Ancestors
Francis Nurse
1620-1695 · Salem Village
Born 1620
Died 1695
Children include Benjamin
Francis Nurse was a tray maker of Salem. For about forty years he lived "near Skerry's," on the North River, between the town and the ferry to Beverly, making the wooden trays and other household ware a new country could not buy from abroad. His neighbours relied on his judgment. No one in the Salem records is named more often as an umpire to settle a dispute or an arbitrator between two claims, and he sat on committees to fix boundaries and on juries to lay out highways.
He married Rebecca Towne, a daughter of William Towne of Topsfield, and they had four sons, Samuel, John, Francis and Benjamin, the youngest, born in January 1666, and four daughters: Rebecca, who married Thomas Preston; Mary, who married John Tarbell; Elizabeth, who married William Russell; and Sarah.
On 29 April 1678, at fifty eight, he bought the Townsend Bishop farm at Salem Village, three hundred acres, from James Allen of Boston for four hundred pounds. He paid nothing down. The bargain gave him twenty one years to find the money and charged a rent in the meantime. With his sons and sons in law working it, the farm paid for itself well inside the term. He then deeded the larger half of it to his children, keeping the homestead and land around it, and the deeds required them to keep up a road between their houses and the old one. By 1692 the whole family lived inside the bounds of that one farm.
The land was disputed from the start, because its grant overlapped the Orchard Farm of the Endicotts and lands claimed by the Putnams. When Zerubabel Endicott sent men with teams to cut wood on it, against an order of the court, Francis Nurse's sons in law pulled the wood off the sleds for two days. The quarrel set some of the village against the family. In March 1692 Rebecca, seventy one and sick in bed, was accused of witchcraft by the Putnam household. She was hanged on 19 July. Francis lived three years more, and died on 22 November 1695, at about seventy five.
Sources
The three generations above Daniel Nurse come from WALTER GOODWIN DAVIS, The Ancestry of Sarah Johnson, wife of Joseph Neal of Litchfield, Me. (1960), which sets them out from the probate files and cites MIDDLESEX COUNTY PROBATE 16093 and WORCESTER PROBATE, SERIES A 43954.
WILLIAM NURSE, born 8 MARCH 1696 at Framingham. "m. in Shrewsbury on Dec. 12, 1723, [Re]becca Fay of Westborough; both d. in Westborough, she on June 22, 1776, and he on April 15, 1779. William Nurse was of Shrewsbury when he made his will on Jan. 3, 1758, but of Westborough when he died, the will being proved on June 7, 1779."
AND HIS WILL NAMES THE SHREWSBURY CHILDREN BACK. "To his wife Rebekah, all of his household goods and part of house... To son Daniel, all his lands in Shrewsbury and elsewhere, reserving house-room for daughters Lydia and Rebekah as long as they remain single and in such a weakly condition. To son Daniel, all quick stock, husbandry tools, one-half of clothes, and his money bonds. To second son Benjamin, all cooper's tools and one-half of clothing. To daughters Mary, Lydia, Rebekah and Zerviah. All my Books of Divinity shall be Equally Divided among all my children. Executors: wife Rebekah and eldest son Daniel." Every one of those names is in the Shrewsbury town book as a child of William Nurse and Rebekah, and DANIEL is the eldest son in both. The will and the town book are the same household read from two ends.
HIS FATHER. "5. BENJAMIN NURSE [Francis] was born in Salem on January 26, 1666. He married Tamesin Smith on February 21, 1688, in Salem. She died before February 16, 1713/4, when he married in Framingham widow Elizabeth (Sawtelle) Morse of Watertown. Benjamin Nurse of Framingham, yeoman, made his will August 1, 1735. It was proved February 13, 1748." The will leaves legacies "to his son William" among the five eldest children, and the eight children are listed as born at Framingham, William third among them. All eight fall before the first wife's death, so TAMESIN SMITH is William's mother.
AND THAT BENJAMIN IS REBECCA NURSE'S YOUNGEST SON. Francis and Rebecca Nurse of Salem Village had eight children, the last of them Benjamin, born 1665 or 1666. This Benjamin was born in Salem on 26 January 1666 and Davis brackets his father as Francis. REBECCA NURSE was tried for witchcraft in the summer of 1692, acquitted by the jury, had the verdict sent back by the court, and was hanged on Gallows Hill on 19 JULY 1692. She was seventy one. Her son Benjamin left Salem for Framingham, his son William went west again to Shrewsbury, and William's son Daniel to Westborough.
WHAT IS PRIMARY HERE AND WHAT IS NOT. The two lowest links are town clerks' entries read directly: Perssela to Daniel in 1764, and Daniel to William in 1729. The three above them are a published genealogy citing probate files, which is a serious source and is not the same thing as reading the file. And Davis was read in a Towne Family Association newsletter's reprint rather than in the book itself. The probate references are given above so the chain can be walked properly whenever somebody wants to. EDWIN EUGENE TOWNE, The Descendants of William Towne (Newtonville, 1901), pages 19 to 21; with the Salem and Topsfield material that George A. Perkins printed in The Family of John Perkins of Ipswich (1889) from the Essex deeds.
"In this church, founded in a.d. 1123, dedicated to St. Nicholas in 1251, and still retaining the name, were married, March 25, 1620, William Towne and Joanna Blessing, and here their first six children were baptized."
"1 WILLIAM TOWNE, b. in England in 1600, and believed to be the son of Richard Towne, of Braceby, England, came from either Yarmouth or Bristol, England, with his wife Joanna (Blessing) Towne and five or six children. They took up their residence in Salem. Their children: i. Rebecca, bapt. February 21, 1621. m. Francis Nourse, of Salem, who d. November 22, 1695. ii. John, bapt. February 16, 1624. Never m. iii. Susannah, bapt. October 20, 1625. Never m. iv. Edmund, bapt. June 28, 1628. v. Jacob, bapt. March 11, 1632. vi. Mary, bapt. August 24, 1634. m. Isaac Estey. vii. Sarah, bapt. September 3, 1648. m., first, Edmund Bridges, January 11, 1660; second, Peter Cloyes. viii. Joseph, b. 1639. bapt. September 3, 1648."
AT SALEM AND TOPSFIELD. His first American record is a grant of 11 October 1640, "a little neck of land right over against his house on the other side of the river." In 1651 he bought about forty acres at Topsfield of William Paine of Ipswich, the year after the town was incorporated, and in 1652 sold his Salem land to Harry Bullock. In 1663 he and Joanna conveyed two thirds of their house, barn, outhouses, yard, gardens and orchards and about forty four acres to their son Joseph on his marriage to Phebe Perkins, and the Perkins genealogy prints the deed from the Essex records with the words "WILLIAM TOWNE (BORN IN YARMOUTH ENGD.) and Joanna (Blessing) his wife." He died at Topsfield about 1672 and Joanna about 1682.
THE BRACEBY FATHER IS REFUSED. The compiler's "believed to be the son of Richard Towne, of Braceby" rests on nothing, and the will of Ann Towne, Richard's widow, dated 10 December 1629 and printed in the same book, names her eight children and William is not among them. James Savage guessed the same father independently and is defeated by the same will. The deed says Yarmouth, and the cards stop there. Charles W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft; with an Account of Salem Village (Boston, 1867), volume I, pages 79 to 92, on the Bishop farm, the terms of the sale and the Endicott suit, with the deposition of Hugh Jones and Alexius Reynolds (archive.org salemwitchcraftw01upha_0); volume II, pages 57 to 63, on Rebecca Nurse, printing the statement of Israel Porter, Elizabeth Porter, Daniel Andrew and Peter Cloyse and the record of the examination of 24 March 1692 (archive.org salemwitchcraft01uphagoog).
"On the 29th of April, 1678, Allen sold the Bishop farm to Francis Nurse, of the town of Salem, for four hundred pounds. Nurse was an early settler, and, before this purchase, had lived, for some forty years, 'near Skerry's,' on the North River ... He is described as a 'tray-maker.'" "He was then fifty-eight years of age. His wife Rebecca was fifty-seven years of age."
Witchcraft Papers, No. 30, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. Image and transcription: Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive, University of Virginia, SWP No. 94.9.
Salem Witchcraft Papers, the verbatim transcription by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum (1977), revised, Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive, University of Virginia, salem.lib.virginia.edu, SWP No. 94 (Rebecca Nurse), No. 171 (officials' accounts, 1692), No. 172.5 and 172.10 (petitions of 2 March 1703 and 25 May 1709, Massachusetts Archives vol. 135), No. 173.35, 173.47 and 173.48 (Samuel Nurse's petition of 13 September 1710, the act of 17 October 1711, the order for payment of 17 December 1711).
If Francis Nurse is in your family, start your own tree.
Cite: Heirology, "Francis Nurse (1620-1695)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/francis-nurse-1620-1695-adc5e0.