John Churchill

d. 1662 · Plymouth MA

Died 1662

Children include William, Eliezer

John Churchill is the immigrant ancestor of the Plymouth Churchills. He first appears in Plymouth in 1643, in the list of the male inhabitants between sixteen and sixty who were able to bear arms. He was not in the tax lists of 1632. Nothing is known of him before that list: not a birthplace, not a parish, not a parent, not a trade he brought with him.

What he did after 1643 is well recorded. He married Hannah Pontus, daughter of William Pontus, on 18 December 1644. In August 1645 he bought the dwelling house, out houses, garden and orchard of Richard Higgins near Browne's Rock, with the uplands and the meadow at South Ponds, for twelve pounds paid over four years in corn or cattle. He was propounded freeman in June 1650 and admitted a year later. In October 1652 he bought ten acres at Wellingsley, and the deed calls him Planter. He lived and died at Hobb's Hole, on the easterly side of the street. Six children were born between 1647 and 1657: Joseph, Hannah, Eliezer, Mary, William and John.

On 24 December 1662 he was ill but of perfect memory, and he said aloud what he wanted done. His kinswoman Abigail Clarke, aged twenty three or thereabouts, swore to his words in the Plymouth court on 3 March following, and her deposition is his will. He left uplands and meadows to Joseph and Eliezer, fifty acres at Mannonnett ponds to John, and to William, then six, his share of the town land at Punckatusett. As for the rest, he said he knew not whether there would be anything left when his children were brought up. If his wife could spare it, Joseph and Eliezer should each have a yoke of oxen, and Hannah a cow if not two.

He died on 1 January 1662/3. His inventory came to seventy four pounds, with two guns at five pounds ten and his books at six shillings. Punkatussett was set off in 1707 as the town of Plympton, and William was one of its first settlers.

Children

William Churchill 1656-1722 Eliezer Churchill 1652-1716

Sources

Gardner Asaph Churchill and Nathaniel Wiley Churchill, The Churchill Family in America (Boston, 1904), first generation, quoting the will from the Plymouth Colony records, the Higgins deed from Old Colony Memorial Deeds vol. VIII p. 111, and William T. Davis, Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth, p. 331

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Cite: Heirology, "John Churchill (d. 1662)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-churchill-1662-3b1025.