Pane-Joyce Genealogy
Family of George Bowers (351) & Barbara Smythe

790. Ruth Bowers. Born in 1616 in Lincolnshire, England. Ruth died in 1687 in Eastham, MA.

On 15 Aug 1639 Ruth married Richard Knowles (498) in Plymouth, MA.3 Born on 17 Sep 1614 in Lancashire, England. Richard died prob. between 1670 and 1675 in Eastham, MA.22 Occupation: shipmaster.

“Richard Knowles was early settled in Plymouth. At that place he had land granted him in January, 1638-9, and there he was married to Ruth Bower, August 15 following. He appears to have been a sea-faring man. He was in Eastham in 1653. At that date he is mentioned as being in command of a barque which the governement had secured to transport military stores, in case such were needed, the colony then expecting trouble with the Dutch. He was a surveyor of highways in 1669-70. He held no other offices in town it appears, though a man of standing. The time of his death does not appear. There appears no perfect record of his children. It is certain he had James, who died about 1682,; John, who was slain in the Indian war in 1675; Mercy, who married Ephraim Doane; Samuel, born at Plymouth in 1651; Mehitable, born in Eastham, 1653, and Barbara, born in 1656.”55

From Libby’s Knowles genealogy:22
    “The oft-printed statement that a Richard Knowles died at Hampton, N.H., started with somebody’s misplacement of memoranda; for it was not Richard who died at Hampton 1 Feb. 1682, but James, a sisteen-year-old son of Jhn Knowles of that town.
    “Mrs. Schenck’s ‘History of Fairfield[Conn.],’ vol. 1, p. 392, states: ‘Richard Knowles was in F[airfield] as early as 1649.’ His name, however, is not in the New Haven Colony Records, and there are only two Fairfield record boods as early as 1649. An expert form the New Haven Colony Historical Society has examined these books without finding the name of Richard Knowles. Light statements ahve been made that he was the son of Rev. John Knowles, that he dame from Lancashire, England, that he came from co. Kent, England, and that he emigrated in his own ship. While only one or two of these statements are impossible, none of them has been traced to an early enought source to be worthy of regard. If possibly this name, ‘Richard Knowles,’ was not due to a misreading of some other name in the ancient handwriting, or did not indicate merely a business call of Richard Knowles, coastwise trader, at Fairfield, the presence of the names Alexander and Richard in the same locality would encourage an investigation of the landed Knowles family of Quarlton, co. Lancaster, England, in which the name Richard prevailed and Alexander occurred. But the names of Richard and Thomas also were recurrent in a Visitation family of Knowles of Stanford in Berkshire.
    “Richard^1 Knowles, of Plymouth and later of Eastham, in the Plymouth Colony, shipmaster, the progenitor of the family which forms the subject of this genealogy, first appears in New England records at Plymouth, 2 Jan. 1737/8, and died probably between 1670 and 1675, for he was one of the surveyors of highways at Eastham in 1670 but probably did not outlive either his son John, who was slain by Indians near Taunton 3 Jun 1675, or his son James, the inventory of whose estate was dated 10 Oct. 1679, the father’s name not appearing in connection with their estates.
    “The first appearance of Richard Knowles in the Plymouth records, in Jan. 1637/8, was when he was haled into court at Plymouth ‘for bringing a barke from Greenes Harbor [as the Winslow settlement in Marshfield was then called] on the Lords day.’ The record of the judgment, 2 Jan. 1637/8, is brief: “Discharged.” There is nothing to prove that he considered Plymouth his home at that time. As a single man it is not unlikely that he considered his home to be under his hat, aboard his ship. But nineteen months later he married a Plymouth girl, recently come thither from Scituate; and before his marriage he had been granted, 7 Jan. 1638/9, ‘a garden place next to John Barnes.’ This waws on the ‘Eele River side’ of Plymouth, next to Duxbury. Whether George Bower or Richard Knowles came there first may be doubtful. The next spring he was granted a parcel of meadow ground at the head of George Bower’s meadow ‘by the Eele river head.’ He must have planted crops on his own and the adjoining land, for in 1642 John Groome received a grant of a garden place next to his, on condition that he should build on it, but with the stipulation: ‘for the present cropp Richard Knowles to have it except John Groome compound with him for it.’ In 1641 he was improved as a juryman. In 1643 his allowance form the ‘keep of the towns cows’ was one pottle, which represented a two-quart measure. The same year his name was listed among Plymouth men able to bear arms.
    “On the removal of the Bower family to Cambridge, about 1643, the Knowleses apparently went there also. In the Cambridge records, under date of 4 Nov. 1646, is the entry: ‘Goodman Knowles for his swine diverse times going without keeper is fined 1s. 6d.’ ... But in Dec. 1649 Richard Knowles was back at Plymouth, for according to the Plymouth records of 1 Dec. 1649 he was prosecuted ‘for denying passage of cattell in the highway.’
    “While a navigator by occupation, Richard Knowles evidently carried on business on land also. His wife was prosecuted 7 Oct. 1641 ‘for retailing of strong waters contrary to order’ and ‘for selling strong waters for five or six shillings a bottle that cosse but 35s. the case,’ and she was fined 10s., to be bestowed on the town’s poor.
    “At the meeting of the Council of War at Plymouth, 12 may 1653, when public apprehension was aroused of armed conflict with the Dutch of New Amsterdam, two barques were pressed for the service, one the vessel in which George Watson sailed, and himself to go as master, and also ‘the Barkqe in which Richard Knowles sayleth, with him the master thereof, was pressed for the same purpose, with John Younge and William Walker, and all things nessearie for theire use belonging to the said barkqe.’
    “There is nothing in this record suggestive of residence in Eastham. It was the same month in which his daughter Mehitable was born, whose birth was twice recorded at plymouth, once with an error of a year (Plymouth Colony Records, vol. 8, p. 15) and once correctly 20 May 1653 (ib., vol. 8, p. 30). Her birth was also entered in the Eastham records, at the same time with that of her sister Barbara, who was born 28 Sept. 1656. Richard Knowles waws not one of the first company to go out to the settlement which was to be the future home of his family. On 1 Oct. 1651 he was explicitly ‘of the town of Plymouth.’ His name first appears at Eastham on 13 may 1654, in a record of a town grant of two acres of medow at the head of Little Namskaket; and a year later, in a town meeting, 22 May 1655, all the settlers were by vote divided into groups of five, and every group of five men amongst them was to keep a bull. Richard Knowles headed one group, which inlcuded, besides himself, Joseph Rogers, George Crisp, Thomas Roberts, and Richard Booshop. These must have been his nearer neighbors at the time. The first town book has an undated ‘List of the mens names of the Towne,’ revised by crossing off and adding names during a period of years. although Knowles was a shipmaster, only three men in that list were dignified by the title of ‘Mr.,’ namely, Freeman, Crosby, and Doane. ‘Ensigne Merricke’ appears there, and about half way down this list are the names of John Bangs, Steaven Atwood, Richard Knowles, John doane, and Thomas Williams.
    “Whether Richard Knowles made trans-Atlantic voyages or traded with the West Indies is not known, but it is more likely that his occupation was that of so many others, and that he went on trading voyages up and down the coast. The probate papers of a Boston merchant, Joshua Foote, in 1655, show Richard Knowles as one of his customers for goods. His elections to minor town offices at Eastham prove his retirement from the sea in later life. In 1667 he twice served on coroner’s juries. In 1669 Richard Knowles and William Walker were elected surbeyors of highways, and in the next year Richard Knowles and Samuel Freeman were elected to the same office.
    “The records of the Eastham town meetings contain several refernces to the land of Richard Knowles and his sons John and Samuel. In 1657 is the entry:
    “‘Granted to Richard Knowles the small poynts of land at the fartherside of the head of the Cove soe far thereby the hyway be not Prijedised.’
    “(The espression ‘fartherside’ or ‘further side’ seems to indicate that in 1657 and 1681 the town affairs of Eastham were carried on in the part of Eastham now called East Orleans. ‘Town cove’ extends from the ocean in a southwesterly direction, and now for the most part forms the boundary between Eastham and Orleans. The ‘points of upland’ in the Knowles grant are at what may be called the westerly corner of the head of Town Cove, and a little down on the northwest side. The whole district southeast of Town Cove was anciently called Pochet, and the meeting house in what is now the town of Orleans was sometimes called ‘Pochy Meetinghouse.’)
    “This grant was the beginning of a series of town meeting actions lasting as late as 1725. On 13 Feb. 1681/2, when the corner bounds had been marked with the initials of his sone Samuel, occurs the entry:
    “‘Granted to Richard Knowles the small ponts of upland on the further side of the head of the town cove viz at the western end a tree marked below the highway near the mouck of medow and from thence running easterly upon a straight line up to a stone marked S.<. and from thence bearing to the southward to another stone at the foot of the hill marked S.K. and from thence ranging northerly bearing to the East to a tree marked and from thence to a stone set in the ground at the foot of the hill by the highway that goes over the head of the Cove near the corner of the meadow fence as it now stands.’
    “This grant adjoined five acres of a ten=acre grant, described as follows:
    “‘A parcel of land granted to Richard Knowles lying on the northerne side of Poche neare the head of the Cove, containing 10 acres, more or less, five acres lying on the eastern side of William Mereck & five acres lying on the western side & bounded both parcels by marked trees.’
    “William Merrick’s land was later Joshua Hopkins’s, whose homestead was identified by the late Mr. Josiah Paine as the Isaac Seabury place, on the high land near the mouth of the Tonsett road.
    “In the records of the town meeting in 1704 is the entry:
    “‘Voted that Samuel Knowles may shut up his fence on the outside of his land where he now lives in the place where his outside fence now stands, i.e. he may fence into the water at the northeast end of that lot of land next toward Jeremiah Smith ans so also at that part of his land next toward Joshua Hopkins, for 10 years, provided he allow a footpath and maintain stiles, also provided that he keep in repair the common way around his said land from the northern corner next ot Samuel Hodges to the southern corner where his fence joins to Joshua Hopkinses, so that it may be convenient for carting, also that he allow to lie common that part of his land next toward Jeremy Smiths.’
    “[Footnote:] Jeremiah Smith lived near ‘Jeremiah’s Gutter, ‘no forming in part the dividing lline between Orleans and Eastham.)
    “[Footnote:] this provision, sisteen years before the present Orleans cemetery was laid out, may account for the burying ground formerly located in the rear of the present [1925] residence of nathaniel Taylor, on the northern division of what Amos Knowles called ‘the old house field.’ When ‘Iron-Head’ Josiah Snow, back from California with money, in 1852, bought this lot for a building site, he stipulated that ‘the fence around the burying place’ should be removed by 1 May following (Barnstable Deeds, vol. 54, fo. 129). Capt. and Mrs. Nehemiah Harding of Orleans remember this burying ground as containing as good stones as the burying ground by the church, one of them marked ‘Betsy’s Grave.’ This stone and doubtless the others were removed to the present cemetery. (Barnstable Deeds, vol. 54, p. 129, deed dated 27 Dec. 1852; Re-recorded Deeds, Orleans, vol 1, p. 268.)
    “The clearest evidence of where Richard Knowles lived is found in the delimitation of the footpath around the head of Town Cove voted in 1714, as follows:
    “‘Beginning at the foot of the hill below Joshua Hopkins dewlling house thence westerly to two stones on each side of the creek that runs out of the salt pond in the marsh thence westerly to the foot of the hill neer said Knowles dwelling house thence running up the hill with the old cartway to the top of the hill thence running northerly as the old cartway runs to the common road between the original land of said Samuel Knowles and the land that was formerly the land of John Knowles deceased.’
    “We may assume that Samuel Knowles had his father’s house, although he also had his brother John’s land. Two town records inferentially distinguish between the land that had been John Knowles’s on the west side of the road and Samuel Knowles’s ‘original land’ or ‘ancient lot’ next to Town Cove. In 1714 the house must have stood somewhere between the present town landing and the slop of the hill on which the house of Mr. Nathaniel Taylor now stands.
    “As late as 1703 the town granted land ‘to the name or heirs of Robert Wixam, Richard Knowles and William Twining,’ namely, a meadow on Pochy Flats.”

Their children include:
1624 i. John Knowles (1640s-3 Jun 1675)
1625 ii. Mercy Knowles (1640s-)
1626 iii. James Knowles (17 Nov 1648-ca 1682)
1627 iv. Ruth Knowles (ca 1650-28 Aug 1714)
1628 v. Dea. Samuel Knowles Esq (17 Sep 1651-19 Jun 1737)
1629 vi. Mehitable Knowles (20 May 1652/3-aft 1721)
1630 vii. Barbara Knowles (28 Sep 1656-23 Feb 1714/5)

791. Matthew Bowers. Born ca 1620. Matthew died on 30 Jan 1644/5 in Cambridge, MA.22

792. Benanuel Bowers. Born ca 1627 in Dorset, England. Benanuel died on 28 May 1698 in Charlestown, MA. Religion: Quaker.

Benanuel suffered much abuse, as a Quaker, by prison, whipping, and fine.2 Benanuel sent his four eldest daughters to Philadelphia for their education.22

On 9 Dec 1653 Benanuel first married Elizabeth Dunster in Cambridge, MA.23

Their children include:
2896 i. George Bowers (28 Feb 1653[/4]-)
2897 ii. Barbara Bowers (4 Jan 1655[/6]-1718)
2898 iii. Elizabeth Bowers (8 Dec 1657-)
2899 iv. Mary Bowers (16 Sep 1660-)
2900 v. Henry Bowers (20 Jun 1665-)
2901 vi. Anna Bowers (14 Oct 1668-)
2902 vii. Bathsheba Bowers (4 Jun 1671-)
2903 viii. Jonathan Bowers (11 Aug 1673-)

Benanuel second married Elizabeth [Bower].

Child:
2904 i. Elizabeth Bowers (20 May 1679-)

793. Rev. John Bowers. Born ca 1629 in Dorset, England. John died on 14 Jun 1687 in Derby, CT.132 Education: Harvard 1649.

John was a school master at Plymouth, perhaps the earliest, went in the same business 1653, to New Haven, on the invitation of Gov. Eaton, there taught until 1660, and after in other towns; was preaching after Pierson left Branford, in 1667, to Feb 1673; soon after was setted at Derby. His will, recorded at Derby bears the date 8 Jan 1685.

From Libby’s Knowles genealogy:22
    “Rev. John^2 Bowers (George^1) was schoolmaster at Plymouth and later (1653-1660) at New haven, whither he went on the invitation of Governor Eaton. He afterwards taught in other towns in connecticut, and preached at Branford, 1667-1672/3, where one of his daughters married and remained and where Nathaniel^2 Knowles settled, the first of the Knowles family of Cape Cod to remove to Connecticut. From Branford Mr. Bowers removed to Derby, Conn., where he was the first settled minister.”

Ruth m. John Frisbie, and next, William Hoaldly.

On 14 Jul 1652 John first married Rebecca Gregson, daughter of Thomas Gregson (ca 1598-1647) & Jane [Gregson] (-4 Jun 1702), in Woodbury, CT. Born ca 1635.

Child:
2905 i. Ruth Bowers (ca 1656-26 Apr 1736)

John second married Bridget Thompson, daughter of Anthony Thompson (-Sep 1648) & Mary Welby. Born ca 1636 in Lenham, Kent. Bridget died on 19 May 1720 in Derby, CT.132

Their children include:
2906 i. Mary Bowers (-9 Jun 1736)
2907 ii. Samuel Bowers (ca 1665-1744)
2908 iii. John Bowers (3 Dec 1667-23 Sep 1708)
2909 iv. Rev. Nathaniel Bowers (-14 Dec 1712)
2910 v. Anna Bowers (say 1677-11 Jan 1744)
2911 vi. Barbara Bowers (-8 Sep 1745)

794. Patience Bowers. Born ca 1631 in Cambridge, MA. Patience died bef 1665 in Cambridge, MA.

In 1653 Patience married Humphrey Bradshaw in Cambridge, MA. Born ca 1614. Humphrey died on 9 May 1682 in Cambridge, MA.

Humphrey, of Cambridge.

Their children include:
2912 i. Sarah Bradshaw (3 May 1653-)
2913 ii. John Bradshaw (24 Jun 1655-9 Mar 1745)
2914 iii. Ruth Bradshaw (3 Nov 1657-)

795. Silence Bowers. Born ca 1635 in Cambridge, MA. Silence died on 9 Nov 1677 in Medfield, MA.22

On 14 Dec 1656 Silence first married Elnathan Dunckley in Dedham, MA.22 Born ca 1634. Elnathan died on 17 Feb 1669 in Dedham, MA.

Elnathan Dunckley, Dunkley, Dunklee, Duntlin, or Dunckly.

Their children include:
2915 i. Silence Dunckley (ca 1659-)
2916 ii. Ruth Dunckley (11 Mar 1661/2-)
2917 iii. Elnathan Dunckley (29 Aug 1665-)
2918 iv. David Dunckley (2 Apr 1666-)
2919 v. Hannah Dunckley (26 Feb 1668-)
2920 vi. Nathaniel Dunckley (11 Feb 1669-)

On 25 May 1675 Silence second married Nicholas Rockwood in Medfield, MA.22

Nicholas Rockett, or Rockwood.

Child:
2921 i. Isaac Rockwood (22 Jul 1677-11 Oct 1677)

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