back to Family Stories, Fall 2021
by Julia O’Keefe
Putting Together the Pedigree
This past semester at Villanova University, I had the opportunity to take a course titled Genealogy – All in Your Family. An essential component of our coursework was our final Family Story Report. Throughout the semester, we worked on creating our family trees using Ancestry.com and the data it provided us with after we sent in our DNA samples back in August. I uncovered much about my family’s history that I did not previously know of while utilizing Acestry.com. This blog post highlights one specific aspect of my family tree: my connection to Reverend John Cotton. I hope you enjoy reading this chapter of my family story and my connection to colonial America!
It all comes back to Alice
I was able to trace my ancestors on my paternal grandfather’s line back to the Plymouth Colony and the Mayflower through my paternal great-grandmother, Alice Booth (1895-1979). Alice’s maternal ancestors, specifically my 12th great-grandfather Richard Warren (1578-1628) and his family, were settlers of the Plymouth colony who came over on the Mayflower from England in 1620, and it is through this line that I found my connections to John Cotton and his family.
As I continued to add my direct ancestors to this line using both traditional and genetic genealogy, I discovered my 5th great-grandfather Harvey Otis (1802-1880) was born in Scituate, Massachusetts, near where the Mayflower docked in 1620 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. I kept exploring this line, thinking that I might eventually stumble upon a direct ancestor from the original Plymouth colony or Massachusetts Bay Colony. The New England colonial era is one of my favorite pieces of history, so this part of my research was super interesting to me!
The Cotton Connection
Sure enough, I did just that. Using census records, birth and death records, marriage records, and documents from the New England Genealogical Index, I added my 9th great-grandmother Abigail Cotton (1699-1732) to me tree. I then added her husband Reverend Shearjashub Bourne (1699-1768), her father Roland Cotton (1667-1722), and her mother Elizabeth Saltonstall (1668-1726). I immediately noticed the large number of hints Ancestry.com provided for Roland Cotton (1667-1722): 21. I figured for someone this far back in my tree, they must be of historical significance, especially considering one of the documents I found under Roland Cotton was from a book title “Famous Families of Massachusetts.” I stuck with this line to find out why.
Roland Cotton’s parents were Reverend John Cotton II (1639-1699) and Johanna Rossiter (1642-1702). I then added John Cotton II’s parents: Reverend John Cotton (1585-1652) and Sarah Hawkred (1601-1677). Reverend John Cotton stood out to me because Ancestry offered 29 hints about him. With this information, I took to the internet to research his life story and what made his family so famous in colonial New England.
A Memorable Minister
Reverend John Cotton (1585-1652), my 12th great-grandfather, was born to Roland Cotton (1558-1604) and Mary Hulbert (1560-1595) in Derby, England in 1585. He began his education at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1598 to earn his B.A. in 1603 then later received his M.A. from Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1606. He remained there as a graduate student, and during those five years he practiced preaching and theological teaching. He was ordained as a Priest in the Church of England in 1610 and became a vicar of St. Botolph’s Church in Boston, Lincolnshire. Shortly after in 1613, he married his first wife Elizabeth Horrocks (1588-1630) in England. They did not have any children together, and Elizabeth sadly died in 1630, leaving John Cotton a widower. He remarried Sarah Hawkred (1601-1676) in Boston, Lincolnshire in 1632. Together, they departed England in 1633 and had six children, including my 11th great-grandfather John Cotton II.
Across the Atlantic
Reverend John Cotton wanted to reform the Church of England by eliminating traditional ceremonies from within, not by separating from it. Although bishops were lenient during his twenty years as a minister at St. Botolph’s, church authorities began to punish non-conforming clergy in 1632, forcing John into hiding. He moved around different places in London within an underground Puritan network. While in hiding, he wrote the following letter to his wife Sarah dated 3 October 1632:
Word got back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, settled in 1630 by a group of Puritans led by Governor John Winthrop, and Winthrop wrote to John Cotton inviting him to come to the colony in New England. John then resigned from his role at St. Botolph’s and came to New England in the spring of 1633 on the Griffin.
Born at Sea
With a name like Seaborn, you know there’s going to be a story. This name was part of what attracted me to exploring the Cotton family history. Seaborn Cotton was in fact born at sea on 12 August 1633 during John and Sarah’s journey to New England. Seaborn attended Harvard College and was ordained as the 4th minister of Hampton, New Hampshire in 1658. My family spends the summers at our family home in Hampton, and I was interested to learn that I have driven by Seaborn’s gravesite multiple times! Next summer I plan on visiting my 11th great-granduncle’s gravesite, and I was excited to find that a place that means so much to my family actually has history in our deep ancestry.
John Cotton in New England
Once he arrived in New England, Reverend Cotton became second minister of the First Church of Boston. He was a very influential and popular throughout the colony and remained there until he died on 23 December 1652. The following documents were utilized during my research and creation of my family tree. I enjoyed learning so much about my family history and creating my family’s story through this process. Enjoy the attached documentation and thank you for reading about my process about uncovering Cotton connections!
References
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopedia. “John Cotton”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 30 Nov. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Cotton. Accessed 8 December 2021.
“John Cotton (Minister).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Oct. 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cotton_(minister).