Ancestors

Capt. John Spafford

Capt. John Spafford was born on 19 March 1704, a son of Capt. John Spaffard and Dorcas Hopkinson. The Tyler genealogy of 1912 calls him "the fourth John in direct descent". The line ran back through John Spofford, born in 1648, to John Spofford of Rowley, born about 1612. The family wrote the name Spofford, Spafford and Spaffard, sometimes in one generation.

His brothers and sisters were Francis, Abner, Sarah, Dorcas and Mary. Francis settled at Windham, Connecticut. Abner stayed on "the hill" in Georgetown as a millwright and deacon, and was killed by a fall in his own mill in 1777.

In 1727 he built a house on "the hill" in Georgetown, then part of Rowley, and lived in it for ten years. Jeremiah Spofford, who compiled the family genealogy in 1888, was born in that house.

In October 1728 he married Hannah Tyler of Boxford. The Boxford records carry the intention, the notice of a coming marriage: "Hannah [Tiller], and John Spofford of Rowley, int. Oct. 27, 1728." Hannah was a daughter of Job Tyler and Margaret Bradstreet, and a great-granddaughter of Gov. Simon Bradstreet and the poet Anne Bradstreet. Their second child, born in 1731, was named Bradstreet.

Their first child, Eunice, was born on 15 September 1729 "at Boxford, in the Bay Province". Bradstreet followed in 1731, Phebe in 1733, Peggy on 30 June 1735, Asa in 1737 and Mary in 1739, all at Rowley. Abigail was born in 1741 and Relief, at No. 4, on 30 June 1744.

No. 4 was the northernmost English settlement on the Connecticut River, and it became Charlestown, New Hampshire. The Tyler genealogy has him going there in 1737. There he "erected the first saw-mill and corn-mill by contract with a committee appointed by the proprietors". A saw-mill cut logs into boards and a corn-mill ground grain into meal. The mills began working in 1744.

On 19 April 1746 a party of Indians burned them and "took Capt. Spafford, Lieut. Parker, and Stephen Farnsworth, prisoners, and carried them to Canada." He was a captive for sixteen months. "Capt. Spafford returned Aug. 16, 1747, and petitioned the government of Massachusetts for aid, his house burned, his lands damaged, his family numerous."

No. 4 was deserted for a time after the raids, and Harriet was born at Leominster, Massachusetts, on 30 January 1747. He rebuilt the mills, and the proprietors accepted them on 4 April 1752. They were burned again and rebuilt in 1757. Settlers came to them from as far north as Lancaster, 124 miles up the river. The family genealogy names some of the visitors, among them Capt. David Page, the first settler of Lancaster.

His last children were Job Tyler, born in 1749, who died at fifteen months, and Tyler, born in 1752. He was one of the ten men who formed the church under the Rev. Bulkley Olcott, and twice a selectman of the town.

His son Asa was taken prisoner at Charlestown in April 1757 and died of smallpox at Quebec on his way home. Relief died in October 1758, at fourteen. His daughter Peggy married Benjamin Allen, a soldier of the No. 4 garrison, on 6 November 1751, "she being sweet 16". Tyler went through the Revolution, settled at Windsor and Fairfax, Vermont, and in 1799 moved to Lennoxville, Canada, where he died in 1844, aged ninety.

His death is not given in the family genealogies or the town history.

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Cite: Heirology, "Capt. John Spafford (b. 1704)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/capt-john-spafford-1704-e9361c.