♂Samuel Hinckley

Samuel Hinckley (died 1662) was an English settler from Tenterden, in Kent, who brought his family to New England in 1635 and made his home at Scituate and then at Barnstable, in Plymouth Colony^W. His son Thomas Hinckley^W became the last governor of Plymouth Colony. Samuel was the ninth great-grandfather of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through his daughter Susanna Hinckley (baptized 1625).

In Kent

Samuel was probably the son of Robert Hinckley of Harrietsham, in Kent, who was buried there on 27 March 1606; Robert’s will of 6 April 1605 leaves £30 to a son Samuel. Samuel and his wife Sarah were most likely the “Samuell Hinckley and Sarah Soole” who married at Hawkhurst, in Kent, on 7 May 1617; a son Thomas, “sonne of Samuell Hincle”, was baptized there on 19 March 1619/20. By 1625 the family was at Tenterden, where their daughter Susanna was baptized at St Mildred’s church on 6 November 1625.

Scituate

In April 1635 the family took passage in the Hercules of Sandwich, listed as “Samuel Hinckley of Tenterden and Sara his wife”, with their daughters Susan, Sara and Mary and a kinswoman named Elizabeth. They settled first at Scituate, where Samuel had a house, barn and orchard on his home lot, and a great lot of upland and meadow up the North River. On 2 January 1637/8 he was sworn and admitted a freeman of Plymouth Colony.

In 1638 he was one of seven Scituate men presented to the colony’s court for taking strangers into their houses and lands without licence from the governor or his assistants, and without telling the town. Several of the children born in New England reportedly died as babies, among them two sons named Samuel, born a year apart at Scituate, and twins in 1641.

Barnstable

By July 1640 the family had moved to Barnstable, on Cape Cod. Samuel had bought land at Barnstable from the minister Joseph Hull^W, and the town had then taken part of it away from him. In September 1642 the colony’s General Court settled the quarrel with the consent of both men and of the town: Hull was to take forty shillings off the price, and the town was to give Samuel back half of the land it had taken. The town chose him surveyor of its highways in 1644 and again in several later years.

Their children were baptized at Hawkhurst, Tenterden and Scituate; two sons, Samuel on 24 July 1642 and John on 24 May 1644, were born at Barnstable. Three infants were buried at Barnstable without names in the register, and seven of the children were named in his will of 1662.

Last years

Sarah died on 18 August 1656. About 15 December 1657 Samuel married Bridget Bodfish, a widow. He was buried at Barnstable at the end of October 1662. His will, dated 8 October 1662, left bequests to Bridget, to his sons Thomas, Samuel and John, and to his daughters Susanna, Sarah, Mary and Elizabeth, and it names several of his grandchildren. The will was proved at Plymouth on 4 March 1662/3.

Notes

The marriage at Hawkhurst

The Hawkhurst register records the marriage of “Samuell Hinckley and Sarah Soole” on 7 May 1617, but it names no residence for them. Elizabeth French, writing in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register in 1914, identified the couple with the emigrants of 1635, and the baptism of Thomas at Hawkhurst on 19 March 1619/20 supports her identification. Her pedigree of the family lists the children, all of them Sarah’s.

Parentage

Elizabeth French identified the emigrant with the Harrietsham baptism of “Samvell filius Roberti hinckley” on 25 May 1589, in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register (volume 65, 1911, pages 315 to 318), and so made him the son of Robert Hinckley. The identification is French’s reasoning, not a statement in the register: the baptism names no mother, and the Harrietsham register has other Hinckley families of the same years, among them the family of John Hinckley, who married Johane Bills in 1553, and that of Henry Hinckley, whose children were baptized between 1588 and 1600. Robert’s will, dated 6 April 1605, spells the name Hynckley and leaves £30 to a son Samuel (abstracted by French, volume 65, page 288). Robert was buried at Harrietsham on 27 March 1606. Bartlett’s note in volume 79 (1925), page 108, supports the link by making the “kinswoman” Elizabeth Hincle, who came in the Hercules, the daughter of Samuel’s brother Stephen Hincle of Milton. The 1589 baptism is the year another family history gives for Samuel’s birth; see Birth and voyage.

Birth and voyage

Printed accounts disagree on Samuel’s birth: George Thomas Little’s Genealogical and Family History of the State of Maine gives 1595 at Tenterden, and another family history gives 1589. Little also dates the family’s arrival at Boston to July 1637, which does not fit the passenger list of April 1635. Thomas is not named in that list; James Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England counts him among the children who came with their parents.

Scituate and Barnstable

The house and lands at Scituate are described in a deed in the Plymouth Colony records, which says that Timothy Hatherley sold to John Floyd in 1645 the property “which formerly belonged” to Samuel. The presentment of 1638 and the settlement with Joseph Hull are in the colony’s court orders. The infant deaths come from Savage, who also gives John’s birth as 26 May 1644; the Barnstable town records give 24 May. Savage and Little date the move to Barnstable to 1640; the church records printed in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register (volume 9, page 285) put the family there by 8 July 1640, when a daughter was buried at Barnstable. French gives the freeman’s admission as 7 February 1636/7; the text follows the court record of 2 January 1637/8, and the freemen lists of 1636/7 (under Scituate), 1639 (under Scituate and Barnstable) and about 1658 (under Barnstable) are cited with it. The colony records give Samuel’s birth as 4 July 1642 (volume 8, page 4), against the town book’s 24 July. Other court entries from 1637/8 to 1651 concern his service on juries, a suit at Yarmouth in 1646, and a presentment in 1651 for hiring land from the Indians, where the margin notes that he was freed.

Death and will

Savage and Little give Samuel’s death as 31 October 1662; the Barnstable town records give his burial at the end of that month and his second marriage as about 15 December 1657. Savage thought Bridget most likely the widow of Robert Bodfish. The will is dated 8 October 1662 and was proved at Plymouth on 4 March 1662/3, on the oaths of Thomas Hinckley and Henry Cobb; the court of 5 May 1663 summoned his son Samuel to swear to it. The full text is printed in The Mayflower Descendant, volume 12 (1910), pages 203 to 205, from the Plymouth Colony wills. An earlier abstract, printed in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register (volume 6, 1852, page 95), gives the inventory of his estate as £162 16s. The will names his wife, Bridget, and several grandchildren, Hinckleys and Cobbs.