamin Clark lived to the year 1724. At the age of 80 he died and he is buried in the town he helped defend against the wilderness. Dorcas survived her husband by one year and she also is buried in Medfield.

THE THIRD GENERATION:
Theophilus Clark (1670-1737)Theophilus was only five years old when the Indians attacked their village and he remembered that terrifying day for the rest of his life. The screams of the townsfolk as they ran for shelter, the sounds of the guns, the smell of smoke, the fear, and the sight of the burned-out shell of their home were memories he could not shake from his mind. Fortunately, the town recovered after the raid and families pulled together to rebuild their homes and their village. When Theophilus was twenty-one years old in 1701 he married Rachel Partridge. Her parents were both born in England and after they immigrated to America they had settled in Medfield to raise their family.

Theophilus and Rachel had known each other since they were children. Their marriage lasted sixteen years and Rachel gave birth to twelve children before her early death in 1717 at the age of 48. They had built a home in the new community of Medway located a few miles west of Medfield. Here they owned and farmed on their 110 acres. Theophilus also operated near his home the “Bent Sawmill”. Twice he served as a town Selectman and in both the town records and on his gravestone he is referred to as a Lieutenant, no doubt his rank in the town militia.

Shortly after Rachel’s death, Theophilus remarried in 1718 to Elizabeth Underwood. Her first husband had died leaving her a widow with four children. Elizabeth and Theophilus were to have four additional children. Elizabeth was 47 when her last child was born. Around 1733, the Clarks moved to Ashford, Connecticut located about 50 miles southwest of Medway. He unfortunately died in 1737 only four years after their move to Ashford. Elizabeth lived until she was 82 years old, dying on Christmas Day in the year 1757. She is buried alongside her husband in the “Old Ashford Cemetery”.

THE FOURTH GENERATION:
Theophilus Clark (Jr.) 1724-Before 1756)It might be appropriate to call Theophilus Clark (Jr.) the “Mystery Clark” for there is almost no historical information readily available about his life. We know that he was born on April 19, 1722 in Medway, Massachusetts, the second child of the marriage between Theophilus and Elizabeth Clark. At the age of 23 he married 18 year old Bethiah Billings in Ashford, Connecticut where they both lived. They had four children born between the years 1746 and 1752. Theophilus died sometime before his mother’s Will was written in June of 1756 (possibly he died as early as 1754) for in her will she refers to “my son Theophilus Clark deceased. .” and to his four sons, Benjamin, William, Samuel, and Theophilus (III). There are no documents that we could find that describe the cause of his death. He was only in his early 30s when he died. It is possible that he was a casualty in the French and Indian War which had begun in 1754. We know that Theophilus had a cousin also from Medway, who was killed in the war in 1760, therefore it is not such a reach to suggest that Theophilus may have fallen to the same fate in the same cause. After Theophilus’ death, Bethiah remarried at least twice more, outliving both her second and third husbands. When and where Bethiah died could not be determined.

Rowland married Mary Hobart in 1592 in Bedford, Bedfordshire, England. Mary was born in 1574 in Banham, Norfolk, England; died on 22 May 1642 in Dedham, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact 1: 8MHR-55
• Fact 3: Barnham, Norfolk, England

John + Katherine Cooke. Katherine was born on 12 Feb 1541 in Westhorpe, Suffolk, England; died on 27 Mar 1598 in Finningham, Suffolk, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]