Week 17, Document: Prince Family Paper

Week 17’s topic for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is Document. I mentioned back in Week 7 that my uncle has some heirlooms that were passed down through several generations of the Turner family. Apparently at some point, my 3rd great-grandfather, Charles Henry Turner, was interested in genealogy. Tracing one’s ancestry became quite popular and fashionable in the 1880s-1920s. Charles was a well-educated man from a wealthy family with roots that can be traced back to some of the earliest British settlers in America, so discovering his family history would have been an appealing pastime for someone from his background. The Turner side was easy for him to trace, given that he had a copy of the published book Genealogy of the Descendants of Humphrey Turner. To learn about his mother’s side, the Prince family, he had to contact a relative. I don’t know how many of his Prince relations he wrote to (no letters remain) but his mother’s first cousin sent him a handwritten copy of the Prince family tree. The document is on one long sheet of brittle paper, broken at the creases. My aunt was kind enough to send me a photograph of the original document all laid out, and then mailed me a photocopy.

This handwritten document provides invaluable historical information. It not only contains a history of the Elder John Prince, our first Prince ancestor to set foot on American soil, but it includes lineage that links us to the Brewsters of the Mayflower, and through that line we double-back to our original Turner ancestor, Humphrey Turner.

Here is a transcription of the document in its entirety:

Prince

The first authentic information we have of our branch of the Prince family in England is that the Rev.

John Prince

of East Shefford within six miles of Newbury, Berkshire County, England. Born of honorable parents, educated at the University of Oxford who became a minister of the Puritanic Church, dissenting from the regular Church of England. In 1609 he married the daughter of Dr. Toldenbuy, a (illegible) of the regular Church of England.

John was one of the Puritan ministers who, in the days of King James 1st and Charles 1st in part conformed, finding great friends to protect him in omitting the more offensive ceremonies. By his wife he had eleven children, every one of whom proved to be conscientious nonconformists even while their parents lived without breach of amity or affection amongst them, amongst whom was JOHN, better known on this side of the water as Elder John from his having been a ruling Elder of the Church of Hull.

This John, born about 1610, spent two years at the University of Oxford with a view on the Ministry, but disgusted with the licentiousness, which to one of his eminent piety was very grievous, left, and for a while kept with a merchant near London Bridge.

But the persecutions of the furious and cruel Archbishop Laud were so severe, that, to escape apprehension for his writings against the Church of England, he was conveyed on shipboard in a Pannier and in 1632 left his native country (never to return) arriving in New England about 1632 – settling in Watertown near Boston.

Note: The ship Mary and John, of 400 tons, Captain Squeb* sailed from Plymouth, England March 20th, 1630, and landed at Nantasket the following June, it is possible the Elder may have come in her as it says “about” 1632.

He was admitted a Freeman in 1635. Here at Watertown he married his first wife, Miss Alice Honour, who bore him all his children, nine in number, they were all christened at Hingham by Rev. Peter Hobart, first Minister of that town to which place the Elder had removed. Here he acquired land and office, his second wife was the widow Anne Barstow.

The Elder lived in the vicinity, beloved & respected having a family, which like a fruitful one, have spread over New England, the progenitors of the (illegible) Prince until their name is Legion. He died probably in 1675 as his probated will is dated 1676.

Among the children of the Elder, was

Thomas

11th* son of the Elder, born July 16, 1658

He married Ruth Turner – twin sister of Mary who married his brother Isaac. They were the daughters of John Turner of Scituate. They were the great-granddaughters of Elder Wm. Brewster of Plymouth and thus you have the blood of the Mayflower Elder flowing in your veins.

Thomas and Ruth

had

Job b. July 8, 1695*

& he married

Abigail Kimball

and they had*

Job, born 1751

he married

Elizabeth Cutler –your grandmother

and they had

Mary Ivis Prince } your mother

Baptized Jan 12, 1780

she married

Stephen Turner in 1802

and they had

Eliza, Charles, Helen & Sophia

Now

My father, Samuel Prince, was uncle to your mother

he married first

Frances Charlotte Davis daughter of Cap’ Edmd. Davis

and they had

Frances, Samuel, and Edward Davis

2nd he married

Sarah Stickney of Newburyport – my mother

and they had

William, Frances, John Tucker, Theodore Sedgwick

and

Sarah Ann

There are a few mistakes in this document, which I’ve marked *. The Captain of the Mary and John in 1630 was Thomas Chubb. The creator of this document – most likely John Tucker Prince (I base this on death dates -- I assume this document was written in the late 1800s) may have heard the name incorrectly. Chubb could be mistaken for Squeb. This document says that Elder John Prince and Alice Honour had 9 children (which other documentation supports) but their son, Thomas, is listed as their 11th son. It’s likely the cousin writing this was thinking of Elder John’s father, who did have 11 children. Thomas was the youngest child, and therefore the 9th. The first Job Prince was born April 14, 1695. The most notable mistake is an omission of a generation. The Job Prince born in 1751 who married Elizabeth Cutler was not the son, but the grandson of the Job Prince born in 1695 who married Abigail Kimball. The son of Job (1695) and Abigail and the father of Job (1751) was …..drumroll please…..also named Job Prince. This Job Prince was born in 1723 and married Elizabeth Allen. Considering the rough time period in which this document was written (it’s not as though they could boot up a computer and fact-check like I did against my Ancestry tree) the mistakes are minimal.

An interesting thing to note, the document states that the Elder John Prince was "conveyed on shipboard in a pannier." I was unfamiliar with the word "pannier" in that context and looked it up. It means a large basket or container -- usually a matching set. I think sometimes it's easy to minimize the idea of an ancestor fleeing their country due to persecution, but in this case, Elder John was actively fleeing and hiding to the point where he had to be smuggled aboard a ship in a basket to avoid being caught. Try to imagine that.

As I said, this document notes my family’s Mayflower heritage. The two Turner sisters who married the two Prince brothers were the great-granddaughters of William Brewster of the Mayflower. They were the daughters of John Turner and Mary Brewster. Mary Brewster was the daughter of Jonathan Brewster, and Jonathan was the son of William Brewster. Jonathan didn’t arrive on the Mayflower, but joined his parents and siblings the following year, 1621, and travelled aboard the Fortune.

These Turner girls, Ruth and Mary, were not only the great-granddaughters of William Brewster, but the granddaughters of my original Turner ancestor, Humphrey Turner. Their father, John, was the brother of my 8th great-grandfather, Thomas Turner. The Stephen Turner listed as the husband of Mary Ivis Prince in this genealogy is the great-great grandson of Thomas. Now here’s a fun fact. Due to the way the generations fall on the various branches of my family tree, Thomas Turner is my 8th great-grandfather (all of my family members with the Turner surname trace directly back to him) but his brother, John Turner, is my 9th great-grandfather because his daughters married into my Prince line. That means their father, Humphrey Turner, is both my 9th great-grandfather (as the father of Thomas) and my 10th great-grandfather (as the father of John).

Isn’t genealogy fun?