Elizabeth FERGUSON ¹

   Ancestral File Number: Z0J9-88. User ID: 2309.

   General Notes:

NOTES
Lucy Mayberry BARBER Cole, Dictated by her father Capt Levi BARBER, and copied by her great grand daughter Linda Jean ENGLE Lackore Summer 2000:
"The first settlers of Simsbury Connecticut came from Windsor Connecticut. A very large proportion of the inhabitants as late as 1845 can trace their ancestry to that small flock who under the pastoral charge of the Rev Mr Warham left England in 1630 and after remaining a short time in Dorchester Massachusetts near Boston removed in the fall of 1635 and spring of 1636 to Windsor Connecticut."

BOOKS
Descendants of Phineas Holcomb, Seth P Holcombe, 1988, North Granby CT
pvi: "Chartered by Captain Squeb, THE MARY AND JOHN, a ship of some 400 tons, left Plymouth, England for America arriving in Massachusetts on 30 May 1630 after a voyage of about 70 days. There is no passenger list though it is believed that Thomas Holcombe was on board this ship on this voyage. The passengers settled in Dorchester, named for the English town of the same name. Maude Pinney Kuhns has written a book entitled THE MARY AND JOHN; she declares that Thomas Holcombe was on board...
"In the spring of 1636, Rev John Wareham migrated with a group, among which was Thomas Holcombe, from Massachusetts to the present town of Windsor Connecticut. In 1639 Thomas Holcombe moved to the Poquonock section of the Town of Windsor, where he made his livelihood as a farmer. The ability to make things grow seems to be a strong trait in the family, even among today's descendants.
"Thomas Holcombe was born probably about 1610. Along the way he married Elizabeth, whose last name was Ferguson, but it is unknown whether whe was a maiden or a widow. The locations of the two house of Thomas Holcombe are found in Volume I, page 123 of Stiles' 'Ancient Windsor,' one dwelling of Palisado Avenue, the other on Poquonock Avenue. Thomas died in Poquonock in 1657 probably in September; he was buried in the cemetery on Marshall Phelps Road, Poquonock. Elizabeth married second on 6 Aug 1658 James Eno as his second wife. Elizabeth died 7 Oct 1679.
pvii: "Thomas and Elizabeth Holcombe had ten children:
Elizabeth b Abt 1634
Mary b Abt 1635
Abigail b or bapt 6 Jan 1638/1639 or 6 Oct 1638
Joshua b 1640 Sarah b 1642, d 1654
Banajah b 23 Jun 1644
Deborah b 1646, d 1649
Nathaniel b 4 Nov 1648
Deborah b Feb 1650/1651
Jonathan b 1652/1653, d 1656"

Directory of Descendants of Founders of Windsor CT, 350th Anniv Comm, Stephen E Simon, Kent CL Avery, 24 Sep 1983
pv: "Holcombe, Thomas (D = Dorchester MA) * Arrived in 1630 on the 'Mary and John'."
p78: "Earliest date mentioned in Windsor records 1635. Mar Elizabeth ____, Died 7 Sep 1657, Came with theDorchester Group in 1635. He was one of the first settlers of Poquonock."

The Mary and John The Story of the Founding of Dorchester Massachusetts 1630, Maude Pinney Kuhns, Charles E Tuttle Co, Rutland VT, 1943, (CT Historical Society) p1: "On the twentieth of March, 1630, a group of men and women, one hundred and forty in number, set sail from Plymouth, England, in the good ship, the 'Mary and John'. The company had been selected and assembled largely through the efforts of theReverend John White, of Dorchester, England; with whom they spent the day before sailing, 'fasting, preaching, and praying.' These people had come from the western counties of England, mostly from Devonshire, Dorsetshire, and Somerset. They had chosen two ministers to accompany them: 'men who were interested in the idea of bringing the Indians to the knowledge of the gospel.' The Reverend John Maverick was an elderly man from Devon, a minister of the Established church. Reverend John Warham was also an ordained minister of the Church of England, in Exeter, eminent as a preacher. There is some evidence that both of these men were in some difficulties with the church on account of their sympathies with the Puritans.
"Edward Rossiter and Roger Ludlow, two men who were members of the government in England, were also chosen; and several gentlemen, middleaged, with adult families were next joined to the association. Among these were Henry Wolcott, Thomas Ford, George Dyer, William Gaylord, William Rockwell, and William Phelps. But a large portion of the company were young men, eager for adventure, such as Israel Stoughton, Roger Clapp, George Minot, Richard Collicott, and Nathaniel Duncan.
"So wecame, writes Roger Clapp in his Memoirs, by the good hand of the Lord, through the deep comfortably; having preaching or expounding of the word of God every day for ten weeks together by our ministers. When we came to Nantasket, Capt. Squeb, who was Captain of that great ship of four hundred tons, put us on shore and our goods on Nantasket Point, and left us to shift for ourselves in a forelorn place in this wilderness.
"It had been their original intent to land in the CharlesRiver, but a dispute with Captain Squeb, the commander of the vessel, caused the whole company, on May 30, 1630, to be put ashore at Nantasket. The 'Mary and John' was the first of the Fleet of 1630 to arrive in the bay. At that time there could not have been pilots, or charts of the channel, and it does not seem unreasonable that the captain refused to undertake the passage, but Roger Clap has sent Captain Squeb down to posterity as a merciless man.
"According to tradition theylanded upon the south side of Dorchester Neck, or South Boston, in Old Harbor. Ten of the men, under the command of Captain Southcote, found a small boat, and went up the river to Charlestown Neck, where they found an old planter, probably Thomas Walfourd, who fed them 'a dinner of fish without bread.' Later they continued their journey up the Charles River, as far as what is now Watertown, returning several days later to the company who had found pasture for their cattle at Mattapan. The settlement was later called Dorchester, in honor of the Reverend John White, of Dorchester, England.
"Roger Clap tells of the hardships that followed. They had little food, and were forced to live on clams and fish. The men built small boats, and the Indians came later with baskets of corn. 'The place was a wilderness,' writes Roger Clap. 'Fish was a good help to me and to others. Bread was so scarce that I thought the very crusts from my father's table would have been sweet; and when I could have meal and salt and water boiled together, I asked, 'who could ask for better?'
"Here they lived for five or six years. Other boats arrived and other towns were settled. But the life at Dorchester was not entirelycongenial to the lovers of liberty of the 'Mary and John'. The group of settlements around Massachusetts Bay was dominated by clergymen and officials of aristocratic tendencies. Their Governor, John Winthrop, had little sympathy with the common people. 'The best part (of the people),' he declared, 'is always the least, and of that best part, the wiser is always is always the lesser.' And the Reverend John Cotton put it more bluntly when he said, 'Never did God ordain democracy for the government of the church or the people.'
"These principles were repugnant to the people of the 'Mary and John', who had come to America to escape such restraint. They had no wish to interfere with the methods of worship of others, and they did not wish others to interfere with them. Too, they were land-hungry, after centuries of vassalage to the lords of the manors, leading hopeless lives without chance of independence. Perhaps they were influenced also, by the fact that a great smallpox epidemic had raged among the Indians, killing off so many that they wre not the menace that they had been at first. The settlers turned their attention toward the fertile meadows of the Connecticut Valley.
"A group under RogerLudlow set out and reached the Plymouth Trading house that had been erected by William Holmes near the junction of the Connecticut and the Farmington Rivers, early in the summer of 1635. A little later sixty men, women and children, with their'cows, heifers and swine', came overland from Dorchester. The winter was severe and the food scarce, and many returned to Massachusetts, but in the spring they came back to Connecticut with their friends, and by April, 1636, most of the membersof the Dorchester Church were settled near the Farmington River, along the brow of the hill that overlooks the 'Great Meadow'. This in spite of the fact that the Plymouth people disputed their claim to the land. They built rude shelters, dug out of the rising ground along the edge of the river bank. The rear end and the two sides were simply the earth itself, with a front and a roof of beams. The town was later named Windsor.
"In the following year, 1637, danger from the PequotIndians forced them to abandon their dugouts and to come together around the area known as the Palisado Green. Their new homes were at once enclosed with a strong palisado.
"In 1639 they began the construction of their first real meetinghouse. It stood in the center of the palisado, and was topped with a cupola and platform, where the sexton beat a drum to summon the people to attend services or public meetings. About the same time there was built and presented to the pastor,the Reverend John Warham, a corn mill, which is supposed to have been the first grist mill built in Connecticut. For many years it served all the settlements in the river valley, as far south as Middletown.
"All over America today live thedescendants of the fathers and mothers of the 'Mary and John.' Their sons and daughters have written their names on the pages of American History. They have filled the pulpits of famous churches; they have sat on judges' benches, and in the seats of Congress; they have occupied Governors' Mansions, and even the White House. Some fought at Lexington, and wintered with Washington at Valley Forge. They joined in the trek to the West, and one followed Brigham Young into Utah. One marched with Sherman as he burned and pillaged his way through Georgia, and perhaps one fought on the other side with Lee. One is called the 'Hero of Manila Bay,' and one was hanged! They learned strange names like Saint-Mehiel, Chateau-Thierry, theArgonne Forest and Sedan. Perhaps one lies in Flanders Field...
"An effort has been made to show through the ancestry of people living today, or through famous men of history, how this little group lived together, married and intermarried,even beyond the third and fourth generations. The names of descendants of the men and women who came to America on the 'Mary and John' are found in every state of the Union."
p5: "The Passenger List (Compiled from various sources, and notofficial)
...67. Mathew Grant
68. Priscilla Grant
69. Mathew
70. Priscilla...
...78. Thomas Holcomb
79. Elizabeth Ferguson...
..101. George Phelps
102. Richard Phelps
103. William Phelps
104. Elizabeth Phelps
105. William..."
p42: "Thomas Holcomb was born about 1601, and is believed to have been the son of Gilbert and Ann Holcomb. He married Elizabeth Ferguson probably after arriving in America, though it has been claimed that they married in England before embarking on the 'Mary and John'. The National Society of Founders and Patriots Vol VII p13 published in 1919 gives their marriage date as May 14, 1634. Elizabeth Holcomb's birth date is also given as 1634, but inasmuch as the year at that time began the first of March, instead of the first of January, this is possible.
"Thomas Holcomb went to Windsor in 1636, having sold his property in Dorchester to Richard Jones. Later in1639 he moved to Poquonock Hartford Co four miles west of Windsor, where he engaged in farming. He was Representative from Windsor in the Convention that framed the famous constitution of the Connecticut Colony. He was also Deputy and a memberof the Connecticut Militia. Thomas Holcomb died 7 Sep 1657. His grave is located inan old cemetery near the homestead at Poquonock. His widow married 5 Aug 1658 James Eno. She died 1679.
"Children:
1. Elizabeth 1634-18 Sep 1712 m 16Nov 1654 Josiah Ellsworth d 20 Aug 1689
2. Mary 1636-1708 m 3 Oct 1655 George Griswold 1633-1704
3. Abigail 1638-17 Aug 1688 m 11 Jun 1658 Samuel Bissell 1636-17 May 1698
4. Joshua 1640-1 Dec 1690 (Simsbury) m 4 Jun 1663 Ruth Sherwood d 10 Sep
1699
5. Sarah 1642-1654
6. Benajah 1644-1736 m 1667 Sarah Eno 1649-1732
7. Deborah 1646-d young
8. Nathaniel b 4 Nov 1648, a farmer at Simsbury, m 27 Feb 1670 Mary b 23
Sep 1651 dau of Nathaniel Bliss
"Children:
Nathaniel 11 Jun 1673-1766 m 1695 Martha Buell 1675-1760
Mary b 17 May 1675
Jonathan b 1678
John b 1680 m 9 Mar 1706 Anna Pettibone
Esther b 1682 m 17 Feb 1708 Bircester Higley
Catherine b 1698 m 22 Jan 1707 Joseph Messenger
Sarah b 1691 m 17 Dec 1712 Samuel Barbour (sic)
Benjamin b 15 Feb 1698 m 12 Oct 1727 Hannah Case
9. Deborah 15 Feb 1650-1686 m 12 Oct 1668 DanielBirge
10. Jonathan b 1653-d young." 17th Century Colonial Ancestors of Members of the National Society of Colonial Dames XVII Century 1915-1975, Mary Louise Marshall Hutton, Baltimore Genealogical Publishing Company Inc, 1987, p128:
"Thomas Holcomb (1597-1657) CT married Elizabeth Ferguson..."

Digest of Early Connecticut Probate Records, Vol I, p129-130, Thomas Holcomb'sWill, Windsor, Invt L294-09-08: Adms granted to the Widow Elizabeth Holcomb. Order of Dist To the WidowL42-s18-d00. James Enno and Elizabeth Holcomb, Widow, were married 5 Aug 1658.

The Holcombs (Holcombes 1631-1887), Portland Ore, GH Himes Printer, 1887, 33p 22 cm 41-41198 CS71.H725 1887: "Some account of their origin settlement and scatterment as elicited at the first and second family reunions, held at LeRoy PA Oct 1879 and Mount Airy NJ Aug 1886, On Cover: `The Holcombes 1631-1887'".

The Holcomb(e) Genealogy History and Directory, Jesse Seaver, Philadelphia PA, American Historical-Genealogical Society, 1925, vii 286p 27.5cm, CS71.H725 1925 and 1925a p4: "1 Thomas: married Elizabeth. Evidences indicate that it was he who came to Massachusetts in `The Mary and John," about 1629 (or 1630), see page 8..."

p8: "Part IV Thomas Holcomb and his Descendants
"Thomas Holcomb was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales, or Devonshire, England, in 1601 and is believed to be a son of Ann and Gilbert Holcombe (See page 4). In March, 1630, he was in a company which assembled atPlymouth, Devonshire, where a large ship of 400 tons, `The Mary and John,' chartered by Captain Squeb, for the voyage to America, was fitted out. She was destined for the Charles River. This `Godly company,' if 140 persons, assembled with their two ministers in the new hospital Bishop John Maverick and Bishop John Wareham to be their officers. There was a dispute with the captain, who refused to attempt the passage without pilot or chart. `The Word of God was preached and expoundedevery day during the voyage,' of 70 days and the ship arrived at Nantasket, May 30, 1630. There is no evidence that any large ship had ever penetrated further into the harbor previous to this time.
"Ten of the men procured a boat, left theship at Nantasket, and went in quest of the `promised land.' Later they were ordered to return to the ship as other members of the company had found a convenient place at Mattapan, where pasture for their famished cattle could be had. Tradition has always fixed upon the south side of Dorchester Neck (South Boston) in Old Harbor, as the place of landing. Here they found the town of Dorchester (named for Dorchester, England), so called to the present day and now a part of the City ofBoston.
"There was a tribe of Indians, of whom Chickatobot was Chief, that dwelt in the vicinity. Whatever may have been their former number and importance before their destruction by a pestilence in 1618, our forefathers found them few innumbers, depressed in spirits and, for the most part, very docile. Much interest was felt for them by the settlers and great efforts were made to civilize and convert them to Christianity, a duty which they felt they owed, as their charter forground upon which they located was based upon the `desire to propogate the Christian religion to such as live in darkness, and to bring savages to human civility.' The Indians had but little use for land. They attached but a trifling value toit and parted with it without reluctance. Thomas Holcomb was made Freeman, May 14, 1634.
"In the summer of 1635 some Dorchester people had already reached the river and sat down at a place where William Homes, and others of Plymouth, had erected a trading house two years before (at Windsor), and made preparations for bringing their families and settling permanently; and in November, 60 persons with a large number of cattle, traveled from Dorchester and arrived in safety at the river, after much tribulation. During the first Winter the sufferings of these persons were intense and they lost nearly all their cattle. Some individuals wandered back to Dorchester and others avoided starvation by dropping down the river andtaking refuge in a vessel at anchor at the mouth.
"In the Spring of 1636, Riverend John Wareham left Dorchester and came to Windsor, Connecticut, bringing his flock, including Thomas Holcomb, with him. Before leaving Dorchester Thomas Holcomb sold his estate to Richard Jones (12 Aug 1635). Later, 1639, he moved to Poquonock, Hartford County, four miles west of Windsor, where he engaged in farming. He was a Representative from Windsor and Hartford in the Convention that framed the now famous Constitution of the Connecticut Colony. His wife was Elizabeth Ferguson, whom some authorities state he married before leaving England. Others say he married at Dorchester. She was born in England and was a fellow passenger on `TheMary and John.' Thomas Holcomb died at Windsor, Connecticut, 7 Sep 1657. His grave is located in an old cemetary near the old homestead at Poquonock, Connecticut. His grave was marked by a brown stone about two by four feet in size. It is reported that the sone having crumbled with age, has been removed. His widow married (2) August 5, 1658, James Eno (Enno) (his second wife). She died October 7, 1679.
"The property of Thomas Holcomb was inventoried October 1 1657, and amountedto L244-9s-8. To Elizabeth, the widow was given L42-18s; to Joshua, age 17, L42-18s, to Benejah, age 13, L33-17s; to Nathaniel, age 9, L28-12s; to Abigail, age 19, L28-12s; to Deborah, 6 yrs 7 mos, L28-12s.
"Following is a record taken from Probate Records, Hartford District: `This 17th day of December 1660 I doe acknowledge to having received of my Father Enno ye full sum of my portion. Witness my hand, Joshua Holcomb.' James Eno, with his three children, came to live at the Holcomb house, after the death of his first wife, and his marriage to Elizabeth.
"Although Thomas Holcomb and most of his descendants usually spell the name `Holcomb', it bears an `e' on Dorchester and Boston records. (wt,xic).
"Some of those who have asserted that Thomas and Elizabeth were married before leaving England believe that the first two of the children were born there, but, the dates given below seem to discredit this supposition. `It is quite certain that all whobear the name of Holcomb(e) in New England are descended from Thomas Holcomb, through his sons Joshua, Benajah, and Nathaniel..."

The Mayflower, Kate Caffrey, 1974, Stein and Day, New York, Part 3, Establish- ment, p228-230:
"...Thomas Willet, son of an English clergyman, who crossed in 1629 aged twenty-four and eventually became one of Plymouth's leading citizens. In 1664 he went with the local expeditionary force that took New Amsterdam from the Dutch...
"Willet was oneof the last settlers to reach Plymouth before the mass immigration at Massachusetts Bay outnumbered the first settlement once and for all. On Easter Monday, 1629, a fleet of eight ships sailed from Cowes on the Isle of Wight opposite Southampton, carrying over nine hundred people to the new Bay Colony. They had a charter entitling them to open up and settle the valleys of the Merrimac and Charles Rivers with wide self-governing powers. The farewell sermon in the port of departure was preached by John Cotton, who himself was to emigrate to Boston two years later, and was published as `God's Promise to His Plantation.'
"The principal ship was the `Arabella,' 350 tons, with a crew of fifty-two and mounting twenty-eightguns, and carrying the future leaders of Massachusetts, including Thomas Dudley, then fifty-three. Like Ferdinando Gorges, Dudley had served as a young man with the army of Henry of Navarre. Overbearing and dogmatic, he lived to be four time governor and thirteen times deputy governor of the Bay Colony, one of the first governors of Harvard, and the father of a brilliantly controversial daughter, Anne Hutchinson...
"The other ships were the `Charles,' the `William and Francis,'the `Hopewell,' the `Success,' the `Trial,' the `Whale,' and the `Mayflower.' Although the `Mayflower' belonged to Thomas Goffe, and Dr. Rendel Harris exerted himself to explain that it was the Pilgrim ship, there seems no doubt that it was another of the many bearing the same name. On board was young Henry Winthrop. Henry's father John, newly elected governor of Massachusetts, was sailing on the `Arabella,' and he in his turn preached a sermon. Sermons were always prominent among shipboard activities if the weather permitted: they helped pass the time and to weld the passengers closer together, and, of course, propitiated the Almighty. Winthrop's sermon sounded the keynote of the American sense of special destiny. It included a famous sentence:
"`We shall be as a City upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shallbe made a story and a byword through the world.'
"Cotton Mather later described this sermon as an example of
"`the wonders of the Christian Religion, flying from the deprivations of Europe to the American Strand...wherewith His DivineProvidence hath irradiated an Indian wilderness'...
"There was distinctly Separatist flavor about the Bay Colony, although its members were Puritans. This was made explicit in 1647 by Nathaniel Ward, writing in a work rather archly entitled `The Simple Cobbler of Aggawam'.
"`I dare take upon me, to be the Herald of New England so far, as to proclaim to the world, in the name of our Colony, that all Familists, Antinomians, Anabaptists, and other Enthusiasts, shall have freeliberty to keep away from us, and such as will come to be gone just as fast as they can, the sooner the better.'
"The year 1629 saw the beginning of the great Puritan migration to Massachusetts Bay and New England generally. It is not toomuch to say that they could never have done it as they did without the nine years' pioneering work put in, at such cost, by the `Mayflower' passengers..."
p303: "...In numbers and way of life the Massachusetts Bay colonists rapidly overshadowed those of Plymouth...The Puritans who began to pepper the shores of the Bay with settlements from 1630 were unlike the original Separatists in that they intended to stay more or less inside the church framework and `purify' it from within. To simplify the ritual, eliminate the bishops (dislike of bishops equally pervaded both groups), and set up their own dominant theocracy was the Puritan aim. Stricter and sterner than the Separatists, they began by establishing the `Bible commonwealth' under such demanding spiritual leaders as John Cotton and Increase and Cotton Mather. It was under the Bay influence, not that of Plymouth, that the extremes of intolerance like the Salem witch-hunting took place.
"In some ways, however, both groups had ideas in common. Both found comfort in the democracy of town meetings; both were English in origin, similar in language, manners, piety, and ways of thought; both sprang from like stock, minor squires, yeomen, farmers, shopkeepers, mechanics, with a stern pride in their origin, a full concept of opportunity and a sense of special destiny. The Royalists conformists went to Virginia; the New England settlers, who imported no slaves, had to become jacks-of-all-trades. Every man must be prepared to act if necessary as doctor, lawyer, architect, planner, diplomat. New England had from the first a zeal for education that dwarfed that of Virginia..."

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Micropaedia, Vol III, p627, Dorchester:
"District of Boston, Massachusetts, stretching from Boston's south end to the Neponset River. It was founded and named for Dorchester, Dorset, in 1630 by a group of colonists who had previously been gathered together under the leadership of Rev. John White. In 1633 a town-meeting form of government was set up, reportedly the first in the Colonies..."

ANCESTRAL FILE
Family Search 19 Aug 1999 Ancestral File v4.19 AFN:Z0J9-88. Born 1615/1617 Of Windsor Hartford CT (sic), Christened Of Windsor Hartford CT (sic), Died 7 Oct 1679 Simsbury Hartford CT, Buried 8 Oct 1679 Dorchester Norfolk ME (sic), 3GLM-93 Born 1610 "Of Warwick Co England", IGI Birth 2 Oct 1610 Yorkshire England vs 1612 Pembroke Wales, AF Ver 4.10 3GLM-93 Bur 8 Oct 1679 Windsor.

INTERNATIONAL GENEALOGICAL INDEX
IGI Birth 7810030-67-1126272 Father FERGUSON Born 2 Oct 1610 Kingston Upon Hull Yorkshire England, T990439-144-1395539 1612 Pembroke Wales.

IGI Marriage United States 7734206-35-1126176, 8612605-51-1396192 Windsor Hartford Connecticut, A184749-184749-184751, T990439-186-1395539 Mar Elizabeth FERGUSON 14 May 1634 Dorchester Suffolk Massachusetts.

IGI Marriage British Isles 7733401-89-1126166 HOLCOMBE 15 Aug 1632 Pembroke Pembroke Wales, 7709117-60-1059070 14 May 1634 New Windsor Berkshire England, 8381407-44-1395650 Thomas HOLCOMB Mar Elizabeth FERGUSON 14 May 1634 Windsor London England.

   Marriage Information:

Elizabeth married Thomas HOLCOMBE, son of Gilbert HOLCOMBE, Sr and Anne COURTENAY, on 14 May 1632-1634 in Dorchester, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA. (Thomas HOLCOMBE was born in 1595-1610 in , Pembrokeshire, Wales, christened in , Pembrokeshire, Wales, died on 7 Sep 1657 in Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut, USA and was buried on 7 Sep 1657 in Cemetery, Homested, Poquonock Gran, Hartford, Connecticut, USA.)

   Marriage Information:

Elizabeth also married James ENO on 5 Aug 1658 in Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut, USA.