Ens. William Fletcher
William Fletcher was born in England about 1622. He came to Concord, Massachusetts, with his father, Robert Fletcher, when he was about eight. He was admitted a freeman of the colony on 10 May 1643. A freeman was a church member with the vote in colony affairs.
About 1643 he married Rachel, whose surname is not known. Their son Joshua was born at Concord on 10 March 1643/4. Rachel died before November 1645. On 7 November 1645, at Concord, he married Lydia, the widow of Edward Bates of Boston. She brought her son John Bates, born in 1642, whom William raised and remembered in his will as his son-in-law, the old word for a stepson.
In 1653 he moved north to the new plantation of Chelmsford on the Merrimack River. He was one of its first selectmen. "He was chosen Nov. 22, 1654. This first publick meeting was holden at his house." He held the rank of ensign in the town's militia company. The ensign carried the company's colours and was its third officer. On 1 February 1656/7 he had his children baptised at Chelmsford, and his stepson John Bates with them.
His land at Chelmsford was large. He owned "a considerable tract extending to the Indian fisheries of Pawtucket Falls, and embracing the present site of the city of Lowell." The falls of the Merrimack at Pawtucket were the great fishing place of the Native people of the region.
His eldest daughter Lydia married the Rev. John Fiske, the first minister of Chelmsford. In 1668 the minister sued William's son Joshua over the maid of his house, Grisell Jewell. She was William's niece, the daughter of his sister Grissell. The court fined Joshua twenty pounds and William was bound for it. The two were married that May. In June 1669 William's father, old and blind, petitioned the court to ease the fine, saying that William could hardly raise such a sum in years when the harvests had failed.
His sister Grissell, married five times, had come to Chelmsford in 1667 with her last husband, John Burge, and died there in July 1669. In April 1671 William told the Middlesex court that on her deathbed she had asked him and her husband to take charge of her children, and that he was willing to be engaged for the youngest, Sherebiah Kibby. In 1675 he and John Burge, as guardians, wrote to Mendon to have her land there recorded to her son Joseph Jewell.
His other children married in the town. Esther was born at Chelmsford on 12 April 1664. Mary married Thomas Parker in October 1678. William married Sarah Richardson in 1677.
He died at Chelmsford on 6 November 1677, entered in the register as "William [Ens.]". His father had died at Concord seven months before him. Lydia lived until 12 October 1704.
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Cite: Heirology, "Ens. William Fletcher (1622-1677)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/ens-william-fletcher-1622-1677-0e8f9a.