Person:John Merwin (1)

"The earliest records that can be connected to the family of Miles Merwin were found in the parish of Amersham, Buckinghamshire, a market town about 26 miles northwest of London, where the noted New England minister, Rev. Thomas Hooker, and his wife Susanna Garbrand were married in 1621. The 1522 subsidy roll for Amersham lists a Roger Murwyn, assessed 7 shillings in lands, and a Henry Murwyn assessed for 3 pounds in goods. The earliest ancestor of Miles Merwin who can be positively identified, however, is John Merwin, of whose descendants an account is given below.

John^D Merwin, who was born say 1490 and died in late 1552, is the earliest known progenitor of the family. He married, probably about 1514, Isabel BARTLETT, the daughter of Katherine Bartlett, widow, of Amersham (see "The Bartlett Family," NEHGR 149:301-11). In 1524 John Murwyn appeared on the subsidy roll for Amersham, assessed for £2. Isabel's mother, Katherine Bartlett, in her will dated 24 March 1524/25, made legacies to her daughter Isabel Merwin and Isabel's children, and bequeated her house and lands called Deane Place (formerly Osmande's lands) in Amersham to her son-in-law John Merwin and his heirs, on condition that he pay his wife, Isabel, and each of her four siblings 20 shillings. John also served as one of the executors of this will.

In 1552, John Merwin conveyed two acres in Stockbury meadow in Amersham to Richard Prynce. In his will dated 7 Nov 1552, witnessed by John Whitmarshe curate, Anthony Tuly, Henry Rigsted, and Andrew Moorwyn, and proved 6 December 1552, "John Moorwen hole of mynd and sicke of body," bequethed:

my soule in to the hands of allmightie god and my body to be buried in my parishe churche yarde of Agmondesham [Amersham] and to John my godsonne the sonne of Will'm I bequeath a bullocke of ij yere old to Will'm and Alis children to the say'd Will'm eche of them a shepe and to John a forsayd a great coffer. The Resydue of all my goods and lands moveable and unmoveable I bequeth unto my wiffe Issable whome I make my hole executrix and to Joan Moorwyn the wife of Will'm I bequeath a bullocke of this yeres weaning."^[2]

1. ↑ Churchyard, James Nohl. Data (Mostly Negative) on the English Origins of Matthias St. John.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5} Richardson, Douglas. The English Ancestry of the Merwin and Tinker Families of New England: Part I: Miles Merwin of Windsor and Milford, Conn. New England Historical and Genealogical Register. (New England Historic Genealogical Society, Jul 1995)
   149:297-99.