♂William Walton

William Walton (died 1668) was the preacher at Marblehead, the fishing settlement on the Massachusetts coast. He lived at Seaton, in Devon, where two of his daughters were born, and brought his wife, Elizabeth Cooke, and their young children to New England in the 1630s. Not everyone at Marblehead welcomed his ministry: in 1659 a Marblehead woman was fined for saying that all who followed his preaching would go to hell. He was the tenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Elizabeth Walton (born 1629).

Devon

William Walton is said to have come from Seaton, a small town on the Devon coast, and to have gone up to Emmanuel College^W, Cambridge, in 1618 as a sizar^W, a student who received his keep in return for duties about the college. Emmanuel, founded in 1584, was then known as a nursery of Puritan preachers. He took his BA in 1621/2 and his MA in 1625, and by about 1626 he was vicar of Seaton.

William Walton and Elizabeth Cooke were married at Holy Trinity Church, Dorchester, in Dorset, on 10 April 1627. It was the church of her uncle John White^W, the Dorchester minister who helped to obtain the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company. They had seven children between 1628 and 1644: John, then Elizabeth and Martha, born at Seaton in 1629 and 1632; Nathaniel, born at Hingham in New England in 1636; and Samuel, Josiah and Mary, born at Marblehead in 1639, 1641 and 1644.

Marblehead

The family crossed to New England in the mid-1630s and lived first at Hingham, on the south shore of Massachusetts Bay. By 1639 they had moved to Marblehead, then a fishing station within the bounds of Salem, where Walton is said to have served as minister among the fishermen for the rest of his life.

A dying neighbor trusted him with his affairs. In May 1646 George Pollard of Marblehead, “weake in body”, made “Wm Walton of Marblehead” his executor, charged him to see his debts paid, and left him what remained of the estate after a few legacies. In 1657 John Alderman of Salem willed a cow to Mr. Walton of Marblehead, as he did to five other ministers of the colony.

One Sunday morning, coming from meeting after Walton had reproved a man for sleeping there, Elizabeth Legg, the wife of John Legg, “broke out against him” and said that “we were all a Company of fooles”. A neighbor heard her call him a “Catch Pole”, a catchpole^W being a bailiff’s officer who hunted down debtors, “and all that follow his preaching shall goe to hell”. She was presented at court late in 1659, and at Salem in June 1660 she was ordered to pay a fine or make a public acknowledgment. She paid the fine.

Death

William Walton died at Marblehead in 1668 and is said to have been buried there on 9 November. His widow, Elizabeth, outlived him by at least five years. When their son Josiah died in 1673, his estate counted £30 as “what his father left him”, and a further sum he had “paid in part of his father’s dept”.

Notes

Sources for his life

His Cambridge career, his living at Seaton, his emigration “c. 1635”, his ministry “among the fishermen” and his burial come from Venn’s Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part I, volume 4: “WALTON, WILLIAM. Adm. sizar at Emmanuel, 1618. Of Seaton, Devon. Matric. 1618; B.A. 1621-2; M.A. 1625 … V. of Seaton, c. 1626. Emigrated to New England, c. 1635. Settled permanently at Marblehead, Mass., 1637; served there as minister among the fishermen. Buried at Marblehead, Nov. 9, 1668.” A compiled history of Maine families (Little) also has him as pastor at Marblehead until his death. Venn’s entry is a compilation from the university’s records; it gives no parents for him.

The children’s births come from the family’s own register, filed among the Essex County court papers and printed in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, volume 29 (1875), page 66, and again in volume 142 (1988), page 368. It enters Elizabeth “at Seaton in Devon” in the eighth month of 1629 (27 October), Martha “at Seaton in Devon” in the second month of 1632 (26 April), Nathaniel “at Hingham in New En.” in 1636, and the three youngest at Marblehead. It dates John’s birth 6 April 1627, four days before the wedding; Harold F. Porter, who printed the register in 1988, takes it for a slip for 1628.

Marriage

The marriage comes from Harold F. Porter, Jr., “Mr. William Cooke, Father-in-Law of Mr. William Walton of Marblehead, Massachusetts,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register 142 (1988): 361-368, citing the register of Holy Trinity, Dorchester (a manuscript copy at the Society of Genealogists, London), where the bride is written “Elizabeth Cake”. Porter calls Holy Trinity “the Patriarch’s church”, John White being known as the Patriarch of Dorchester.

Marblehead records

George Pollard’s will of 13 May 1646 (“3 month 13th 1646”), proved 31 December 1646, and John Alderman’s will of 3 July 1657 are printed in Dow, The Probate Records of Essex County, volume 1, pages 59-60 and 256. The Pollard will names “Wm Walton of Marblehead”, taken here to be the minister. Alderman’s other cows went to Mr. Norris, Mr. Eliot, Mr. Thatcher, Mr. Whiting of Lynn and Mr. Cobbet. The case of Elizabeth Legg is in Dow, Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, volume 2, pages 190 and 221-222, with the depositions of Benjamin Parmiter and John Codner. Josiah Walton’s inventory, taken 4 November 1673, is in volume 5 of the same series, page 253.

Death date

His death is dated only to 1668. Venn gives the burial at Marblehead on 9 November 1668.