| Notes |
- Henry Sherburne (1611-1681) was born in Odiham, Hampshire. England. He came to America in 1631/32 with his brother John. They came from a landed family, but since they were younger sons, they would not inherit and so decided to seek their fortune in America. They settled in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, then called ``Strawberry Banke´´ and were licensed to operate a tavern and a ferry from the ``Great House´´ community center to the ``Great Island´´ out in the Bay. In 1637 Henry married Rebeckah, only daughter of Ambrose Gibbons and Elizabeth, his wife. Henry was well educated and became active in community affairs and he is noted in history books of that era, including the ``Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire´´ by Noyes. His descendants are included, up to the period immediately following the American Revolution. Henry and Rebeckah had eleven children. - http://grunerheritage.com/theotherside/sherburne/history2.html
Henry Sherburne (Joseph [2], Henry [1]) was baptized in Odiham, co. Hants, (England) March 28,1611. His age was given in depositions as forty-eight in 1662, fifty-three in 1665, fifty-eight in 1669 and also in 1671. He was therefore twenty-one when he sailed from London on the James, reaching Boston on June 5, 1632. Possibly he went to the eastern settlements in Maine or New Hampshire at once, but the first record of him is on July 20, 1634, when he witnessed a document for Henry Jocelyn of Black Point. On November 13, 1637,t he married Rebecca Gibbons, only daughter of Mr. Ambrose Gibbons, a leading colonist and one of the factors of the Laconia company. This alliance, added to his own abilities, gave the young man a promising start in life. Sherburne is said to have been a warden of the first church at Portsmouth, Rev. Richard Gibson's Episcopalian parish, in 1640. He must have had large and early land grants in the Little Harbor and Sandy Beach region of the lower Piscataqua settlement. In 1643 the court ordered him to keep a ferry and set the fees. From the "great house" to Great Island (New Castle) he was to have 2d., "to the province" 12d., to Rowe's 2d., to Strawberry Bank 6d., for one man. "If there come two or more," the fees were decreased. He was also to keep an ordinary or inn and serve 8d. meals. Generally given the title of "Mr." in the records he was a grand juryman in 1643, served the town as selectman twelve times between 1652 and 1672, succeeded Dr. Fernald as town clerk in 1656 and held the office for three years. He was "commissioner to end small causes," or a local justice, for many terms from 1649 to 1666. In 1649 he sued Thomas Wedge for slandering his wife and got judgment.
Under Massachusetts Bay authority Sherburne got further preferment. On October 23, 1651, he and Mr. Ambrose Lane and Mr. Brian Pendleton were "invested with ample power and enabled as associates with Capt. Thomas Wiggin to keep one court a year at Strawberry Bank and to try all civil and criminal actions." Individually they were authorized to administer oaths, keep the peace and try cases involving less than 40s.* In 1654 he was appointed "searcher" for Piscataqua, to see that no one took out of the jurisdiction by sea or by land more than 20s. In 1660 he was a deputy to the General Court of the Bay Colony representing Portsmouth.
Opposition to Massachusetts ran high in 1665 and with other Portmouth men Henry Sherburne was arrested and taken to Boston, charged with sedition. His defence was recorded in a deposition signed November 8, 1665, in which he was stated to be fifty-three years old. He swore that, being at home one morning in the past summer, some neighbors came by and told him that they were going up to Strawberry Bank where the people were meeting to sign a petition. They asked him to go with them and he at first refused but "with much importunity they persuaded me." He heard the petition read by Mr. Corbett at his house where about eighteen or twenty men were present, but he refused to sign it because there were some words in it "concerning the usurpation of power over the people here by the Massachusetts government." Quite possibly his discretion ran counter to his opinions.
After the death of his first wife Rebecca on June 3,1667, Henry Sherburne contracted an ill-advised alliance which brought him much trouble. His new wife was Sarah, widow of Walter Abbott, a Portsmouth innholder who had also died in 1667 leaving his business affairs in poor order. As the husband of Abbott's executrix Sherburne was joined as defendant in several long continued suits involving Abbott's property and obligations. The principal difficulty, however, was Sarah's temperament. In 1668, within a year of their wedding, Sarah was before the court for beating her husband and "breaking his head," while Henry was charged with beating his wife several times. They were both bound to good behavior. In 1670 Sarah appeared as witness against Henry who was charged with fighting with John Kenniston probably a tavern brawl. The next year, 1672, saw "Mr. Hen: Sherburne & his wife presented for disorderly Liveing & fighting" and the unhappy man "owned that they Lived disorderly." They were fined 50s. apiece or to be whipped ten stripes each. Naturally he paid the fines for it would have been intolerable for a man who had sat so long on the local bench to submit to a public whipping.
In 1673 a young man named David Campbell of Great Island had the temerity to criticize the government, the magistrates and the minister "by reproachful speeches." In addition to this offense against the local ideology he was accused of "being ye worse for drinke." David demanded a jury trial and it was granted, but he was convicted by his peers and sentenced to receive "20 stripes upon ye bare skin well Lade on," to pay a heavy fine and to produce a bond in £40 for future good behavior. Mr. Sherburne and his son John took up the cudgels for David and were promptly before the magistrates themselves, "for theire publick opposing of the execution of the sentence of Court aboute whiping of David Campbell, which had Like to have made an Insurrextion among the people." Found guilty, Mr. Sherburne was given the stiff fine of £5 while John got off for 50s. One wishes that they had stuck to their principles, but, as is too familiar in similar cases, they "humbly confessed their fault," probably with mental reservations, and the fines were reduced.
Old Thomas Walford, the "old planter" whom the Puritan settlers had found living with his family on the site of Charlestown, the sole inhabitants, when they arrived in 1629 and who, promptly fined by his new neighbors for "contempt of authority," had packed up and taken refuge at Great Island on the Piscataqua, died in 1667 and named Henry Sherburne one of the executors of his will. The complications of Walford heirship were still giving Mr. Sherburne and the courts trouble in 1673.
Mystery hangs over the end of Henry Sherburne. In the court of December 7, 1680, he sued Edward Bickford for trespass because of damage done by Bickford's hogs, cattle and horses, and lost the case. Later in the same session a complaint which he had lodged against the Bickford children for stealing his pears was called, but Sherburne did not appear to prosecute and Bickford was discharged. By June, 1681, Sherburne was dead under circumstances which led the magistrates to summon Edward Bickford, his wife and children for questioning, but their examination produced no damaging evidence and they were dismissed, but not without a trace of lingering suspicion. In her family record Mary Sloper, Sherburne's daughter, says "his death we was not sensible of." Possibly he wandered away in December of 1680 and died of exposure in a winter storm, his body not recovered until June of 1681. This is, however, only conjecture.
From Sherburne sprang, in the next three or four generations, many distinguished New Hampshire men, particularly in the judicial field. - Massachusetts and Maine Families in the Ancestry of Walter Goodwin Davis (1885-1966)
|
1611 - 1681 (70 years)
[2]