♂James Lewis

James Lewis (about 1631 – 4 October 1713) was an English-born settler of Barnstable, in Plymouth Colony^W, who married Sarah Lane of Hingham in 1655, raised ten children with her and lived past eighty. He was the ninth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Sarah Lewis (1661–1732).

Early life

James was born in England about 1631, a son of George Lewis and Mary Doggett, and is said to have been christened at Brenchley, in Kent, on 25 March 1631. His father was a clothier who probably came to New England about 1633. George lived at Scituate until about 1640, when he moved with the Reverend John Lothrop^W and others to Barnstable, and Barnstable was James’s home for the rest of his life.

Marriage and family

In October 1655 James Lewis and Sarah Lane were married at Barnstable. She was a daughter of George Lane of Hingham, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W, and was about seventeen. The Barnstable register records their first son, John, as “borne att the latter end of October, 1656”, and Samuel on 10 April 1659. Ten children in all, six sons and four daughters, were born to them over twenty years, the youngest, Joseph, in 1676.

Several of the children’s lives turned back toward Hingham. John was baptized there on 20 September 1657 and, according to the town’s history, settled there in 1675 as a blacksmith, while his sisters Sarah, Susanna and Mary all married Hingham men.

Later life and death

James was known as “Lieutenant”, and he is said to have served for several years as one of the selectmen of Barnstable. On 8 May 1713, “being verry Ancient but of perfect mind and memory”, he made his will. He left his son Joseph twenty pounds and each of his four daughters, Sarah Waterman, Susanah Beals, Mary Linkhorn and Hannah Lumbert, four pounds, and named four sons, Samuel, James, George and Ebenezer, as his executors. He died at Barnstable on 4 October 1713, aged 82, and the will was proved on 17 October.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his daughter Sarah Lewis. They meet again in Wesley Blanchard (1844–1908), whose parents, Joseph Knapp Blanchard (1820–1885) and Elizabeth Trueworthy Blanchard (1825–1884), were both descended from James Lewis and Sarah Lane. On Joseph’s side the line runs from Sarah Lewis through her daughter Susannah Lincoln (born 1688), Elizabeth Colson (1723–1798), Sarah Hovey (1747–1805), Nicholas Blanchard (1766–1849) and Noah Blanchard (1797–1875). From Wesley the descent to Nancy Jane Blanchard runs as one, through George Wesley Blanchard (1868–1939) and Kenneth Blanchard (1897–1975).

Notes

Birth and christening

His birth about 1631 rests on his age at death, 82, given in Amos Otis’s Genealogical Notes of Barnstable Families (1888 to 1890), which says he was born in England in 1631; in his will of 1713 he calls himself “verry Ancient”. The christening at Brenchley on 25 March 1631, to a father written Georg Lewes, comes from an index of the English parish registers. The Great Migration volumes and a 2002 article in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register give the same christening as 25 March 1632. The day was Lady Day^W, then the first day of the year. The History of the Town of Hingham (1893) has him “prob. b. in Eng. ab. 1632 or 1633”.

His father

Otis and the 1893 Hingham history place George Lewis at East Greenwich, Kent, and give his wife as Sarah Jenkins. Robert S. Wakefield showed in The American Genealogist in 1993 that George and his brother John came from Brenchley, and a 1997 study in the same journal by Gordon Lewis Remington showed that George’s wife was not Sarah Jenkins but Mary Doggett, daughter of Thomas Doggett of Horsmonden, Kent. George’s trade, his coming about 1633, his years at Scituate and his removal with Lothrop to Barnstable about 1640 are from the Hingham history, volume 2, page 441.

Sources

The marriage is in the Barnstable entries printed in the Records of the Colony of New Plymouth, volume 8, page 46: “James Lewis and Sarah Lane marryed October, 1655”, followed by the births of John and Samuel. Otis, Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England and the 2002 Register article give the day as 31 October 1655. The will is in the Barnstable County probate records for 1686 to 1747, signed “James Lewes”, with John Bacon, Samuel Bacon and Josiah Crocker as witnesses. His death on 4 October 1713, aged 82, and the proving of the will on 17 October are from Otis. That he was known as “Lieutenant” and served several years as a Barnstable selectman, and John’s baptism at Hingham and settling there, are from the History of the Town of Hingham, volume 2, page 441; Otis adds that John was baptized by the Hingham minister, Mr. Hobart.

The children

Otis and the Hingham history name the same ten children but differ on some of the middle birth years: Otis gives Ebenezer 20 December 1666 and George 1673, while the Hingham history gives Susanna 1666, Ebenezer 1668, Mary 1670, George 1672 and Hannah 1674. The daughters’ married names in the will match the marriages both books give: Sarah to Thomas Lincoln and then Robert Waterman, Susanna to Lazarus Beal and Mary to Benjamin Lincoln, all of Hingham, and Hannah to a Lombard.