Ann's Ancestors: Foreward to Henry W. Owen DocumentThe following tables of Owen kindred are the result of research originally undertaken to satisfy my personal curiosity in regard to family history, and particularly in regard to the degree of relationship among numerous groups of Owens in Maine. They present in condensed form the relationships and something of the history of the descendants of that John Owen who became a settler and proprietor in Falmouth about 1723 when that Massachusetts town was in its infancy, a frontier settlement which two centuries have transformed into the bustling city of Portland, Maine. They also present some of the other descendants of that William Owen who married Elizabeth Davies at Braintree, Mass., in 1650 and who, I have been told from infancy by older members of the family, was the grandfather of John who lived in Falmouth.
Whether the Braintree connection of John Owen of Falmouth was traditional in the family or was the conclusion of some previous investigator I have no knowledge. I have not known it to be disputed nor have I found any disproof; but it must be said that I have found no positive proof.
William Owen of Braintree had a son Nathaniel whose youngest son, John, was born in 1699 according to the Braintree records. There is no further trace of this John in Braintree. Nathaniel died in November 1733, leaving a will dated in April preceding. This document, still preserved in the files of the Suffolk County Probate Court, is signed by a hand strikingly like my father's. The will bequeaths to the eldest son, Benjamin, certain real estate with this condition: "He paying to the Treasurer of Harvard College in Cambridge 30 pounds which I have obliged myself to pay to the said Treasurer, viz. Edward Hutchinson, Esq." Further down among the bequests, after sons Joseph and William, appears the following item: "I have given to my son John Owen a liberal education to which I add five shillings."
The obvious presumption from the two clauses quoted, though the language of the will does not directly connect them, would be that John went to Harvard and the debt was incurred on his account. It is, moreover, a fact that a John Owen was graduated from Harvard in the class of 1723, and according to the general catalogue, died in 1753.
John Owen of Falmouth arrived in that place in 1723 and died in 1753. He had moreover an education superior to the average since he represented the town in court as counsel and received a special land grant for his services. Here then we seem to have strong circumstantial evidence to prove the identity of the Falmouth settler as the Harvard graduate and the son of Nathaniel.
But, oddly enough, there were two educated John Owens who both died in New England in 1753, the other being Rev. John who passed from this life in Connecticut January 13 of that year in the 55th year of his age, indicating birth in 1698. Although the Braintree record places the birth of Nathaniel's son John in 1699, the fact that both birth and death records are often found erroneous would bar a snap conclusion that the clergyan was not Nathaniel's son. In our brief correspondence on the subject Mr. Shipton expresses the belief that the Falmouth Owens were of the Braintree family, and suggests that the debt referred to in Nathaniel's will could have been incurred in helping a nephew, perhaps, through college; and that John Owen of Falmouth may have been sent to Latin school, assuming him to be the son of Nathaniel.
As to the debt, the language quoted above from the will certainly implies that the college was the creditor. When, however, Benjamin Owen who was charged with repaying it, mortgaged some land apparently in connection with the matter, the mortgage, dated 1737, ran to "Edward Hutchinson of Boson, Esq., treasurer of Harvard College." This phraseology would imply that Hutchinson personally and not Harvard was the party involved, the words "treasurer of Harvard College" simply an identifying description. Nathaniel Owen is shown to have had, in fact, business contact with Hutchinson other than educational by an indenture dated 1715 between Nathaniel Owen and his wife Mary on the one part, and on the other Andrew Belcher, Addington Davenport and Thomas Hutchinson, Esqs., and John White and Edward Hutchinson, Gents., who were commissioners of the General Court for the issuance of bills of credit.
Certain further scraps of circumstantial evidence bear upon the question of the parentage of John Owen of Falmouth. He named two daughters successively Mary, apparently a tribute to Mary, the wife of Nathaniel. This is somewhat weakened by an equal fondness for the name Thomas, given to two sons, which does not appear by any direct evidence in the family of either William or Nathaniel. The fourth son, however, was named William. The five shilling bequest could be or could indicate the reason why none of John's seven sons was named Nathaniel. It is an odd fact that none of the grandsons of Nathaniel bore that name except for the son of his son Nathaniel. The omission, therefore, in John's family is not very significant. When John Owen of Falmouth made his own will he followed the form and in the first paragraph the exact language of Nathaniel's will. There is the further circumstance that Ebenezer Owen, who would be nephew of John is John be Nathaniel's son, followed John to Falmouth. Moreover, among a long list of John Owens born in New England, no other except Nathaniel's son could have been the settler who appeared in Falmouth in 1723.
In the correspondence of the Pejepscot Proprietors there is a reference to a John Owen who "came to the margin of the Kennebec" at the time when they were promoting their settlement called Augusta at Small Point Harbor. That project was initiated about 1716 and the place was abandoned in 1724. This John Owen arrived from Salem, but no indication has been found that he settled at Augusta or anywhere else in the Kennebec region. It could be that he looked the prospects over in the Pejepscot Proprieters' territory and then found something more to his liking at Falmouth. An effort has therefore made to follow this lead.
There were Owen families at both Salem and the adjoining town of Marblehead prior to 1723 and both these families seem to have been closely connected with the Braintree family. Morgan Owen of Salem married there in 1670 and died some two years later leaving a son John born in 1671 and a son Nathaniel who "lived not long". John married in 1687 Mary Tucksberry. I have found no record that this John and Mary had a son John. If they did and it could be shown, he might possibly qualify as the Falmouth settler. In the Marblehead Owen family there were a number of Johns, but each of these is definitely otherwise accounted for. Since, however, both these families seem to have been related to the Braintree family, and were seamen, what more natural than that a member of the Braintree family, setting out to seek his fortune in Maine, should set out via Salem?
The Rhode Island Owens
While I have not thus far been able to definitively bridge the gap between Braintree and Falmouth, I have been able to prove the Braintree origins of the Owens of Rhode Island, and the story of their origin is one of romantic interest as well as illustrative of manners and customs of the seventeenth century in New England.
By way of prelude it should be said that a genealogical table of the Rhode Island family was prepared in 1857 by a Mr. S. C. Newman who describes himself as a member of the Rhode Island Historical Society and genealogical secretary of the Blackstone Monument Association. His Owen table was prepared for George and Smith Owen and purports to show the descendants of a Samuel and Priscilla Owen through a son Josiah who was born in 1681. According to the brief text, "Samuel Owen was born in Wales, Europe, A.D. 1651. He and his wife, Priscilla Belcher, with their son, Josiah, came to America about 1685. Like most early settlers, his object in leaving his native land was the enjoyment of Civil and Religious Liberty aand thepursuit of Agriculture. He came first to Massachusetts, but finding that the Colony of Rhode Island was then the most independent in matters of conscience and religious opinion, he finally settled in that part of Providence now known as North Providence and not far from the present Pawtucket Turnpike."
Newman does not cite authorities for his statements, and my effort to learn something about the author himself, or from members of the Rhode Island family to obtain some light as to the source from which Newman might have drawn for his statements, have been completely unproductive. My own researches, however, have failed to disclose any other trace whatever of either a Samuel or a Priscilla Owen in Rhode Island at the period these are supposed to have been there, nor in Massachusetts a couple with those names. Josiah, however, was a person frequently met with in the records.
Among the sons of William Owen of Braintree were an Ebenezer and a Josiah, the latter being the younger. Ebenezer had a wife, Hannah, who is sufficiently well proved by circumstantial evidence to have been the daughter of John and Sarah Belcher of Braintree. Ebenezer and Hannah had a son Josiah whose birth 15 May 1687 is on record in Braintree. Ebenezer served in Captain Johnson's company in the campaign of 1675 against the Narraganset Indians, and in 1690 he served in the unsuccessful expedition of Sir William Phipps against Quebec. During the return voyage, Ebenezer died of small pox and was buried at sea off Cape Ann, leaving Hannah a widow, she being then aged 26.
In 1691, on Christmas Day, Hannah was haled before the Court of Assistants at Boston on the charge "for that by indirect meanes and by the connivance of some Josiah Owen and sd Hannah Owen procured a marriage, they being within the line of kindred of affinity forbidden marriage by the Word of God and the Statutes of England." Hannah pleaded guilty by acknowledging that "she was sd Josiah Owen's Brother's Relict." The court thereupon directed that the relation should be broken off forthwith and that Hannah should on the following Sunday appear before the Braintree congregation and make public confession of her transgression. At the same time the court by letter advised the Braintree pastor of its actions.
In the disciplinary record kept by the Braintree pastors, Rev. Moses Fiske set down that on receipt of this message he, with Major Quincy and Deacon Thompson, went to discourse with Hannah. Unexpectedly they found with her at their cottage Josiah who had eluded the civil authorities. The good pastor and his retinue undertook to bring Josiah to a suitable state of repentance, but finding him "obstinate and reflecting", charged him to be present in the congregation the following Sunday to hear what should be said to him there. The clergyman also records that Josiah was urged by his father to be compliant. Instead, Josiah and Hannah fled the jurisdiction before Sunday arrived. Josiah was solemnly excommunicated at the service which he thus missed.
There are subsequent references to Josiah in the Braintree records but none definitely indicating that he was present in the town. Several of these relate to putting up to Josiah matters relating to Ebenezer's "distracted daughter". Beginning in 1701 the Providence records contain frequent references to Josiah Owen Sr. and Josiah Owen Jr. who are described as uncle and nephew in a conveyance of land in 1703, the latter of course being Ebenezer's son. Josiah Jr. married in Providence Mary Estance about 1706 and the next year her father, Thomas Estance, conveyed to him 150 acres west of the seven-mile line, of which a few years later he conveyed half to Josiah Sr. Hannah's petition in 1701 for administration by the Suffolk court of her first husband's estate describes her then of Providence. There can be no manner of doubt that this family were in the Braintree exiles, nor can there be any that Josiah, Jr., was the patriarch of the family of Mr. Newman's table. Newman must have supplied parents for Josiah from a tradition handed down in the family and which in the course of 150 years or oral transmission had become blurred and the names altered except Hannah's family name. The factual story dug piece by piece from Massachusetts records could easily be the basis for the little Newman tells about Samuel and Priscilla...