Person:John Strong (2)

Various genealogies place him on the Mary & John, embarked Plymouth, England Mar. 20, 1630 in 'Mary & John', and arrived at Nantasket, May 30, 1630, or on part of the "Winthrop Fleet."^[8] Settled first at Dorchester, removed to Windsor, lived in Hingham 1635, Taunton 1638, Windsor, Ct 1646, and Northampton 1659 where he was the first ruling elder. Took Freeman's oath at Boston on 9 Mar 1636. Owned a tannery on S.W. corner of Market and Main in Northampton, also some 200 acres of land. Named "Elder" of church in Northampton 6/13/1663

The Great Migration Series Comments on John Strong

"In 1869 Edward Strong published an account of the immigrant John Strong, compiled in 1777 by Caleb Strong, who was born about 1745. We quote here the beginning of that account (without the additions made by Edward Strong) [The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 23:294]:

'An Account of Elder John Strong and his Descendants

He was born and lived in England, at Taunton in Somersetshire. His Father whose Name was Richard, died while his son was young. His Grandfather, who was a Roman Catholic, lived to be very old, but died before his Grandson left England.

He came to America in the year 1630. He sailed from Plymouth in England in company with Mr. Warham, Maverick, Mason, Clap, &c., and arrived at Nantasket on the 30th of May of that year, and settled in Dorchester. He married his first Wife in England who died immediately after landing in this Country, leaving two young children, the youngest of which died in two months after its mother.'

There is no record for John Strong in New England prior to 1635, and we now know that he sailed for New England in 1635 [NGSQ 71:173]. Savage presented the evidence demonstrating that this immigrant never resided at Dorchester, although he had some connections there [Savage 4:226-27].

Clearly, then, the eighteenth-century account has incorrectly grafted the 1630 Mary & John story onto this immigrant. Given this inaccuracy, we conclude that the claim of a second child with the first wife cannot be relied on, and so we do not include this child above.

This eighteenth-century account also included a son "Josiah, who died young" [NEHGR 23:296], for whom there is no independent information, but did not include the son Joseph, who was born at Windsor in 1652 [Grant 64; Stevens-Miller Anc 1:353].

The commonly accepted parentage for the immigrant was first published in 1931 by Albert Strong [The Strongs of Strongsville … (Ford Dodge, Iowa, 1931)]. The core documents for this ancestry are the 1627 will of George Strong of Chard [PCC 15 Pile] and the 1612 will of John Strong, also of Chard [Episcopal Consistory Court of Bath and Wells, 1612, 129]. The relationships stated in these two wills make it clear that George was the father of John, and that John had a son John, who was of about the right age to be the subject of this sketch. Furthermore, Margery (Deane) Strong, wife of the immigrant, was from Chard. All this evidence points to John Strong, son of John Strong of Chard, and grandson of George Strong of the same place, as the resident of Hingham, Taunton and Windsor, but more evidence would be welcome."^[4]

1. ↑ Holbrook, Jay Mack. Vital Records of Northampton, Massachusetts to 1840.
2.   Savage, James. A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England: Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May, 1692, on the Basis of Farmer's Register. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co, 1860-1862)
   4:225-227.

   JOHN, Hingham 1635, among first proprietors who drew house lots in September of that year. Freeman Mar. 1637, next year was of Taunton, and counted there as one of the first proprietors. Made freeman of that jurisdiction 4 Dec. Chosen representative 1641-44, as Baylies shows II. 2 and 3, and a juror 1645; three or four years after is found a Windsor, and made freeman of Connecticut May 1651, unless this were his son, which seems very improbable, and soon after, 1661, was inhabited of Northampton. With very grave doubts as to most of the items, and utter rejection of part most import. in tradit. report. of his coming in the Mary and John to Dorchester with Warham in May 1630, and of the death of his first wife on the passage and taking a second wife in 1630, I think it probable that he brought John in 1635, and at Hingham had Thomas, possibly also another child who died in infancy and that his wife died there, and that he married perhaps in 1638, Abigail, d. of Thomas Ford of Dorchester, for in that single year is the only mention of his name as resident at Dorchester. He had probably at Taunton Jedediah, bapt. 14 Apr. 1639, at Dorchester, tho the church record implies that the parents are living at Hingham, Return; Ebenezer; and Abigail; at Windsor, certainly had Elizabeth b. 24 Aug. 1647, or 24 Feb. 1648; Experience, 4 Aug. 1650; Samuel, and Joseph, perhaps sometimes call. Josiah, twins 5 Aug. 1652; Mary, 26 Oct. 1654. At Windsor he married 26 Nov. 1656, Mary, only d. of Joseph Clark; had Sarah not on rec. perhaps 1657; Hannah, 30 May 1659; and Esther, 7 June 1661; at Northampton had Thankful, 25 July 1663; and Jerijah, 12 Dec. 1665.
   
   Cothren favors him with three more children one who died an infant two months after arrival of the father in 1630; Josiah, who died young, unm. but I distrust the existence of both; and Sarah, who married 19 Dec. 1675, or 13 Jan. foll. (either of which may be thought a more probable date, than that of family tradition 13 July 1675) Joseph Barnard of Hadley, and next, 1698, Capt. Jonathan Wells of Deerfield. She may have come between Mary and Hannah. On the high authority of Dr. Allen I can find but sixteen children beside the infant who died.
   
   He was, very likely, b. at Taunton in Co. Somerset, and his father may have been Richard, and his sister Elinor may have been wife of Walter Dean; but that he ever lived at Dorchester is highly improbable for Harris, or any more search. inquirer has not found his name there, before or after 1638, exc. once was witness to a deed, which may have been written at Hingham; and it is hardly to be believed that the same wife who bore the two children at Northampton had been taken at Dorchester in 1630. That he was indeed ever resid. at Dorchester aft. 1638, can be surmised from the trifling incident only, that John Hill was married at Boston 16 Jan. 1657 to Elizabeth Strong by Humphrey Atherton, the Assist. wh. was a Dorchester man. Nor is it more probable as the tradit. ornaments the story, that he came from England with Warham or accomp. him in 1636 to Windsor. Hitchcock, Parsons, Cothren, Geneal. Reg. VIII. 180, and Emery too easily adm. such relationship in my opinion that relies on the powerful contemporary silence of his brother-in-law, Roger Clap, who did come in that ship and married a daughter of his fellow passenger Thomas Ford. For the modern origin of these improb. tradit. I presume that, as the ancestor was at Windsor, within twelve yrs. of its settlem. and a son of this man married a Warham, and as Ford rem. with W. to Windsor the story spread grad. that he had come from Eng. to Dorchester, with Warham and accomp. him to his next home in Conn. but the reporters did not consider two points, that many people were of Dorchester, who did not come with Warham, and many of Windsor, who did not come from Dorchester. In McClure's acco. of sett. of Windsor, writ. in 1797, pr. 1 Mass. Hist. Coll. V. 167, is seen the list of the sixteen male members of the church of Dorchester that went with Warham thither, among whom is No Strong. As Roger Clap had married a daughter of Ford two or three yrs. bef. the exodus, the daughter who became the second wife of Strong, as it seems to me after it, may have contin. at Dorchester to comfort her sister and avoid the perils of another first planting. He was a tanner, one of the pillars at foundat. of ch. Elder 1663, and his wife died 6 July 1688, and he d. 14 Apr. 1699, aged 91, says his son Jerijah, wh. in mod. tradit. is easily corrupt to 94.
   
   Beside Sarah, above mentioned Abigail m. 12 Nov. 1673, Rev. Nathaniel Chauncy, and 8 Sept. 1686, deac. Medad Pomeroy; Elizabeth m. 17 Mar. or 11 May 1669, Joseph Parsons; Experience m. 27 May 1669, Zerobabel Filer; Mary m. 20 Mar. 1679, John Clark; Hannah m. 15 July 1680, William Clark jr.; Esther m. 15 Oct. 1678, Thomas Bissel, the younger, of Windsor; and Thankful m. a Baldwin of the countless tribes of Milford, as Cothren reports, no doubt from the fam. acco. So there were eight daughters and seven sons of the prosperous tanner, who lived to marry and thirteen of this number were born to him by the second wife Abigail Ford.<ref>This does not agree with what he wrote above, which ascribes 2 of 16 children to a first wife, and 5 to third wife Mary Clark. In the entry for John, son of this John, he says it was the son who married Mary Clark in 1656, but he gives different children and a different death date for Mary.</ref>

3. ↑ Elder John Strong, in Find A Grave.
4. ↑ ^{4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16} John Strong, 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)
   VI:581-588.

   ORIGIN: Chard, Somerset (see COMMENTS).
   MIGRATION: 1635 on the Hopewell of Weymouth (on 8 May 1635, "Jon. Stronge and family" were passengers on the Hopewell, sailing from Weymouth for New England [NGSQ 71:173]).
   OCCUPATION: Tanner (so stated in all secondary sources but not confirmed in contemporaneous records).
   CHURCH MEMBERSHIP: Admission to Hingham church prior to 9 March 1636/7 implied by freemanship. On 18 June 1661, John Strong was a founding member and ruling elder of the Northampton church [Northampton Hist 105-9, 114-17].
   FREEMAN: 9 March 1636/7 [MBCR 1:373]. Admitted freeman of Plymouth Colony, 4 December 1638, and subsequently appended to 7 March 1636/7 list of Plymouth Colony freemen [PCR 1:53, 105]. In "Cohannett {now called Taunton}" section of 1639 Plymouth Colony list of freemen [PCR 8:176]. Connecticut freeman, 15 May 1651 [CCCR 1:218].
   BIRTH: By about 1606 (based on estimated date of first marriage), probably son of John Strong of Chard, Somerset (see COMMENTS).
   DEATH: Northampton 14 April 1699 [NorVR 1:140; HAMPR 3:60].

5.   Elder John STRONG, in Strong Family Association of America Database.
6. ↑ The Strong Line, in Holman, Mary Lovering; Winifred Lovering Holman; and Helen Pendleton Winston Pillsbury. Ancestry of Colonel John Harrington Stevens and his wife, Frances Helen Miller: Compiled for Helen Pendleton (Winston) Pillsbury. (Concord, New Hampshire: Rumford Press, 1948, 1952)
   II:349.

   ELDER JOHN STRONG..born in or near Chard, Somerset, about 1610

7.   This later birth estimate is based on the fact that his father is known to have married in 1609.
8. ↑ Great Migration puts official arrival in 1635 and has included John's profile in Volume VI of The Great Migration Series.