Ursula Adams

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)*

Ursula married Stephen P Streeter on 5 Oct 1640 in Gloucester, Essex, Massachusetts, USA. Stephen (son of Stephen P Streeter and Katherine Barnes) was born on 9 Jan 1600 in Goudhurst, Kent, England; died on 14 Jul 1652 in Charlestown, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Stephen Streeter was born on 9 Dec 1641 in Gloucester, Essex, Massachusetts, USA; died on 19 Feb 1689 in Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA.
2. Sarah Streeter was born on 2 Apr 1643 in Gloucester, Essex, Massachusetts, USA; died on 30 Nov 1703 in Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA.
3. Hannah Streeter was born on 10 Nov 1644 in Charlestown, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA; died on 7 Apr 1689.
4. Samuel Streeter was born on 16 Jun 1647 in Charlestown, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA; died on 31 May 1694 in Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA.
5. Rebecca Streeter was born on 4 Jun 1649 in , , Massachusetts, USA; died on 1 Oct 1719.
6. John Streeter was born on 21 Sep 1651 in Charlestown, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA; died on 1 Sep 1746 in Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA.
7. Mary Streeter was born on 27 Dec 1652 in Charlestown, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA; died on 9 Feb 1726 in , , Massachusetts, USA.

Ursula married Samuel Hosier on 13 Oct 1657 in Charlestown, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA. Samuel (son of Stephen Hosier and Katherine Barnes) was born on 1 Jun 1614 in , , , England; died on 29 Jul 1665 in Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Sarah Hosier was born in 1658 in Barton St David, Somerset, England; died in Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA.
2. Elizabeth Hosier was born in 1660 in Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA; died on 21 Mar 1709 in Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA.

Ursula married William Robinson on 21 Aug 1666 in Charlestown, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA. William (son of Reverend John Robinson and Agnes Street) was born on 9 Jan 1614 in St Dunstans, Canterbury, Kent, England; died on 5 Jun 1668 in Dorchester, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Ursula married Griffin Craft on 15 May 1673 in Dorchester, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA. Griffin was born on 9 Jan 1615; died on 21 Aug 1690. [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]