by Mrs. John E. Barclay, F.A.S.G., Whitman, Mass.
Since completion of the article on Nathaniel SOWTHER which appeared in our
previous issue (TAG, supra, 42:217-221), the parentage of his second wife, Widow Sarah
HILL, has come to light in a roundabout way. Nathaniel died intestate in Boston, Mass., 27
June 1655. An inventory of his estate was taken, 17 Jul 1655 and Sarah was administratrix.
The estate was valued at £109.19.06, but of this "£83 was for goods Mrs. SOWTHER
brought to Mr. SOWTHER......". Three item that were listed are of particular interest: a
silver bowl, a silver porringer and a silver spoon, for these will be mentioned in a memo
attached to another estate and will help to identify her.
After Nathaniel died, Sarah, as administratrix, and Nathaniel DUNCAN, merchant of
Boston, on 22 Feb. 1655/6 sold to Joseph ROCKE "all that messuage tenement or dwelling
house in which Sarah SOWTHER doth now inhabit. . .which the aforesaid Nathaniel
DUNCAN purchased of William FRANKLIN......that they are true and proper owners"
(Suffolk Deed 2:232). His wife Elizabeth gave consent. No conveyance of this property to
Nathaniel DUNCAN, Nathaniel SOWTHER nor to Sarah as Widow HILL could be found.
The deed evidently neer was recorded but later we shall show that Sarah and Elizabeth, wife of
Nathaniel DUNCAN, were probably sisters. Sarah may have been living with the DUNCANs
after the death of her first husband and at the time she married Nathaniel SOWTHER, 5 (11m)
1653. It is not clear whether Sarah as Widow HILL bought a share of the house of Nathaniel
DUNCAN or Nathaniel SOWTHER purchased sit of him after he married her. It is certain
that when Mary HUDSON, widow of Ralph, died 26 Sept. 1651, Nathaniel DUNCAN
occupied as tenant one of the houses which she bequeathed to ger grand-daughter Hannah
LEVERETT. Therefore, the Franklin property was not bought until after that date.
Sarah SOWTHER, as such, disappears from the records but probably iss the Mrs.
SOWTHER mentioned in Mrs. Martha COGAN's estate in 1660, widow of Mr. John
COGAN of Boston. Looking for possible relationship, we turned to Mr. McCracken's study
of early COGANs (New England Hist. and Gen. Reg. 111:12-15). There we find that the
witnesses to John COGAN's will, dated 3 Aug. 1658 were: Nathaniel DUNCAN, Thomas
BUMSTEAD, Henry POWNING, Ignatius HILL and Samuel ROBINSON. Among
references cited were Water's Genealogical Gleanings in England 2:1072, will of Elizabeth
JURDAIN, widow, of Exeter, Devon, dated 27 Sept. 1633, proved 31 Oct. 1633: "I give all
that debt which Nathaniel DUNCAN oweth me unto his two sons Peter and Nathaniel; I
release and discharge William HILL my kinsman of all debts due me......" Note that this
testatrix does not specify what the relationship was, nor does she name her deceased husband,
and Waters did not find a will which can be identified as that of her husband, thogh she alludes
to his will in hers. She names as her children only Elizabeth, Susanna, John, Sarah, Lydia and
Ruth, no son Ignatius, and as at least some of the children are minors and unmarried, she was
more probably of the same generaation, rather than of the preceding, as the testator of the next
will, Ignatius Jurdain of Exeter, dated 1 march 1635, proved 16 Oct. 1640 (ibid. 2:1073),
who names wife Elizabeth, and "children of my son Nathaniel DUNCAN £100......children of
my son William HILL 100 pounds," among other bequests. it is obvious that the will of
Elilzabeth JURDAIN first cited above cannot be that of the wife of this Ignatius, since she was
a widow in 1633 and he was still living in 1635 and probably until not long before probation of
his will on 16 Oct. 1640. The will of his widow, also named Elizabeth, was probably but not
quite certainly the one dated 20 June 1645, proved 9 March 1649 (ibid. 2:1074) who, though
she says her husband was named Ignatius, yet mentions a son Ignatius, whereas the testator of
1635 named a son Joseph, but not a son Ignatius. We can suggest a way in which this seeming
discrepancy could be eliminated. There was an Ignatius JURDAIN, in 1625 admitted to
Wadham College, Oxford, and instituted Vicar of Cranham, Essex, 2 Sept. 1639, and if he
was a son of Ignatius (the testator of 1635) by his wife Elizabeth [she was a BASKERVILLE,
as shown by the will of her brother Sir Simon Baskerville, Doctor in Physic, whose will is also
absstracted by Waters (ibid.)] the Clergyman might well have been omitted in his father's will
as having received his portion in support at the University. Elizabeth the testatrix of 1645 had
also a grandchild Joseph HILL, who may have been an unknown child of William HILL by
Sarah JURDAIN.
Another important will, not cited by Mr. McCracken but necessary to complete this
article will be found in Waters (1:70): the will of Mary GODWYN, widow, of Lyme Regis,
co. Dorset, dated March 1665, proved 6 June 1665: "to my three cousins William, James and
Ignatius, sons of my brother William HILL in New England 150 pounds equally between
them," among other bequests. In a footnote (p. 71) Waters states that the widow of William
HILL and mother of William, James and Ignatius, became the wife of Mr. Edmund
GREENLEAF.
From the above it is evident that Nathaniel DUNCAN and William HILL married
before 1635 daughters of Ignatius JURDAIN who died about 1640, although these daughters
are not mentioned in his will. According to Marriages in the Exeter Diocese, p. 54, Nathaniel
DUNCAN of Exeter, merchant, married Elizabeth JURDAIN of the same place, 3 Jan.
1616/7. There is no record now extant of the marriage of Edmund GREENLEAF to Sarah,
widow of William HILL, but it has been taken for granted that he was her second husband.
Proof will be given that he was her third.
John COGAN, Nathaniel DUNCAN and William HILL, with their wives and children,
probably were among the passengers on the unknown ship that arrived in 1633. Settling first
in Dorchester where all three men received grants, COGAN, we learn, had settled
permanently in Boston by 1634; and the Joseph ROCKE mentioned in Suffolk Deed 2:232 was
his son-in-law. DUNCAN and HILL took a prominent part in the Dorchester Town affairs.
Nathaniel DUNCAN's sons, Nathaniel and Peter, are mentioned in the records; he removed to
Boston about 1646 where he died in 1668/9 (Suffolk Probate 5:114). We know he had a wife
Elizabeth at the date of the deed of 23 Feb. 1655/6, presumably the one he married in Exeter.
William HILL sold all his grants by 1638 and removed to Windsor, Conn., later to
Fairfield where he died in 1649, leaving a wife Sarah by whom he had William, Sarah, Joseph,
Ignatius, Elilzabeth and James. According to Donald Lines Jacobus, Families of Old Fairfield
1:278, William HILL was son of James HILL of Lyme Regis, Dorset (Waters, op. cit., 1:70)
and married 28 Oct. 1619 at St. Mary Arches, Exeter, Devon, Sarah JURDAIN, baptized
there March 1598/9. The son William remained in Fairfield; Ignatius was of Boston and
Barbadoes and died probably unmarried near 12 Jan. 1675, date of inventory of his estate
(Suffolk Probate 5:315), brother James administrator. James himself married at Boston, 10
April 1662, Hannah Henchman, and had four children recorded there. He died there on 26
Feb. 1720/1 (Ancient and Honorable Artillery, p. 248). For further details on the HILL
family see Families of Old Fairfield.
Sarah JURDAIN must be the Sarah HILL, widow, who married, second, at Boston, 5 (11)
1653, Nathaniel SOWTHER, as his second wife, and as previously said, he died 27 (4) 1655.
If she is the Mrs. SOWTHER mentioned in Mrs. CROGAN's estate, she was still a widow in
1660 but the Widow SOWTHER. She certainly did marry Edmund1 GREENLEAF of
Newbury and Boston but as her third husband, probably soon after his first wife died, 18 Jan.
1662/3. From reading his will with the memo (Suffolk Probate 7:112) and the inventory, we
gather that this was not a happy marriage. She receives no bequest, although she was probably
still living but possibly elsewhere with one of her children. In the memo attached to the will,
he laments:
When I married my wife I kept her Grand Child as I best remember 3 years to Scooling, Dyet
& apparell & William HILL her son had a bond of Six pound a yeare wereof I Received no
more than a barrell of porke 3t:6-0 of that 6-0-0 a yere he was to pay mee & I Sent to her Son
Ignatius HILL to the Barbados in Mackrell Sider & bred & pease as much as come to twenty
pound I never received one penny of itt; his Aunt gave to the three Brothers £50 apiece. I
Know whether they received it or not but I have not received any pt of it Beside when I maried
my wife She brought mee A silver bowle a silver porringer a silver spon She sent or gave them
to her son James HILL without my consent.
Thus it is evident that Sarah (JURDAIN) (HILL) SOWTHER brought to her third
husband, Edmund GREENLEAF, the the same three piees of silver which she brought to
Nathaniel SOWTHER, her second husband. Taking all these things into consideration, there
can be no doubt of her identity. No record of her death was found but we gather from the
wording of Edmund GREENLEAF's inventory she was still living on 19 (2m) 1671. "What
our Mother Greenleaf had of ye goods" is followed by a list of household goods, also butter,
meat and fish. She probably had died by 1 Feb. 1673/4 when her son William HILL Jr.
entered for record at Fairfield lands of which half were his portion and the rest granted him by
his father-in-law [step-father] GREENLEAF and his mother. She had no issue by her last two
husbands, of course.
[Note: In my article on Mr. John COGAN of Boston (New England Hist. and Gen. Reg.
111:10-16) to which Mrs. Barclay has alluded above, I discussed the difficult problem of the
identies of this John COGAN's wives. I then pointed out that he left a widow who had been
previously been the widow of Thomas COYTMORE and was born Martha
RAINSBOROWE; that earlier he had had a wife named Mary who died 14 Jan. 1651/2; that
still earlier he may have had a wife named Anne, but that "the first wife" often attributed to
him, i.e. Abigail, was not his at all. On 7 Aug. 1639 Mr. John COGAN appointed Thomas
LECHFORD the task of preparing a pwoer of attorney [Lechford's Note-Book, p. 97; New
England Hist. and Gen. Reg. 40:270] naming one Nicholas CARWITHYE, Citizen and
Grocer, of Exeter, to receive a debt of £66 owed COGAN by Ignatius JORDAN [sic],
alderman, of Exeter, and also any possible legacy from JORDAN's estate to himself, his wife,
or his children. When I read this note of Lechford, I concluded that it was probable that one
of the wives of John COGAN, either Anne, if she was his wife, or Mary, was a daughterof
Ignatius JORDAN, but as I soon discovered, the COGANs were not named in the will of
Jordan who was, of course, identical with the Ignatius Jurdain cited by Mrs. Barclay above.
Now that I know that this Ignatius JURDAIN omitted from his will the names of his daughters
Sarah and Elizabeth, as well as his son Ignatius, it seems less rash to suppose that he was the
father of that wife of John COGAN who was mother of at least some of the older children.
John COGAN had daughters named Mary (wife of John WOODY and Thomas ROBINSON),
Elizabeth (wife of Joseph ROCKE), Anna/Hannah, Lydia, and Sarah [she was at least
daughter of Martha RAINSBORROW and bother in 1657, long after the death of Ignatius
JURDAIN]. John COGAN named daughters with the same names borne by Mrs. HILL and
Mrs. DUNCAN, and Lydia is the name of a daughter of one Elizabeth JURDAIN cited by
Mrs. Barclay. If this surmise is right, then the descendants of Mr. John COGAN may also lay
claim to ancestry from Ignatius JURDAIN and his wife Elizabeth BASKERVILLE.
There remains one point to be mentioned. The will of Ignatius JURDAIN, though
dated 1 March 1635, was not probated until 16 Oct. 1640, and it was supposed by both Mrs.
Barclay and by me that he died in 1640. There is a bit of evidence to show that he was already
dead by 7 Aug. 1639, the date of the power attorney designed to receive legacies, if any, from
his will. It would seem probable that JURDAIN died early enough for the news to have
reached Boston before 7 Aug. 1639. An estate as complex as his is likely to have been would
take a long time to settle.
George E. McCracken
Richard Dennis Souther
Souther Family Association
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