Early Life and Times of John Scudder (J), b. 1618, Strood, Kent, England

1635 Immigrant to New England, Later Known as John Scudder of Barnstable 

[1]

by Margery Boyden, Scudder Association Foundation Historian, v. 2.1, Spring 2020

© Scudder Association Foundation, All rights reserved

John2 Scudder (J) was the first of the family to arrive in the western hemisphere. The early life story of John2 Scudder (J) of Barnstable would be incomplete without mentioning the extraordinary times in which he lived and his extended family relationships of historical interest. Besides his Scudder roots, John2 (J) was the maternal grandson of a well-known unorthodox Puritan English clergyman, Rev. ThomasA Stoughton.[2] Stoughton was persecuted and “deprived of his living” for being part of the movement to “purify” worship in the Church of England to agree with biblical practices. On both sides of his family, John2 (J)’s roots were deep in this growing campaign that resulted in the mass migration of about 20,000 to 21,000 Puritans to Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1630–1641.[3] This article reveals more about what John² (J) would have encountered in his early life in England prior to immigration than hitherto published. A separate article gives the proof and sources [The Trail of Clues to John Scudder]. For more about John² (J)’s Scudder ancestry see articles “The Three Sons of Henry Scudder, Yeoman of Horton Kirby, Kent: A Season of Political Upheaval …” in our June 2019 Journal and in this current issue “If You Are an American Scudder, Which Is Your Courageous Ancestor?”

 

Many years ago John2 received the designation (J) by the Scudder Association for being the immigrant ancestor of an extensive line of Scudder descendants in America referred to as the Scudder (J) line. The term John2 (J) will be used in this article to abbreviate his name for simplicity’s sake, while also clarifying to which John Scudder a particular statement refers. In about 1640 John2 (J) made his final home at Barnstable, Plymouth Colony, now Massachusetts.

 

Scudder Immigrants to America Relationship Diagram:

Shows the immigrants in yellow

 

As a youth of almost 17, John2 (J) arrived at Boston in 1635, only five years after John1 Winthrop’s fleet established the Massachusetts Bay Company headquartered at Boston. Boston was not only a new community under construction but had been also recently battered a month earlier by the Great Hurricane of 1635.[4] John² (J) settled at nearby Charlestown with his traveling companions, the Ewers.[5] Thomas¹ Ewer was a tailor. No record is found to say that John² (J) helped Ewer with his business but he would have had to earn his keep in some way. The association continued after Ewer’s death and his wife married 2) Thomas2 Lothrop (Rev. John1) and moved to Barnstable which explains why John² (J) also moved to Barnstable by 1640 at age 22. If there is a family relationship, it is not apparent, but Ewers were at least trusted friends.

 

The first reference for John2 (J) as an immigrant to America was as a passenger on the second voyage of the James from London in 1635, in company with the Thomas and Sarah Ewer family. Hotten publishes these names from the emigration list for the second voyage of the James from London under the leadership of Master John May: [6] [7]

 

In late 1637, John2 (J)’s uncle, Thomas2 Scudder (T), was the 2nd Scudder immigrant ancestor to be documented in New England, along with his wife and five children, including Thomas2 (T)’s own son John2 and daughter Elizabeth2 who were of near age with same names as his nephew John2 (J) and niece Elizabeth2 (E). Some compiled sources have unfortunately mixed the two sets of same named cousins and their data to produce errors. Thomas1 (T)’s family settled at Salem.

 

John² (J) Scudder’s Mother’s Family

John2 (J)’s mother, the twice-widowed Elizabeth1 (Stoughton) (Scudder) Chamberlayne, followed in the early 1640s, and is documented in America by 6 October 1644[8] when she joined Rev. John1 Lothrop’s church at Barnstable [The American Lathrop Story Begins]. Three of her Stoughton siblings had each separately preceded her to Massachusetts: Thomas1, b. 1592 came in 1630;[9] Israel1, b. 1602, came 1632 and their sister Judith1 (Stoughton) (Denman) Smead,[10] sometime after her marriage in England in 1634 to William Smead and by 1639 when the widow Judith1 died in Massachusetts. Judith1’s sister Elizabeth1 was not yet in New England, but even so the “widdow Smead” remembered her nephew John2 (J) Scudder and some other relatives in her will.[11]

 

A month prior to his 9th birthday, and due to his mother’s remarriage on April 30, 1627, John² (J) became the stepson of his Strood parish minister. Rev. Robert Chamberlayne was also known for Puritan sympathies as were his first wife’s family. She was Joanna Wing, sister to the renowned Puritan Rev. John Wing, who “was a minister of some importance” at The Hague for a time but who returned and died in England in 1629. After his death, his wife, Deborah (Bachilor) Wing, took her family to New England. Accounts vary as to when. The Wing Family of America, Inc. in its “Basic Wing History 101,” states Deborah immigrated with her father Rev. Stephen Bachiler in 1632.[12] The Great Migration Begins states that Deborah came to New England with her children in the late 1630s. Rev. Stephen Bachiler had gone in 1632.[13] Anderson states that Rev. Bachiler “was one of the few Puritan ministers active in Elizabethan times to survive to come to New England.”[14] Rev. Bachiler had a reputation for being his own man.

 

These relationships pertain to Rev. Robert Chamberlayne’s religious inclinations and he appears strongly connected to his Wing in-laws. It is noteworthy that Rev. John and Deborah (Bachilor) Wing’s son, John Wing II, was christened at Strood, Kent on 1 September 1611.[15] The marriage between Rev. Robert Chamberlayne and Joanna Wing took place the following year, 13 January 1612 at Banbury, Oxfordshire and the Chamberlaynes soon thereafter went to Strood.

 

Catharina Clement’s doctoral dissertation provides valuable insight into what was going on at Strood shortly before John2 Scudder’s (J)’s birth and during his youth prior to his immigration.[16] Ms. Clement suggests that local historians had found it difficult to document the identity of the minister at Strood between the years 1600–1615. She reports that it took genealogical studies to provide the answer for at least some of the lost years, citing that “Mr. Winge” was more than just a temporary minister at Strood. She states:

 

John Winge, a Puritan, was incumbent of Strood from 1608–1615 and possibly the curate from 1605. He was married to the daughter of the Puritan minister Stephen Bachiler, who was ousted from his living in 1605 for his religious views. Winge was afterwards employed by the Society of Merchants Adventurers as a minister in Hamburg, Flushing and later The Hague. Works on the early English Church in the Netherlands place him as a Presbyterian.[17]

 

Ms. Clement’s next revelation was riveting: “His brother-in-law Robert Chamberlayne, succeeded him in 1615, serving the parish till his death in 1639.”[18] Rev. Chamberlayne had been John² (J)’s minister for the seventeen years between John2 (J)’s birth and when he left for America!

 

It seems the Wing connection is very relevant to Rev. Chamberlayne’s own history at Strood, as well as to describing the religious mood at the parish of Strood. Ms. Clement’s work documents that Strood parish of the Church of England was in the hands of Puritan ministers for thirty-five years. She also reveals that Rev. Chamberlayne had been recommended by “his former employer Sir Richard Chetwood of Warksworth[19] revealing where Rev. Robert Chamberlayne had been serving prior to Strood. Not surprisingly, Warksworth is only three miles east of Banbury where Rev. Chamberlayne married Joanna Wing in 1612. Robert’s new brother-in-law, Rev. John Wing, recruited Rev. Chamberlayne to minister at the parish of Strood when Wing left.

 

Rev. Chamberlayne’s first wife Joanna (Wing) Chamberlayne was buried at Strood on 20 February 1626/27. Three months later, Rev. Chamberlayne married John² (J)’s mother. It was Rev. Chamberlayne who raised John² (J) from age nine to seventeen. Considering John2 (J)’s own Scudder and Stoughton Puritan heredity and Chamberlayne home environment of his youth, it is likely John² (J) was well schooled in the Bible and immersed in the culture of the Puritan movement prior to his migration with the Puritans to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The will of Rev. Chamberlain bequeaths Bibles to his son Samuel and daughter Joanna and “daughter-in-law” Elizabeth Scudder (meaning stepdaughter). He names his “Dear Wife Elizabeth Chamberlain” to be executrix. Among others, he names [Rev] Henry Scudder to be one of the overseers of his will. Robert’s son Thomas by his first wife died at Rochester Bridge in 1630.[20]

 

 

[21]

Records show that John² (J)’s mother Mistress Chamberlayne, his sister Elizabeth2 Scudder (E) and two of John2 (J)’s Chamberlayne stepsiblings, Joanna2 and Samuel2, arrived in New England by 1644. Theoretically, since Rev. Robert Chamberlyne was buried at Strood on 1 June 1639, and since the Puritan migration had slowed to a trickle after 1641 because the first English Civil War was underway, it is likely that Mistress Chamberlayne came with her children before 1644. She was not the mistress Chamberlain who was in New England in 1638 for whom mistaken.

 

As has been shown, the ancestry and extended family connections of John² (J) and his sister Elizabeth² (E) reads like a Who’s Who of notable Puritans but especially so about their grandfather Rev. Thomas^A Stoughton. Ethel M. Turner states:

 

Early in his career the Rev. Thomas became attracted towards the Presbyterian movement which came into some prominence about the middle of Elizabeth’s reign. Though the activities of its members seldom progressed beyond discussion, their doctrines were unacceptable to the authorities, and many clergymen suffered deprivation of their livings for professing them. The Presbyterian movement was not the foundation of the later Presbyterian movement of Civil War times, but was actually the starting point of the Congregationalists who later found a home in New England.[22]

 

Turner repeats the statement of the editor of the Minute Book of the Dedham Classis, “’that the movement was made possible and as far as it succeeded, successful owing to the support of the gentry such as Lord Rich.’ It was Lord Rich who in December, 1600 presented Thomas Stoughton to the living of Coggeshall in Essex, of which he was deprived because of his opinions in 1606.” His successor was Ralph Cudworth.[23] Thomas^A Stoughton’s son John Stoughton later married the widow of Ralph Cudworth, Mary Machell, and by so doing became stepfather to James1 Cudworth, another Puritan immigrant to New England.[24]

 

Near the end of his life, Rev. ThomasA Stoughton wrote a letter that is somewhat of a summary of his life, an expression of appreciation to those who had helped him and an explanation to his children. Though written when John² (J) was only four years old, it is a window into the soul of this grandfather and a tangible view of his mother’s family culture in John ²(J)’s youth. The letter is dedicated to Robert, Earle of Warwicke and baron Leitz and Lord Rich whom he thanks. He writes, as though they were his last words, “From my poore lodging in the poore Hospital called St Bartholomewes by Sandwich in Kent, August 20 1622”:

Deare Children

I am now going the way of all the earth and by age ready to leave this world.

He bequeaths to his children his ‘Christian Sacrifice’ as also my three former Treatises…

He states that God’s mercies to him were greater than to his own father in that

1. ‘I have lived twice his age and twelve years more.

2. Whereas he had one child, myself alone, Got hath given me twelve children whereof I have yet seven living besides children of some of my children.

3. I have lived all the time of my knowledge under the Gospel.

4. I am a minister of the Gospel.

5. That ye my children are not only mine by nature, but God’s by grace.

6. That God hath blessed my ministerie to the wining of souls.

7. I might ad that whereof Paul boasteth but herein I am sparing that I may no waies seeme to disgrace any or any waies to insult over them. I hate a high mind in others and therefore far be it from me to bewray the same in myself. God hath the glory of it all.

Let none of you be gr[e]ived that I have left you nothing of my inheritance in Kent neither of my lands since, that I purchased in Suffolk as also in Essex, all being now gone and the price of them spent; not riotously or otherwise lewdly but to other means. Though in body ye be scattered one from another, comfort one another, help one another that ye may strengthen one another in the Lord.[25]

 

More About the Maternal Stoughton Ancestry of John² (J) and Elizabeth² (E) Scudder

John2 (J)’s maternal grandfather, Rev. ThomasA Stoughton had been a very early Presbyterian sympathizer[26] who was removed from his position as an Anglican minister at Great Coggeshall, Essex in 1606 for sharing his dissenting religious opinions as an advocate of the Puritan wing of the Church.

St. Peter-ad-Vincula church, Coggeshall, Essex[27]

 

The New England Historical and Genealogical Register article “The Exhurst Ancestry of the Stoughton Siblings of New England” begins:

 

Four children of the nonconforming English minister ThomasA Stoughton immigrated to New England between 1630 and 1644: brothers Thomas1 and Israel1 and their sisters Judith1 (Stoughton) (Denman) Smead and Elizabeth (Stoughton) (Scudder) Chamberlayne.[28]

 

JUDITH¹ STOUGHTON, b. 1599: Historical data for Judith is sparse but a little about her is discussed in the sketch about her brother Israel¹ Stoughton in The Great Migration Begins. It states, “Two sisters of Thomas and Israel [Stoughton] also apparently married first Henry Denman and second ____Smead became a resident of Dorchester .[29] Authors noted that various genealogists had disagreed but the matter was resolved when Judith’s christening record was discovered at Burstead Magna, Essex with a reference to her father Thomas “preacher of the word of God” which was confirmed that he assisted the minister there from 1594 to 1600. Since the Great Migration Begins was published, it has been discovered that the death of Judith’s husband John Denman [not Henry] was at Cranbrook, Kent in 1627, followed by the marriage recorded of “widow Judith Denman” who married William Smeed (or Smead) at Cranbrook, Kent on 25 January 1634. [30]

St. Dunstan’s church, Cranbrook, Kent, England[31]

Judith¹ Stoughton was baptized 3 July 1599 at Burstead Magna, Essex as “Judith Throughtone …the daughter of Thomas preacher of the word of God.” This record fills in the blank between Rev. Stoughton’s ministry at Naughton, Suffolk, from which he was dismissed, and his time at the pulpit of Great Coggeshall, Essex.[32] Rev. Stoughton’s occupation as a minister in the Church of England accounts for the family’s frequent moves. These were made more frequent because he shared his Puritan opinions and explains his lack of an appointment as a minister to a congregation after 1606. His assignment to the hospital in Sandwich in his last years appears to have been a way to occupy this “silenced” minister in a location where he would have little influence in the outside world.

The sketch of Israel¹ Stoughton in The Great Migration Begins continues: “The identity of the second sister is less certain. On 14 May 1645 the General Court ‘upon weighty reasons moving, it is ordered that Mrs. Chamberlin, widow, sister to Mr. Israel Stoughton…shall be allowed either a cow or five pounds’ [MBCR 2:113].” The next “suggestion” made on the same page by The Great Migration Begins, however, regarding an Abigaill Chamberlane whose “father being a member of Concord…” does not apply[33] as discovered when the correct Mrs. Chamberlin of Strood was finally identified in 1993 by the Scudder Association and published in Scudder Searches.[34] With this discovery also came the missing puzzle piece regarding the ancestry of immigrants John² (J) and Elizabeth² (E) Scudder. [The Trail of Clues to John Scudder]

 

THOMAS¹ STOUGHTON, b. 1592. A number of sources make the error of giving Thomas¹ Stoughton, the immigrant, an elder deceased brother’s christening date. Clarifying the correct christening date, the sketch of Thomas¹ Stoughton in The Great Migration Begins states: Thomas1 Stoughton, the immigrant, was “Baptized Naughton, Suffolk, England, 23 January 1592[/e], son of Rev. Thomas and Katherine (___) Stoughton (evidently their second son of this name since ‘Thomas ‘sloughe’ the son of Thomas & Katherine his wife was bapt. 9 July 1588’).”

Church of St. Mary in Naughton, Suffolk, England, a Grade 1 listed medieval church[35]

 

Thomas¹ Stoughton’s first marriage was to Elizabeth Tompson at Great Totham, Essex, on 5 May 1612. She was buried 29 December 1627 at Aller, Somersetshire. According to a December 1634 letter from James Cudworth of Scituate to his stepfather Rev. John Stoughton that is preserved, Thomas1 Stoughton married 2) Margaret (Barrett) Huntington shortly thereafter. Records in Connecticut for Margaret’s four surviving Huntington children and for her as the widow Margaret Stoughton corroborate John Stoughton’s letter.[36] GMB corrects several significant errors found in the Turner book, especially mistakes about the birth year of Thomas¹ Stoughton and his first wife’s name. Ms. Turner’s volume is valuable for a great many records cited.

 

Margaret’s first husband was Simon Huntington who died apparently at sea en route to Connecticut.[37] Later residing in the same locale at Norwich, Connecticut, a number of Margaret (Barrett)’s Huntington descendants intermarried with descendants of Elizabeth² (Scudder) (E) Lathrop, she having moved to Connecticut in 1648.  Some of these include ancestors of the four Scudder/Lathrop missionaries to Ceylon who are discussed in several articles in the June and December 2019 issues of the [Scudder Family Historical & Biographical Journal.].

 

ISRAEL¹ STOUGHTON, b. 1602. Israel¹ Stoughton, as son of Rev. Thomas, was baptized at Great Coggeshall, Essex, England on 18 February 1602/3. He married Elizabeth Knight at Rotherhithe, Surrey on 27 March 1627. After immigrating in 1632, Israel2 died 1644 on a trip to England, leaving considerable debts in America. His son William2 is remembered for his role in presiding over the Salem Witch Trials. He was the only male heir of his father by 1665 and died unmarried in 1701.[38] This diagram of the ThomasA Stoughton family highlights the immigrants to America.

 

For details about Elizabeth1 (Stoughton) (Scudder) Chamberlayne see [The Trail of Clues to John Scudder of Barnstable].

John2 (J) Scudder, though separated early from his father by death and temporarily from his mother and sister and stepfamily by his immigration at an early age, was reunited for at least three years in America; that is until his mother’s death before 30 March 1647.[39]

 

A future article will treat John2 Scudder (J)’s adult life at Barnstable and explore why John2 (J)’s family is not found on church records at Barnstable after the death of Rev. John1 Lothrop in 1653.

To be continued

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Editorial Note: Note: For how we learned John² Scudder (J)’s correct lineage and for detailed sources, see “The Trail of Clues to John Scudder of Barnstable’s English Identity: This 1635 Immigrant to New England Came from Strood, Kent.” For more about John2 (J)’s Scudder ancestry see articles “The Three Sons of Henry Scudder, Yeoman of Horton Kirby, Kent: A Season of Political Upheaval with Effects on Life Circumstances of Each Son” in our June 2019 Journal and “If You Are an American Scudder, Which is Your Courageous Immigrant Ancestor?” in this issue.

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[1] Images from James Otis, Ruth of Boston, a story of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, (New York: American Book Company, 1910), 12 and 58. New York Public Library, contributing library.

[2] Robert Charles Anderson, “Israel Stoughton,” The Great Migration Begins, v. 3, P–W, 1776.

Also Ethel McLaughlin Turner, The English Ancestry of Thomas Stoughton, 1588-1661, and…, (Waterloo, Wis.: Artcraft Press, 1958), 66–68. It is unfortunate that Ms. Turner’s title uses the christening year of an elder brother Thomas who died as an infant rather than the correct christening date of 23 Jan 1592/3 at Naughton, Suffolk, England that accurately belongs to Thomas1 Stoughton who died at Windsor, CT, 1661. While it is valuable for many of its sources, this book also has the troublesome error about the name of the wife of Thomas1 Stoughton, b. 1592/3. He married 1) Elizabeth Tompson, not a fictitious Elizabeth Montpesan that was published in Ethel Stokes, “The English Descent of Gov. William Stoughton,” on page 62 that was apparently derived from Unpublished manuscript, Frederick Arthur Stoughton.

No primary source is offered for this error, but the accurate marriage of Thomas¹ Stoughton to Elizabeth Tompson occurred at Great Totham, Essex, 5 May 1612. They were the parents of 5 daughters and 1 son. Only the last three children, Sarah, Katherine and Thomas went to America, the first two having burial records, the other “no further record.” First wife Elizabeth (Tompson) Stoughton died at Aller, Somersetshire, 29 Dec 1627. Thomas Stoughton went to America as a widower where he married about 1634 Margaret (Barrett) Huntington. For these corrected facts see The Great Migration Begins, v. 3, P–W, 1778, cited below.

[3] David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 16.

[4] “Remembering the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635,” New England Historical Society,” https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/remembering-the-great-colonial-hurricane-1635/