Person:John Brown (261)

From the Munsey-Hopkins Genealogy^S1 comes this colorful story of John Brown's place in American history:

"John1 Brown, son of Richard Brown of Barton Regis, County Gloucester, England, married Margaret, daughter of Francis Hayward, of Bristol, England, and settled near Pemaquid Point, Maine, at the head of New Harbor, in what is now the town of Bristol, in the county of Lincoln, Maine. The Magazine of American History says he was a brother-in-law of John Pierce, and related to the Pierce family of Muscongus, who settled there, it is believed, in 1621; while Brown was doubtless an old resident of the ancient Popham Fort of 1614. Others think he was sent as a planter to New England by Jennens or John Pierce under authority derived from the Plymouth Colony. At any rate, he was one of the first settlers at New Harbor.

"By a deed, dated July fifteenth, 1625, he bought of Samoset (or Somerset), the Indian sagamore who welcomed the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and Unnongoit, another sagamore, a tract of land embracing a large part of Lincoln County and including Muscongus Island. This immense tract extended back twenty-five miles from the sea and was eight miles wide on the rear line. The original deed is supposed to have been burned in the Boston Court House in 1748. The price paid for this princely tract was "50 Skins," which the Indians received "to their full satisfaction." This was the first deed of conveyance on American soil. The existence of this deed I gave rise to numerous claims by Brown's heirs. These claims, with others, such as Hawthorne refers to in his House of the Seven Gables, were finally settled by a commission in 1813; and so ended "the last great controversy respecting landtitles in Maine."

1. ↑ Brown, John, in Lowell, Daniel Ozro Smith. A Munsey-Hopkins genealogy: being the ancestry of Andrew Chancey Munsey and Mary Jane Merritt Hopkins, the parents of Frank A. Munsey, his brother and sisters. (Boston, MA: (Privately published), 1920)
   p. 80-81.

   "John Brown resided at New Harbor until the time of his death, which took place after the year 1660." Also see text for a description of John Brown's life. Cites sources.

2.   Savage, James. A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England: Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May, 1692, on the Basis of Farmer's Register. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co, 1860-1862)
   1:270.

   "JOHN, Maine 1641, s. of Richard of Barton Regis. Co. Glouster, m. Margaret, d. of Francis Hayward of the City of Bristol, as he told Robert Allen of Sheepscot, for R. A. so swore on 21 Feb. 1659 at Bristol, Eng. (as there rec.) that he kn. for 17 yrs. J. B. of Newharbor, a mason, and that he was in good health in N. E. June preced."