Amesbury Meeting-house Seats, July 1667

List includes all of the commoner men listed on page 18 and twenty additional names.

Forty-two seats, as given by Merrill, and probably a few more, including all the principal men and a few women.

   The list of thirty-six “voters and commoners” at the incorporation of Amesbury in 1666, as given in Merrill’s History, is evidently intended to include all who had been voters from 1654 to 1666.  Isaac Colby should perhaps be included, as he had not then removed to Haverhill.  Samuel Colby was probably a resident of Haverhill in 1666.  Anthony Colby had been dead six years, and his widow was the “Goody Whitteridge” mentioned among the lot-owners.  Thomas Macy removed to Nantucket in 1659.  Valentine Rowell died in 1662, and his widow is named among the lot-owners.  Joseph Peasley Sen. died in 1660.  Joseph Peasley Jr. was not of age in 1666.  He was granted a “township” in Amesbury in 1660, but lived in Haverhill after he became of age.  Thomas Currier was hardly of age, but was granted a “township” in 1666.  The name Orlando Bagley does not appear on the list of seats or lots; nor have we seen it,

on any original document, save one, as of Amesbury, prior to 1677.  Probably Orlando² then took the oath of allegiance.  John Bailey Sen. died in 1651, and his son John Jr. was a resident of Newbury in 1666.  It is doubtful whether George Carr Jr. was a “voter and commoner” in Amesbury in 1666, though he was in 1670, or earlier.  Thomas Haynes received grants of land in Amesbury in 1661, ’66, and ’75, and took the oath there in 1677, but his name is not on Merrill’s list of “thirty-six,” nor on the above lists of commoners and meeting-house seats.

  The absence of Walter Taylor’s name from the above lists of commoners and meeting-house seats in noticeable.  He was made a “commoner” in 1659, received land in Amesbury in that year and in 1686-7.  His name appears somewhat frequently on the court records for “using cursing speeches” and other offences.  He may have pursued his calling as a “shipwright” in various other places.  Edward Goodwin and William Hackett were granted common rights, and John Nash [Ash] and Thomas Nichols were made townsmen in Amesbury in 1667, and are probably excluded from Merrill’s list of “thirty-six

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   *John Colby’s name does not appear in Merrill’s list of meeting-house seats, History of Amesbury; but he is probably one of the “few more,” lost by the defacing of the original record.

Taken from pages 19-20 of "The Old Families of Salisbury and Amesbury, Massachusetts" By David W. Hoyt Providence, R. I. 1897. Transcribed by BSW 10/06

 

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