OUR YANKEE ANCESTORS


   I stated in the Preface that most of the New England ancestors came to America
with the Winthrop Fleet.  Perhaps some explanation is in order.

   After the landing of the Pilgrims in 1620, more and more Englishmen came to New
England, or "that part of Virginia", as it was first called.  In 1629 the Massachu-
setts Bay Company charter was signed in England, with John Winthrop as one of the
leaders.  In April 1630 the great Puritan Migration began.  Seventeen ships, bearing
almost one thousand Englishmen and women, left England and made the difficult
journey to the shore of Massachusetts.  John Winthrop was on the flagship of this 
fleet, the ARBELLA.  Some of our ancestors were on that particular ship - John
Warren and Henry Kingsbury with their families.  Others whose names will appear in
this book were on the sister ships, and many more came with the tide of Puritans 
who poured into America in the next few years.  We are told that in some instances
little English villages were left almost devoid of inhabitants.  There were many
factors involved, but the great urge seems to have been for freedom to practice
their Puritan religion as they chose, without the demands of the Anglican Church.

   As town after town was laboriously hewn out of the wilderness in Massachusetts,
the problems of government arose.  The state had a General Court made up of the
shareholders of the Massachusetts Bay Company.  Only they could vote at first.
Michael Kraus, in THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES BEFORE 1865, states that less
than one percent of the population were allowed to be Freemen at first, but as the
demands of the townsmen for a voice in their government increased, the title of
Freeman was given a little less grudgingly.  Still, it was many years before a man
could gain this title until after he had joined the church.  John Warren was a
Freeman in 1631 in Watertown, but John Bigelow, who came at the same time, and held 
many town offices, did not become a Freeman until 1690.

   The little town around the area which is now Boston began to multiply.  Then the
frontier was pushed outward, as groups of men and women would gain permission to
start anew in an area a little more distant.  We will find that our ancestors
scattered throughout Massachusetts, some of them spread into Connecticut and Rhode
Island, and our own Bigelow and Pride ancestors met together in Vermont.  When I
started working on the family papers, I had the records of the Vermont relatives
only as far as Barna Bigelow and his wife, Abigail Pride.  Aunt Mary had obtained
the records of dates and births of this family from the Vermont Historical Society.

   I have explained how the excellent book on the Bigelows gave me the direct line
back to John Bigelow, who came from England about 1630, and it then became neces-
sary for me to find the families of the wives of the Bigelows and to realize how
many families were involved in making up the New England half of Charles Silas'
background.

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   I have had the Bigelow ancestors nicely arranged in my files for over a year,
but they did not come alive for me until I was fortunate enough to obtain a copy
of HISTORICAL REMISCENCES OF MARLBOROUGH, MASS., by Ella A. Bigelow, which was pub-
lished in 1910 in celebration of the 250th Anniversary of that town.  The charming
and factual book has been a real gem for me, as the stodgy New England ancestors
were transformed into real people who helped to plan and build the town, and held 
high offices in the church and in civic affairs.  Some of them fought the Indians,
and at least one was greatly loved and respected by them.

   My husband, some friends and I went to Maine recently, and we drove a little
out of the way to Marlborough.  I talked to some of the people there, including a
telephone conversation with a Mr. John Bigelow.  Marlborough is a lovely town, and
it is not hard to visualize the way it looked three hundred years ago when the
Bigelows, Howes, Warrens, Newtons, Tomlins, Hagars and other ancestors of ours had
a part in its history.

   Several of the leading inhabitants of Sudbury, Mass., petitioned the General
Court in 1656 to make a town eight miles distant, and when the petition was granted
and the settlers began to clear the land and to take advantage of the much sought-
after meadow lands, Marlborough Plantation was born.

   The records of the women in early New England seemed incomplete to me.  The
vital statistics are often more accurate than the Virginia ones, but they rarely
go further than that.  I believe the Virginia records give more recognition to the
women, but this is simply my theory!  Perhaps this is because most of the Virginia
sources seem to be from the churches and the New England ones from state sources.
Ella Bigelow is the true exception to this.  She gives credit to the women through
stories of their vicissitudes, and she has many amusing anecdotes that show that
they shared much happiness as well.

   I went through my files before our recent New England trip and made a chart of
the towns that were represented by our New England forefathers.  This was not our
first trip to that section, but this time it was a real thrill to view the thriving
cities and realize that our ancestors were among the first settlers there, and to
see the sleepy little towns that were the theatre of fierce Indian wars in which
these men participated.  Shipbuilder, bridgebuilder, blacksmith or surveyor,
straight-laced or protesting Puritans, brave soldiers in every American war - this
is a heritage that can give us pride.  Moses Newton with a minie ball in his arm,
John Warren who defied the rigid church laws, John Hathorne whose brother and
nephew were judges in the celebrated witch trials, and Goodman Howe who acted as
judge for the Indians all had some part in forming the Silas Bigelow who left 
Vermont and became a VIRGINIAN.
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