Garland Family - The First Seven Generations
The Garland family in New England traces itself to the immigrant, Peter Garland, a mariner from England who settled in Charlestown, Massachusetts Bay in 1637. In the Garland Genealogy written by James Gray Garland in 1897, it states that Peter was of the Sussex branch of the Garland family in England, the other branches being of York and Lancashire. It is believed that some of Peter's sons moved to Virginia and established the large Garland family there. Our descent is through John who was born about 1620, and settled in Hampton, New Hampshire in the early 1650s. His descendants lived on the same farm in the eastern section of Hampton until the death of Otis Raymond Garland in 1987.
Hampton was settled by a homogeneous group of Englishmen, many of whom came from the shire of Norfolk in England. It was located on the coast, just a short distance from the Massachusetts Bay Colony which was centered in Boston. The Garlands stayed in the general area for six generations before the need for more land sent them west into the wilderness of western Maine. Our line in Hampton is Peter 1, John 2 (1620 - 1672), Peter 3 (1659 - 1707), Jonathan 4 (1689 - 1760), Samuel 5 (1716 - 1772), Jonathan 6 (1746 - 1825), and Samuel 7 (1771 - 1833). They all lived on the "homestead" which must have been getting very crowded by the time that Samuel made his journey west.
Peter Garland, the mariner, is believed to have had vessels which coasted
between Massachusetts Bay and Virginia and the Dutch plantations. According
to the Garland Genealogy, Peter died in the South while on a voyage. "Before
his death he requested his sons to take his body to the North for burial,
where he had sons, and perhaps daughters. While his body was being brought
North in one of his vessels, a storm arose and the coffin containing his body
was washed overboard."
Peter Garland's Will (photo of document) In the name of God on the third day of June 1707, I, Peter Garland of the Town of Hampton in the Province of New Hampshire in New England, Mariner, being very sick and weak in body, but of perfect Mind and Memory Thanks be given to Almighty God. Therefor calling to mind Mortality of my body and knowing that it is appointed for all men once to die I make and ordain this my last Will and Testament that is to say Principally and first of all I give and Recommend my Soul into the hands of God that gave it my Body is Recommended to the Earth to be buried in decent Christian Burial at the Recommendation of my Executors nothing doubting but at the general Resurrection I shall receive the same again by the Mighty Power of God and as touching such Worldly Estate herewith it has pleased God to bless this Life. I give I convey and dispose of the same as followeth I give and bequeath unto Sarah my dearly beloved wife, my half part of the Sloop to be disposed of for her and the bringing up of my daughters. I likewise give unto my wife my home lot with all my housing and moveables with all my household without doors and within also one piece of salt marsh I bought of William Fuller all which I give unto my dearly beloved wife during the time of her widowhood, but if it so happen if she marry after my decease my meaning is that the same return unto my two sons Jonathan and John to be equally divided between them, or if it please God if my wife die in widowhood my intent is my two sons before named shall have the same after her decease I give unto my son James all my out land within the township of Hampton I give unto my two daughters, Mary and Abigail, six pounds apiece in merchantable pay to be paid them by my two sons Jonathan and John to be paid into their hands provided their sisters are of age It is to be understood by moveables give my wife intend my cattle of all sorts whatever they be. And I appoint my dearly beloved wife my sole executrix of this my last will and Testament and I do hereby revoke and annul every other testament wills, legacies and bequests and executors by me before named noted or bequeathed Ratifying and confirming this and no other to be my last will and testament in witness theref I have unto set my hand and seal this day and year above written. Peter Garland (His mark) Samuel Nudd |
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The sons, John, and Peter, and possibly George settled in Hampton. Our ancestor, John was born between 1620 and 1622 in England. He died on January 4, 1672 in Hampton. He was married twice: to his first wife, Elizabeth Chapman, on October 26, 1652 and to his second wife, Elizabeth Philbrick Chase, the widow of Thomas Chase and the daughter of Thomas Philbrick, in 1654.
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The Garlands had three boys, John, Jacob and Peter, to add to the five sons Elizabeth had had with Thomas Chase. Our ancestor, Peter Garland, was born on September 25, 1659. His first wife Elizabeth, died on February 19, 1688, after bearing two children, Peter and Samuel. His second wife, Sarah Taylor, the daughter of John and Deborah Godfrey Taylor, bore him five more children: Jonathan, John, James, Mary and Abigail. Our ancestor is Jonathan (1689 - 1760).
"He sailed a sloop named Sarah Taylor." "August 28, 1693, Peter Garland was credited account of powder money for sloop Nonsuch 15s. He was credited for powder money March 13, 1694 for Brigt. Adventure L1." (Acts and Resolves Province of Massachusetts Bay, Volume VIII.) "Sloop New Design, 16 tons, was bought in Boston, November 13, 1705, by Peter Garland and Samuel Nudd, mariners; sailed between Boston and Hampton; Samuel Nudd, master; cost L 106; had no guns." (Dow)
On February 13, 1708, Peter's widow, Sarah Taylor Garland married Deacon Samuel Dow, as his second wife, and had a son.
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Jonathan Garland, Peter and Sarah's eldest son, was born in Hampton on October 28, 1689. He married Rachel Dow, the daughter of Deacon Samuel Dow and Abigail Hobbs Dow, on October 21, 1714. They lived on the homestead, and Jonathan farmed there as well as being a currier and a tanner. He lived until May 11, 1760; Rachel died on June 22, 1755. He had a bark mill, a currying shop, a shoe shop, tan pits and a residence, all of which were still standing in 1850. Jonathan served the community of Hampton as a Selectman in 1727, 1734 and 1739. His will was dated March 25, 1760 and probated on May 28, 1760. His eldest son, Samuel was the sole executor; the inventory totaled 6564 pounds.
Jonathan and Rachel had twelve children: Samuel, Jonathan, Abigail, Mary, Sarah, James, Rachel, Anne, Joseph, Simon, Simon, and Mary. All but four lived to marry, and have children of their own.
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Samuel, the eldest son of Jonathan and Rachel was born on November 21, 1716 in Hampton and died there on January 28, 1772. On October 12, 1743, he married Lydia Moulton, the daughter of Jacob and Sarah Smith Moulton. Lydia and Samuel were second cousins through the Page line. Samuel served in the militia at Fort William and Henry, Newcastle in New Brunswick under Captain Nathaniel Drake in 1746. This conflict between Britain and France took place between 1744 and 1748 and was known in America as King George's War and in Europe as the War of Austrian Succession.
Samuel and Lydia had six children, Anna, Jonathan, Samuel, Dorothy, Sarah and Abigail, with only three of them, Jonathan, Sarah and Abigail, growing to adulthood.
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Jonathan Garland was born on July 3, 1746. His sister, Anna, had died the year before. His sister Dorothy, who was four years younger than he, died when he was eight; his brother, Samuel, who was two years younger, died when he was nine. Sarah and Abigail were eight and sixteen years younger than he.
Jonathan was a cordwainer, which is essentially a shoemaker, but originally someone who worked with cordovan leather. He farmed on the Garland homeplace, on what is now Winnacunnet Road. He married Abigail Fogg, the daughter of John and Meribah Tilton Fogg on February 23, 1768. They had seven children: Samuel, Lydia, David, Hannah, Dolly, Jonathan and John, all of whom lived to adulthood.
Jonathan was on the Revolutionary rolls from 1775 to 1777, and was a Lieutenant in Captain Lane's Company in 1778. He was a selectman in 1776, 1782, 1784, 1790 and 1794. He was also a Congregational church clerk on January 12, 1797, and a Moderator in the Town Meeting in 1804 in the Presidential Election in which Thomas Jefferson was re-elected.
Jonathan died April 13, 1825 and is buried in Ring Swamp Cemetery beside his wife who died April 4, 1809 at the age of 63. There is a metal marker by his headstone designating him as a Revolutionary soldier, and American flags are placed by the graves on Memorial Day.
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Samuel Garland was born November 28, 1771, the eldest son of Jonathan and Abigail Fogg Garland, He married Molly Batchelder, the daughter of Nathaniel Batchelder and Ruth Sanborn Batchelder, on June 1, 1793.
In 1794, Jonathan Garland purchased 300 acres of land in Parsonsfield, York,
Maine for his son, Samuel. After a season of preparation, Samuel on one horse,
and his wife, Molly with their six month old son David, on the other horse,
made the long journey from Hampton to Parsonsfield, in one day. For this sixty
mile trek they left at four in the morning arriving sixteen hours later at
their new home.
The town of Parsonsfield, located in the extreme northwestern corner of York
county, was first settled in 1775. It covers an area of approximately 64 square
miles, and is broken by many hills. The Great Ossipee River (River of Pines
in the local Indian dialect) is the principal river and the source of power
for the area. Ten years after its founding, sixty families were living there,
the town was incorporated, and the first sawmill was in operation. Lumbering
would be the chief industry in Parsonsfield until 1808, when the embargo between
England and the United States halted this trade. The war years between 1812
and 1815 brought back some business, but the cold years of 1815 and 1816 created
untold suffering. During these years there was a killing frost during every
month and all of the crops failed. In some areas of New England there were
epidemics in conjunction with this unusual cold.
When the Garlands arrived in Parsonsfield in 1794, there were over 150 people living there. By the turn of the century there were probably several hundred residents. Though every householder grew crops for his own consumption, the lumber business was dominant. "Boards were drawn by ox-teams to Portland and Kennebunk for exportation to the West Indies. Rum was a common item of the home load, the annual consumption of which was said to be from twenty to thirty hogshead. It was years before the people realized that the result of this excessive toil and expenditure was broken health and heavy debts; that the brown jugs had swallowed their pine trees. It is no marvel that stimulating liquors were in constant demand. Lumbermen took breakfast before light, dinner was a cold lunch, and supper at an uncertain hour... The lumberman took a dram in the morning, at eleven and at three, to prevent fatigue."
The decline of the lumber industry is probably the reason that David, and his brothers, Jonathan and Thomas, all moved to Winslow in central Maine soon after their marriages to start farming in the more fertile land there.
Samuel and Molly Batchelder Garland had ten children all of whom lived to a good age. In The History of Parsonsfield he is described as "a strong-minded, resolute man, fixed in his views, strictly moral and upright, commanding the respect and esteem of his townsmen, neighbors, friends and all with whom he associated."
The Garlands must have installed a respect for education in their children, since two of their sons were the third and fourteenth college graduates in the town of Parsonsfield. Reverend Edmund Garland, the third son, was a graduate of Dartmouth College in 1828; he lived and died in Granville, Ohio. His sister, Abigail, married the Reverend A. Merrill and also moved to Granville, as did his sister Clarissa who married two ministers, the Reverend Henry P. Kelley and the Reverend Jason Olds, and his sister, Mary Ann, who died there unmarried.
Another brother, the Reverend Joseph Garland, graduated from Bowdoin College
and the Bangor Seminary, and preached in Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire,
before returning to Hampton, New Hampshire, where he died. John, the fifth
son, "remained on the home place with his father...was a teacher of schools
in early life, and later served for several years as member of the board of
superintending school committee." " He was a strong opponent of
slavery and among the first to promote temperance." The youngest daughter,
Dorothy, married her cousin Thomas Ward of Hampton, and they lived on the
Ward farm there.
Molly Batchelder Garland and Samuel are buried in the Town House Cemetery
in Center Parsonsfield. We visited their graves on our first family trip to
the East Coast in 1975; our memories of digging up Molly's buried stone are
very vivid, because of the acute cases of poison ivy incurred by Guil and
Sarah. They suffered for the next ten days of the trip, losing some of their
enthusiasm for genealogical pursuits along the way.
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Molly's family, the Batchelders trace themselves to the immigrant, Stephen Bachiler, who at the age of seventy sailed in the William and Francis from London on March 9, 1631/2 with sixty fellow passengers, arriving 88 days later in Boston. These immigrants plus those on another ship, the Whale which arrived on May 26, comprised the Company of the Plough.
Born in 1561, Stephen entered St. John's College, Oxford in November 1581, and was admitted as Bachelor of Arts on February 3, 1586. After a year of preparation he had became a vicar at the Church of the Holy Cross and Saint Peter, in Wherewell, Hampshire. He stayed there until his excommunication in 1605 as one of the first of the nonconformists to be persecuted. It seems that he continued to preach clandestinely for many years, avoiding the established church officials who regarded his Puritan views as anathema.
Stephen Bachiler preached in Lynn, Ipswich, Yarmouth, Newbury, and finally arrived in Hampton in 1639. It seems that he was always in an adversarial relationship with the authorities, wherever he lived. "We know that Stephen Bachiler contended, with a vigor and earnestness unusual for a man of his years against the Puritan doctrine of a religious commonwealth, against the union of church and state to which they clung as to the ark of their safety, and which has since been universally conceded to be a lamentable error."
He fought against Massachusetts for the rights of New Hampshire, which ended in 1641 with New Hampshire losing to the stronger province.
On July 5, 1639, Stephen and his son-in-law, Christopher Hussey sold their houses and land in Newbury for six score pounds and moved to Hampton, where they were granted three hundred acres of land for a farm, as well as a house lot. In return Stephen gave the town a bell for the meeting house, which was used up until 1703, when it was replaced with a new one from England. There were continued battles in Hampton between Stephen and the church teacher, the Reverend Timothy Dalton, which continued until he moved to Strawbery Banke in 1650 and then finally returned to London, where he died in 1660, at the reputed age of 100. Molly is descended from Stephen four times through her Batchelder, Sanborn, Hussey and Dearborn lines.
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| Map showing Hampton | Town House Cemetery sign | Plan of Parsonsfield Maine | Looking for Molly (Batchelder) Garland's grave |
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| Map showing the original boundaries of the1638 Hampton grant, and the towns created from it. | Sarah & Annie Babcock find Molly's grave | ||
(To see pictures of tombstones, click links below)
┌── Peter GARLAND (Immigrant) |
┌── Reverend Stephen BACHILER (Immigrant 1632), b. 1561, d. 1656 |