Tag Archives: Massachusetts

Tragedy At Sea: Agnes Bent, Agnes Bent 2 and child

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Agnes Gosling Bent,1570(Probable birth year)- 1639 and Agnes Bent Blanchard, 1602-1639

Old Agnes is Cautious

As we learned in the story of John Bent, the first  of the Bent family to arrive in America, his mother, Agnes Bent approached the idea of relocating with caution in 1638.  Her husband Robert had died seven years before, leaving her with enough land and money to support her in her old age. Her entire life had been spent in rural Hampshire County as the wife of a farmer. When Peter Noyes organized a group from Penton-Grafton England to travel to America in 1638, Agnes had reached the age of 68, definitely old age for the 1600s.

And sailing was dangerous.  She had heard the stories of ships lost at sea. She lived inland and she probably had never had reason to be on a boat. The prospect of three weeks or more on the heaving waves of the Atlantic would give her pause.

The marker here shows Penton Grafton’s location in relation to London and the port of Southampton.

For historical background–England was ruled by Catholic King Charles, hated and feared by the reform Christians like those we call Puritans.  The restrictions on religion by his father King James was a motivating factor in the emigration of the Pilgrims to New England in 1620.  Since then, the trickle of emigres had turned to a gusher that we call The Great Migration. Despite the hardships of taming the wilderness in the New World, the prospects seemed preferable to the religious restrictions and the high taxation of King Charles. Civil War was brewing in England. As more English families fled England, the first Pilgrim villages expanded throughout the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Agnes Bent sailed for Massachusetts

Massachusetts Pay Colony 1630

John was Agnes’ only remaining son, and possibly the only child in addition to young Agnes.

Family of of Agnes Gosling and Robert Bent

  • Jane/Margery Bent (Plympton) 1590-1631 (after Aug 1631) Her husband Robert Plympton died in 1637.
  • Richard Bent 1592- Died Bef. Aug. 1631*
  • Robert J. Bent 1594-Died Bef. Aug.1631*
  • John, 1596-1672
  • Maria 1598-1599
  • Denys/Dennis/Dennys (female) 1599, married 1626 (Death unknown.)
  • James B. Bent abt. 1602-Died Bef. Aug. 1631*
  • Agnes 1602-1639

* Not mentioned in father Robert Bent’s will in July 1631

When her husband Robert died in 1631, Agnes moved in with her son John in the Hampshire village of Penton Grafton. Even though widow Agnes’ son John,  was leaving  England in 1638 with his wife and his five children, she hesitated. However, she entrusted Peter Noyes with 60 pounds to check out the possibilities of settlement and possibly purchase land for her in Massachusetts.

Peter Noyes, himself, had left some of his family members in England, but his first year in America persuaded him that the move was the correct thing to do.  So in 1639, he returned to England to complete selling his property there and to round up his family and book them on a ship with him as he returned to his new home in Massachusetts.

When the widow Agnes’ son John left for America, one source speculates that she may have been “placed” in Andover, presumably with one of her children. In 1637, Agnes’ youngest daughter married Thomas Blanchard.  In early 1639, the widow Agnes went to live with the family of Thomas Blanchard. They lived in London and the move must have been in preparation for the trip to America, since Thomas Blanchard, and widow Agnes’ daughter, the younger Agnes, were also gong to America.

Although the widow Agnes was well fixed, a source reports that there was a “gathering of Christians” in “Sarum” to help raise the passage for  Thomas and Agnes Blanchard. Widow Agnes’ daughter Denys and her husband lived in New Sarum in Wiltshire County, so they may have organized the fund raising.

The Young Agnes Bent (Barnes, Blanchard)

The younger Agnes, probably the last of Agnes’ children, was baptized in July, 1602.  She and Richard Barnes were married in the township of Weyhill, location of Penton-Grafton, her home town in April 1630. Her son, Richard Barnes Jr., was born before July 1631, as he is mentioned in his grandfather’s will. However, Agnes’ husband Richard did not live long after the wedding. He may have died before Robert Bent’s July 1631 will, since he is not mentioned there and other sons-in-law are. [Note; Several sources claim that the couple had a daughter, Elizabeth, however, I am not convinced.  I will put a short note separate from this post explaining.]

Agnes Bent Barnes did not immediately remarry when her first husband died, but records show she married Thomas Blanchard on May 15, 1637. By the time they were married, the couple must have been thinking about sailing for America.  Agnes gave birth to a child in late 1638 or early 1639, and once the money had been gathered for the voyage, they set sail with their mother and the party of Peter Noyes on the Jonathan.

The departure date April 12, 1639 must have been a day of great excitement as well as some concern. Eight-year-old Richard  Barnes would be filled with excitement. Young Agnes would have been concerned not only for her infant, who was still nursing, but also for her mother, who was not well.  Additionally, I believe young Agnes had the responsibility for the orphaned Elizabeth Plympton, her sister’s child.

Illness and Death Aboard the Jonathan

Near the Bank of Newfoundland, just a few days out, Widow Agnes fell ill, and for the rest of the voyage she was confined to her cabin.  This put an extra burden on her daughter and son-in-law, because the passengers had to prepare their own meals.

The first tragedy began 15 days out. In late April, 1639, the younger Agnes fell sick and died at the age of 37. The passengers on the ship had a meeting and found volunteers to nurse the infant.

A few days later, the baby also died.

The death of young Agnes left the mourning husband, Thomas Blanchard, to care for his wife’s son, Richard, her niece Elizabeth (17), and nephew Thomas Plympton (13) and Thomas Blanchard’s very ill mother-in-law.  Apparently he worked hard at that task and was admired by the other passengers for his care of his mother-in-law.

The Record Left in a Court Case

Thirteen years later, the young boy, Richard Barnes sued his father in law, Thomas Blanchard in Massachusetts court to recover £20 promised him by his mother.

The wife of “Goodman Cook” and  Samuel Hyde, fellow passengers on the Jonathan,testified about Thomas Blanchard and Agnes Bent.  [Note; The ‘weake girl’ must have been Elizabeth Plympton, widow Agnes’ 17-year-old grand-daughter.]

Goody Cook: Thomas Blanchard did wholly take care and paynes with his wives mother all the way over (except some little help some time of a weake girl who was a kinsman of hers) and the old woman what with her age and what with her sickness for she was sick all the way his trouble and payns with her was such that it was unseemly for a man to do but there was no other save that little helpless girle his kinswoman and continued his care and payns with her all the way from London to Nantaskith (Nantucket?)  and anchored there and this deponent came away before she was dead.

[NOTE:  Sue Taggert, a descendent of Thomas Blanchard sent me an email suggesting the reference to Nantaskith probably means Nantasket, a town just south of Boston.  Makes more sense than my guess of Nantucket.  Thanks Sue]

Samuel Hyde: “The old woman stayed in her cabin and never came out. The big girl didn’t do much for the old woman but Thomas Blanchard did much about her.

In fact, knowing that Thomas Blanchard was poor, the other passengers took up a collection to help him.

Old Widow Bent Succumbs

At some point, the ship’s surgeon was called to assist, but Widow Agnes Bent continued to worsen.  By early May when the ship approached Boston, and her long-awaited reunion with her son, John Bent, she still had not emerged from her cabin.  At last the ship docked and the passengers began to debark.  Then, so close to the new life in the New World, Agnes Gosling Bent died, never having seen the country she sailed to.

Her son-in-law, Thomas Blanchard, took charge of burying her body in the Boston area, and found a home for young Richard with John Bent in Sudbury.

The Costs of a Journey

A receipt shows that Peter Noyes paid  £5  per adult and £ 2.50 per child, a total of 50 pounds for 9 adult and 2 half-passengers. He also paid £8 ,10 shillings for freight and  £17 , 18 shillings for “mele”, 4 firkins of butter [about 11 gallons per firkin] and 2 cases licorice.

The passengers enumerated with that receipt are

  • Peter Noyes
  • John Waterman [neighbor from Penton-Grafton]
  • Nicholas Noyes
  • Doreyti Noyes
  • Peter Noyes (Jr.?)
  • William Stret [There is a William Streete who is a brother-in-law of widow Agnes’ husband. This might be a son from that family.]
  • Anie (Agnes) Bent [widow Agnes]
  • Elizabeth Plemton (Plympton)
  • Richard Barnes
  • Agnis Blanchet (Blanchard) [young Agnes]

I am not sure why Thomas Blanchard is not on this list. Peter Noyes later testifies that he paid for the passage of Agnes Blanchard and Thomas Blanchard out of her estate, plus loaned money to Thomas once they landed, so apparently another receipt no longer exists.

A separate accounting gives the amounts that Agnes Bent reportedly paid as £17  for passage plus  £1, 10 shillings for transporting her goods and 10 shillings for the surgeon. (Note: this does not quite line up with the 5 pounds per adult and £2 .5 for a child, nor does it specify for whom she paid, or why Peter Noyes is credited with paying for Agnes Bent’s passage.)

Afterwards

John Bent , son of the elder Agnes, became a leading citizen of Sudbury and friend of another of my great-grandfathers, Samuel Howe.  You can read about him here.

Peter Noyes returned to Sudbury where he was a leader and friend of John Bent the rest of his life.

Elizabeth Plympton, grand-daughter of Agnes Bent, married John Rutter and  lived in Sudbury until she died in 1689. John Rutter was one of the deponents in the Barnes-Blanchard court case.

Thomas Plympton, Settled in Sudbury. Married a daughter of Peter Noyes when he was twenty-nine. Lived in Sudbury until he was killed at 52 on April 29,1676 in the Indian attack on Sudbury part of King Phillip’s War.

Thomas Blanchard remarried and lived in various places in New England.

Richard Barnes, grandson of the elder Agnes Bent, as mentioned above, first lived with John Bent. Later he had another guardian. When he reached adulthood, he became an important member of his community, married Dorothy Dix in 1667 and started the Barnes line in America.  In March 1652, Richard had filed suit against his stepfather to recover his legacy from his mother. The finding of the Cambridge Court said the jury found for the plaintiff, giving Richard damages of £20 and costs of court–thirty shillings. Thomas Blanchard contested the decision, but the books that relate the details of the case, do not say if his appeal was successful.  Richard moved to Marlborough and lived to 1708, a long life.

For a complete guide to all the articles I have written about the Bent family, go here.

How I Am Related

  • Vera Marie Kaser Badertscher is the daughter of
  • Harriette Anderson Kaser, the daughter of
  • Vera Stout (Anderson),the daughter of
  • Hattie Morgan (Stout), the daughter of
  • Mary Bassett (Morgan),the daughter of
  • Elizabeth Stone (Bassett) the daughter of
  • Elizabeth Howe (Stone), the daughter of
  • Israel Howe, the son of
  • David How, the son of
  • Martha Bent How, the daughter of
  • John Bent, Sr. and Agnes Gosling Bent

Notes on Research

  • The Bent family in America : being mainly a genealogy of the descendants of John Bent : who settled in Sudbury, Massachusetts, in 1638 : with notes upon the family in England and elsewhere. in North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000 at Ancestry.com, Allen H. Bent, 1900. Also available at Archives.org. Contains will of Robert Bent
  • U. S. and Canada Passenger and Immigration Index, 1500s-1900s, Ancestry. Record for John Bent Sr. arrival 1638.This edition was privately printed in 75 quarto copies for W. Elliot Woodward. Same as the octavo edition of 1860 with an additional section, “The First Settlers of Plymouth,” pp. 115-122. Research originally done, 1858-1860, for The New England Historical Society.Source Bibliography:
    DRAKE, SAMUEL G. Result of Some Researches Among the British Archives for Information Relative to the Founders of New England …. 3rd ed. Boston: John Wilson and Son, 1865.
  • U.S. and Canada Passenger and Immigration Index, 1500s-1900s, Ancestry. Record for John Bent Sr.., arrival 1638
  • A History of Framingham, Massachusetts, including the plantation, from 1640 to the present time with an appendix containing a notice of Sudbury and its first proprietors. By William Barry, 1847, J. Munroe & Co., Boson. At the Library of Congress. Accessed through archive.org. This book has a footnote on page 181-182 detailing much of the information I relate about the two Agnes and other on the Jonathan.  The Footnote specifies that the information came in part from the court files of Middlesex County.
  • The History of Sudbury, Massachusetts 1638-1889, Alfred S. Hudson 1889, R. H. Blodgett, Sudbury.  Available on archives.org Page 45 contains a sketch of John Bent and family. (It incorrectly states that he returned to England and came back on the Jonathan) and information on activities and land throughout. Page 52 talks about Thomas and Elizabeth Plympton, including the information that Thomas was probably the brother of Elizabeth, because he was mentioned in his grandmother’s will and  worked for Peter Noyes, and married his daughter. It also details how he was killed.
  • History of the Town of Marlborough, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Charles Hudson, 1862, read on archives.org. Page 314: Thomas Barnes sketch and information throughout book. Bent family members throughout.
  • The Sudbury Fight, April 21, 1676, An Address Delivered before the Society of Colonial War, at the Battle Ground, Sudbury, Massachusetts, June 17, 1897 by Edward Webster McGlenen. Boston, 18. This address, printed in book form, mentions the death of Thomas Plympton.

  • The Planters of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts: A Study of the Emigrants and Emigration in Colonial Times: to which are Added Lists of Passengers to Boston and to the Bay Colony; the Ships which Brought Them; Their English Homes, and the Places of Their Settlement in Massachusetts. 1620-1640. “Passenger and Vessels That Have Arrrived in America, page138-140.” Section seen at Ancestry.com  The section on the ship Jonathan, instead of having the regular list of passengers, has very detailed information from the trial records of Barns v.Blanchard.  It is the most complete record I have discovered of the trial, although I have written to the Massachusetts Court Archivist to try to discover the original. The testimony given by passengers on the Jonathan provides a good picture of the last days of the two Agnes Bents.

  • New England Historical and Genealogical Society Register, Vol. 41, 1887, p. 81-82, “New England Gleanings”  Entire passage: “Massachusetts Archives-Petition of Thomas Blancher [Blanchard] 2-4-1646 says whereas Anne (Agnes Bent Barnes) of Way-hill in Hampshire England gave her son Richard Barnes 20 pounds and Anne (Agnes Gosling Bent) grandmother to said Richard gave him 16 pounds committed to trust of John Bent with whome the said Richard hath been “maintained since his coming to New England about seven years: John Bent gives security for payment when said Richard is twenty-one, signed by Thomas Blancher [Blanchard], John Bent and Peter Noyes.
  • U.S. and Canada, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s, Agnes Bent,  King, Carol Tyler, Ancestry.com

  • U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900, Ancestry.com, Source number: 93.000; Source type: Electronic Database; Number of Pages: 1; Submitter Code: NV1, Ancestry.com; Agnes Gosling Bent and John Bent.

  • U. S. Find a Grave, Agnes Gosling Bent
  • Puritan Village, Sumner Chilton Powell, Wesleyan University Press, 1970, Hanover, New Hampshire. Author’s collection. Read in Kindle version.
  • England and Wales Marriages, 1538-1988, An Barnes and Thomas Blanchard, Place: Salisbury, Wiltshire, England; Collection: St Edmond; -; Date Range: 1587 – 1650; Film Number: 1279311, Ancestry.com

  • U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900, Agnes Bent and Richard Barnes, Source number: 3416.000; Source type: Electronic Database; Number of Pages: 1; Submitter Code: RH1, Ancestry.com

John Bent Sr.–Father of the Bent Family in America

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 John Bent 1596-1672

Weyhill Church

The Weyhill church where John Bent’s family members were baptized, married and buried from the 16th century.

The Bent Family in England

John Bent’s father was Robert Bent of Penton-Grafton, Weyhill Parish in Hampshire County, England. His grandfather’s name: John Bent. The small village lies about seventy miles south of London. To put the history in perspective, when John Bent was born, Elizabeth I was still Queen. He had two older brothers, Richard and Robert, and an older sister, Jane. By the time he was six years old,  three younger sisters would be added to the family.

Names are important to John Bent’s story.  His aunt Joanne Bent married a William Noyes–a family closely intertwined with the Bents in both England and America.  John’s mother’s name was Agnes, as was one of his aunts.  The Bents favored the name Agnes sometimes written as  Annis or Ann and named a bewildering array of offspring by that name. The next person I’ll talk about is an Agnes with a daughter Agnes and a grand daughter Agnes. Naturally, the Bents also recycled the names Robert and John and Richard and Joseph.

John Bent’s Family

In 1624, John Bent married Martha, whose last name I have not proven.  According to one index she was Martha Blanchard and according to another, possibly Baker. Other relatives of John Bent are married to both Bakers and Blanchards. However both indices agree they were married in England in 1624. John would have been 28 years old.

In the following eleven years, the couple had five children. (For more details about the family, see the story about John Bent Jr., born in 1636. )

In 1631, John’s father, Robert, died leaving John and his older brother 40 shillings each. That is less than left to other children, but may indicate that they had received land from their father. According to Puritan Village, John had inherited 45 acres of land. Two of John’s sons and his daughter received two ewes each, the bequest for most of Robert’s grandchildren,  and John’s oldest son received a young cow.

Robert Bent named two neighbors as “overseers” of the will–Henry Tuncks and Peter Noyes, once again emphasizing the closeness of the Bent and Noyes families.

John was a successful farmer, as was his father, Robert.  The book “Puritan Village” discusses tax rolls of the Parish of Weyhill. “(Peter) Noyes and (John) Bent were 4th and 5th in land holdings of 44 landholders (there were also 40 landless men).”

The Great Puritan Migration

About the time that John Bent turned 40 years old, the people of the village were becoming increasingly unhappy with the reign of Charles I that started in 1625.  There must have been many long, soul-searching conversations, as they looked across the Atlantic at the possibilities of a better life in the new country where the first band of dissidents had landed in 1620. Unhappiness with both civic and religious constraints stimulated the Great Puritan Migration of the 17th century.

Peter Noyes, John’s friend, must have been one of the most adamant and outspoken about the necessity to leave England. John Bent, no longer a young man, had to decide whether to make the risky journey with young children, to leave familiar surroundings and a successful farm, to leave his widowed mother and his siblings, all for an unknown future.

Then King Charles decided to raise money. Ironically, these Englishmen whose grandsons would fight to separate America from England over tax issues, found tax issues pushing them to emigrate to America. As The Bent Family in America explains:

“A glance at affairs in England will show ample cause for a change of home at that time. The rule of Charles I had become almost unbearable, and it is not at all surprising that so many looked upon ‘the American wilderness as the only asylum in which they could enjoy civil and spiritual freedom.’ The King, advised in affairs of state by Lord Wentworth (Earl of Stafford) and in religious affairs by William Land, Archibishop of Canterbury, wished to do for England what Richelieu was doing at that very moment for France. ‘put the estates and personal liberties of the whole people at the disposal of the crown and deprive the courts of law of all independent authority,’ as well as to break up all gatherings of religious dissenters. He had already ruled nine years without a Parliament and his despotism seemed nearly complete. But one thing was lacking, and that was a standing army.”

In order to fund the army, the King proposed heavy taxes on the counties along the coast that profited from shipping. Hampshire, the home of the Bents, was one of those counties.

“England, to the outward eye, verdant, calm, and peaceful, but in reality on the verge of a political and religious volcano (The explosion came with the Civil War in 1642).”

A Decision to Risk the Trip

In the end, John decided to take the risk. His elderly mother, Agnes Bent, promised that she would consider sailing to America if Peter Noyes and John decided the conditions were good.  She entrusted £ 80  to Peter to help him finance the voyage and to look for land for her.

“[Peter] Noyes sailed from Southhampton on April 12, 1638 in the ship Confidence, taking 3 servants, his eldest son and daughter, and his neighbor, John Bent.”[/plain]

John and Martha brought with them five children ranging from two years old to thirteen years old.  At that time period, they would have been traveling on a sailing ship and would have been responsible for bringing along their own food which they prepared on board. It was no pleasure cruise.

The Confidence held 110 people–a large percentage of whom were servants. Perhaps most of the servants had indentured themselves in order to pay for travel. They would pay off the debt in a few years and become regular citizens. These were not impoverished immigrants dependent upon plantation investors from the old country. They had been leaders in their English communities and were well suited for building new towns in New England. The families on board were headed for various Massachusetts Bay Colony towns, but the Bents and Noyes and a couple of other families were going to Sudbury.

The American Scene

Since the Pilgrims had arrived in Plymouth in 1620, small towns had sprung up progressively reaching westward from the seacoast, so in that eighteen-year-span other people had started to build villages. Nevertheless, Sudbury lay on the edge of civilization, connected to other towns only by Indian trails and rivers traversed by canoe. Far from their mother land where the parish church was already a century or more old, the Bent family  now lived in wilderness, surrounded by natives who while generally friendly did not always accept their presence.

John’s Family and Responsibilities Grow

The year after John and Martha Bent arrived in Sudbury, his mother and sister set sail to join him.  My next story will deal with the story of the two Agnes Bents, but suffice it to say here that in addition to the five children that the Bents brought from England, they cared for one of John Bent’s nephew, Richard Barnes, for several years. Martha also gave birth to two more children–Joseph in 1641 and her namesake, my 7x great grandmother Martha, in 1643.

Two years after John arrived, he received status of Freeman in his new community, giving him rights to vote and help rule the town.  He settled in a part of Sudbury that is now the town of Wayland, building a house on a six-acre lot 1/4 mile from the Sudbury River. The following year, he served on a committee to assign timber to citizens. In 1648, the town fathers appointed John Bent as one of three men to “end small business under twenty shillings”, a kind of small claims court. The same year, leaders chose him to lay out the highway from Watertown to Danforth Farms (later Framingham), following the old Connecticut Path. Not everything that happened in 1648 was as happy. John and Martha’s oldest son Robert, died at the age of twenty-three.

Sudbury Massachusetts

Colonial Sudbury–early 18th century–and the Wayside Inn after John Bent’s day.

As his sons grew to adulthood, John helped them settle in other places, joining the petition to form the town of Marlboro (Marlborough) for the benefit of his son Peter in 1656.

John Bent’s Will

In September 1672, at 76 years of age, John Bent Senior, wrote his will. He must have been proud of his life’s work, having accumulated wealth, mostly in the form of land, to pass on to his children and grandchildren.

John Bent Will

1672 will of John Bent, Sr., of Sudbury.

John Bent was buried in the Old Cemetery in Sudbury, Massachusetts.

John was spared the heartbreak of losing two of his sons later that decade. In 1675, as we learned in an earlier post, tragedy struck when Peter accidentally shot his brother Joseph, the youngest of the family. Three years later, Peter died while on a trip to England. And Martha Bent, John Bent Sr.’s wife, died in 1679.

John Bent’s Legacy

John Bent, by coming to America in 1638 had founded a family that would spread across the country and even to Nova Scotia. In 1760 David Bent of Sudbury moved to Annapolis County, Nova Scotia, taking advantage of land that became available when the British expelled French Acadians  out of Canada. Four years later two other Bent families followed.

John Bent’s descendants included several soldiers of the Revolutionary War.

One of those was Lt. Col. Matthias Bent of Framingham, later a Deacon.  His daughter Abigail Bent wrote The Happy Merchant and Other Tales for Sunday School teaching. (Not timeless literature, it seems to have disappeared.)

One of those soldiers of the Revolution, Lt. Col. Silas Bent of Rutland, went to Ohio as one of the first settlers–thus probably a friend and neighbor of my other ancestors who traveled with Rufus Putnam–the Israel Stone family. Silas kept on moving west, moving on to Missouri. A 3x great-grandson of John Bent, Silas Bent was a judge of the Missouri Supreme Court in the early 19th century.

The judge’s son, Charles Bent, served briefly as the first American Governor of the Territory of New Mexico.The National Park Service maintains a fur trading fort Charles Bent and his brother established on the Santa Fe Trail: Old Bent’s Fort.

Bent's Fort

Bents Old Fort, near La Junta, Colorado, founded by Charles Bent in 1833.

During the Mexican War, the fort served as a base for the troops of American General Kearney. General Kearney  appointed Charles Bent as Governor of New Mexico after the Mexican War. He served from September 1846 until soldiers of the Pueblo uprising killed him in January 1847. (For those keeping track, Charles is the 4x great grandchild of John Bent through Peter Bent. That makes Charles my 5th Cousin, 4x removed.)

Little did John Bent know when he left England, what a mark his family would make on America.

For a guide to all the stories I have written about the Bents, go here.

How I Am Related

  • Vera Marie Kaser Badertscher is the daughter of
  • Harriette Anderson Kaser, the daughter of
  • Vera Stout (Anderson),the daughter of
  • Hattie Morgan (Stout), the daughter of
  • Mary Bassett (Morgan),the daughter of
  • Elizabeth Stone (Bassett) the daughter of
  • Elizabeth Howe (Stone), the daughter of
  • Israel Howe, the son of
  • David How, the son of
  • Martha Bent How, the daughter of
  • John Bent, Sr.

Research Notes

  • The Bent family in America : being mainly a genealogy of the descendants of John Bent : who settled in Sudbury, Massachusetts, in 1638 : with notes upon the family in England and elsewhere. in North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000 at Ancestry.com, Allen H. Bent, 1900. Also available at Archives.org.
  • U. S. and Canada Passenger and Immigration Index, 1500s-1900s, Ancestry. Record for John Bent Sr. arrival 1638.This edition was privately printed in 75 quarto copies for W. Elliot Woodward. Same as the octavo edition of 1860 with an additional section, “The First Settlers of Plymouth,” pp. 115-122. Research originally done, 1858-1860, for The New England Historical Society.Source Bibliography:
    DRAKE, SAMUEL G. Result of Some Researches Among the British Archives for Information Relative to the Founders of New England …. 3rd ed. Boston: John Wilson and Son, 1865.
  • U.S. and Canada Passenger and Immigration Index, 1500s-1900s, Ancestry. Record for John Bent Sr.., arrival 1638
  • A History of Framingham, Massachusetts, including the plantation, from 1640 to the present time with an appendix containing a notice of Sudbury and its first proprietors. By William Barry, 1847, J. Munroe & Co., Boson. At the Library of Congress. Accessed through archive.org.
  • A History of Sudbury 1638-1889, Alfred S. Hudson 1889, R. H. Blodgett, Sudbury.  Available on archives.org
  • England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975, Ancestry.com 2014 (John and Martha Bent parent of James and parent of Ann(Agnes).
  • Massachusetts Applications of Freemen, 1630-91, Ancestry.com 2010, John Bent 1640
  • Massachusetts, Compiled Census and Census Substitutes Index, 1790-1890, Ancestry.com 1999, John Bent 1639
  • Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, Roxbury, 1630-1867, Jay Mack Holbrook, 1985, John Bent Death 1672
  • Middlesex County, Massachusetts Probate Index, 1648-1870,Flint, James, compiler, Anestry.com 2000 John Bent, Sudbury, 1672.
  • In addition to this index, the book The Bent Family in America reprints the entire will (ref above).,
  • U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900, Source number: 76.000; Source type: Electronic Database; Number of Pages: 1; Submitter Code: CGF, John Bent and Martha Blanchard, 1624, Hampshire, Ancestry.com 2004
  • FindaGrave.com, John Bent 1596-1672
  • Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town, Sumner Chilton Powell, Wesleyan University Press, University Press of New England, Hanover NH 1970, read in Kindle Edition.

John Bent Jr. , Tithingman of Framingham

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John Bent Jr. 1636-1717

Tithingman

Tithingman illustration from Stories of the Pilgrims by Margaret B. Pumphrey

John Bent Jr. was the fifth child of John Bent, Sr. and his wife Martha. The family arrived in American in 1638, on the ship Confidence, sailing from Southampton.  Since John was only two years old, he surely didn’t remember anything about his native land, but we know that he was baptized in Penton Grafton, Hampshire County, England on January 24, 1636.

John would have been 7 years old when my 7x great-grandmother, Martha Bent was born in their new home in Sudbury, Massachusetts. In Sudbury he saw  his 23-yr-old brother Robert die in 1648.

From Sudbury to Framingham with 1st Wife Hannah Stone

He grew up in that small Puritan village and met and married Hannah Stone* of Cambridge on  July 1, 1658.  They had a daughter, named Hannah** for her mother, in 1661 and then like so many young men, John apparently decided he need to move away from Sudbury to take advantage of more land available nearby.

The Old Connecticut Path

In 1662 John Bent Jr. bought land in what is now Framingham “near the Fordway over the Cochituate Brook on the west side of the  old Connecticut Path. ” (The link here takes you to an excellent Wikipedia article on the history of the path). There he built one of the first houses in Framingham.  The Bent Family History describes the “old Connecticut Path” in a footnote:

“This old Indian trail was the only way eastern settlers [meaning those migrating east from the first settlements around Plymouth] had to reach the towns on the Connecticut River.  It ran west along the north bank of the Charles River, then to the northern end of Cochituate Pond and Southwest through South Framingham.”

Roadways were few and far between, and John Bent’s location on the side of the old Connecticut Path would be a very important location. Cochituate Pond is now Cochituate Lake. The old Connecticut Path still exists in portions of Rt. 9 and of Rt. 126 through Wayland where it splits with the Bay Path, later called The Boston Post Road. The Boston Post Road runs past what was Howe’s Tavern–now Longfellow’s Wayside Inn.  Just think, a road trip through Massachusetts may take you along a path followed by American Indians more than 500 years ago. If you are traveling in the area, you can find many articles on the internet specifying routes to take, wild areas and parks along the way, etc.

John Bent Jr.’s father John and his brothers Peter and Joseph had moved to the new town of Marlborough, where tragedy befell as I told before in the stories of Joseph (died in 1675) and Peter (died in 1678).

The map below shows a current day view of the portion of the old Connecticut path that went through John Bent’s farm, the location of Sudbury and Marlborough.  The distances are short–about five miles from the center of Sudbury to John’s property. Click on markers for more descriptions and a surprise.

Of course for John Bent, it was not just a scenic drive–it was his livelihood. In 1680 his daughter married John Adams.  However, once again John Jr. lost a younger sibling, when sister Martha Bent Howe ( 7x great-grandmother) in 1680 at the age of thirty-seven.

Apparently John Jr. was prosperous, because in 1683 he bought another 60 acres adjoining his farm.

John’s wife, Hannah, died about 1689 and on November 29, 1689, John Bent married his second wife, Martha Rice.    Martha , born in 1657, was twenty-one years younger than her husband, now in his early fifties. The marriage created one of those complex relationships that came from choosing spouses in a small community. Martha Rice ‘s father, Matthew had a brother, Edward Rice married to Martha’s new husband’s sister.

Life With Second Wife Martha Rice

Although the Bent Family History assigns three children to John Bent and his first wife, Hannah Stone, the birth dates indicate that John’s two sons were born to his second wife, Martha Rice. In fact, John Jr., born in 1689, might explain why John married Martha, since they were married in November that year.  Two years later, another son, David, arrived.

In 1693, John Bent headed the first petition for incorporation of Framingham.  However, incorporation had to wait another seven years. By 1700, when incorporation finally happened, 76 families lived in Framingham.

Like most of my ancestors in Puritan villages, John Bent did his civic duty. In his case, the record shows that in March, 1701, he was assigned the job of Tithingman.He had reached the advanced age of 65. The Bent Family History describes tithingman as a position of authority both on Sundays and throughout the week. In fact, this New England Historical Society.com article, calls the men who were tithingmen, “The most powerful men in New England” and relates how one may have challenged George Washington. [NOTE: I have removed the link from this site because I have learned they are content scrapers–stealing content from other writers and websites. They are NOT affiliated with the REAL New England Historical Genealogical Society site, which is called www.americanancestors.org. I am sorry that I cannot credit the actual writer of the piece I cited. Please do not support scraper sites!]

Like Sudbury and Marlborough, Framingham fell prey to Indian attack. They suffered an attack in 1707.

John Bent Jr. Lives a Long Life

Although I have been unable to find a place to get a copy of his will, or a recorded date of death, the Bent Family History quotes his will saying it was made in the first year of King George, which started in August 1714 when John was 79 years old.  The will says that he was frail and weak of body. An Index from ancestry.com and A History of Framingham says that he died September 15, 1717, in which case he would have been 82 years old.

At any rate, he lived much longer than most of his family. Only his older sister Agnes, who died at the age of 79 in 1715 proved as hearty as John Bent, Jr. His will left property divided equally between his two sons and says that he had previously given his daughter Hannah her share.  One record I have seen shows an Adams with property adjoining John Bent’s land, so perhaps he gave Hannah and her husband John Adams part of his land.

The Bent Family History does not mention a bequest to his wife Martha Rice. I have only found one record that gives an approximate death year for her of 1717. On the other hand, a descendant states on his tree that she must have died before 1716, because her father’s will does not mention her. I also have been unable to locate her father’s will.  So mysteries remain.

*Hannah Stone, married to my 8th great-uncle, is my second tie to the Stone family of Massachusetts. My 3x great-grandmother is Elizabeth Stone (Bassett). Hannah’s grandfather was Gregory Stone.  Elizabeth’s 4x grandfather was the same Gregory Stone, making him my 9th great-grandfather.

**Hannah Bent, John Bent Jr.’s daughter, married John Adams. Not THE John Adams, and not even a remotely close relative of THE John Adams as far as I can see.

For a complete guide to all the articles I have written about the Bent family, go here.

How I am Related

  • Vera Marie Kaser Badertscher is the daughter of
  • Harriette Anderson Kaser, the daughter of
  • Vera Stout (Anderson),the daughter of
  • Hattie Morgan (Stout), the daughter of
  • Mary Bassett (Morgan),the daughter of
  • Elizabeth Stone (Bassett) the daughter of
  • Elizabeth Howe (Stone), the daughter of
  • Israel Howe, the son of
  • David How, the son of
  • Samuel and Martha Bent How, the sister of
  • John Bent, Jr.

Notes on Research

  • The Bent family in America : being mainly a genealogy of the descendants of John Bent : who settled in Sudbury, Massachusetts, in 1638 : with notes upon the family in England and elsewhere. in North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000 at Ancestry.com, Allen H. Bent, 1900
  • U. S. and Canada Passenger and Immigration Index, 1500s-1900s, Ancestry. Record for John Bent Jr. arrival 1638.This edition was privately printed in 75 quarto copies for W. Elliot Woodward. Same as the octavo edition of 1860 with an additional section, “The First Settlers of Plymouth,” pp. 115-122. Research originally done, 1858-1860, for The New England Historical Society.Source Bibliography:
    DRAKE, SAMUEL G. Result of Some Researches Among the British Archives for Information Relative to the Founders of New England …. 3rd ed. Boston: John Wilson and Son, 1865.
  • U.S. and Canada Passenger and Immigration Index, 1500s-1900s, Ancestry. Record for John Bent Jr., arrival 1638
  • A History of Framingham, Massachusetts, including the plantation, from 1640 to the present time with an appendix containing a notice of Sudbury and its first proprietors. By William Barry, 1847, J. Munroe & Co., Boson. At the Library of Congress. Accessed through archive.org.
  • Massachusetts, Marriages, 1633-1850,Dodd, Jordan, Liahona Research, comp, Ancestry.com Listing for the marriage of John Bent, Jr. and Hannah Stone.
  • Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, Roxbury, 1630-1867, Jay Mack Holbrook, compiled 1985, Ancestry.com. Listing for John Bent’s Death.
  • The New England Historical & Genealogical Register, 1647-2011, Ancestry.com Listing for John Bent, Jr. marriage to Hannah Stone.