♂Alexander Shapleigh

Alexander Shapleigh (died before 6 July 1650) was a merchant of Kingswear, in Devon, with large interests across the Atlantic on the Piscataqua River in New England. He was the tenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Catherine Shapleigh (died 1676). In a deed of his own he called himself “Alexander Shapleigh of Pascattaquacke in the Province of Mayne Marchant”, and named his son-in-law James Treworgye as a man who stood bound for him.

Kingswear

Kingswear lies on the River Dart, across the water from Dartmouth. The name of Alexander’s first wife is not known. By her he probably had Catherine, born about 1600, Elizabeth, baptized at Kingswear on 16 June 1602, and a son Alexander. On 12 December 1602 he married Jane Egbeare at St Saviour’s, Dartmouth, and their sons James, John and Nicholas were baptized at Kingswear between 1608 and 1618; an Avis Shapleigh buried there in 1615 was most likely their daughter. Catherine married James Treworgye at Kingswear on 16 March 1617, and the Treworgyes, with his son Nicholas, became the men who looked after his large interests across the Atlantic.

The Piscataqua

He is said to have sent goods to the early settlements of Maine and New Hampshire in his own ships and to have acted as agent for Sir Ferdinando Gorges^W, the proprietor of the Province of Maine^W. On 5 May 1636 Gorges’s agent deeded 500 acres to the use of John Treworgye, Catherine’s son, and in 1678 a witness testified that John had bought the land as Alexander’s agent and for his sole use. John himself swore in October 1650 that a cellar standing near William Hilton’s house at Piscataqua did not belong to the land “bought by me for my Grandfather Mr. Alexander Shapleigh”. In the same month a statement was made that the house where Hilton lived, the first built at the river’s mouth, stood where Alexander had first built.

About 1637 he and James Treworgye came to an agreement with the settlers at and about Sturgeon Creek. In 1674 Catherine recalled that some thirty-eight years earlier, in a time of great scarcity, her father had laid out a good estate for the supply of the country.

Death and estate

His business was carried on so much by others that his presence on the Piscataqua is hard to fix, but he was evidently there in person on 26 May 1642, when he made over his entire estate to his son-in-law James Treworgye. Yet James, by his own deed, had already made over the same property to Nicholas Shapleigh on 2 April 1641.

Neither the place nor the date of his death is known. Elizabeth Trickey, who had lived in his household in England, later gave evidence that made it appear he died in New England. He was apparently not long dead on 6 July 1650, when the question of who owned his estate was brought before Edward Godfrey, who ruled that Catherine, by then James Treworgye’s widow, neither held it nor answered for its debts, since her father had conveyed everything before he died. No will was proved.

Notes

Sources

Most of this life rests on the Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire (Noyes, Libby and Davis, 1928–1939), whose SHAPLEIGH entry calls him “gent., eminent merchant, Kingsweare, co. Devon, and Kittery” and gives the Kingswear baptisms, his second marriage, the 1642 conveyance, the depositions of John White (1679) and Elizabeth Trickey (1688), Catherine’s plea of May 1674 and Godfrey’s ruling of July 1650. Its TREWORGYE entry gives the 1636 purchase of 500 acres and Edward Johnson’s deposition of 1678. Two documents survive in print: the deed in York Deeds, Book I, folio 7 (printed 1887), and John Treworgy’s deposition of 25 October 1650 from the Suffolk deeds, printed in Dean Dudley’s History of the Dudley Family (1886). The ships and the agency for Gorges come from a footnote in Arthur Gilman’s The Gilman Family (1869), which adds that he “visited this country probably before 1635”.

His wives and children

The dictionary says only that his first wife is unknown; online trees that call her Lucy, and give him a birth in 1575, cite no source. Catherine, Elizabeth and the younger Alexander are placed before the 1602 marriage, and James, John and Nicholas after it, as the dictionary has them. Its entry records “One Avis S.” buried at Kingswear on 1 November 1615 without naming her parents; she is counted here as Jane Egbeare’s daughter.

When he came to New England

A 1909 history of Maine families says he came over from Kingswear in 1635 or a little earlier, living at Kittery Point in 1635 and at Sturgeon Creek in 1639. The Genealogical Dictionary warns that his agents’ dealings in his name, and his servants’ depositions, make him appear to have been in New England at times when he was in England. Elizabeth Trickey, aged about 64 in May 1688, said she had lived with him in England some 52 years before, about 1636.