| Notes |
- The name of Richard Seer is first found upon the records of Plymouth Colony, in the tax-list of March 25, 1633, when he was one of fourty-four, in a list of eighty-six persons, who were assessed nine shillings in corn, at six shillings per bushel, upon one poll. [Hand notes] His name is not in tax list of 1634 or in list of freemen 1633.
He soon after crossed over to Marblehead, in Massachusetts Colony, where Richard Seers was taxed as a resident in the Salem rate-list for January 1, 1637-8, and on October 14, 1638, was granted four acres of land "where he had formerly planted." [This would seem to indicate that he had then some family.
What his reasons were for removing can now only be conjectured. It has been suggested that he sympathized with Roger Williams and followed him in his removal, but this is improbable. It may be that he wished to be near friends, former townsmen, or perhaps relatives.
Antony Thacher, and his wife who was sister to Richard Sares wife, was then living in Marblehead, and this fact probably influenced his removal to that place [changed to reflect hand notes]
The early settlers of Marblehead were many of them from the channel islands, Guernsey and Jersey, and in these places the family of Sarres has been established for several centuries, and is still represented in Guernsey under the names of Sarres and Serres.
[The next supposition was struck from the original book by May] Early in the year 1639, a party under the leadership of Antony Thacher crossed the Bay to Cape Cod, and settled upon a tract of land called by the Indians, "Mattakeese," to which they gave the name of Yarmouth. With them went Richard Sares and family, accompanied probably by his wife and infant sons, Paul and Silas. [handnotes] He took up residence on Quivet Neck between Quivet and Sesuit creeks [in what became East precinct of Yarmouth now Dennis], where in September of the same year their daughter Deborah was born, perhaps the second white child, and the first girl born in Yarmouth; Zachary Rider being supposed to have been the first boy.
In 1643, the name of Richard Seeres is in the list of those between the age of 16 and 60 able to bear arms. (In Williamsburg we learned that the requirements were, male, able bodied and with at least two teeth, one top and one bottom to pull the cap off the powder horn)
Oct 26, 1647, the commissioners on Indian affairs were appointed to meet at the house of Richard Sares at Yarmouth, when he entered a complaint against Nepoytam Sachumus, and Felix, Indians.
Oct 2, 1650, he with sixteen others, complained of William Nickerson for Slander, damage 100 pounds; and at the same term of court, we find his name with seventeen others, against Mr John Crow, William Nickerson and Lt William Palmer for trespass, damage 60 pounds.
Jun 3, 1652, Richard Seeres was propounded to take up Freedom.
Jun 7, 1652, Richard Sares was chosen to serve on the Grand Inquest.
Jun 7, 1653, Richard Sares took the Oath of Fidellyte at Plimouth, and was admitted a Freeman.
Mar 1, 1658, Richard Seares was chose on the committee to levy the church tax.
Jun 6, 1660, Richard Sares was chosen Constable.
Jun 3, 1662, Richard Saeres was chosen Deputy to the General Court at Plymouth.
Nov 23, 1664, Richard Sares, husbandman, purchased of Allis Bradford widow of Gov William Bradford, (who signed the deed with her mark,) a tract of land at Sesuit, for 20 pounds.
10(3)1667, Richard Sares made his Will, to which Feb 3, 1676, he added a codicil. Both documents are signed with his mark, (RS) and in witnessing various deeds at previous dates, he always made his mark, a by no means unusual thing to do in those days.
Mr H G Somerby in his manuscript collection in the library of the Mass Hist So, Boston, mentions a tradition that he held a commission in the militia, and lost his right arm by a gun-shot wound in a fight with Indians in 1650, but neither fact is recorded, nor is any such tradition known to the Cape antiquarians.
Jun 30, 1667, the name of Richard Sares is signed with fourteen others to a complaint against Nicholas Nickerson for slander of Rev Thomas Thornton. His signature is well and plainly written, on the original document in the possession of Hon H C Thacher of Boston, (of which a copy much reduced may be seen in Swift's "Hist of Old Yarmouth," 1884) but it is not certain that it is his autograph, (and no other is known,) as it and several others may have been written by the same person, and probably the one who procured the signatures to it.
I have followed the spelling of Richard Sears name as found on the records, which is probably the clerk's phonetic rendering; I have been told by aged members of the family, that when they were children, early in the 19th century, the name was written Sears, but pronounced by old people, Sares [ed. this is born out by the fact that in our recent visit to the Bahamas, our surname was noticed and the comment was "Where did you get a good old Bahama name like Say'-ers?" two syllables, accent on the first]
- Samuel P. May as republished in From The Descendants of Richard Sears of Yarmouth, Mass pub by Joel Munson's Sons, 1880
In his will, dated 10 May 1667, with a codicil dated 3 February 1675/6, and proved 5 March 1675/6, 'Richard Sares of Yarmouth' bequeathed to 'Sylas Sares my younger son . . . all my land, that is allthe upland upon the Neck where his house stands in which he now dwells . . . after mine and my wife's decease,' provided that 'my son-in-law Zachery Paddock' shall have the house where he dwells and two acres within the above tract 'during the life of Deborah his now wife'; also to 'the said Sylas Sares' a tract of meadow and half of 'my land called Robins as in undivided'; to 'my elder son Paule Sares all the rest and remains of my lands whatsoever', to 'Dorothy my wife' all lands and goods during her natural life, she to be sole executrix, and 'do entreat my brother Thacher with his two sons as friends in trust' as overseers; to 'my son-in-law Zachery Paddock' two acres from land called Robins before it is divided between Silas and Paul Sears, and this two acres, along with the two acres mentioned above, to go to Ichabod Paddock, son of Zachary, at the death of Zachary's wife; witnessed by Anthony Thacher and Anthony Frey; in the codicil, dated 3 February 1675/6, Richard Sears bequeathed to 'my eldest son Paul Sares .. . the house which I now live in' and various moveables; witnessed by John Thacher and Judah Thacher; on 5 March 1675/6 deposed that he and his brother witnessed the codicil,a nd that when 'my uncle signed this appendix,' he asked him [John Thacher] to redraw the will and 'to leave out of the new draft the legacy of land that is given to Ichabod Paddock, for saith he I have answered it in another way,' but Thacher never did produce this new draft [PCPR 3:2:53-54]. The inventory of the estate of 'Richard Sares,' taken 8 October 1676 and presented at court on 15 November 1676 by 'Dorethy Sares the relict of Richard Sares and Paul Sares his eldest son,' was untotalled and included 'his house and lands,' valued at £220
"Between the two creeks whose Indian names we have given above, there was a tongue of land called 'Quivet Neck,' made up in part of alluvial deposits, and forming therefore the best and most fertile soil. Richard Sayer purchased the greater part of this neck of land, and built his house upon it. On this gentle swell he could hear the crooning of the two brooks on either side of him s they wound through the meadows, and he could look over the green interval into the broad blue ocean, always sounding with the march and countermarch of its waves. After two hundred years, the house which he built had disappeared; but the precise spot is still to be seen where his household gods found undisturbed repose. . . Nothwithstanding his peace-loving habits, the Pilgrim, as tradition says, head a military office, and lost an arm by a gun-shot would in some conflict with the Indians. He also appears on the records as constable of Yarmouth, and once on some committee in ecclesiastical affairs. . . Richard Sayer lived to be the patriarch of the little colony of Sursuit, and to see his children and his children's children settled aroungd him. . . Richard sayer was once or twice summoned from his seclusion, as Deputy to the Colony Court at Plymouth. . . .He lived to a green and honored old age, and died in 1676. . . His ashes repose in the old Yarmouth churchyard, where one of his descendants, with filial reverence and affection, has erected a costly monument to his memory."
"In 1668, there was exchanging and buying of upland and meadow abetween Quivet Creek and Sauquatuckett River or as it was now often called 'Stoney Brook.' On January 17, an agreement was made between 'Richard Sears of Yarmouth and John Dillingham about an exchange of meadow lying between Bound brook and Stoney brook.' By this 'agreement' it appears 'Richard Sears fully and readily' accepted 'all right that John Wing and John Dillingham' had 'in all the meadows commonly called the Nooks - for all the right that Richard sears had in that meadow lying and being against Mr. William Bradford's two lots sold to said Richard Sears,' and 'his in the great division of broken meadow.' At the same date Richard Sears sold to 'John Dillingham, his heirs and assigns, all the land lying and being below the path commonly known as the path from Sesuit to the mill, with all the dead timber about the path forever.'
|
Abt 1612 - 1676 (~ 64 years)
