Notes:
Elias died of a stroke at the age of 68 while in a hospital in Aberdeen, SD.
Notes:
Agnes died at the age of 75.
Robert Mackclaflin Or Mc Claflin
Notes:
Robert Claflin, then spelled Mackclothlan or possibly MackClothlan, is believed to have been born in Scotland. The name was probably MacLachlan originally but a variety of other spellings, e.g., MacClothlan, McClothlin, MacLaflin, McLaflin, MackClaphlan and more, are commonly found. Originally the name was taken from a great chief named Lachlan Mor who lived by Loch Fyne in the thirteenth century. It has been suggested that Robert was from Sept MacEwen of Clan MacLachlan who lived in Argyll on the Loch Fyne, Cowell where the ruins of the ancestral Castle Lachlan still stands. According to family tradition, Robert was a Scottish soldier and was among those taken prisoner and sent over to New England by Cromwell after the border-battles of Dunbar in 1650 or Worcester in 1651. He is believed to have been transported to this country on the ship "Sarah and John" and worked here first in the iron works in Saugus, Massachusetts for 10 years, then removing to Wenham where he married.
In the records of the town of Wenham, Mass., is the following entry: "4th of November, 1661, Robert Mackclothlan is accepted as a townsman". The town of Wenham lies in the Southeasterly part of Essex County, Mass., twenty-two miles northeast of Boston. It was first settled in 1639 and was originally a part of Salem. By the early settlers it was called Enon. The town was incorporated May 10, 1643 and named from Wenham, Sussex County, England.
If Robert was a Scottish soldier as lore has it, then his soldierly qualities were later evidenced by his services under Sir Edmond Andros against the French and Indians; the struggles were severe in this war and many did not survive.
In 1669, Robert Claflin received a grant of land. He was elected Highway Surveyor of Wenham. In 1673, he sold his house and farm to the town for a parsonage, taking in exchange about 15 acres of land and in this deed his occupation is given as husbandman. The house that he built in Wenham was still standing and in a good state of preservation as of the year 1908. The old well near the house still furnished a supply of good water at that time. The place is now or was lately owned by a Richards family.
(Source: Historic Homes, Places and Genealogican and Personal Memoirs Relating to the families of Middlesex County, Massachusetts. William Richard Cutter, A.M. Vol IV, 1908).
Robert's will was inventoried 19 Sept 1690 by Richard Hutton and John Batchelder Sr. who found its value to be £101.9s.6d.
On the change of the name "MackClaflin" to "Claflin", from the New England Historical and Genealogical Registry, Vol 93 1939 page 208 we learn:
JOHN CLAFLIN, A.B., of Morristown, N. J., elected a Pilgrim Tercentenary member 18 June 1919, was born at Brooklyn, N. Y., 24 July 1850, the son of Horace Brigham and Agnes (Sanger) Claflin, and died at Morristown 11 June 1938. He traced his descent from Robert MackClaflin of Scotch ancestry, who was accepted a townsman of Wenham, Mass. 4 November 1661, was chosen surveyor, served under Sir Edmund Andros in the French and Indian War in 1688, adopted Claflin as the spelling of his surname, married 14 October 1664 Joanna Warner, and died at Wenham in 1693...
From the New England Historical and Genealogical Registry, Vol 78 1924 page 436 we further learn:
Arthur Bucklin CLAFLIN, PH.B., of Boston, a life member since 1885, was born at Hopkinton, Mass., 10 August 1852, the son of Hon. William and Mary Bucklin (Davenport) Claflin, and died suddenly at the Hotel Touraine, in Boston, 11 April 1923. The founder of the Claflin family in New England was Robert MackClaflin, of Scotch ancestry, who was accepted as a townsman at Wenham, Mass., in 1661, and served in 1688 in the war against the French and Indians. He married, 14 October 1664, Joanna Warner...
Notes:
Joanna's year of death is occasionally reported as about 1685.
Notes:
John might have been born in Great Horkesley, Boxted, Essex, England. In 1637 he emigrated from Boxted with his father, his brother Daniel and sister Abigail to Ipswich, Essex Co., MA. There he purchased land from an Isaac Perkins on 15 Jun 1638 and married Priscilla Symonds. He was still an inhabitant of Ipswich in 1648 but around 1660 he and his brother-in-law Capt. John Ayres, husband of Susanna Symonds, went more than seventy miles inland from Ipswich to an area in Worchester Co. in central Massachusetts. There they began to found the town of Brookfield, and about 1665 John Warner and his family removed to Brookfield and built the first house there. He and John Ayres were the two leaders of settlement and the family of John Warner were referred to in records as "principal inhabitants". When that town was destroyed by Quabaug Indians on 2 Aug 1675, he retreated thirty miles further west, with his younger children, to Hadley where some of his children had already settled and where he died soon after 17 May 1692. By any measure, John Warner was a true pioneer of America. He was a sixth greatgrandfather of Florence B. Miles.
Notes:
Priscilla's birth year is quite often given as about 1655. If this were correct, many other things would be affected, e.g., many of the children attributed to her would be the children of a rather young John Warner by some earlier wife of his, and Priscilla's mother would have been the unlikely age of 57 at her birth. This would mean Priscilla's mother would have to be Susan Edgar, her father's first wife. At this point the dominos start to fall in every direction. For now, this Symonds ancestral line must be viewed as speculative.
I have not been able to tie this Symonds line into either of the other two found in the Winfield Gallup ancestry.
Notes:
Thomas, was born and married in England. He came to Roxbury, MA, with his wife, Ellen and two sons, Samuel, born abt. 1632 and John, born abt. 1634. Family tradition gives the birth date of Thomas as 1606 and Ellen as 1610. Thomas was admitted to the church in Roxbury in 1637. He removed to Rowley, MA, together with Rev. Miller in 1639 where he was ordained Deacon on 3 Dec 1639. He was made a freeman on 13 May 1640. His wife, Ellen, was buried on 12 May 1640, the first death in Rowley. Thomas married second, Ann Parrat. He had a three acre houselot on Wethersfield Street in 1693 which remained in the family name until 1928.
Beside Samuel and John, born in England, Thomas and Ellen were parents of Thomas, born in Rowley, Timothy, Nathaniel, Mary, Stephen and Ann. [see below]
Thomas spelled his surname "Mighell" but his sons Nathaniel, and John spelled it "Mighill". It is not known when the spelling reverted back to 'e' by some of the family. The 'e' spelling was used in Brighton in the 16 and 17th centuries and 'e' is found now in the London phone book.
Thomas was buried 14 May 1654. He would have been about 48 years old. His will, recorded I I Jun 1654, approved 27 Jan 1655, mentions, beside his wife and children, his sister Ann Tenney and Faith Parrat, Sr. The inventory of his estate amounted to 571 pounds, 14 shillings and I I pence. (Essex Probate records). His widow, Ann, died 17 Nov., 1694.
(from L.D. Miles by Carol B. Cramer)
[Probably the last four children assigned by Carol Cramer in "L.D. Miles" to Thomas and Ellen were actually children by Thomas and his second wife Ann. There would not have been enough time for Ellen to have had four more children after the birth of her son Thomas in 1639 because she died in 1640.]
Notes:
It is likely that the children of Thomas and Ann were named Nathaniel, Mary, Stephen and Ann, the last four children of Thomas..