Generation One
MR. NICHOLAS Danforth-the progenitor of a family in New England, whose successive representatives have been more than ordinarily distinguished in their day and generation, and whose name, honorable alike in Church and State, the ornament and the oracle of each of the learned Professions in turn, has been worthily perpetuated even to our own day,- was a native of the County of Suffolk, England,-the same County which gave birth to John Winthrop, the illustrious Father of the Massachusetts Colony. He was " a Gentleman of such Estate and Repute in the World,"' says Cotton Mather " that it cost him a considerable sum to escape the Knighthood, which K. Charles 1. imposed on all of so much Per Annum; and of such Figure and Esteem in the Church, that he procured that Famous Lecture at Framingham in Suffolk, where he had a fine Mannour;" at which his wife seems to have died in the year 1629.) In the year l634 he came to New England ; was admitted Freeman of the Massachusetts Colony, with some twenty other inhabitants of Cambridge, on the 3d of March, 1635-6 () ; was one of the original members of the Church embodied in this town, under the "faithful and famous" Shepard, I Feb. 1635-6 (*) ; a Deputy * (i.e. Representative) to the General Court in 1636 (Sept", and Dec.) and 1637 (Apr., May, and Sept) ; and died here in the month of April, 1636 (); leaving five children ; .Elizabeth, (who by her marriage with Andrew Belcher became the Grandmother of Governor Belcher), Thomas, Anne, Samuel, and Jonathan married Elizabeth (--?--). He died in Apr 1638 at England.
Children of Nicholas1 Danforth and Elizabeth (--?--) were as follows:
2. Gov. Thomas2 Danforth (Nicholas1) Gov. Thomas Danforth - 158
Gov. Thomas Danforth - Cambridge, eldest son of Nicholas, born in England, came with his father. Freeman 10 May 1643, Representative 1657 and 8, Assistant 1659- 78, Deputy Gov 1679-86 and again after the close of Andros unsurpat. He was appointed President of Maine 1680, and in 1692 judge of the Supreme Court for the horrible proceedings against witckes -- Posterity is known in the female line.
Savage II page 8
HON. THOMAS DANFOBTH, Eldest son of Mr. Nicholas Danforth, C) was born in England in 1622, came with his father to N. E. in 1634, (*) and was admitted Freeman on the 10th of May, 1643.(*) From his long and intimate connexion with the civil and political affairs of the Colony, this gentleman fills an important place in the early history of New England. His first entrance upon public life appears to have been in 1657; in which and the following year he represented Cambridge in the General Court. In 1659 he was chosen one of the Assistants, and for twenty successive years was annually reelected to that office. From 1679 (May 28) until the dissolution of the Colonial government, in May, 1686, be was associated
was born in 1622 at England. He married Mary Withington, daughter of Henry Withington and Elizabeth (--?--), on 2 Feb 1644. He died on 5 Nov 1699.
Children of Gov. Thomas2 Danforth and Mary Withington were as follows:
3. Rev Samuel2 Danforth (Nicholas1) Rev. Samuel Danforth
Rev. Samuel Danforth wrote the Almanack in 1647. He married the daughter of Rev. John Wilson. Observations from the Almanack "The sons of the first leaders wished to commence Atlantic trade and others did not want to expand from their towns." To Samuel Danforth, it was a contest of the "White coates" ( the Atlantic oriented ) who would set "all opinion free" and the " blew coa tes " ( the town oriented ) who had to withstand the assault else " hobgoblins would be insolent." for the moment the "blew coates" won, with a consequent hardening of political distinctions within the town. Winthrops Boston - Darrett B. Rutman - W.W.Norton and Co.
Samuel, Roxbury, born in England, came with his father, freeman in 1647, and again his name is given in 1648, ordained as a colleague with Rev John Eliot, 24 Dec 1650, married 5 Nov., 1651, Mary, youngest child of Rev John Wilson of Boston -- died Nov. 19 1674 in his 49th year and was buried the Monday following. Ellis History of Roxbury page 95 notes the date as 1674 and the children as 12 in both points following Farmer and wisely reputing the Town records makes it 1673. In both he is followed Genealogical Register VII 317, by a writer of scrupulous accuracy who, however miscounted his years. Farmer, Eliot and Harris, must I presume include a posthum child as in the Will anticapited, yet none of them give the name. His Will, probated 24 Dec 1674, was made and say the witnesses," the day immediately proceeding his death" but we must go beyond them to the known month or year *Savage II Page 8
REV. SAMUEL DANFORTH, second son of Nicholas Danforth, was born in England, in the month of September, 1626; " and by the Desire of his Mother, who died Three Years after his Birth, earnestly Dedicated unto the Schools of the Prophets. His Father brought him to New England in the Year 1634, and at his Death, about fours Years after his Arrival here, he committed this Hopeful Son of many Cares and Prayers unto the Paternal Oversight of Mr. Shepard, who proved a Kind Patron unto him." He was graduated at Harvard College in 1643, being a member of the second Class which received the honors of that youthful Institution. " His Early Piety^' we are told, " answered the pious Education bestowed upon him ; and his Learning with his Virtue, e're long brought Him into the Station of a Tutor ; being made the Second Fellow of Harvard College."" In 1647 or 1648 he was admitted to the freedom of the Colony ("); and on the 24th of September, 1650, was ordained Colleague to the Rev. John Eliot, the revered Pastor of the First Church in Roxbury, Mass, whose pious labors on behalf of the Indians occupied so much of his time, as to render an assistant in his ministerial duties an indispensable requisite. Here he continued to labor, with faithful and affectionate zeal, until his death, 19 Nov., 1674, at the age of 47.
Mr. Danforth's abilities were of no ordinary stamp. He was an Astronomer, a Mathematician, and a Poet. By his contemporaries he was regarded as a " burning and shining light," and his death was deplored as a public calamity. Weld and Eliot, following the fashion of the day, embalmed his memory in verse ; while Cotton Mather has furnished him with a Latin Epitaph. His wife, married in 1651, was a daughter of " the famous Mr. Wilson, the first pastor of the Old Church in Boston." By her he had twelve children, of whom the first born, Samuel, died in 1653; and the next three, falling victims to a prevalent distemper, in the month of December, 1659, "it pleas'd God to take them all away at once, even in one Fortnights time, but afterwards happily to make up the Loss;" since it became his privilege to behold two sons occupying stations of distinguished eminence and usefulness in the Ministry, and reflecting honor no less upon their reverend parent than upon themselves. His widow, according to Farmer, was subsequently married to a Mr. Rock,* of Boston, where she died 13 Sept., 1713, in her 81st year. (")
He was born in Sep 1626 at England. He married Mary Wilson, daughter of Rev. John Wilson and Elizabeth Mansfield, on 5 Nov 1651. He died on 19 Nov 1674 at age 48.
Children of Rev Samuel2 Danforth and Mary Wilson were as follows:
. He was educated in 1683 at Harvard degree, Cambridge, Mass.1
4. Elizabeth3 Danforth (Thomas2, Nicholas1) married Francis Foxcroft, son of Daniel Foxcroft and Martha Sayre, on 3 Oct 1682. She died on 4 Jun 1721.
Children of Elizabeth3 Danforth and Francis Foxcroft were as follows:
5. Mary3 Danforth (Samuel2, Nicholas1) was born in 1654. She married Edward Bromfield, son of Henry Bromfield and Frances Kempe, on 4 Jun 1683. She died in Oct 1734.
Children of Mary3 Danforth and Edward Bromfield were as follows: