Mary Singletary, sister of John Singletary, wed into a family that came to the New World not through
religious convictions, but by an event that might have been penned by Robert
Louis Stevenson.
William
Stockwell was the son of another William Stockwell and born in Scotland around
1650. Any plans the young man may have made for his future were abruptly torn
to shards and tossed to the winds when he was shanghaied and thrown aboard a
ship bound for the American colonies. Once he reached Massachusetts, he was
forcibly indentured to a master to pay for his passage. After a few years of
servitude, he became an upstanding citizen of Ipswich, Massachusetts and had a
meetinghouse seat assigned to him. At this point, his father ventured across
the sea to join him.
The area
had been thus described by Captain John Smith in 1614: “…there are many sands
at the entrance of the Harbour…Here are many rising hills, and on their tops
and descents are many corn fields and delightful groves…plain marsh ground, fit
for pasture, or salt ponds. There is also Oakes, Pines, Walnuts and other woods
to make this place an excellent habitation, being a good and safe harbor.” Ipswich
was established by an extraordinary group of pioneers, “men of substance and
education, who were among the key founders of the Puritan Commonwealth”. Most
of these “men of substance” were farmers, fisherman, shipwrights, and traders.
In 1685 William
married a local girl, Sarah Lambert (1661), whose family had long dwelled in
the St. Dionis neighborhood of London before immigrating. They produced eight
children.
After
William’s death in 1727 “ye widdo Stockwell” was granted a seat in the Sutton
meetinghouse.
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