Families at Cape Ann

Note (03/14/2023) -- See this post: New not old planter. 

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The post "Families at HSBG" looks at one of the cemeteries in Salem, MA and considers the burials in the perspective of family internments being scattered across several cemeteries. The idea is to bring these folks together into modern-media modes so that we can see the story. After a few of these studies have been done, we can discuss how to continue.

But, something comes to mind? Is there some comprehensive, coherent look at the families that were at Cape Ann? In particular, who was there early on? We have had some general looks so far: Cape Ann, Retrospective, et al. These were brief themes, dealing with specifics such as the living conditions, the house, the first year, and such.

At our portal, we have started little snippets related to this: https://www.tgsoc.org. There was one attempt at listing who was there when Roger Conant led some over to the area that became Salem (Old Planters):

• Allen, Balch, Conant, Cushman, Gardner, Gray, Jeffrey, Knight, Lyford, Norman, Oldham, Palfrey, Patch, Pickryn, Winslow, Woodbury. 

We looked at the Old Planters Society that was started by Col. T.W. Higginson and Frank A. Gardner, MD.

But, our interest here would be families. And, we might use Endicott's arrival as the cut point, for instance.  The Old Planters Society used the time before Winthrop and the area outside of Plymouth. Besides those from Plymouth, how many families were at Cape Ann, early? It looks like Margaret was with Thomas. Frances Rose-Troup also mentioned that there were two Thomas (father and son). The elder one returned to England. How many wives came? We know that Agnes Balch came with her husband.

And the view would be other than this -- The Making of an American Thinking Class: Intellectuals and Intelligentsia. No, we are looking at the doers. Early on, my thought would have been "backbone" which is an important contributing factor to any endeavor.

This look is another iteration however with more of a focus. It seemed like a good time to relook at what's available to see what we might have missed before. We found two books that we not noticed before. Each has a little about the early time before the Naumkeag move.

• History of the town of Gloucester, Cape Anne, including Rockport (1860)
• History of the town and city of Gloucester, Cape Ann and Massachusettts (1892)

Both mention Thomas Fryer (1860 -- pgs 69, 110, 203; 1892 -- pgs 26, 44, 90) who is thought to be the brother of Margaret. Of course, it has only been recently where we established good grounds for matching up Thomas and Margaret. That is, we started in 2010; we resolved the Margaret issues for ourselves in 2018 (actually 2014, but it took a while to settle in).

Besides books, there are many sites with information that needs to be considered. One example is a look at Roger Conant's contribution through street names in Beverly, MA. Then, we ran into a write up about Rev. John White who is not an uncle: John White, Patriarch of Dorchester. This post provided a good overview of the Cape Ann effort.

Again, we will be identify families and what happened. Example: John Tilly. But, too, we will summarize information for families such as that of Sarah (Gardner) Balch (February of 2011).

Remarks: Modified: 03/14/2023

03/01/2020 -- Image for the index added.

03/19/2022 -- Nice to see research on the family of John Tilly. NEHGR, Winter, 2022 has an article on John and his family by Clifford L. Stott. The title is "Rev. William Tilley of Broadwindsor, Dorset, and His Sons in New England: John, Nathaniel, and William." Identifies his child and more. 

03/04/2023 -- Thomas Gardner and Margaret Fryer and kids got here after 1630. So, not at Cape Ann. That is, the early sons. However, we can still do Cape Ann families as two of the daughters married sons of Cape Ann families, Conant and Balch. Plus, Ann as several of these families in her lineage.