| Notes |
- The Great Migration Begins
Sketches
PRESERVED PURITAN
JOHN CROW (Crowell)
ORIGIN: Unknown
MIGRATION: 1634
FIRST RESIDENCE: Charlestown
REMOVES: Yarmouth 1638
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP: "Elishua Crowe" was admitted to Charlestown church on 4 January 1634/5 [ChChR 8].
FREEMAN: On 18 December 1638, "Mr. John Crow ... of Mattacheese, alias Yarmouth," took the oath of allegiance and fidelity and he appears in the appropriate list for 1639 [PCR 1:107, 8:185]. On 7 January 1638/9, he was propounded for freemanship, and on 2 June 1640, he was admitted [PCR 1:108, 155]. "Mr. John Crowe" is in the Yarmouth section of the 1639, 1658 and 20 May 1670 Plymouth Colony lists of freemen [PCR 5:276, 8:176, 200].
OFFICES: On 7 January 1638/9, "Mr. John Crow" was one of the three men "to whom the grant of the lands at Mattacheeset, now called Yarmouth, is made" [PCR 1:108]. Committee to divide land at Yarmouth, 5 March 1638/9 through 7 March 1647/8 [PCR 1:117, 142, 2:128-30].
Committee to hear small causes at Barnstable, Yarmouth and Sandwich, 2 June 1640, 5 June 1644 [PCR 1:155, 2:73].
Deputy for Yarmouth to Plymouth General Court, 1 June 1641, 7 June 1642, 6 June 1643 (as "Mr. Crowe, Sr.") [PCR 2:16, 40, 57].
In the Yarmouth section of the 1643 Plymouth Colony list of men able to bear arms [PCR 8:194].
ESTATE: In the list of those admitted inhabitants of Charlestown in 1634 was "Mrs. Crowe who bought Mr. William Jennings [Jennison] his house at her arrival whose husband Mr. John Crowe arrived here the year following" [ChTR 11, 15].
In the 1635 accounting of hayground in Charlestown, "Mr. Crow" held 5 shares, soon increased to six [ChTR 19, 20]. In 1637 "Mr. John Crowe" held four cow commons [ChTR 33]. On 6 April 1638, the town of Charlestown "agreed to have Mr. Crow's bull for the town's use for this year, allowing him in consideration three cow commons for this year & liberty to work his bull two days in a week" [ChTR 36]. In the Mystic Side allotments on 23 April 1638, "Mr. [blank] Crow" had parcels of 25, 50 and zero acres [ChTR 36].
On 16 June 1638, "Mr. John Crow of Charlton" sold to "Mathew Averie" his holdings in Charlestown: "his dwelling house ..., with eight acres of land thereto belonging, lying in Gibbines Field"; four milch cow commons; five acres of meadow in Mystic Field marshes; twenty-five acres of woodland in Mystic Field; fifty-five acres in Water Field; and "one acre of meadow ... situate and lying before the house" [ChBOP 91-92]. (This sale was made just before the compilation of the Charlestown Book of Possessions, and all these parcels appear in the entry for Mathew Avery in that book [ChBOP 44-45].)
Sometime before June 1641, Thomas Makepeace of Dorchester "bought a certain house & farm of 200 acres of land whereof some is enclosed lying on the east part of Mr. Haynes his farm near Dedham of Mr. Crowe sometime of Charlestowne" [Lechford 412-13].
On 14 May 1648, Mr. Thatcher, Mr. Howes and Mr. Crow came to an agreement with the town of Yarmouth regarding their lands, resulting in an allowance to "Mr. Crow [of] 4 score acres of upland and twenty acres of meadow, whereof some part is taken up already, and the rest to be taken up by him where he shall find it convenient, and twenty acres he remits to the town" [PCR 2:128-29].
On 22 March 1704/5, "Seth Perry of Boston ... brewer and Deborah Man of the same town, widow," sold to "James Converse Junior of Woburn ... Esq. ... a lot of upland and swamp situate in the township of Woburn aforesaid that did belong to our honored grandfather Mr. John Crow formerly of Charlestown ... gentleman deceased," which parcel of land "contains by estimation fifty-three acres" and "hath been for many years in the actual possession" of James Converse Jr., "the said Seth Perry & Deborah Man being the only surviving heirs of Mrs. Elisabeth Perry, whose maiden name was Elisabeth Crow, the daughter of Mr. John Crow aforesaid, now also deceased" [MLR 14:167-68].
BIRTH: About 1590 based on estimated date of marriage.
DEATH: Probably soon after 2 March 1651/2 (see COMMENTS below).
MARRIAGE: By about 1615 Elishua _____ (assuming she was the mother of all his children; the apparent gap between the first two children and the last two, however, suggests that there may have been two wives).
CHILDREN:
i YELVERTON, b. say 1615 (possessed one cow common at Charlestown in 1637 [ChTR 33]); m. by about 1642 Elizabeth _____ (estimated birth of eldest known child [NEHGR 125:236]).
ii ELIZABETH, b. say 1617; m. (1) by 1637 Arthur Perry (eldest known child b. Boston 20 December 1637 [BVR 5]); m. (2) by 1654 John Gillet (only known child b. Boston 12 October 1654 [BVR 46]); m. (3) Boston (contract) 4 December 1657 WILLIAM WARDWELL {1633, Boston} [SPR 4:176; NEHGR 12:275, 96:323; Annis Spear Anc 88; GMB 3:1923].
iii JOHN, b. say 1635; m. by about 1656 Mehitable _____ (eldest known grandchild, son of daughter Mehitable, b. Yarmouth 2 February 1676[/7?] [MD 2:208, 10:101 (citing BarnPR 1:26)]). (John's wife is stated in several sources to be Mehitable Miller, daughter of Rev. John Miller, but the evidence for this has not been seen.)
iv MOSES, bp. Charlestown 24 June 1637 [ChChR 47]; no further record.
COMMENTS: On 7 September 1641, Plymouth court ordered that "Mr. Edmond Freeman ... inflict such punishment upon Mr. Crowe's maid servant, for pilfering goods in his house, as according to her fault shall be just & equal" [PCR 2:24]. On 6 March 1648/9, "Mr. Crow, Senior," was presented for receiving stolen goods, and was cleared [PCR 2:137].
On 2 October 1650, eighteen men sued "Mr. John Crow, Will[i]am Nickerson, and Lieutenant Will[i]am Palmer, in an action of trespass upon the case, to the damage of sixty pound" [PCR 7:50]. On 2 March 1651/2, Mr. John Crow successfully sued John Wing and Wing's partners [PCR 7:57].
Records for the name John Crow after 1652 do not include the honorific "Mr.," and it may be that the immigrant died about this time. The next records for a John Crow are for service on a grand jury on 1 June 1658 and on a coroner's jury on 6 October 1659 [PCR 3:135, 172], duties that could have been performed by the son of the immigrant, who had presumably attained his majority by this date.
On 6 March 1665/6, "John Crow, son of Yelverton Crow," appears in the records, and he is presumably the "John Crow Jr." who is seen on 3 June 1668 [PCR 4:117, 183].
The "John Crow Senior" who had daughter Hannah born at Yarmouth on 1 April 1677, and who, with wife Mehitable, made a deed on 1 January 1678 [PCLR 4:279], would then be the son of the immigrant.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE: In 1971 Stephen Gifford Jr. made a thoughtful examination of the relative ages of John and Yelverton Crowe, and concluded that they were father and son, and not brothers, as had earlier been thought; we agree with this assessment [NEHGR 125:231-36].
In 1959 John G. Hunt speculated on the English origin of the Crowe and Crowell families, and explored the possibilities that they were from East Bilney, Carlton Rode and New Buckenham, Norfolk [TAG 35:173].
The Great Migration Begins
Sketches
PRESERVED PURITAN
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