♂John Strange

John Strange (died before 17 July 1707) was a colonist of Portsmouth, in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations^W, and the father of Grizzel Strange, who married Thomas Fish there in December 1668; two of his great-great-great-grandchildren later married each other. He was the eighth great-grandfather of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Grizzel Strange.

Life

The Portsmouth town record names him only once in his own right, in the entry for his daughter’s marriage on 16 December 1668, as a history of the Fish family published in 1948 prints it: “Thomas fish of the Town of Portsmouth, junior, was married unto Grizzigon Strange, daughter of John of the said Portsmouth.” The rest of what is known comes from a compiled genealogy, Austin’s Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island (1887), which abstracts his deeds. It calls him a hatter. It says he bought twenty acres at Portsmouth in 1669 from Joseph Parker of Shrewsbury, New Jersey, for £34, and that in 1677 he was one of forty-eight men granted 5,000 acres to be called East Greenwich, though he never went there to settle. In 1681 he bought sixty acres on the Taunton River from Increase Robinson for £13.

In 1683 his brother Lot Strange died without children. According to Austin, John, as Lot’s only brother and next of blood, confirmed all of Lot’s lands and houses to Lot’s widow, Alice, for a sum she paid him, and his own wife, also named Alice, joined in the deed.

His sons

The same compiled genealogy abstracts two later deeds that name his sons. In 1684 he deeded his son Lot the land he had bought from Increase Robinson. In 1687 he confirmed to his son John twenty acres, with the dwelling house and all his movables, in return for the maintenance of himself and John’s “beloved mother” for the rest of their lives, a living “fit for such ancient people as we are to have, and he is able to give”. A deed of this kind handed the property to the son while the parents were alive and set the price as their keep.

Lot married Mary Sherman and died before 12 June 1699, when his will was proved. John the son was probably the John Strainge Junior whom a Portsmouth town meeting chose as constable in 1693.

Death

The father died before 17 July 1707. On that day the town clerk recorded a cattle earmark^W for Nathaniel Hoult, noting that it had formerly been “old John Stranges Earmark Deceased”. The printed Portsmouth town book (1901) gives the entry. No will or other record of his death has been found, and the records do not give his age.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through Grizzel’s son Preserved Fish (born 1679). One passes through Preserved’s son Thomas Fish (1703–1786) down to Waite Allen (1766–1850); the other through his daughter Amy Fish (1705–1748) down to Batchelder Sherman (1761–1828). Batchelder Sherman and Waite Allen married each other, and the two lines meet again in their daughter Salena Sherman (1806–1842).

Notes

The deeds are known only through Austin’s abstracts, read on the printed page, and not from the Portsmouth land records themselves; the Austin entry is the only source for his trade, his land purchases and his two sons. The 1948 Fish history, in its own account of the family, names Grizzel’s parents as John and Alice Strange. The deeds show that John’s wife in 1683 and 1687 was named Alice and was the mother of his son John, but nothing seen names her as Grizzel’s mother; Grizzel married in 1668, while Lot’s own children were born from 1689.

Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England (1860–1862), under Thomas Fish, also calls the bride “Grizigon, d. of John Strange”, and dates the marriage 10 December 1668, the same day the 1948 Fish history gives in its own family entry; the town record as that book quotes it has the 16th. Savage’s entries for the surname Strange list no John at Portsmouth. The only Strange he places there is Lot Strange, whose children were born at Portsmouth from 1689 onward; that Lot is the son named in Austin’s abstract. A search of the printed books and record transcripts held for this family found other men named John Strange at Boston, in London and in English shipping lists, none of them this man.