Thomas Harris Genealogy
Record modified: 2024-12-26
This is my ancestor 12 generations back.
Born: (unknown) Hatherup, Gloucestershire England
Died: 1632-00-00 Charlestown, Suffolk Co, Massachusetts USA
Marriages:
1. Elizabeth Hills
Children of Thomas Harris and Elizabeth Hills:
Notes:
He was a ferryman.
other children:
John
Thomas
Anthony
William
Daniel
--
"The Ancestry of Bethia Harris 1748-1833 Wife of Dudley Wildes"
has a section on this Thomas. It says he, his wife Elizabeth, five sons, and one daughter came to America in the great emigration under the leadership of John Winthrop in 1630. It is a logical conclusion that they were passengers on the ship "Lyon" which sailed from Bristol, bringing emigrants from that city and the western counties of England, and which made port at Salem in the latter part of May, some two weeks before the arrival of the governor in the "Arbella". His name (Thomas Williams) first appears in the Colonial records on 1630-09-18, in the list of a jury of inquest on the body of William Bateman, who died from illness and exposure at Pullen Point in Boston Harbor, after a voyage from Plymouth. On 1630-10-19, as Thomas Williams alias Harris, he applied to the court to be made a freeman of the colony, was admitted, as Thomas Williams, on 1631-05-18, and took the required oath. On that same day the court recorded that "Tho: Williams hath undertaken to sett upp a ferry betwixte Winnettsemt & Charlton, for which he is to have after 3d a person, & from Winnettsem to Boston 4d a person." Winnisimmet was the latter town of Chelsea, and it was there that the family lived. Thomas Williams alias Harris died before September 1634, when William Stilson, who married his widow Elizabeth, took over the ferry. Many years later, on 1680-06-15, Stilson, aged about eighty years, testified that "Thomas Harris lived at Winnisimet, about forty nine years since & was wont to transport persons over the Rivers, to Charlstowne & Boston till he died, and after that I married his Widdow, and kept the ffery, as my predecessors did."
Hinds Site: Genealogy of Ken Hinds -- page 1763
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is correct or complete. Hard references are given where I have them,
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