1226.John Peirce. Born ca 1588. John died in Watertown, MA on 19 Aug 1661.30 Occupation: weaver.
John, of Watertown, freeman Mar 1638, a man of very good estate, project. settlement at Sudbury and Lancaster. His will of 4 Mar 1658 was probated 1 Oct 1658. In it he provides for daughter Elizabeth, eldest son Anthony, and other children without naming them; but his widow in her will of 15 Mar 1667 supplies the deficiency naming children Anthony, John, Robert, Esther Morse wife of Joseph, Mary Coldam, beside grandchildren Mary Ball, and another Ball, Esther Morse, and the children of Anthony and Robert.25
“John Pers, of Norwich, Norfolk county, Englan d, weaver, came to New England in the year 1637, with his wife Elizabeth and four children, either in the John and Dorothy of Norwich, of the Rose of Yarmouth. The following extract from a register of certain emigrants to New ENgland says: ‘April the 8th 1637. The examination of John Pers, of Norwich, weaver, aged 49 years, and his wife Elizabeth, aged 36 years, and four children—John, Barbre, Elizabeth, and Judith, and one servant, John Gedney, aged 19 years, are desirous to passe to Boston, New ENgland, to inhabitt.’ Bond and Savage agree in identifying this John Pers with John Pers, of Watertown, who was a weaver and appears to have come over about 1637, and who had a wife Elizabeth and children John, Elizabeth and Judith. If this identification is correcdt some of his children must have come to New England before him, and the four here named were probably the youngest of the family. Elizabeth was doubtless ten years or more older than she is here represented. She is said in the county records to have been ‘aged about 79’ at the time of her death in 1667.
“John Peirce was a freeman of Watertown in 1638, and was one of the original proprietors of this town. He was a grantee of one lot in Watertown, and a purchaser of three lots before 1644, one of which was the homestall of twelve acres, land now bounded north by Belmont street, south by R. Beach, west by W. Parker, east by B. Pierson; this was made up of two lots in the town plot, six acres granted to J. Sm,ith, Sr., and the same to W. Barsham.”47
On 22 Apr 1610 John married Elizabeth Stoker in Norwich, Norfolk. Born ca 1588. Elizabeth died in Watertown, MA on 12 Mar 1667.30