Person:Francis Foxcroft (1)

"Francis Foxcroft is said, on the authority of -----, to have been son of Daniel Foxcroft, mayor of Leeds, Eng., and born there 13 Nov 1657. He came to Cambridge, Mass., before 1682, the date of his marriage. He resided in Boston at the time of the birth of his dau. Martha, in 1688, certainly, and was still there at the birth of Samuel in 1700. Meantime he comes into public records only in the way of discharging a mortgage for Charles Lidgett, of Boston for whom he acted as attorney, 27 Jan., 1692-3. [Suff. Deeds, XI, 326]. After the death of his wife's father he purchased the rights of the other heirs in the Danforth homestead and resided there. He is mentioned in Proprietor's Records of Cambridge, first in 1704, and thence forward "Col. Francis Foxcroft," and "Francis Foxcroft, Esquire" occur frequently. He was a man of wealth and energy; justice of the peace under Andros, and bore heavy obloquy at his fall, being imprisoned as an upholder of a bad ruler. But he was afterward made judge of the Court of Common Pleas and of Probate, and had large influence. "Greatly extolled as a man and Christian."^[1]

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 May, John Joseph. Danforth genealogy: Nicholas Danforth, of Framlingham, England, and Cambridge, N.E., (1589- 1638) and William Danforth, of Newbury, Mass. (1640-1721) and their descendants... (Boston: Charles H. Pope, 1902)
   p 21.
2. ↑ This is recorded in one of the commentaries relating to his son-in-law Rev. Thomas Poyer (will source when I run across it again).