Person:Robert Seabrook (1)

"Robert Seabrook. An elderly man, one of the early settlers in Stratford, he did not long survive. His will is not found, and our only knowledge of it comes from mention of it in Stratford Deeds, where land was entered to the following persons which they had by gift from their grandfather Robert Seabrook: Samuel Fairchild, Thomas Fairchild, Jehiel Preston, John Wheeler's wife, Samuel Stiles's wife, and perhaps others not noted. From this we deduce that he had daus. who m. Thomas Fairchild, William Preston,

[Jehiel Preston had land entered in Stratford, 8 Oct. 1670, 'by gift from his Grandfather Mr. Robt Seabrook.' As he was then the husband of Sarah Fairchild, a gr. dau. of Seabrook, there is a possibility that the land was in right of his wife; but the land of other husbands of Seabrook gr. daus. was entered as being given by Seabrook to their wives. The evidence is insufficient for certainty.]

and Thomas Sherwood; the wives of Wheeler and Stiles were daus. of Sherwood.

Preston was from Chesham, co. Buckingham, and the name Seabrook is common in that county, where at Wingrave a Robert Seabrook m. 12 Sept 1596, Alice Goodspeed, bapt. 19 Aug. 1576, dau. of Nicholas, Jr., and Margaret Goodspeed. She was a cousin of Roger Goodspeed, the Barnstable settler. If this was the emigrant Robert, he may have married more than once; but unless research in England be made, we have only vague surmise on which to build."^[1]

"In 1950 Donald Lines Jacobus noted that '[i]t has been stated in many accounts that William Preston's second wife was a daughter of Robert Seabrook, but the compiler doubts that this was so and believes that identification to have been based on a misinterpretation of a deed in Stratford' [Kimberly Gen 11]. In 1960 he provided more detail, noting that the 'evidence for this claim was a deed in which her son Jehiel Preston mentioned land that came from his grandfather Robert Seabrook. However, it is known that Jehiel's wife was a granddaughter of Robert Seabrook, and that fact suffices to explain the term used in the Deed. Mary's identity remains unknown' [Ackley-Bosworth 134.)"^[2]

It has been stated that Robert Seabrook came to America in 1634, but evidence is lacking and he was not included as a subject in The Great Migration, volume VI, R-S.

1. ↑ Seabrook, in Jacobus, Donald Lines. History and Genealogy of the Families of Old Fairfield. (New Haven, Conn.: The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Company, 1930-1932)
   1:523.
2. ↑ William Preston, in Anderson, Robert Charles; George F. Sanborn; and Melinde Lutz Sanborn. The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635. (Boston, Massachusetts: NEHGS, 1999-2011)
   5:522.