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I don't believe John Sayer is the father of Richard Sares (Sears) of Yarmouth, Plymouth Colony. This was debunked back in 1880 by Samuel P. May.
(NEHGS NEXUS, Vol V, No. 1, p.14:editor's notes) The origins of Richard
Sears, progenitor, b. ca 1590, are not known, but another tradition holds that
he came from the Channel Islands. In both versions of his book (Richard
Sears of Yarmouth and His Descendants rev.ed., 1913), and the published
1890 edition) Samuel May doubted that Richard Sears of the Channel Islands,
Marbelhead, and later Yarmouth, and Bartholomew Sears and Bastian
Gazeau were from the same family. Richard's wife was probably Dorothy
Jones of Dinder, co. Somerset, England(ibid., p14-15; see also TAG
58(1982):244-46). There was a Richard Serrie(s), bp.1605 in nearby
Croscombe, co. Somerset. Richard Seers settled in 1638 in Marblehead,
which was later(ca. 1650) settled by people from the islands of Guernsey and
Jersey in the British Channel. This may be a case of 'the Searses and the
Searses,' as in "Are there Two Kinds of Thayers?"(cf.NEXUS 2(1985):60-
61).
In NEHGS Vol 40, pp261 (July 1886) we find SOME DOUBTS CONCERNING THE SEARS PEDIGREE By Samuel Pearce May, Esq., of Newton, Mass.
Some years since, at the earnest soliciation of members of the family, I undertook the task of revising the “Sears Genealogy” and bringing it down to date. I did so in belief, common to the family and public generally, that the English ancestry of Richard Sares, of Yarmouth, as published, was entirely reliable, and that little more was to be learned on that head.
Soon after commencing my labors, my attention was drawn to discrepancies in the pedigree, seemingly irreconcilable, and an investigation was found necessary. The result of my researches proves [ p 262] beyond question that not one step of the pedigree can be substantiated by records, and on the contrary some portions are impossible, and others in conflict with known authorities.
I have been desired to give the facts publicity, in order that the pedigree may no longer be copied, and quoted as authority, as has been done in numerous local histories and family genealogies, and in the hope that, attention being drawn to the subject, renewed searches may discover the true origin of Richard Sares of Yarmouth. Want of space forbids my alluding to many errors, and I will therefore only refer to those most vital to the pedigree, as printed in “Pictures of the Olden Time,” etc., ed. 1857, Crosby Nichols & Co., Boston.
Part II
P.10. “John Sayer of Colchester, Alderman, etc. d. 1509, leaving by Elizabeth his wife, three sons, viz. John, Robert and George.
“The eldest of these, John, d. in 1562, leaving two sons, viz. Richard and George.
“The eldest of these, Richard, is the subject of the first of the sketches in ‘Pictures of the Olden Time.’ He was born in Colchester in 1508, married Anne Bourchier, dau. Of Edmd Knyver of Ashwellthorpe, co. Norf., second son of Sir Edwd Knyvet,… Richard became a fugitive to Holland in 1537, and d. Amsterdam, 1540. … His wife, the Lady Anne, clung faithfully to her husband in his adversity, and incurred the lasting displeasure of the Knyvets.
“It is inferred that her father became so bitterly estranged from her, as to erase her name from all his family records, that she might be forgotten for ever, for he gave to a younger daughter the name of Anne, while she was yet still living,…
“George Sayer, in consequence of Richard’s flight, secured for himself possession of the patrimonial inheritance.
“This George d. 1577. … His descendant and eventual heiress married Sir John Marhsam.”
Note: The Registers of St. Peter’s Church, of which John Sayer and his descendants in Colchester were parishioners, commence in 1653, more than one hundred years after the alleged flight of Richard Sayer to Holland; and of course contain no reference to the family previous to that date. The brass to John Sayer, Ald. Represents him kneeling with his wife, four sons, and a daughter, and gives the name of his wife, but not those of his children. The Herald’s Visitations of Essex do not mention the Sayer family previous to tthat of 1612, which gives, “George Sayer, of Col. in co. Ess., gentle, sonne & heire, & John Sayer of Col. 2d sonne,” as children of “-Sayer of Col. in Essex, Gent.”
George and John married sisters, co-heiresses of Werden; and their children quartered their mother’s arms, which perhaps led Morant to err in his History of Colchester, where he makes George the father to John’s children.
If we may believe the Heralds, George Sayer was the eldest son and rightful heir; -- that his brother John was a second son, is confirmed by his brass in St. Peters, which is differenced with a crescent. A special, but not exhaustive, search in London, by Mr. H.F. waters, resulted in finding many Sayer wills, but none certainly identified with the Colchester family, except thatof the above-named George Sayer, ob. 1577. He mentions his children and grandchildren, brother Robert’s children, and nephew Richard Sayer. The latter, son of John Sayer, died 1610, aet. 80, leaving an heiress.
It will be observed that the parentage of George Sayer is not given in the Visitation, and John was his brother, not his father.
[p. 263]
There was perhaps one generation between them and John Sayer, Ald.
The middle names of Bourchier, given to Anne Bourchier Knyver, and later to John Bourchier Sayer, father and son, are clearly anachronisms, as is also that of Ann Knyvet Sayer, and tend to discredit the pedigree. [middle names did not come into regular use until … LRS] Rev. Aug. Jessop, D.D., of East Hereham, Norfolk, has for years made the history and genealogy of the Knyvet family an especial study. I am informed by him that Edmund Knyvet had four married daughters, but none name Anne, much less two of that name; that he died insolvent, and in his will mentions none of his children by name. If there was an Anne, she does not seem to have been treated differently from her sisters.
P.12 “John Bourchier Sayer was born, say the family papers, in 1528.
“I suspect, however, that this is a mistake, and that the date is too early, for it would make his father but little more than 19 years of age at his marriage….
“Another date has it 1535…”
“He md Elizh, dau. Of Sir John Hawkins,…., and d. Holland, leaving by Elizh, his wife, four sons, viz: John Bourchier, Henry, William and Richard. Of the last three we have no facts, except that they were born in Plymouth, Engd, and that they settled in Kent. Plymouth was probably the temporary residence of their mother, while their father was with Hawkins as a navigator. Of John Bourchier I have given some account in the ‘Pictures.’ The date of his birth is given in the family papers as 1561.
“I have put it a little later for several reasons. He md Marie L. dau. Of Philip Lamoral van Egmond, and acquired with her a large fortune, principally in money.”
Note: Mr. Sears’s ideas in regard to dates, so important in a genealogy, are very elastic. The biographies generally state that Sir John Hawkins was born 1520, but they are in error. He died Nov. 12, 1595, and his widow erected a monument to his memory in St. Dunstan-in-the-East, London (of which he was parishioner some thirty years), with a Latin inscription, setting forth his forty-three years of service by sea and land; and a wooden mural tablet with English verses, printed in Stow’s London, ed. Strype, 1720, Vol. I. Book ii. Pp. 44,5. It ends this:
“Ending his life with his experience,
By deep decree of God’s high Providence,
His years to six times ten, & three amounting,
The ninth, the seventh climacterick by counting.
Dame Katherine, his first religious wife,
Saw years, thrice ten, & two of mortal life.” …
We see, therefore, that he was but 63 years of age in 1595, and so born about 1532, and this is confirmed by reckoning his “43 years of service” back from 1595, which brings us to 1552, when he would have been about 21, also by the fact that he was admitted freeman of Plymouth in 1555-6, a step altogether necessary at that period to a man in his position, and one that would not have been unnecessarily delayed after he attained his majority.
He removed to London in 1573, and succeeded his father-in-law, Gunson, as Treasurer of the Navy. His wife was then living, and as she died at the age of 32, she could not have been born earlier than 1541.
John Bourchier Sayer, Jr., is said to have been born in 1561. At that time John Hawkins was 29, and his wife of 20 years of age. Neither could have had a daughter of marriageable age at that date.
These dates are confirmed by R.N. Worth, F.G.S., author of “History of Plymouth” and “History of Devon,” and of an address on “Sir John Hawkins, Sailor, Statesman and Hero,” reprinted from Trans. Devon Ass’n, 1883.
The Registers of St. Andrews Church, Plymouth, to which parish the Hawkinses belonged, commence in 1573, in which year John Hawkins removed to London, and no record of him or the Sayers is to be found there.
As to the marriage with Marie L. van Egmond. --- The late Mr. S. Alofsen, of Jersey City (a well-known and esteemed antiquarian), addressed to the late S.G. Drake, then Editor of the Register, a letter which is on file. In it he states that [p. 264] the Egmond family never had a residence in Amsterdam, and that the family genealogy has been brought down to the latter part of the last century and printed:-- that it contains the name of but one Philip v. Egmond, viz. the son of Count Egmond, and that if John Bourchier Sayer did marry one of the family, his wife must have been of an obscure and unknown branch;-- a fact somewhat inconsistent with the “large fortune,” even in money, which she is said to have brought her husband.
P.13. “John Bourchier Sayer, md Marie L. van Egmond, amsterdam, 1585, and had Marie L. b. 1597, Richard 1590, John 1592, and Jane Knyvet 1596.
“These dates are copied from the family papers of the Searses of Chatham, and I think they are correct. Such a series depending on each other would not be all wrong. John Bourchier Sayer purchased with his wife’s fortune, property in England, adjoining the lands which he hoped soon to recover.
“Among the estates thus bought were Bourchier and Little Fordham Manors, both of which had in former times belonged to his ancestors.”
Note. In the parlor of Richard Sears, of Chatham, there formerly hung a chart pedigree of the family, now in possession of a descendant.
This chart states that Richard Sares was born Amsterdam, 1643, twenty-three years later than the printed acount,m and muchmore likely to be the correct date.
Morant and Wright, in their histories of Essex, state that Bourchier Hall, or Little Fordham, derives its name from its ancient owners, the Earls of Essex. Sir Robert Bourchier died possessed of Bourchier’s Hall in 1328, and it remained in the family until confiscated-Queen Elizabeth regranted it to William, Marquis of Northampton, who sold it to George Sayer in 1574. It continued in his descendants, finally passing to the Marsham family by marriage, fell into decay, was divided and sold. A part is now used as a farmhouse. I find no record that it ever before belonged to the Sayers.
P.14. Here Mr. Sears prints his only piece of documentary evidence, viz., a letter from J. Hawes, Yarmouth, June 20, 1798, to Daniel Sears, of Chatham, in which he signs himself,
“Your affectionate relative, and friend, J. Hawes.
In it Mr Hawes refers to sundry “curious and important documents,”… “I have heard from your brother Richard, that Knyvet Sares, or Sears, before he went to London, and some years before his death, collected and arranged these valuable papers with the intention of using them. They had long remained neglected and uncared for.
“Among them was a list of marriages, births and deaths, similar to that which I now send, and many original deeds and letters, with a long correspondence between the Sayres, the Knyvets, and others in England.
“It seemed to be closed by a letter from John Bourchier Sares, dated, Leyden, 1614.
“Your brother always speaks highly of this letter. … A highly interesting manuscript was compiled from these papers, and came into possession of Daniel Sears, your father.
“The original letters were taken to England, by Knyvet, and are possibly still there in the hands of some of the family. The manuscript was last seen and read so late as 1760, -- but neither the one nor the other are now to be found. It may be the originals are not lost, but the copy, your brother thinks, was either burnt, or carried away when the family mansion was nearly destroyed in 1763. … I send such facts as I have been able to collect, assisted by Richard and Mr Colman.”
Note. I have been unable to identify the writer of this letter, or ascertain his relationship to the family.
The signature attracts attention by its variance from the universal custom of the period, of writing the name in full. The only marriage recorded between the Sears and Hawes families is that of Jonathan Sears and Elizabeth, daughter of Dea. Joseph Hawes, of Yarmouth, in 1721. This Jonathan was second cousin, once removed to Daniel Sears.
I am aware that the Sears Genealogy says that Daniel Sears, of Chatham, married 1708, Sarah Hawes, daughter of J. Hawes, of Yarmouth (another mysterious J.), and this error, for such it is, has been perpetuated on the Sears monuments in Chatham, Yarmouth and Colchester. On Yarmouth town records the name is clearly written Howes, and the will of Samuel Howes, of Yarmouth, recorded Barnstable Prob. Rec. iv. 90, mentions “daus. Sarah Sears, & Hope Sears,” who married their cousin, Josiah Sears. “J. Hawes” the letter writer may stand for Dea. Joseph Hawes, the schoolmaster, who flourished in 1798, and long after.
There is no record, or tradition, in Chatham, of the family mansion have been “nearly destroyed in 1763.” Benjamin Bangs, of Harwich, who chronicled in his diary more trivial events happening in Chatham at that time, makes no mention of the occurrence, and when the old building was taken down in 1863, the original timbers were in place, with the bark still on, and there was no trace of its ever passing though the fiery ordeal.
A tradition that Deborah Sears broke through the floor of “the long chamber,” while dancing on her wedding night in 1742, was confirmed by a patch in the floor boards. And, we may ask, why should J. Hawes relate to Daniel Sears particulars with which he should have been conversant from childhood, and when his brohter Richard, living in the same town, could have given the information at first hands?
We admire the vivid recollection, after the lapse of thirty-eight years, of Richard Sears, of the letters, etc., read last, when he was scarce eleven years of age.
P.16. “John Bourchier Sayer, d. 1629. By Marie L. Egmond, his wife, he left two sons, and two daughters, viz.: Richard, John, Marie, and Jane. The three latter went to England and settled in Kent. …
“Richard Sayer or Sears. … His birth is variously given, but 1590, we think is the true date. He md Dorothy Thacher, at Plymouth, in 1632. The likeness of him was taken from a painting in Holland, in possession of the Egmont family, and is supposed to be correct. … He d. 1676, and his wife in 1680. By her he had the following children, viz.: Knyvet, Paul, Silas and Deborah. … Knyvet Sears was b. 1635, md Elizh Dymoke, … went to England on a second voyage, and d. 1686, at the residence of his relative, Catherine (subsequently Baroness Berners), dau. Of Sir John Knyvet, and wife of John Harris, Esq.
“The evidences he carried with him were never recovered. He left two children, Daniel and Richard.”
Note: I have already alluded to the doubtful date assigned for Richard Sare’s birth. The statement that he married Dorothy Thacher at Plymouth in 1632, needs confirmation. His name first appears there in the tax list of 25 March, 1633. There is no know record of the marriage, and no Dorothy is known to the Thacher genealogists. It is claimed that she was sister to Anthony Thacher, and Richard Sares in his will calls him “bro. Thacher,” and Antony’s son John, in an affidavit, calls him “Uncle Sares.”
Thomas Thacher, of Beckington, co. Somerset, in his will proved 1611, mentions “bro. Antony,” and Clement Thacher of Marston Bigot, in his will dated 1629, and proved 1639, names “bro. Antony”and others. Rev. Peter Thacher of Sarum made his will in 1640, and mentions “bro. Antony” and “sister Ann, wife of Chris. Batts, and other relatives, among them his “wife’s sister Dorothy” (of whom I would much like to learn further; she is supposed to have been an Allwood.) It would seem, if they had a sister Dorothy, one or the other would have remembered her. But it is more probable that Richard Sares (so he wrote his name) married Dorothy Batts, a sister of the above-named Christopher, who came over with her brother and his family, in “Bevis” from Southampton to Lynn, in 1638, she then being aged 20.
[p. 266] The precise date of their arrival is not known, but it appears by an endorsement on Lord Treas. Warrant, that the vessel sailed before May 2, and they probably arrived in June, or even earlier.
Richard Sares was then in Marblehead, as we learn from Salem tax list, 1 Jan. 1637-8, and on 14 Oct. 1638, he was granted three acres of land “where he had formerly planted.” The connection of Dorothy Batts and Antony Thacher fully justified the terms of the relationship quoted,-- see a parallel case cited by the late Col. J. L. Chester, in Register, xxi. 365. The same cause perhaps influenced Richard Sares to remove to Yarmouth in 1639, with the party led by Antony Thacher. In a note to first edition of the “Pictures,” the portrait of Richard “The Pilgrim,” is said to be from the Egmont gallery in Amsterdam, which more definitely locates it.
There formerly hung in the west parlor of Squire Richard Sears of Chatham, a painting which Mrs. Sears was wont to call “Sir Richard,” supposed by some persons to have been the original. This is an error. It was given after the Squire’s death to his widow, by his nephew and is a copy. It doubtless originally represented one of the family, judging from the resemblance to some of them, but who, and when, and where painted is a mystery.
It is evident Rev. E. H. Sears did not know of Richard Sare’s will recorded in Plymouth, or he would not have written that he had an eldest son Knyvet, born 1635, died 1686. In his will dated 10. 3 mo. 1667, Richard Sares names “my elder son Paule Sares,” and in the codicil dated 3 Feb. 1676, he again mentions “my eldest son Paule Sares.” Paul made oath to the inventory, 15 Nov. 1676, before John Freeman, Assistant, who calls him “Paule Sares eldest son of Richard Sares deceased.” John Freeman lived near by, and must have known the whole family.
There is no allusion to Knyvet in the will, although he is said to have been alive twenty years after the will, and ten years after the codicil were written; nor is there any reference to estates in England. Neither the name of Knyvet Sares, or Elizabeth Dymoke his wife, is to be found in colony, town, court or church records, nor is there any gravestone to either; -- no record of administration upon the estate of either, or appointment of guardian to their infant children.
Richard Sares never had a son Knyvet. The name was unknown on the Cape until the publication of the “Pictures,” and has never been adopted as a family name, except by the Chatham branch in one instance, and then for a tenth child.
Although “the papers taken to England by Knyvet were never recovered,” and the copies in Chatham were “lost, or destroyed,” a tablet was erected in 1858 to his memory in Colchester, which states that it was “Inscribed by Catherine harris in 1687”!
P.19. Paul Sears, b. 1637. He inherited most of his father’s property. …
“He adopted the children of his bro. Knyvet after the death of their father in England, and they were brought up in his family.
“Hi will is on Old Colony records, in which his brother’s children are named as his own sons. … The names of his sons were, Samuel, Paul and John.”
_____________________________
Note. Paul Sears died Feb. 20, 1707,8 in his 70th year, according to his gr. stone in Yarmouth Cemetery, and was therefore born not earlier than 1638. His will is recorded in Barnstable, not in Old Colony records. The names of his children on Yarmouth records have been obliterated, but the dates of birth of seven remain. From other sources we have been enabled to learn the names of five sons and four daughters, leaving one daughter unnamed. His last two children were his sons, Richard, born 1680, and Daniel, born 1682. In the Sears Genealogy these names are reversed, Richard being said to be the youngest, and born 1684.
Their grave-stones in Chatham prove the contrary. In his will Paul Sears gives his real estate to his sons Samuel, Paul and John, charged with a payment to their “brothers,” Richard and Daniel, towards their purchase of land in Monamoy. We may feel sure that they were the sons, and not adopted sons merely of Paul.
To sum up briefly: the “English pedigree” cannot be proved; -- it is doubtful if Richard Sares was ever in Holland, or that his wife was a Thacher; -- he never had a son Knyvet, -- and Richard and Daniel Sears, of Chatham, were younger sons of Paul, and not “Head of the American Family.”
The claim to estates in England is purely mythical. The “family papers,” if still in existence, are not now accessible to inquiries.
For the benefit of future investigators, I will not the genesis of the Pedigree, etc., so far as seems desirable.
About the year 1845, the late Mr. H. G. Somerby was employed to collect data regarding the Sears family in England, and a pamphlet was issued, entitled “Notices of the Sears Family, from Sir Bernard Burke’s Works, and Somersby’s Collections in England, etc.” The manuscript of his collection is in the library of the Mass. Hist. Society, Boston. It consists of a mass of extracts from local histories, &c., showing no connection with the American family, and of “Extracts from parish registers, and family papers in possession of Hon. David Sears, Boston.”
It is evident Mr. Somerby found nothing to connect the English and American families, or he would have given the data in full, with authorities, as he has done in other genealogies. In a conversation with a well-known Boston gentleman, he gave him clearly to understand that he did not assume responsibility for many of the statements in the pedigree. In 1852, Sir Bernard Burke published the first volume of “Visitations of Seats and Arms,” which contains at p. 52 of Part II. an amplified account of the family, claiming that by right of primogeniture the Chatham branch is the “Head of the American Sears Family.” This was followed in 1863, in third series of “Vicissitudes of Families,” by a sketch entitled “A Pilgrim Father.” Burke now repudiates the articles, and they are left out of later editions.
In 1884, he wrote me that he received the material from Mr. Somerby, but had since made investigation and found “that the details were not only not proven, but also incapable of proof, if not altogether wrong, and opposed to fact.”
In 1857, Rev. E. H. Sears published “Pictures of the Olden Time,” to which was added in a later edition a Genealogy of the family. In his preface he states that he derived his facts mainly from Burke’s “Visitation of Seats and Arms,” and from “family papers.” But few copies were distributed.
In the letter of J. Hawes, before quoted, he says he has been “assisted in his collections by Mr Colman and Richard.” This is confirmed by a manuscript in handwriting of Hon. David Sears, of Boston, dated Feb. 10, 1845, in possession of Gen. C. W. Sears, of Oxford, Miss., entitled “Memoranda of the Sears, from Minutes collected by J. Hawes and William Colman to 1800,-- and continued by Richard Sears of Chatham to 1840,” “Copied from the original in possession of Mrs Richard Sears of Chatham.” It is full of important errors, and varies from the records and from the published genealogy.
We cannot fix the share of either of the trio in the production of these “minutes,” but one fact will show how little “Squire Richard” could have known of them. In this document his mother, Frear Freeman, is said to have been the daughter of John Freeman, of Sandwich, and the printed genealogy makes a similar statement. She was in fact the daughter of Benjamin Freeman of Harwich, by his wife Temperance Dimmick, as shown by his will recorded in Barnstable.
Richard Sears was 9 years old when his gr.-father died, and 24 when his gr.-mother died. They lived in adjoining towns, and it is absurd to suppose that he did not know his grandparents’ names and residence, or that such a gross error could have escaped his notice.
Mr. Colman ws his brother-in-law, and resided in Boston; his part in the matter is not evident. Of J. Hawes I have already written. If we accept his letter as evidence, then the story is apparently traced back to Daniel Sears who died Chatham, 1761, a. 49.
It appears by records of Probate Court in Barnstable, Feb. 10, 1758, that “upon inquisition of the Selectman of Chatham,” Daniel Sears was adjudged non compos, and his wife Fear was appointed his guardian.
Swift’s “History of Old Yarmouth,” published 1885, states that “the marriage of Richard Sears and Dorothy Thacher, and the birth of Knyvet Sears, are recorded in a bible left by Richard Sears of Chatham, kept in the family for several generations.” I have been unable to hear of any person who has seen this bible. An inquiry addressed three years since to a descendant of Squire Richard, was the cause of letters to all her “Uncles, Aunts and Cousins,” who one and all replied, “they had never seen or before heard of such a bible.” They would be grateful for any hint of its whereabouts.
In conclusion:--it is possible there may have been some ancient alliances of the Sayer, Knyvet and Hawkins families, and the family genealogist may have erred in placing “the flesh on the wrong bones.”
About 1500, one Edmund Knyvet died at Stanway, the next parish to Colchester, leaving his second sister, Lady Thomasine Clopton, his heir; and about the same time a family of the Hawkinses were settled at Braintree, some twenty miles distant, of which one John Hawkins, a wealthy clothier, bought estates in Colchester, and settled at Alresford Hall, hard by, circa 1600.
There was more than one family of Hawkins in Plymouth, and another John was made a freeman there the same year as the famous Admiral. Somerby does not notice these families, and they were apparently unknown to him.
“Magna est veritas, et prevalebit.”
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