Mary Watkins

Andrew married Mary Streeter on 10 Dec 1701 in Charlestown, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA. Mary (daughter of Samuel Streeter and Mary Ann Horne) was born on 21 Feb 1675 in Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA; died in 1721 in Charlestown, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

The History of Woodstock [Connecticut] states that Andrew Watkins had 20 acres granted him there on 3 Sep 1686 on the westward hill; and in 1710, Jonathan Bugbee held the rights of Andrew Watkins (Vol. 1, pp. 23, 25, 30, 58). No evidence has been found that Andrew took his family to New Roxbury [Woodstock] with him, nor that they at any time joined him there. As evidenced by the following quotation from the History of Needham, Massachusetts, by George Kuhn Clarke [ ] (1912?), it is evident that Andrew Watkins was dead before 9 March 1710/11:

"On March 9, 1710/11, Edward Cook deeded to Andrew Watkins, 'Husbandman', son of his wife, Elizabeth Cook, by an earlier marriage, all of his land in Needham, including his home. The land consisted of ten acres at Maugus Hill, and six acres in the Natick Divident, 'my Common Right' as a Proprietor of Dedham. See grant to Edward Cook in 1696. In 1720 Andrew Watkins, 'Yeoman', and Mary , his wife, sold the ten acres, and also four acres 'near to the Damm in Rosemary Meadow', for 40 pounds, to Josiah Kingsbury and Hezekiah Broad, reserving the life rights of 'Our Loving Mother Elizabeth Cooke the Relict Widow of Edward Cook.' Mr. Watkins removed from Needham."

From:Bickford's Watkins a Beginning Genealogy, vol. 1, p. 230.

Andrew married Elizabeth Griffin. Elizabeth (daughter of Hugh Griffin and Elizabeth Upson Andrews) was born in 1640 in Colchester, Essex, England; died on 8 Nov 1688 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Samuel married Mary Ann Horne on 21 Jan 1666 in Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA. Mary was born in 1650 in Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA; died in 1675 in Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Edward married Sarah Warren. Sarah was born in 1600 in , , , England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Hugh married Elizabeth Upson Andrews in 1639 in Ipswich, Essex, Massachusetts, USA. Elizabeth (daughter of Robert Andrews and Elizabeth Franklin) was born in 1624 in Norwich, Norfolk, England; died on 10 Jul 1683 in Ipswich, Essex, Massachusetts, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

STREETER-ADAMS RECORDS FROM A STREETER FAMILY BIBLE

In the Streeter genealogy, compiled by the contributor of this article and published in 1896,* it was stated (page 4) that Ursula, wife of Stephen Streeter, the immigrant ancestor of the New England family of the surname, “is said to have been the daughter of Henry Adams of Braintree,” Mass., who was the immigrant ancestor of the Adams family which has given to the United States two Presidents, a minister to Great Britain, a Secretary of the Navy, and many other men distinguished in letters, science, public affairs, business, and finance. Since, however, it might possibly be inferred from the will of Henry Adams, made in 1664, that his daughter Ursula was then living at home with him, apparently unmarried, “a shadow of doubt” in the words of Streeter genealogy, seemed to have been thrown around the statement that the wife of Stephen Streeter was Ursula Adams. In 1927, however, there was printed, at the expense of the late Edward Dean Adams of New York City, a little book, compiled for him by the late J Gardner Bartlett, a well-known authority on the English ancestry of the early settlers of New England, and titled “Henry Adams of Somersetshire, England and Braintree, Mass.,” in which the Somersetshire ancestry of Henry Adams was clearly set forth and much information was given about the early generations of the family in New England. IN this book the Adams ancestry of the descendants of Stephen Streeter, through his wife Ursula, was accepted and proved, and in the Register for October 1929 (vol. 83, p. 512) the present writer called attention to the statement of the new Adams genealogy about the parentage of Ursula Adams and her marriage to Stephen Streeter, and gave a list of their children.

When the Adams genealogy compiled by Mr. Bartlett was published, the exact dates of the birth and death of Henry Adams and of the births (or baptisms) of his children (except three who were recorded in England) had not been found, nor were the exact dates of the marriage of Stephen Streeter and Ursula Adams and the births of their children (except one child) known. The approximate years of most of these genealogical happening had been [skillfully] inferred by Mr. Bartlett, but the months and the days of the months remained for the most part undiscovered. It is the purpose of the writer to present in this article some recently discovered Bible records supply the missing portions of the dates in the family of Stephen and Ursula (Adams) Streeter and some of the missing dates in the family of Henry Adams, including the dates of the birth and death of Henry Adams himself and the date of the birth of his son Joseph Adams, the ancestor of the Presidents. The story of the discovery of these records must, however, first be told.

Some two years ago the contributor of this article inserted an advertisement in the Boston Evening Transcript, in which he offered a considerable sum for a Bible mentioned in the inventory of goods of Stephen Streeter 1, which was taken 24 July 1652. On 30 November, 1930 Mr. John Hayes Goodwin of South Berwick, Maine, wrote to the contributor and informed him that in looking for some old books on genealogical subjects he had found, in a second-hand records. He described the book as “an old Bible, Ten and one half inches long by eight and one quarter inches wide and three inches thick. “This Old Bible is in pretty poor condition without the front title page and the top cover has been sewed on.” “Between the Old and New Testament,” added Mr. Goodwin, “there is a family record of Stephen Streeter,” and he mentioned some of the names given in this record without communication the dates.

Clearly this was not the Bible sought by the advertisement; but the present writer purchased from Mr. Goodwin a copy of the records in this later Bible, and the copy, “of all records that the bible contains,” was sent to him in a letter dated 10 December 1930. These records, according to Mr. Goodwin’s copy, are as follows:

BIRTHS:
Stephen Streeter, January 9, 1600
Ursula Adams, July 19, 1619
Samuel Hosier, June 1, 1614
William Robinson, January 9, 1615
Griffin Crafts, May 21, 1600
Stephen Streeter, December 9, 1641
Sarah Streeter, April 2, 1643
Hannah Streeter, November 10, 1644
Samuel Streeter, June 16, 1647
Rebecca Streeter, June 4, 1649
John Streeter, September 21, 1651
Mary Streeter, December 27, 1652
Stephen Streeter, June 20, 1667
Henry Adams, January 21, 1583
Joseph Adams, February 9, 1626
Peter Adams, March 1, 1622

MARRIAGES:
Ursula Adams & Stephen Streeter October 5, 1640
(2nd) Ursula Adams & Samuel Hosier October 13, 1657
(3rd) Ursula Adams & William Robinson August 21, 1666
(4th) Ursula Adams & Griffin Crafts July 15, 1673**
Stephen Streeter & Deborah Smith May 16, 1666
Samuel Streeter & Mary Horne January 21, 1666
Rebecca Streeter & Thomas Skillings December 24, 1698
John Streeter & Margaret Davis April 18, 1671
Joseph Adams & Abigail Baxter November 26, 1650

DEATHS:
Stephen Streeter, September [sic.?July] 14, 1652**
Ursula Adams, February 20, 1649 [sic, 1679]**
Henry Adams, October 6, 1646
Stephen Streeter, February 19, 1689
Stephen Streeter, September 22, 1756
Joseph Adams, December 6, 1694
Abigail Baxter Gregory, August 27, 1692
Sarah Streeter, November 30, 1703
Samuel Streeter, May 31, 1694
Rebecca Streeter, October 1, 1719
John Streeter, September 1, 1746
Mary Streeter, February 9, 1726
Samuel Hosier, July 29, 1665
William Robinson, July 6, 1668
Griffin Crafts, August 21, 1690

Mr. Goodwin, unfortunately did not purchase the Bible in which these records were found; and, when the writer of this article, in May of current year, was at length able to call on him at South Berwick and was conducted by him to the bookstore of A. J. Frazier, in Portsmouth, N. H., where Mr. Goodwin had seen the Bible some five or six months earlier, it was no longer to be found. Mr. Frazier could give no information as to what had become of it; but he said that he believed that it had been at one time in his possession, one of a lot of many old books which he had bought from a party in New York City, where they had been in storage for over twenty years. It was his custom, he said, to buy and sell old Bibles frequently, at from ten cents to one dollar each; and this Bible was probably one of many which had been sold in the usual way, without any special attention being given to it. The present writer has advertised for the Bible both in the Boston Transcript and in the Portsmouth Herald, and cherished the hope that it may yet be found.

The records printed above, however, carry their own evidence the truth. It seems impossible that any one could have forged them. In the opinion of the writer they are absolutely authentic. It is likely the missing Bible from which they were copied was at one time the property of a child or grandchild of Stephen and Ursula (Adams) Streeter, and that its owner not only entered in it what might be called contemporary record of the Streeter family but also copied as a few Adams records, having found these earlier records, probably, in and older Bible (perhaps the one mentioned in the inventory of the goods of Stephen Streeter in 1652), which had been handed down from the immigrant and his wife to their descendants.

To all who are familiar with the early history of the Streeters in New England and the Henry Adams family importance of these records is obvious. They confirm the marriage of Stephen Streeter and Ursula Adams and give its exact date. They supply also exact dates for many births, marriages, and deaths in the Streeter family and for the birth and death of Henry Adams and the birth of his son Joseph, as well as a few other exact dates in the Adams family. Nearly all the dates given in these records are in their precision and fullness quite new to the genealogical knowledge of New England.

FOOTNOTES:
*A Genealogical History of the Descendants of Stephen and Ursula Streeter, Massachusetts, Eben Putnam, Publisher, 1896.

**The month of the death of Stephen Streeter and the year of the death of Ursula Adams as given in the copy of the records made by Mr. Goodwin, are certainly errors, either of the person who entered these deaths in the Bible of 1693 or of the person who copied the entries from the Bible. Stephen Streeter died between “this tenth of the fourth month A thousand six hundred and fifty two [19 June 1652], when his will was dated, and “The 24th day of the 5th month 1653” [24 July 1652], when the inventory “of the House and goods of Steven Streeter shoemaker: of Charlestown Inhabited, late deceased” was taken. Ursula Adams was executrix of the will of her first husband, Stephen Streeter, and was married to her fourth husband, Griffin Crafts, 15 July 1673.

[Reprinted from the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for October, 1931]

Stephen married Ursula Adams on 5 Oct 1640 in Gloucester, Essex, Massachusetts, USA. Ursula (daughter of Henry Adams and Edith Elizabeth Rosamund Squire) was born on 19 Jul 1619 in Barton St David, Somerset, England; died on 20 Feb 1679 in Charleston, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Name: Robinson
• Arrival: 1638, , , Massachusetts, USA

Notes:

Ursula Adams
Ursula was the beloved daughter of Henry Adams, said to be "the immigrant ancestor of the Adams family which has given to the United Sates two Presidents, a minister to Great Britain" and respected theologians in the early, religiously orthodox days of the Massachusetts Colony.1

She was the fifth child of nine and the only daughter of Henry and Edith (Squire) Adams, born July 19, 1619, in Somerset, England, near the southwest England Bristol Channel, just south of Wales. She was nineteen, and her youngest brother barely nine years old when Henry Adams gathered his family and sailed for the New World on one of the probably nine ships from England that braved the north Atlantic in 1638.

They arrived in a year that beset the colonists with the most extreme weather Massachusetts can offer up, as recorded by Governor John Winthrop: "The spring of 1638 was so cold in New England that the settlers were forced to plant corn two to three times, for it rotted in the ground. This was followed by a warm summer and two tempestuous storms (hurricanes), the first August 3rd and the second on the 25th of September. The rains continued throughout the autumn and a considerable amount of snow arrived in October."2

The first concern of those early settlers was procuring food. Captain Roger Clapp came ashore at what was to become Watertown in May, 1630, and remembered that "the then un-subdued wilderness yielded little food." Writing of the years up to 1640, Clapp observed, "Fish was a good help to me and others. Bread was so very scarce, that sometimes I thought the very crusts of my father’s table [in England] would have been very sweet unto me. And when I could have [corn]meal and water and salt boiled together, it was so good, who could wish better?"3

By the time Henry Adams' family settled south of Boston in Braintree, property lines had been established and substantial houses built in the several settlements that had sprung up within a few miles of the rocky coast. The Cambridge of 1638 was " but a little village, scarcely 300 yards from north to south and 400 yards from east to west on the northerly bank of the Charles River, three miles west of Boston. Its area was divided by four short streets parallel to the river, crossed from north to south by four others. Within the area were forty or fifty unpainted wooden houses with shingled roofs. A little church of hand-hewn logs, stood near the center of the village. Extending eastward from Harvard Square in what is now Massachusetts Avenue was a row of houses which formed the northerly limit of the town."4

That Ursula was a favorite is marked by the fact that, upon her father's death in 1646, Henry's only daughter was remembered with a bequest of land "in the Neck ... during the terme I was to enjoy it, until returne into the towne's hand againe from whom I had it" even though she was the married mother of three children living with her husband in Charlestown at the time.5

Stephen Streeter arrived in Massachusetts Colony from Kent, England, in the same year that Ursula and her family had landed. Stephen and Ursula were married in 1640, two years later. He was at least the third generation of Streeter tradesmen employed as shoemakers. As did his colonial neighbors, Stephen also farmed. He is noted as a "freeman,"6 a distinction of citizenship that as few as 1 in 10 of the colony's inhabitants were qualified to enjoy.7 To be recorded as a freeman by the General Court, one had to be a mature male church-member, and must have experienced a transforming spiritual awakening by God's grace as attested by the applicant himself and confirmed by church leaders.8 Taking the oath as a freeman allowed one to vote in the affairs of the community in meetings generally held at the village church and, through his local meeting, be represented at convening of the council of the Colony. By this rigorous qualification and the stringency of the oath — oath-taking being a serious matter upon which one's salvation hinged — the church fathers sought orderly governance as well as maintained their influence upon the more temporal concerns of the colony.

Stephen Streeter died after twelve years of marriage and after giving Ursula seven children. Mary, Ursula's youngest child, was born after the death of her father, and one presumes that the young widow had to rely upon her brothers and neighbors following her husband's death for help with the farm, while she looked to providing for the increase of her estate.

Half of Stephen's Charlestown homestead was willed to his son, Stephen, inheriting at the age of 12, and presumably the balance remained to the benefit of his wife, who was about to turn 33 years old at the time of her first husband's death. The sum of Stephen's worldly goods was carefully enumerated by his friends and neighbors Samuel Cartar and Robert Cutler to include his leather-working lasts, lead and hammer, and his household goods comprised of a "little feather bed, coverlet, bolster and pillow, a pewter item, curtains, three bedsteads with six bed sheets, an iron pot and a kettle, skillet and 'a skomer', pot hangers in the fireplace, a fire shovel and tongs with gridiron, twenty pounds of yarn and five keys with matching locks, a Bible and sundry lumber" whose estimated worth was £6.6, locally, by my reckoning.9

Miss Adams became a woman of ample means by virtue of her hale constitution: she was married no less than four times, inheriting properties in towns separated by tracks winding through forest whose control by the aboriginal Indians made distances of a couple of hour's walk quite distinct from one another — Watertown from Cambridge, Cambridge to Roxbury, for example10 — and to walk from one to the other was to chance grievous harm. Nonetheless, after Stephen died, the combination of domestic husbandry, physical need and emotional want caused widowers of the Colony to hazard the distance to court her, and from her first three husbands, the third of which, the unfortunate Mr William Robinson, for example, she gained his "dwelling house, orchard, meadow, hempyard, that part of the new barn and old barn I now enjoy, stable, cow yard, one-half the pasture, [nine] acres salt marsh by the river, and half the fresh meadow by Thomas Trott's and all the planting ground near his house being [eleven] acres." 11

By 1668, the year of the hapless Mr Robinson's untimely death, the property lines of Watertown were well established and recorded, as were those of the other communities of the Anglo pioneers on Massachusetts' shores, as can be discerned from the exactitude of Dr. Henry Bond's graphic record:

1600s Watertown, Massachusetts

While widowed, before marrying Griffin Crafts, Ursula sold Watertown holdings consisting of "a dwelling house and 130 acres of land" (presumably Robinson's estate) on June 27, 1671.12

Ursula made Griffin Crafts a widower March 26, 1673, dying at the relatively young age of 53, having labored with steadfast perseverance to establish an unshakable legacy for her new nation.

NOTES:
1. Streeter, Milton B., The Streeter Family of Goudherst, Kent, England, and Lynn, Massachusetts; Eben Putnam, Publisher, Boston, 1896, 1929.

2. Daniels, ___, "Generation I - Robert Daniell", http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~danielsofmassachusettsbaycolony/gen1.html - 2003.07.13

3. Clapp, Capt. Roger, Memoir, redacted by John Beardsley, The Winthrop Society, www.winthrop society.org/ doc_clapp.php, 2003.07.13

4. Norton, Arthur O., History of Massachusetts, 1927, quoted by Daniels, op. cit.

5. Streeter, op. cit.

6. Savage, James, A Genealogical Dictionary of th First Settlers of New England..., Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, 1965.

7. Daniels, op. cit.

8. Stewart, Marcia, "The Freemen of Massachusetts Bay, 1630 - 1636," www.winthropsociety.org, The Winthrop Society, 2003.07.13.

9. Streeter, op. cit.

10. Hubbard, William, Map, 1677.

11. Streeter, op. cit.

12. Streeter, op. cit.

http://roger.templeton.net/Adams_Ursula_%28Streeter%29.html

Ursula is reported to be the 3rd grandmother of Eli Whitney and the 7th grandmother of Percival Lowell (http://www.radix.net/~huston/familyweb/Henry__Adams.html).

She was the fifth child of nine of Henry and Edith (Squire) Adams, born July 19, 1619, in Somerset, England, near the southwest England Bristol Channel, just south of Wales.

She was nineteen, and her youngest brother barely nine years old when Henry Adams gathered his family and sailed for the New World on one of the probably nine ships from England that braved the north Atlantic in 1638.

She married a total of four times, surviving all of them, including Stephen Streeter, Samuel Hosier, William Robinson and Griffin Crafts.

She married Stephen Streeter in 1640 and were married for twelve years. They had seven children together, including one born after his death.

"Urslin Streeter," widow of Stephen Streeter married Samuel Hosier in Charlestown 13 October 1657. They had no children.

She married William Robinson, who died an untimely death in 1668 and married Griffin Crafts married in Dorchester, 15 July 1673.

Ursula died 20 February 1679.

Several dates for vital events in this family are reportedly found in a Streeter family Bible. In that record the death date for Griffin Crafts is given as 21 August 1690, whereas his death date from his inventory was given as 4 October 1689, and the inventory was taken on 27 November 1689, so the 1690 date must be wrong. The death date for Ursula Adams is recorded in the Bible as 20 February 1649, which is wrong by decades, and the year of death of 1679 is an editorial suggestion. (The original author notes that when the date of a vital event is found only in this Bible, then, it should be treated with some skepticism).

From http://roger.templeton.net/Adams_Ursula_(Streeter).html and other sources.

Parents:
Henry Adams (1583 - 1646)
Edith Rosamund Squire Fussell (1587 - 1672)
Spouses:
William Robinson (1614 - 1668)
Griffin Craft (1600 - 1689)
Stephen P Streeter (1600 - 1652)*
Samuel Hosier (1610 - 1665)*
Children:
John Streeter (1640 - ____)*
Stephen Streeter (1641 - 1689)*
Sarah Streeter Gleason (1643 - 1703)*
Siblings:
Henry Adams (1609 - 1676)*
Thomas Adams (1612 - 1688)*
Jonathan Adams (1614 - 1690)*
Samuel Henry Adams (1617 - 1689)*
Ursula Adams Crafts (1619 - 1679)
John Adams (1622 - 1706)*
Mary Adams Fairbanks (1625 - 1711)*
Joseph Adams (1626 - 1694)*
Edward Adams (1629 - 1716)*

Hugh married Elizabeth Andrews on 17 Oct 1602 in , , , England. Elizabeth was born in 1584 in Daventry, Northamptonshire, England; died in 1641 in Saint Botolph, Bishopsgate, London, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Robert married Elizabeth Franklin. Elizabeth was born in 1595 in , Suffolk, England; died on 29 May 1671 in Ipswich, Essex, Massachusetts, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Stephen married Katherine Barnes on 11 Feb 1583 in Goudhurst, Kent, England. Katherine was born in 1570 in Goudhurst, Kent, England; died in 1608 in Goudhurst, Kent, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Henry married Edith Elizabeth Rosamund Squire on 19 Oct 1609 in Charlton, Mackrell, Somerset, England. Edith was born on 29 May 1587 in Charlton, Mackrell, Somerset, England; was christened on 29 May 1587 in Charlton- Mackrell, Some, England; died on 21 Jan 1672 in Medfield, Norfolk, Massachusetts, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

John married Agnes Katherine Stone. Agnes was born on 1 Jan 1556 in Barton St David, Somerset, England; died on 15 Jan 1616 in Barton St David, Somerset, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]