First Whitcomb in America (Bartholomew/Carrington Families)

I'm nearly at the end of a general skimming from "Direct Descent Lineage Report", prepared for me by Jeff Linscott. You will probably want to look at the two preceding posts to understand how this John Whitcomb, born 1588 in Somerset Co., England relates to our family. I've been receiving "The Whitcomb Wheel" for several months now (need to send in my money for renewing my subscription) and have needed an opportunity to look through this information.

John Whitcomb (my 9th great grandfather)is believed to have been the first of the Whitcomb family to settle permanently in America. There is much debate as to the relationship of some of the early Whitcombs, as Jeff as attested. The John in this writing was probably the second son of John and Anne Harper Whitcomb of London. The English Whitcombs were of the Established Church in England. During the time of "spiritual awakening and religious fervor" certain members of the family became Puritans...John being one. What part religion had in encouraging John's emigration must "be left to conjecture" but it doubtless had its influence.

John appeared in Dorchester (MA) as early as 1633. He may have been on the ship Arbella in 1630. Not much is written about those days in Dorchester, however later evidence shows him to have been well-to-do for the times, a man of intelligence and enterprise and did much buying and selling of land. His handwriting was strong and it is obvious that he was a man of academical education.

In 1640 he lived in Scituate, Mass, where he owned land. There is an interesting event in which John's (then seventy years old) neighbor, Steven Gates, accused the Whitcomb family of the killing of Gate's swine. John primarily raised corn, tobacco, flax, garden herbs and vegetables. The farm probably yielded maple sugar and there may have been an orchard. "Log houses were the rule in the time of John....They were usually one story and an attic. Small openings in the log walls served as windows, and were protected at night by shutters made of hewn planks. Sometimes glass was simulated by the use of skins scraped to semi-transparency or by the skins of bladders. Later the luxury of small panes of greenish glass was introduced. A huge chimney in the middle of the house provided a fireplace which served the purpose of heating and cookery and in Lancaster, each family ground its own corn until a miller with his wheel and millstones arrived."

After some thirty years of this primitive life in the Colony, eight of it spent in Lancaster, John died September 24, 1662...about 74 years old and was buried in "the old burying ground". No fragment of even a battered stone marks his resting place.

John was married in England, Nov. 26, 1623 in Tauton, Somerset Co.,to Frances Coggen. Francis died in 1671 in Lancaster, MA.

"The American Whitcombs have been patriotic and loyal from the earliest times. They did valiant service in the Colonial Wars and during the Revolution father and sons, sometimes to the number of five or six from one home were found in the ranks."

The grandfather of this John Whitcomb was named William and was born in 1528 in London, England and died in 1612 in Essex, England. He married Dorothy Taylor about 1558 apparently had only 1 child, the father of the above John.