Family talk:Joseph Hull and Agnes Unknown (1)

All Mixed Up [3 March 2009]

One would expect that the Source:The Hull family in America (57868) is the more or less authoritative source for this family? This book is viewable on Repository:Heritage Quest Online for those that have access.

For Rev. Joseph Hull and his second wife Agnes, the children are listed as Hopewell, Benjamin, Naomi, Ruth, Reuben, Sarah and Samuel. This differs quite a bit from the children given on this page.

I noted on Person talk:Joan Hull (2) that she clearly does not seem belong in this family. Nor do I think she belongs in the first marriage based on information given on her page.

According to the source cited, Sarah d. 1647. She could be born in 1636 as shown on Person:Sarah Hull (2) and still have died in 1647, but the source above disagrees with the death date of 1674 show on this page. Is this a typo? Or is this a different Sarah Hull, or is there another source that updates the source I have cited?

The Hull Family Association lists the following children of Rev. Joseph's son Joseph: Benjamin, Phineas, Dodivah, and John. This Joseph appears to have gone to York, ME (not York, MA) with his father and stayed in the area, since several activities of these children occur in Maine and NH. So, should Person:Dodivah Hull (1) and Person:Chineas Hull (1) [sic] be moved to Family:Joseph Hull and Mrs-Joseph Hull (1)?

I have no idea where Person:Lucilla Hull (1) came from.

Branching a little further afield, a comment on Family:Joseph Hull and Unknown (1), the page for Rev. Joseph's first marriage, cites greatmigration.org and lists the children of the second marriage as Hopewell, Benjamin, Naomi, Ruth, Dodovah, Samuel, Phineas, Reuben, Ephraim and Priscilla. In this scenario, obviously Chineas is Phineas, and Lucilla is Priscilla. Where is Ephraim?

The Great Migration Begins project is usually very good, and this may all be good genealogy, but none of the usually very well-documented logic of that source has been abstracted here, so it is hard to tell. I do not have access to this source, and will try to look it up in a library, but at this point, I think it is reasonable to wonder if the families of the two Josephs are being combined, especially as Rev. Joseph Hull was nearing 60 by the births of some of these children.

In the meantime, it does not help that there has obviously been some sloppy typing, and no sources are given to let us know what these records are based. This makes it very hard for me, as I have a source published by the Hull Family Association. Being, one might hope, the collaboration of a group of people with a vested interest, one would tend to think it has some authority. So since no sources are given, I would not hesitate to change these pages, if the citation of greatmigration.org on a different page did not command as much of my respect as it does.

If any of the people watching this page, can document these pages better, it would help greatly. Thanks. --Jrich 10:08, 3 March 2009 (EST)

GM [3 March 2009]

I paste this here temporarily for discussion purposes since not everyone has access. From the comments section of the Great Migration entry on Joseph:

In the 1635 passenger list, Agnes Hull, wife of Rev. Joseph, is said to be twenty-five years old, and on this basis she cannot have been the mother of his older children. All published accounts assume that she married Hull just before the passenger list was compiled, and that his first seven children are by an earlier wife. This is certainly possible, but there is no reason why she could not have been mother of some of the younger children on the passenger list. As she was apparently still bearing children as late as 1652, we cannot propose that she was the mother of all the children if we were able to adjust her age on the passenger list to thirty-five, as this would put her into her early fifties when the last children were born. So, in the absence of further evidence, we postulate two wives. There is no evidence that the first wife was named Joan.

We next have to address the problem of the evidence for placing all these children in the family of Rev. Joseph Hull. The first seven are proved by the passenger list, and the ninth, tenth, eleventh, fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth by baptismal records

This leaves four sons for whom there is no equivalent evidence: Hopewell, Dodovah, Samuel and Phineas, the last three all apparently born in the mid to late 1640s, when Rev. Joseph Hull and his family were living in York. In his will of 26 March 1693, Hopewell Hull named "brother Benjamin Hull" as overseer, and Samuel Hull is seen in association with these families [NJArch 21:108, 194]. Reuben Hull named a son Dodovah Hull [GDMNH 358], so these two men would seem to be brothers. The evidence is most tenuous for Phineas, although he did reside late in his life in York [GDMNH 358]. Firmer evidence for or against placing him in this family would be welcome.

The evidence for the residence and vital events in Launceston, Cornwall, has been pieced together from three sources. The baptisms for Reuben and Ephraim were published by Burton Spear [M&JCH 17:96], the baptisms for Ephraim and Priscilla by Carl Boyer [Ancestral Lines, 3rd edition (Santa Clarita, California, 1998), cited above as Ancestral Lines, pp. 318-22], and the incomplete burial record for Priscilla by Noyes, Libby and Davis [GDMNH 358]. These three sets of records are all presumably derived from the same source, the Launceston parish register, and are consistent with one another. However, since each person who examined this register obtained a different result, further examination of the register should be undertaken.

From the three baptisms at Hingham and Barnstable and the two at Launceston, we see a regular interval of almost exactly a year, implying that the family employed a wetnurse. Under these circumstances, we have considerably more leeway in arranging the birth order of the children, and, in particular, might just as well place Hopewell in the mid-1640s.

Evidence for the marriages of three of the daughters (Temperance, Dorothy and Naomi) is also slight, and is best summarized by Stackpole and Meserve [Durham Hist 2:222-24]. The evidence for the marriage of John Heard and Elizabeth Hull is onomastic, inasmuch as they named sons Joseph and Tristram [GDMNH 322].

Most compiled treatments of the family of Rev. Joseph Hull include a daughter Sarah who died in 1647 [GDMNH 358; Hull Gen 249; Durham Hist 2:225]. This child was actually a daughter of Tristram Hull, son of Joseph. In the register of Yarmouth vital events for 1647, submitted to the Plymouth Colony Court, is the birth on 18 October of that year of "Sara Hull, the daughter of Trustrum Hull" [PCR 8:3]. Six entries later, in a portion of the same document that has been damaged, is "Sara Hull, the [damaged] died [damaged]" [PCR 8:4]. Many years later, after Tristram Hull had moved to Barnstable, he entered in the records of that town a list of the births of five children, the first of whom was "his daughter Mary, born the latter end of September, 1645," and the second of whom was "Sarah, the latter end of March, 1650" [PCR 8:45]. The gap between 1645 and 1650 accommodates the daughter Sarah who was born and died that year, and for whom the next daughter born to this family was named. Some genealogist of the past misappropriated this death record of 1647, placing it in the family of Rev. Joseph Hull rather than in its proper place. The further claim that this non-existent daughter Sarah was born in 1636 must have arisen from an attempt, once her existence was believed, to find an appropriate place for her in the list of children.

The child list is as follows:

MARRIAGE: (1) By about 1620 _____ _____.

(2) By 1635 Agnes _____. She was living on 5 December 1666.

CHILDREN:

With first wife

    i      JOANNA HULL, b. about 1620 (aged 15 in 1635 [Hotten 283]); m. (1) Sandwich about 28 November 1639 JOHN BURSLEY {1623, Weymouth} [NEHGR 9:286; GMB 1:280-83]; m. (2) on an unknown date DOLOR DAVIS {1634, Cambridge} [GM 2:2:292-97].

    ii      JOSEPH HULL, b. about 1622 (aged 13 in 1635 [Hotten 283]); living in November 1644 (assuming that he was the son of Rev. Joseph Hull who was involved in the death of Richard Cornish) [WJ 2:258]; no further record.

   iii      TRISTRAM HULL, b. about 1624 (aged 11 in 1635 [Hotten 283]); m. by 1645 Blanche _____ (eldest known child b. Barnstable "the latter end of September, 1645" [PCR 8:45]; in his will of 20 December 1666, "Mr. Thristrum Hull of Barnstable" named "his wife Blanch Hull" [MD 17:23-24, citing PCPR 2:2:41-42]).

   iv      TEMPERANCE HULL, bp. Northleigh, Devonshire, 20 March 1625/6 [TAG 68:149]; m. by about 1650 John Bickford [GDMNH 91; Durham Hist 2:222].

   v      ELIZABETH HULL, b. about 1628 (aged 7 in 1635 [Hotten 283]); m. by 1643 John Heard [GDMNH 322].

   vi      GRISELDA HULL, b. about 1630 (aged 5 in 1635 [Hotten 283]); sailed to New England with family in 1635 [Hotten 283]; no further record. (James Warren of Kittery named a daughter Grizel [GDMNH 721], and on this basis the suggestion has been made that his wife was Griselda Hull [ONGQ 12:92, 137]; but in all records his wife is named Margaret, and this usage of the name for his daughter appears to be nothing more than a coincidence.)

  vii      DOROTHY HULL, b. about 1632 (aged 3 in 1635 [Hotten 283]); m. (1) by about 1660 Oliver Kent [GDMNH 398]; m. (2) after 28 June 1670 Benjamin Mathews [GDMNH 467-68; Durham Hist 2:222-24].

With second wife

 viii      HOPEWELL HULL, b. say 1636; m. by 1669 Mary Martin, daughter of John Martin [NJArch 22:lxxix].

   ix      BENJAMIN HULL, bp. Hingham 24 March 1638/9 [NEHGR 121:11]; m. by 1669 Rachel York (eldest known child b. 5 May 1669 [Monnette 235]), daughter of Richard York (in his will of 23 April 1672, "Ritchard Yorke" included a bequest to "my daughter Ratchell Halle [sic]" [NHPP 31:134]).

   x      NAOMI HULL, bp. Barnstable 23 March 1639/40 [NEHGR 9:282]; on 15 June 1661, "Naomi Hull, aged twenty years and upwards," testified as to events in the household of "her master [Samuel] Symonds" of Ipswich [EQC 2:296-97]; on 17 September 1667, "Amy Hull [was] presented for committing fornication, sentence to be whipped to the number of 15 stripes & fees" [NHPP 40:229]; m. by an unknown date Davy Daniel [GDMNH 182; Durham Hist 2:222-24].

   xi       RUTH HULL, bp. Barnstable 9 May 1641 (the first of two baptisms on the same day, annotated "Both these from Yarmouth, the parents of the first being yet members with us") [NEHGR 9:282]; no further record. (The Ruth Hull who married William Raymond was daughter of Isaac Hull of Beverly [Dawes-Gates 2:467-68].)

  xii      DODOVAH HULL, b. say 1643 (granted land at York on 21 September 1667 [YLR 11:14]); m. about 1680 Mary Seward, daughter of Richard Seward (Mary Seward was b. in 1658 and their only known child was m. in 1700 [GDMNH 237, 621]).

 xiii      SAMUEL HULL, b. say 1645; m. (1) Piscataway, New Jersey, 16 November 1677 Mary Manning [Monnette 227]; m. (2) by 1702 Margaret _____ (eldest known child b. Piscataway, New Jersey, 5 December 1702 [Monnette 235]).

 xiv      (possibly) PHINEAS HULL, b. about 1647 (deposed 24 August 1674 "aged 27 years or thereabouts" [MPCR 2:492]); m. (1) by about 1675 Jerusha Hitchcock, daughter of RICHARD HITCHCOCK {1634, Massachusetts Bay} [GM 2:3:339-42]; m. (2) after 1689 Mary (Rishworth) (White) Sayward, daughter of EDWARD RISHWORTH {1638, Exeter} [GDMNH 588] and widow of (William?) White [GDMNH 749] and John Sayward [GDMNH 611].

  xv      REUBEN HULL, bp. Launceston, Cornwall, 23 January 1648/9 [M&JCH 17:96] (aged about 20 in June 1669 [GDMNH, citing an unidentified source]); m. by 1673 Hannah Ferniside (eldest known child b. Boston 9 September 1673 [BVR 128]), daughter of John Ferniside (in his will of 23 December 1689, "Reuben Hull of Portsmouth" included bequests to "my well beloved wife Hannah Hull" and "my sister Sarah Fermiside" [NHPP 31:332-33; NEHGR 94:174-75]).

 xvi      EPHRAIM HULL, bp. Launceston, Cornwall, 13 February 1649/50 [M&JCH 17:96; Ancestral Lines 318-22]; no further record.

xvii PRISCILLA HULL, bp. Launceston, Cornwall, 30 March 1651 [Ancestral Lines 318-22]; bur. there in 1652 [GDMNH 358, apparently citing Launceston parish register].

No time for actual comments now, But I do note that the Bibliographic note casts doubt on the book cited above: "BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE: In 1909 and 1910 Orra Eugene Monnette published a lengthy study of the New Jersey branches of the descendants of Rev. Joseph Hull [ONGQ 12:86-92, 134-42, 13:26-35]. The presentation and argumentation in this article are of a better quality than other work compiled by Monnette.

In 1913 Everett S. Stackpole and Winthrop S. Meserve published a brief account of the family of Rev. Joseph Hull that included an excellent discussion of the evidence in favor of the marriages made by Hull's daughters [Durham Hist 2:221-25]. Also in 1913 Col. Weygant published The Hull Family in America (cited above as Hull Gen), which contained many errors." --Amelia 10:47, 3 March 2009 (EST)

Thanks. As usual with GM, this is great stuff. Too bad the authors of the pages didn't annotate their pages. I will look into all this. --Jrich 11:43, 3 March 2009 (EST)

Wow, this is a mess. [3 March 2009]

This will be a long investigation [probably until I get tired and just stop looking :-)].

I was citing the Col. Weygandt book. Its narrative says that Rev. Joseph Hull was a minister in York ME until 1652 or 1653 when Massachusetts took control of Maine, and his forced replacement by his long-time adversaries, the church authorities of Massachusetts. Then he became rector of St. Burien, Cornwall, England.

The reason why I cite this, is because the baptisms supposed to be his children in Launceston, Cornwall, England, occured in 1648/49, 1649/50, and 1651 (ie. before he was in England), in a location that appears to be about 75 miles away (2 or 3 days travel?). [While the Great Migration text indicates some questions about these, Priscilla's baptism, at least, is listed in IGI as being a transcription of the FHL film of the Launceston parish register.]

A book called Handbook on the History of York, Maine, lists pastors of the First Parish of York, including Rev. Joseph Hull 1642-1659, and second time 1662-1665. I suspect the 1659 date is inaccurate. New England Families, by W. R. Cutter, says he was in England 1652-1662. The 1652 date has the attraction that the merger with Massachusetts does provide a possible motivation for Rev. Hull's sojourn in England, but I do not know if any of these dates are well-documented since there seems to be some disagreement? Still, I have seen none earlier than 1652.

Also in 1648, Rev. Hull was 53, in 1652 he was 57. Even his younger wife was 38 and 43, respectively. His son Joseph, however, would have been 26 and 30, respectively. It seems somewhat more likely that these children, popped out about a year apart, might have been his son Joseph's. Or an unrelated Joseph Hull.

Perhaps, his son was in England earlier than the father, and indeed, may have been instrumental in his father obtaining his rector-ship there even after 17 years out of the country? --Jrich 13:24, 3 March 2009 (EST)

Oops, spoke too soon.

From History of the Town of Durham, NH, p. 222

"Dec. 28, 1669, John Bickford, aged about 60, and John Simmins (Symonds) aged about 52, deposed that 'about four and twenty years agoe or there about naomy hulls father and mother they went for England: and left theyer Children to the wid wilderness: and Left them very young and wear not tutred (tutored) as they ought to have been.' [NH Court Files, 1:325]"

This would put the return to England about 1644. John Bickford is said here to be possibly the second husband of Temperance Hull, widow of Oliver Kent, meaning possibly a reliable witness. --Jrich 15:03, 3 March 2009 (EST)