William Brewster Family

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William1 Brewster

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Mayflower Families in Progress: William Brewster for Four Generations, Barbara Lambert Merrick, General Society of Mayflower Descendants 1995).

William1 Brewster, the Mayflower Passenger, married Mary ---, who came in The Mayflower, with her husband. [Note that Mary's last name has never been irrevocably proved and often appears incorrectly} Among possible names have been Mary Wentworth, Mary Stubbe (NEHGR 128:289, Supplement to Torrey, Sanborn, p. 24). He is possibly the only noted son of William & his first wife Mary Smythe Brewster (NEHGR 125:150) as suggested by various documents at Doncaster, Yorkshire, England and other research -- and but a few miles from Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, England, Brewster's boyhood home. Also note Eugene Aubrey Stratton's remarks below.

The following is as noted in Mayflower Descendant, 1916 for the Brewster family with updates. The following is as noted in Mayflower Descendant, 1916 for the Brewster family with updates.

Children of William1 and Mary Brewster
Child2 Brewster name and sex unknown; died at Leiden, Holland.
Jonathan2 Brewster apparently had a wife and child at Leiden, Holland; but even the baptismal name of the wife is unknown, and both died before 1620. He married, at Plymouth, Lucretia Oldham.
Patience2 Brewster married Thomas Prence. His first wife.
Fear2 Brewster married Isaac1 Allerton, a Mayflower Passenger as his second wife.
Love2 Brewster a Mayflower Passenger with his parents, married Sarah Collier.
Child, buried Leiden
Wrestling2 Brewster a Mayflower Passenger with his parents; died a young man, and unmarried.

Children of Jonathan2 and Lucretia (Oldham) Brewster
William3 Brewster, married Mary Peame.
Mary3 Brewster, married John Turner, Sr.
Jonathan3 Brewster
Ruth3 Brewster, married, 1st, John Pickett; married, 2d,Charles Hill.
Benjamin3 Brewster, married Ann Darte.
Elizabeth3 Brewster, married, 1st, Peter Bradley; married, 2d, Christopher Christophers. See Connecticut Court Record below for an interesting note on Elizabeth & Christopher.
Grace3 Brewster, married Daniel Wetherell.
Hannah3 Brewster, married Samuel Starr.

Love2 Brewster (William1), a Mayflower Passenger with his parents, married Sarah Collier.
Children of Love2 and Sarah Brewster
Nathaniel3 Brewster, married Sarah ---.
Sarah3 Brewster, married Benjamin Bartlett3 (Mary2 Warren, Richard1) as his second wife.
William3 Brewster, married Lydia Partridge.
Wrestling3 Brewster, married Mary ---.

Patience2 Brewster (William1), married Thomas Prence. His first wife.
Children of Thomas and Patience Prence
Rebecca Prence3, married Edmund Freeman.
Thomas Prence3, married --- ---.
Mercy Prence3, married John Freeman.
Hannah Prence3, married, 1st, Nathaniel Mayo; married, 2d, Jonathan Sparrow.

MB&D, Roser I:261, 262, Footnote 6: Christopher's wife Mary died in July of 1676. Connecticut county court records at New London, September,1673, however, tell an interesting story. About three years before Chistophers wife's death, it seems that Elizabeth "Brawly" [Bradley, by then a widow with four children] was found guilty of fornication with Christopher Christophers who was a "married man," the second of such offenses, and she was now "neare the time of delivery." Delaying punishing due to her condition, the court nonetheless noted the "haniousness" of this crime and stated that she was to appear in public at a later date displaying the notice: "Let the punishment of my whore dome be a warning to others; or else to pay fifteen pound fyne." Elizabeth chose to pay the fine. Despite this fact the Brewsters recorded the birth of John Christopers as the son of Christopher and his wife Elizabeth <Brewster Book, MD 1:77>

The court record above apparently references the birth of a second child, unknown, with the earlier offense having resulted in the birth of John Christophers who dies in Jamaica 1702.

Brewster Book, MD 1:2:77, 1899

"(p. 187, upside down.)
John Christopher the Sonn
of Christopher Christophers &
Elizabeth his wife was Borne at New London Septemr 3d : 1668
[Bowman notes that this entry is in an unknown hand]

Sources:
Pilgrim Notes & Queries, Mayflower Descendant IV:4, 1916 p. 56
Mayflower Births & Deaths, Roser, I:175+
NEHGR 124:250: The Mother of Elder William Brewster, John G. Hunt, Mary Stubbe A Connection of Elder William Brewster?, Hunt, 128:288

Suggested Additional Reading:

Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony: Its History and People 1620-1691 Ancestry, 1986. 481pp.

Stratton also recommended the following: "An excellent short account of Brewster's life is given in Dawes-Gates 2:143-56, and, in a footnote on p. 151, documented information is included to support the good possibility that Brewster had had some interest in the Virginia settlement, and that he might have been the father of the Capt. Edward Brewster who was a resident of that settlement and who returned to England in 1618. A contemporary, Nathaniel Brewster of Brookhaven, Long Island, in spite of claims to the contrary, has been shown most likely not to have been related to Elder Brewster's family (Donald Lines Jacobus, "The Family of Rev. Nathaniel Brewster," TAG 12:199)The most comprehensive family history to date is Emma C. Jones, The Brewster Genealogy, 2 vols. (1908), which is good, but with some errors. A fully documented account of Brewster's first five generations is being prepared for the General Society of Mayflower Descendants by its Historian General, Barbara Lambert Merrick. . ."

Pilgrim: A Biography of William Brewster By Mary B. Sherwood, Great Oak Press of Virginia. 1982

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