Francis Higginson

JAMES PENNIMAN

Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-33

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FRANCIS HIGGINSON

ORIGIN:
Claybrook, Leicestershire

MIGRATION:
1629 in the Talbot

FIRST RESIDENCE:
Salem

OCCUPATION:
Minister.

CHURCH MEMBERSHIP:
Francis Higginson participated in the organization of Salem church in 1629, and was made teacher, alongside Samuel Skelton who was made pastor [Perley 1:151-70].

EDUCATION:
Matriculated at Cambridge from St. John's, Michaelmas 1602, migrated to Jesus College, B.A. 1609-10, M.A. 1613 [Venn 2:368; Morison 380-81]. Wife Anne was also quite literate [WP 3:22-23].

OFFICES:
In the 1629 letter from the Massachusetts Bay Company to Governor Endicott, "Mr. Higgeson, a grave man & of worthy commendations," was one of those appointed to the Council [MBCR 1:386, 407].

ESTATE:
"Anna Higginson, widow," had a proportional share of 5½ in Charlestown hayground in 1635, which was increased to 6½ shares [ChTR 19, 20]. She had four cow commons in 1637 [ChTR 33], and five acres Mystic Side in the same year [ChTR 27]. In the allotment of land Mystic Side she had parcels of twenty, forty-five and five acres [ChTR 36].

The widow Higginson had no entry in the 1638 Charlestown Book of Possessions, for by that date she had sold most, if not all, of her Charlestown property: four acres of arable in the East Field, sold to Robert Sedgwick [ChBOP 2]; one-half acre in Mystic Field, sold to Nicholas Stower [ChBOP 13]; twenty acres in Mystic Field and forty-five acres in Waterfield, sold to Mathew Avery by "the assigns of Mrs. Ann Higginson" in June or July 1638 [ChBOP 45, 92]; and "five marsh lots and a half" sold to Robert Long [ChBOP 116].

In the list of "planters" at New Haven, compiled about 1640, "Mrs. Higison" appeared with a household of eight and an estate of £250, valued at £1 8s. 6d.; she held 32½ acres in the first division, 6½ acres in the neck, 16½ acres of meadow and 66 acres in the second division [NHCR 1:93]. On 17 March 1640/1 "Mrs. Higginson" was one of those "who are to have their meadow in the East Meadow" [NHCR 1:49].

The estate of Mrs. Higginson, "late planter of Quinnipiac, dying without making her will and leaving behind her eight children," was inventoried and distributed on 25 February 1639/40 with the consent of "Mr. John Higginson, her eldest son." John Higginson, the charges of his education considered, received only his father's books and £5 in bedding; Francis Higginson "the second son" & "Timothy the third son," their education considered, received £20 each; Theophilus, "though well educated, yet in regard of his helpfulness to his mother & her estate," received £40; Samuel Higginson £40 & to be with Mr. Eaton as his servant for two years; Theophilus & Samuel to have the lot equally divided for £50 of their portion; Anne Higginson, "her daughter," £40 and her mother's old clothes and residue; Charles Higginson £40 & to be with Thomas Fugill as his apprentice for nine years, Fugill to have charge of his education and to pay him his portion; "Neiphitus Higginson being with Mr. Hoffe in Bay of Massachusetts, is to remain there with him & to be brought up by him till he attain the full age of twenty-one years, & in the meantime Mr. Hough is to have £40 of the estate, which he is to pay to the said Neofatus at the end of the said term as his portion. When the farm at Saugus is sold it is to be equally divided among the brothers" [NHCR 1:29-31].

   On 8 April 1645 "Captain Turner having received eighteen pounds eighteen shillings of Mrs. Higginson's estate, and John Wakeman fifteen pounds also of the said estate, have both severally engaged their houses at Newhaven unto the court of Newhaven for the true payment thereof" [NHCR 1:161].

BIRTH:
Baptized Claybrooke, Leicestershire, 6 August 1586, son of John Higginson [NEHGR 46:118]. (Other sources give the year as 1587.)

DEATH:
Salem 6 August 1630 [Hubbard 120]. (In a letter to his wife dated 9 September 1630, Governor John Winthrop included "good Mr. Higginson" in his list of those who had died recently [WP 2:312]. In his accounting of those who had died "about the beginning of September" 1630 Dudley has "Mr. Higginson, one of the ministers of Salem, a zealous and a profitable preacher ... of a fever" [Dudley 72].)

MARRIAGE:
St Peter's, Nottingham, 8 January 1615/6 Anne Herbert [NEHGR 64:88]. After her husband's death she resided for a time at Charlestown, and then moved to New Haven. She died at New Haven by 25 February 1639/40 [NHCR 1:28].

CHILDREN:
   i   JOHN (twin), bp. Claybrooke, Leicestershire, 31 August 1616; m. (1) by 1646 Sarah Whitfield, daughter of Rev. Henry and Dorothy (Sheafe) Whitfield; m. (2) after 1676 Mary (Blakeman) Atwater, daughter of Rev. Adam and Jane (_____) Blakeman and widow of Joshua Atwater [Higginson Gen 6].

   ii   THEOPHILUS (twin), bp. Claybrooke 31 August 1616; m. by 1647 Elizabeth _____ (on 10 March 1646/7 "Mrs. Higginson" had a pew in the New Haven meeting house [NHCR 1:304]; in his will of 10 February 1654 Mark Pierce of London referred to "[t]en pounds in money in the hands of Elizabeth Higginson, widow, which I lent to her deceased husband Theophilus Higginson in New England" [Waters 1080]).

   iii   FRANCIS, bp. Claybrooke 16 August 1618; bur. Kirkby Stephen, Westmoreland, 20 May 1673 "in his fifty-fifth year" [Whitfield Anc 228; Magnalia 364-65]; unm.

   iv   TIMOTHY, bp. Claybrooke 5 November 1620; m. by 1653 Sarah _____, who survived him (on 2 October 1653 administration was granted to "Sara Higginson the relict of Timothy Higginson, late master of the Culpepper in the state service at sea, deceased" [PCC Admon Act Book 1653-54, 1:30]).

   v   SAMUEL, bp. Claybrooke 15 December 1622; probably the Samuel Higginson who m. Bull Lane Independent Church, Stepney, Middlesex, 5 August 1658 Sarah Graves (on 17 January 1664/5 administration was granted to "Sara Higgenson widow relict of Samuel Higgenson late of the parish of Stepney, Middlesex" [PCC Admon Act Book 1665, folio 5]).

   vi   MARY, bp. Claybrooke 27 December 1624; d. at sea 19 May 1629 [Higginson 66].

   vii   ANNE, bp. St. Mary's, Leicester 28 January 1626[/7] [NEHGR 66:87]; m. by about 1649 Thomas Chatfield (eldest child b. about 1649 [NEHGR 70:136]).

   viii   CHARLES, b. say 1628; m. Mary _____ (on 10 January 1677/8 administration was granted to "Mary Higginson relict of Charles Higginson late of the parish of Stepney in Middlesex deceased at sea" [PCC Admon Act Book 1678, folio 3]).

   ix   NEOPHYTUS, b. say 1630; living at the division of his mother's estate, 25 February 1639/40; no further record. (Most secondary sources state that he died at the age of twenty, but no contemporaneous source for this has been found. The earliest version of this claim seems to be the memoir of Higginson published in 1852 [NEHGR 6:127].)

ASSOCIATIONS: In his letter to "his friends at Leicester" in 1630 Rev. Francis Higginson advised that if "any be of the mind to buy a ship my cousin Nowell's counsel would be good" [Higginson 119]. How Francis Higginson was related to INCREASE NOWELL has not been determined.

COMMENTS: Francis Higginson kept a journal of the transatlantic trip in 1629.

This day [17 May 1629] my two children Samuel and Mary began to be sick of the smallpox and purples together, which was brought into the ship by one Mr. Browne who was sick of the same at Gravesend, whom it pleased God to make the first occasion of bringing that contagious sickness among us, wherewith many were after afflicted.... Tuesday [19th] ... this day towards night my daughter grew sicker, and many blue spots were seen upon her breast, which affrighted us. At the first we thought they had been the plague tokens, but we found afterwards that it was only a high measure of the infection of the pox, which were struck again into the child, and so it was God's will the child died about five of the clock at night, being the first in our ship that was buried in the bowels of the great Atlantic sea; which, as it was grief to us her parents and a sorrow to all the rest, as being the beginning of a contagious disease and mortality, so in the same judgment it pleased God to remember mercy in the child, in freeing it from a world of misery wherein otherwise she had lived all her days. For being about four years old a year since, we know not by what means, swayed in the back, so that it was broken and grew crooked, and the joints of her hips were loosed and her knees went crooked, pitiful to see. Since which she hath had a most lamentable pain in her belly, and would oft times cry out in the day and in her sleep also, "my belly!" which declared some extraordinary distemper. So that in respect of her we had cause to take her death as a blessing from the Lord to shorten her misery [Higginson 65-67].

Endicott came aboard and welcomed Higginson and his wife, offering them the hospitality of his home.

"Mrs. Anna Higginson, widow," was admitted as an inhabitant of Charlestown in 1631 [ChTR 7], and was in the lists of inhabitants of 9 January 1633/4 and January 1635/6 [ChTR 10, 15].

John Winthrop was material in assisting the soon widowed Anne Higginson, and in April 1631 she was bold to write to him with her requirements for cultivating ten acres [WP 3:22-23].

BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE: In 1629 Francis Higginson kept a diary of his voyage to New England, and after his arrival he wrote a pamphlet entitled "New England's Plantation," which went through three editions in its first year. The diary, two editions of the pamphlet, and some other short writings by Higginson were collected and published in a limited edition in 1908 [New Englands Plantation with The Sea Journal and Other Writings (Salem 1908]. (For some of this material, see also Young's First Planters 214-67.)

Cotton Mather wrote a lengthy biographical sketch on Higginson (not so long by Matherian standards, but longer than one might expect from the brief span of time that Higginson resided in New England) [Magnalia 354-66]. Joseph B. Felt prepared a memoir in 1852 [NEHGR 6:105-27] and fifty years later Simeon E. Baldwin published an account of John Higginson which included much information on his father, Francis [MHSP 2:16:478-94]. In 1898 and 1899 Eben Putnam published in many installments "The Higginsons in England and America" [Putnam's Mag 6:1-5, 36-41, 81-85, 117-20, 157-61, 187-91, 7:1-2, 66-72, 157-161].

A genealogical treatment may be found in John Brooks Threlfall, The Ancestry of Reverend Henry Whitfield (1590-1657) and his wife Dorothy Sheafe (159?-1669) of Guilford, Connecticut (Madison 1989), referred to above as Whitfield Anc.

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