Person:William Harlow (1)

NOTE: Sergeant William Harlow is not the same as William Harlow of Sandwich as stated in NEHGR 14:227-33 and other publications. See MD 12:193-4 for proof. The man in Sandwich is an older William Harlow.

From New England Families Genealogical and Memorial: Third Series, Volume II, p. 808

Sergeant William Harlow, the immigrant ancestor in America, came from England [the following is a different man: to Lynn, Massachusetts, where his name appears on a list of residents in 1629-30. In 1637 he was one of the men from Lynn who settled the town of Sandwich in Plymouth colony. In 1637 he was a witness and legatee in the will of Thomas Hampton, of Sandwich. In 1639 he was proposed for freeman and took the oath of fidelity. He had a lot of four acres assigned to him in 1640. Afterward] he removed to Plymouth. He was a cooper by trade and also a carpenter, and built several houses in Plymouth. One of them built in 1667, on a lot granted to him by the town, on the road to Sandwich, still stands; it was framed with the old timbers from the Pilgrim Fort on Burial Hill, purchased after King Philip's war, Sergeant Harlow having charge of the old fort for many years; Sergeant Harlow, a member of the South Company, served under Captain William Bradford. In 1882, when the house was repaired, a ponderous iron hinge from the fort was found and is now in Pilgrim Hall. Another house, built by Sergeant Harlow, known as the Doton House, was taken down in 1808. Sergeant Harlow was admitted a freeman in 1654; was juror, assessor, deputy to the general court, selectman fifteen years, and was active in the church. He died August 26, 1691, aged sixty-seven years. Sergeant Harlow married (first) at Plymouth, December 30, 1649, Rebecca Bartlett, who died in 1657, daughter of Robert and Mary (Warren) Bartlett, and granddaughter of Richard and Elizabeth (Juat-Marsh) Warren; Richard Warren came over in the "Mayflower." Sergeant Harlow married (second) July 15, 1658, Mary Faunce, who died October 4, 1664. He married (third) January 15, 1665, Mary Shelley, who survived him.

From Plymouth Colony: Its History and People 1620-1691 by Eugene Aubrey Stratton, FASG

Savage and Pope were wrong in their treatment of William Harlow and were corrected by George Ernest Bowman, "Sergeant William Harlow of Plymouth and William Harlow of Sandwich Were Not the Same Person," MD 12:193. The William Harlow of Plymouth town died 25 August 1691 in his sixty-seventh year (Ply. Town Recs. 1:202; Ply. Ch. Recs. 1:271), and thus was born ca. 1624. He was on the 1643 ATBA for Plymouth; he was a grandjuror on 7 June 1653 (PCR 3:32); and he became a freeman on 6 June 1654 (PCR 3:48). In 1656 he was a highway surveyor for Plymouth, and in 1661 he was a constable for Plymouth (PCR 3:100, 215). He was among those granted land on 3 June 1662 at Taunton (PCR 4:20). By the late 1660s he was known as Sergeant Harlow. On 1 June 1669 Sgt. William Harlow was a selectman for Plymouth (PCR 5:19), and on 15 September 1673 he became a deputy (PCR 5:135).

In the settlement of his estate, dated 9 September 1691, his widow is Mary Harlow, and his surviving children are sons Samuel, William, Nathaniel, and Benjamin, and seven unnamed daughters (MD 12:195). On 12 April 1667 Sgt. William Harlow made an agreement with Secretary Nathaniel Morton and his wife Lydia to put out his son Nathaniel Harlow, near two and one-half years old, with the Mortons until he was twenty-one (PCR 5:10). The agreement between Harlow and Morton showed that the Mortons "desired" the child, and it provided that in case Nathaniel Morton died before the child was seven years old, William Harlow would pay Ð10 to Lydia Morton to help in the maintenance of the child. Nathaniel Morton in his 1685 will gave a young cow and calf to his kinsman Nathaniel Harlow, son of William, and requested his loving kinsman Sgt. William Harlow to be a supervisor of his will (Ply. Colony LR 5:350). The kinship between Harlow and Morton would have been through Harlow's second wife, Mary Faunce, whose mother, Patience Morton, was a sister of Nathaniel Morton, and thus Nathaniel Harlow would have been Nathaniel Morton's nephew.

William Harlow's children by his first wife were William, Samuel, Rebecca, and William; by his second wife, Mary, Repentance, John, and Nathaniel; and by his third wife Hannah, Bathsheba, Joanna, Mehitabel, Judith, and Benjamin [MD 12:195). An early article, Theodore P. Adams, "The Harlow Family," NEHGR 14:227, is undocumented and has known errors. The house of William Harlow is still standing in Plymouth and may be visited during the summer; it is said to contain original beams from Plymouth's first meetinghouse-fort, and is known as the "Harlow Old Fort House."

(see http://library.ancestry.com/plym1.htm)

1. ↑ Landis, John T. Mayflower Descendants and Their Marriages for Two Generations After the Landing: including a short history of the church of the pilgrim founders of New England. (Washington, DC, 1922).
2. ↑ Virkus, Frederick Adams. Immigrant ancestors : a list of 2500 immigrants to America before 1750. (Baltimore [Maryland]: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1976, c1970).
3. ↑ ^3.0 3.1 Roser, Susan E. Mayflower Births & Deaths: From the files of George Ernest Bowman at the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants. (Baltimore [Maryland]: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1992)
   Volume II.
4.   Roser, Susan E. Mayflower Marriages: From the files of George Ernest Bowman at the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants. (Baltimore [Maryland]: Genealogical Pub. Co., c1990)
   p. 321.
5.   Pulsifer, David (editor), and Nathaniel B. (editor) Shurtleff. Records of the Colony of New Plymouth, in New England. (Boston, MA: William White, 1855-1861)
   Vol. 8, p. 8, 21, 26.
6.   van Antwerp, Lee Douglas, and Ruth Wilder Sherman. Vital Records of Plymouth, Massachusetts to the Year 1850. (Camden, Maine: Picton Press, 1993)
   p. 657.
7.   Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants. Mayflower Descendant: An Illustrated Quarterly Magazine of Pilgrim Genealogy, History and Biography
   Vol. 12, 193-4; 16, p. 62 (death), 121 (Bartlett marriage); 17, p. 182 (Faunce marriage); 18, p. 57 (daughter's birth).
8. ↑ Plymouth, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States. Plymouth church records, 1620-1859. (Boston: The Society, 1920-1923)
   First Church Vol. 1, p. 271.