Robert Abell

Robert Abell was born in about 1605[1] in Stapenhill, Derbyshire, England and died at Rehoboth, Massachusetts on 20 June 1663.[2] He was among the early settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the first person with his surname to emigrate from England to the American colonies.[3] He traveled from his home to New England in 1630 as part of the first wave of a mass exodus of Puritans called the Great Migration.[4]

This initial expedition was known as the Winthrop Fleet, which consisted of 11 ships carrying around 700 immigrants. Robert Abell was “related to the Cotton family and probably emigrated under influence of Rev. John Cotton [1585–1652] or Rev. Arthur Hildersham [1563-1632] of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, who lived a few miles from the home of Abell. Derby, the home of the Cotton family, was only five miles distant.”[5]

According to Charles Henry Pope, author of Pioneers of Massachusetts, “all who came after 1650 found Massachusetts a reality, a single state, practically, although under two fraternal governments; all who came before that date helped essentially to make it.”[6]

Contents

Family background

Robert was the second son of George Abell (1561–1630)[7] and Frances Cotton (b. abt. 1573-d. by 1646).[8] On his mother’s side, he was descended from a long line of English, Norman and French aristocrats and royalty.[9]

His maternal grandfather, “Rt. Hon. Sir George Cotton,” was “Vice-Chamberlain of the Household to the Prince of Wales, (later King Edward VI) . . . a Privy Counsellor . . . [and] Esquire of the Body to King Henry VIII.”[10] Henry knighted him before or in 1542.[11]

Robert’s father, George Abell, at the age of 17 enrolled in Oxford University’s Brasenose College (8 December 1578).[12] By November of 1580, he had become a barrister and a member of the Inner Temple.[13] Before June 1630, he arranged an apprenticeship in London for his son, but Robert decided to try his luck in the New World, instead. This was a move that his father disapproved of, but, nevertheless, financed.

In his will, dated 8 September 1630, George Abell states (original spelling retained), “I bequeath unto my second sonne Robert Abell onelie a Twentie shilling peece for his childs parte in regard of ye charges I have beene at in placeing him in a good trade in London wch hee hath made noe use of and since in furnishing him for newe England where I hope he now is.”[14]

New Life in America

Robert Abell’s first recorded act in America (19 October 1630) was to apply to be a freeman in the recently founded village of Weymouth.[15] On 18 May 1631, he took the freeman’s oath. “This act endowed him with full privileges and responsibilities of citizenship in the new colony, including ownership of lands, in the exercise of which he continued to acquire holdings.”[16]

Most of the early settlers of Massachusetts Bay Colony had at least two major preoccupations: (1) helping build Winthrop’s “City upon a Hill,” a model Christian society, and (2) surviving and prospering in the New World. It is not known exactly how committed Abell was to the first objective, but municipal and court records show him participating in the life of his community, slowly building up his land holdings and eventual establishing a business.

During his time as a resident of Weymouth (1630–1643), his civic duties included serving on various types of juries (grand, petit and coroner’s), and records indicate that he accumulated a small amount of land (about 7 acres).[17] Like many immigrants, Robert Abell did not stay indefinitely in the first place he landed. In 1643, when the opportunity to join a newly founded town presented itself, he followed Reverend Samuel Newman (and the majority of his congregation) to a place the local Wampanoag tribe called Seekonk (a portion of which was later renamed “Rehoboth”).[18] Some of Abell’s activities while living there can be found in the following extracts from the minutes of various Rehoboth town meetings and Plymouth colonial records:

At the time of his death, Abell’s estate “amounted to £354 17s. 9d. of which ‘an house and land’ accounted for £130.”[26]

Second Generation of Robert Abell’s Family

Robert Abell and his wife Joanna Hyde (d. aft. 1682) [Abell, Horace A. The Abell family in America, p. 43] had ten children: Abraham (d.1639), Mary (1642–1724), Preserved (b. ca. 1644), Caleb (b. ca. 1647), Joshua (b. ca. 1649), Benjamin (b. ca. 1651), Experience (b. ca. 1660), Samuel (1650-1698), James (1656-1724), and Mehitalbe (b. ca. 1655).[27]

All of the Abell brothers had sizable families (seven to ten children each), helping to perpetuate the family name in New England. Writing in 1940, genealogist Horace Abell claimed that “probably all the present day Abells of New England stock are descended from Robert’s three sons, Preserved, Caleb and Benjamin Abell. His fourth son, Joshua, did not leave any male descendants.”[36]

Notes

  1. ^ Weis, Frederick Lewis and Walter Lee Shepard, Jr.; William R. Beall and Kaleen E. Beall, eds. Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700, p. 66
  2. ^ Arnold, James N. Vital Record of Rehoboth, 1642-1896. p.789
  3. ^ Abell, Horace A. The Abell family in America, p. 11
  4. ^ Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins
  5. ^ Banks, Charles Edward. The Winthrop Fleet of 1630. p. 57
  6. ^ Pope, Charles Henry. The Pioneers of Massachusetts, p. 4
  7. ^ Abell, Horace A. The Abell family in America, p. 41
  8. ^ Weis, Frederick Lewis and Walter Lee Shepard, Jr.; William R. Beall and Kaleen E. Beall, eds. Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700, p. 66
  9. ^ Weis, Frederick Lewis and Walter Lee Shepard, Jr.; William R. Beall and Kaleen E. Beall, eds. Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700
  10. ^ Mosley, Charles, Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, Vol. 1, p. 871
  11. ^ Boyer, Carl. Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell, p. 71
  12. ^ Abell, Horace A. The Abell family in America, p. 41
  13. ^ Cooke, William Henry. Students admitted to the Inner Temple, 1571-1625, p. 35
  14. ^ Abell, Horace A. The Abell family in America, p. 42
  15. ^ Abell, Horace A. The Abell family in America, p.43
  16. ^ Abell, Horace A. The Abell family in America, pp. 14-15
  17. ^ Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins
  18. ^ Abell, Horace A. The Abell family in America, p. 43
  19. ^ Bliss, Leonard. The History of Rehoboth, Bristol County, Massachusetts, pp. 38-39
  20. ^ Bliss, Leonard. The History of Rehoboth, Bristol County, Massachusetts, pp. 42-43
  21. ^ Bliss, Leonard. The History of Rehoboth, Bristol County, Massachusetts, p. 43
  22. ^ Bliss, Leonard. The History of Rehoboth, Bristol County, Massachusetts, p. 45
  23. ^ The History of Rehoboth, Bristol County, Massachusetts, p. 47
  24. ^ Arnold, James N. Vital Record of Rehoboth, 1642-1896, p. 917
  25. ^ Bliss, Leonard. The History of Rehoboth, Bristol County, Massachusetts, p. 48
  26. ^ Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins
  27. ^ Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins
  28. ^ Luther, Leslie L. and George A. Luther. The Luther genealogy, p. 30
  29. ^ Luther, Leslie L. and George A. Luther. The Luther genealogy, p. 29
  30. ^ Abell, Horace A. The Abell family in America, p. 47
  31. ^ Abell, Horace A. The Abell family in America, p. 56
  32. ^ Bliss, Leonard. The History of Rehoboth, Bristol County, Massachusetts, p. 117
  33. ^ Abell, Horace A. The Abell family in America, p. 50
  34. ^ Abell, Horace A. The Abell family in America, p. 52
  35. ^ Abell, Horace A. The Abell family in America, pp. 54-55
  36. ^ Abell, Horace A. The Abell family in America, p. 15

Bibliography

External links