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Surnames: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
No Surnames: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
See continuation of this lineage in the Negus
Line.
Ref: "The Batchelder Genealogy",
a microfilm record from the Library of the LDS, Salt Lake City,
UT. See page 75 (Descendants of Rev. Stephen Bachiler)
Rev. Stephen Bachiler was born in 1561, matriculated at St. John's
College, Oxford, in 1581, and in 1586, at the age of twenty-six,
was presented by Lord de la Warr to the living of Wherewell ("Horrel"),
a pretty village in Hampshire, on the River Test. The Oxford registers
do not give Mr. Bachiler's home, but there was at Kingsclere,
Burghclere, and Highclere (a few miles from Wherewell), a large
family of Bachilers; and at Upper Clatford in 1571 there died
a Richard Bachiler whose will mentions several family names early
found in Hampton, NH. While Stephen Bachiler was at Wherewell,
there was living at Andover and Weyhill, a few miles away, Rev.
James Samborne, whose son, Rev. James Samborne, Jr., was rector
of Grately (near by) in 1604, and of Upper Clatford from 1610
to 1628. Anne Samborne, a cousin of Rev. James Samborne, Sr.,
married Rev. Anthony Gattonby, rector from 1572 to 1605 of Goodworth
Clatford, the next parish to Wherewell. These Sambornes were of
a Berkshire family which derived its Hampshire connection from
a marriage with the Brocas family of Beaurepaire (a few miles
east of Wherewell). This Rogers connection made the Sambornes
heirs to the estates of Lisles of Thruxton, a parish near Andover,
and thus associated the Samborne family with Hampshire. In 1605
Mr. Bachiler was "deprived" of his benefice, presumably
for Calvinistic opinions, and by order of the commission appointed
by King James I. to investigate religious opinions. One member
of this commission was Lord de la Warr, a son of the nobleman
who had presented Mr. Bachiler to the living of Wherewell. Mr.
Bachiler is said to have taken refuse in Holland, as the Plymouth
Pilgrims did in 1608, but no record of his life there is found.
His son-in-law, Rev. John Wing, was the first pastor of the English
church at Middleburgh in Holland, from 1620 onward; and it is
curious to note that a Mr. Samuel Bachiler, minister in Sir Charles
Morgan's fighting regiment in Holland, was the same year called
to a pastorate in Flushing, but declined. May it not be that this
was a son of Rev. Stephen Bachiler? Samuel Bachiler was the author
of a book called "Miles Christianus" (perhaps the same
volume which Mr. Bachiler sent to Margaret Tyndall, Governor Winthrop's
wife, in October 1639, from Hampton). In this letter Mr. Bachiler
mistakes Mrs. Winthrop's Christian name, calling her "Alice"
instead of Margaret; but that was pardonable, for John Winthrop
had three wives before he was thirty-four years old, and a patriarch
of seventy-eight, like Bachiler, could hardly be expected to recall
them all. But he had dined with this Mrs. Winthrop, at Groton,
England, June 11, 1621, and no doubt on other occasions, and could
properly address her as "Auncient and Christian Frende."
Soon after leaving Wherwell, Mr. Bachiler settled in Newton Stacy,
the nearest hamlet on the east. There he bought and sold land
from 1622 to 1631.
About 1629 a colonizing society (the "Plow Company")
was organized in England to settle the so-called "Plow Patent"
in Maine (Casco); and Mr. Bachiler, then sixty-eight years old,
was its pastor. His son-in-law, Christopher Hussey, of Dorking
(but perhaps the kinsman of Christopher Hussey, mayor of Winchester
in 1609, 1618, and 1631), emigrated to New England in the summer
of 1630, and settled at Lynn, MA., where Mr. Bachiler joined the
family two years later. The Plow Company failed, "by false
dealing of those entrusted by us with the Plough's ship and our
goods therein;" and Mr. Bachiler formed a small church in
Lynn, baptizing first his grandson, Stephen Hussey, born in 1630.
He had come over in the "William and Francis," with
his other grandchildren, John, William, and Stephen Samborne(?),
landing at Boston June 5, 1632, when neither his wife nor the
widow Samborne seems to have come. He died in Hackney, England,
in 1660, residing in Lynn, MA, Hampton, NH, and Hackney, now a
part of London, England.
All the known children of Stephen Bachiler were from his first
marriage and they were all married in Hampshire or the neighboring
counties. The children are as follows:
Deacon Hussey was captain of the militia and a magistrate, clerk,
selectman and representative to the General Court, and when New
Hampshire was made a royal province he was one of the councillors
named in the royal commission. After the death of his wife, Theodate
Bachiler, he married December 9, 1658 (2) Ann, widow of Jeffrey
Mingay, who died January 24, 1680. A few more years passed, and
Capt. Hussey, having passed ninety years in an honorable and distinguished
career, died March 6, 1686. He died and was buried in Hampton,
and was not cast away on the coast of Florida as stated by Savage.
There were several children from the first marriage as follows:
was the ancestor of numerous progeny at Nantucket. His children
were as follows:
For the first hundred years in America (1632-1730)
the name was always written "Samborne" or "Samborn."
How or when the present spelling was introduced is not known.
This completes a portion of the Batchelder record. The following
is from a second source. [Note: At a future date these two sections will be merged into one entity.]
Concerning the life of Stephen Bachiler, less
is known than of most of the founders of New England; yet few
of the early Puritans were more widely known in their days, and
none had a more checkered career. Bachiler "had a real genius
for opposing the majority," and in consequence his character
has been much maligned. The truth is he was a reformer, with the
strength and weakness of his kind. He was among the first to refuse
conformity to the English church, and "suffered much at the
hands of the bishops." He came to America in his old age,
hoping to find there that liberty that was denied him at home
in England; he rebelled at the union of church and state, which
the strong Puritan covenant enforced, and in consequence found
himself opposed to the party in power, the Massachusetts authorities.
After twenty years of conflict, in his old age he returned to
England, preferring to pass his last days among the Puritans there,
rather than in New England. His life measured the Puritan epoch;
he was among the first clergymen to be ejected, and he died with
the English Republic.
He was born somewhere in England in the year
1561. His parentage and birthplace are as yet unknown, though
Southern England was at the time full of Bachilers: Hampshire,
Surrey, Sussex, and Kent had distinct lines, while the Channel
Islands were the home of a Bachiler family of French extraction.
Probably this French family, migrating to Southampton and forming
an important part of the French Protestant church there, was the
ancestral line of Stephen Bachiler. Certain it is that his lifelong
connection was with Hampshire, and he was allied to the Le Mercier
and Priaulx families of Jersey and Southampton.
The first record of Stephen Bachiler is in
1581. At the age of twenty he entered St. Johns College, Oxford.
He was matriculated November 17, 1581, and admitted a Bachelor
of Arts, February 3, 1585-86. The leading profession of college
graduates in that day was that of a clergyman, and he determined
to study for the ministry, being then a member of the established
church. Apparently the time between his graduation, in February
1585-86, and July 17, 1587, was spent in preparation for his life
work, for on the day last named, the death of Edward Parret, Vicar
of Wherewell in Hants, making a vacancy in that living he was
presented with the place by William West, Lord Lawarr (or de la
Warr, as it was written later, and the origin for the name Delaware)
and became vicar of the church of Holy Cross and St. Peter. The
old Parish church of Holy Cross and St. Peter was pulled down
and rebuilt in 1858. The old building was repaired after the Reformation
with the best portions of the original Abbey ruins. Of Stephen
Bachiler's life at Wherewell, we know nothing. The church records
were begun in 1643, or at all events no earlier records now exist.
It is only known that he remained there until 1605, for, on August
9, 1605, John Bates, A.M., clergyman, was appointed Vicar of Wherewell,
a vacancy existing because of the "ejection" of Stephen
Bachiler, the last vicar. Not much more is known of his life in
England, from the loss of his living at Wherewell to the spring
of 1632, when he sailed for New England. He was excommunicated
from the church, and so no church record exists showing his subsequent
residence. Probably he preached to different congregations, not
in a settled way, but when he could avoid the persecution of the
church people. Occasionally there is a glimpse of his location.
In 1610 he appears to still be a clergyman of the County of Southampton.
It is said that he probably fled to Holland for some time, as
his son-in-law, Rev. John Wing, had to escape persecution, but
there are no records to prove the point. The Plymouth Pilgrims
found it necessary to flee to Holland in 1608, in a similar manner.
Bachiler married twice in England; all of
his children of whom there is a record were by his first wife.
His second wife, Helen (Bates?) accompanied him to New England,
dying in 1642.
As early as 1630 Bachiler had determined to
leave England and settle in America. At all events, he made preparation
for such removal. Rev. Bachiler left England for Boston in New
England, sailing on March 9, 1632, in the vessel called the "William
and Francis," from London, with sixty passengers, and after
88 dreary days, landed at Boston. This ship with another, the
"Whale," were sent out by the "Company of London"
or the "Company of the Plough'" of which company Stephen
Bachiler was an active and zealous member, and was chosen their
pastor in 1629 or 1630.
Rev. Stephen Bachiler was seventy-one years
old when he landed in New England, and yet over 20 years thereafter
he retained his vigor and for a decade he most obstinately contended
against Massachusetts Bay in behalf of New Hampshire. He had planned
in England to settle at Newton (now Cambridge), but owing to problems
that befell the Company of the Plough in 1631, and having received
a call from Lynn, MA, then called Saugus, he proceeded to that
location, where is daughter, Theodate, wife of Christopher Hussey,
resided. He commenced the exercise of public ministrations on
Sunday, June 8, 1632, without installation, having formed a church
of those who desired to join the six or seven persons he brought
with him, who are said to have been members of the church with
him in England. The first meeting-house in Lynn was a small plain
building, without bell or steeple. On the first Sunday at Lynn,
four children were baptized. Thomas Newhall, the first white child
born in Lynn, was first presented. Before he had been preaching
four months at Lynn, he fell "under suspicion" of having
independent ideas, which he was not ready to yield at the dictation
of others. Thereupon the General Court passed the following order:
"October 3, 1632, Mr. Bachiler is required to forbear exercising
his gifts as a pastor or teacher publicly in or patent, unless
it be to those he brought with him, for his contempt of authority
and till some scandals be removed." The word "scandals"
was ordinarily used at this time to denote some religious irregularity.
It was "scandalous" to conduct worship in any way not
approved by the rulers. It had acquired the meaning in England
before the emigration of "not conforming to the rules and
the orders of the church," and lacking in faithfulness and
obedience to his majesty. In all events, after five months this
prohibition was removed, and he was left free to gather a church
in Massachusetts Bay.
In 1654, Bachiler's children and grandchildren
were well established, and tradition says he spent his last days
in peace and comfort near London. His worthless third wife, in
1656, spread a baseless report that he "took to himself another
wife'" but as this is the only source from which the story
comes, it can be safely considered to be false. In any event,
he was 96 years of age when the acquisition was made. The last
record of this long and stormy career is contained in the following:
"The ancient Stephen Bachiler of Hampton died at Hackney,
a village and parish in Middlesex, two miles from London, in 1660
in the 100th year of his age." Perhaps the best proof of
the striking character of Stephen Bachiler is the belief of many
of his descendants that their abilities are derived from him.
Daniel Webster so believed and so stated. In our time, Rev. Gary
Scott James has similar thoughts.