read online William2 Adams's origins are more difficult to ascertain than those of the Woman who would become his Wife [Elizabeth Stacy of Bocking, Essex]. A William1 Adams (his father), who appeared in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1635, is recorded as a freeman in 1639 and as deceased in 1661 in Ipswich [See Essex Probate]. The son [William2 Adams] is listed, age 15, among the passengers of the Elizabeth and Ann, traveling to the New World from London in 1635. No other Ipswich residents appear to have been aboard that vessel with William. The best information on William Adams's emigration can be found in the first page of his narrative: When I was between 14 & 15 years of age, I came Over to New England & here Living first Under the ministry of Master Hooker [Thomas Hooker 1586-1647 who came over with the Stacy family]." ... In June 1636, Hooker's congregation left Newtown for Hartford, Connecticut; the William Adamses, father and son, chose to resettle in Ipswich instead. In Ipswich, William and Elisabeth married sometime between 1647 and 1649 and pursued a life that appears to have been of middling status." At his death, the inventory of William's estate included a '"Dwelling house and orchard together with six or seven acres of marsh near to Mr. William Paynes, "appraised at £70." His "clear estate" was valued at £278:13s:7d., and he possessed "Sixty acres or there abouts of land on the south side of the river by John Addams." Although it should be noted that William predeceased his father, thus having been deprived of the advantage of inheriting his estate, his assets do not place him and his family among Ipswich's more comfortable and secure residents. In April 1655, Elisabeth Adams died, and in January 1659, William did as well. Their son William, having been orphaned at age nine, was apparently cared for by relatives, perhaps the wife of John Whipple, one of the wealthier men in Ipswich, who seems to have been "either a sister of Simon Stacy or of his wife Elizabeth Clerke (Clark)."
