Ancestors

Jeremiah Newland

Jeremiah Newland was living at Taunton, in the Plymouth Colony, by 1657. His first child, Anthony, was born there on 1 August of that year. Where he was born and where he came from are not known. The genealogist James Savage knew him only as Anthony's father.

In 1657 the men of Taunton took the oath of fidelity, an oath of loyalty to the colony's government. Jeremiah Newland's name is on the town's list with his neighbours Nicholas White, William Wetherell and Robert Crossman. He was also a freeman of the colony. A freeman had the full rights of a member of the colony, including a vote for its governor and magistrates.

His daughter Elizabeth was born on 18 May 1659. Three weeks later, on 7 June 1659, he was before the colony court at Plymouth. He was fined five shillings for being drunk and was admonished for breaking the peace. That October the court sent word to Taunton to summon him again, with James Leonard, Philip Leonard and John Turner, to answer for misdemeanours they had committed in the town.

The Taunton town book records eight of his children. Anthony was born in 1657, Elizabeth in 1659, Susanna in 1664, Jeremiah in 1667, John in 1669, Mary in 1671, Benjamin in 1673 and Mercy in 1676. His wife was named Katharine. No other wife of his is recorded, so she was very probably the mother of them all.

He died at Taunton on 25 July 1681. The town clerk entered him as Jeremiah Newland Sr. Eight months later, in March 1681/2, his daughter Elizabeth married William Witherell Jr. at Taunton.

His eldest son, Anthony, administered the estate. On 10 January 1701 the other heirs gave Anthony a discharge for their shares of "the estate of their father Jeremiah and mother Katharine N." A discharge was a written release in which an heir acknowledged receiving his share and gave up any further claim. The heirs who signed were his sons Jeremy, Benjamin and John Newland and four sons-in-law: William Witherell, John Witherell, William Cobb and Nicholas Smith. The discharge is in the Bristol County probate records and was abstracted by Charles Henry Pope in his Pioneers of Massachusetts of 1900.

If Jeremiah Newland is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Jeremiah Newland (d. 1681)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/jeremiah-newland-1681-e38779.