On 26 Nov 1623 Frances married
John Whitcomb, son of
John Whitcomb (-1648) &
Ann Harper, in St Mary Magdalen, Taunton.
32 Born ca 1600 in Taunton, Somerset. John died in Lancaster, MA on 24 Sep 1662.45
From Lincoln’s History of Hingham:45
John Whitcomb, from Dorchester, in Dorset, England, was a resident of Dorchester, Mass., as early as 1633; but ab. 1640 removed to Scituate, and thence, in 1652, to Lancaster, Mass., where he died 24 Sept. 1662, and his widow died 17 May, 1671. Freeman 1643. His sons, who prob. came from Eng. with him, were: I. John, who settled at Lancaster; II. Robert (2) of Scituate; III. Jonathan; IV. Job, was of Lancaster; V. James. There also were daughters Catherine, Abigail, and Mary. Catherine, says Deane's History, m. at 1644, Rhodolphus Ellmes of Scit., and left a numerous posterity.45
From Deane’s History of Scituate:53
John Whitcomb we suppose to have come from Dorchester, in Dorset, England, from the circumstance that it was a common name in that vicinity, and that he came with the early settlers of Dorcheseter, N. England, who were most of them, form Dorsetshire. He was in Dorchester as early as 1633, was a member of the Church 1638. In 1640 he appears in Scituate, when he possessed a farm of 108 acres, near the mouth of the North river, on the Marshfield side. This he sold to Thomas Hickes 1649. In 1646, he removed to Lancaster, and he may have purchased lands there a year or two earlier.
From Charlotte Whitcombs’s The Whitcomb Family in America, Minneapolis, 1904, pages 28–34:313
John became a church member in 1635; this and the birth of his youngest son Josiah, which occurred in 1638, are the only events of his family life recorded during the years he spent in Dorchester. Later evidence shows him to have been well-to-do for the times, a man of intelligence and enterprise much given to buying and selling land. His hand writing was strong and full of individuality and it is obvious that he was a man of academical education.
In 1640 he removed to Scituate where he owned land, one piece being a farm of 108 acres near the mouth of the North river on the Marshfield side, and after 1646 when he became one of the Conihasset Partners he owned the lands which through that transaction became his share.
During his residence in Scituate he was made constable, then one of the most remunerative as well as one of the most important offices in the gift of the townsmen. To act as sheriff he must have been a freeman in Scituate, but the only mention of his being such is in the Records of Plymouth Colony where the entry is, under date June 3, 1652. “Freeman admitted to this court and sworn, John Whetcombe and John Willis.” Marvin says, “Any man could become a freeman — he had only to be a Christian." Again, The Memorial History of Boston (Vol. I.) says, “Church members and church members only, exercised the franchise.” Therefore as he became a church member in 1635 he may have been a voter and have taken part in town affairs from that date.
In 1644, he sold his farm on North River to one Thomas Hicks and another disposal of land in Scituate was in 1654 when he conveyed half his share in the Conihasset lands to John Williams, Jr., giving the other half to his son Robert. During this year, 1654, he removed to Lancaster where two years before, when the town was platted, he had invested some money. Not all his children accompanied him to Lancaster. His daughter Catherine was settled in Scituate where in 1644 she had been married to Rodolphus Ellmes, a yoimg man who had come over from England in 1635 on the Planter when he was but fifteen years old; Robert, who had received his patrimony, also remained in Scituate and James, whose boyhood and youth seem to have passed without observation, is not mentioned until later when he is discovered a merchant in Boston and a man of affairs.
John Whitcomb and his son John, Jr., have been named as among the founders of the town of Lancaster. John's signature appears as “one of the pioneer settlers in the Nashaway Plantation which afterward became Lancaster” according to Mr. Nourse’s Early Records, and, though he was not among those who actually took up a residence in 1652, he was among those who had a right by the conditions of the covenant to come later. He was also one of the signers to the peti-
tion for a township, — “We being now about twentie familyes, etc.” — (Nourse’s Early Records, p. 37.)
The first inhabitants of Lancaster were apportioned land according to their “estate.” that is, “so much land to every £100 of estate and accordingly for a greater or less estate.” In these divisions John Whitcomb's estate is large in proportion to the rest, in fact among the largest. From the old entries reprinted in “The Early Records” the following quaint descriptions are copied.
“The lands of John Whetcombe senor.
“home Lott. his house Lott Given and Granted by the town Lyeth on the west side (of the) Neck being twentie acors bounded (South) by the Lott of Robert Brick and north by the Lott of his son John Whetcomb buting East upon the Lotts that Ly upon the east side the neck and buting west upon his entervail a high way Runing Cross it to quasaponikin entervail.
“Entervail Lott. And his entervail Lott part of it on the east side the North River thare being by Estimation about fifteen acors and a half bounded west by the North River and east by his upland
Lott buting South upon the Lott of Robert Brick that was Granted him by the town and buting North upon the entervail Lott of his son John Whitcomb nine acor; of entevail at quasiponikin between his son John Whitcomb and him either of them having an Equall portion that is four acors and half but it was not divided between them when it was Laid out the whole being bounded southardly by a high way that Goes between the medow Lott of Steven Gates and westardly by the North River and south west by a Lott of Richard Linton this four acors and half makes up the other fifteen and half his full Lott of twenty acors according to the town Grant but acording to Liberty Granted by a town order the fifteen acres and half exactly meashured it was found to be but fourteen acres and half and so it is an acre wanting which is Laid out together with his second division of entervail.”
[The text continues with discussions of the lots, a legal action brought against John Whitcomb by Steven Gates, John’s farm production, and his house.]
John died intestate and the widow and children mutually agreed upon a division of the property which was approved by the court. Frances made her will May 12, 1671, and died at Lancaster May 17, 1671. She named her youngest daughter, Mary, as executrix.