Ancestors
John Fay
1648-1690 · Gravesend, Kent, England → Atlantic Ocean → Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts → Sudbury, Middlesex County, Massachusetts → Marlborough, Middlesex County, Massachusetts → Watertown, Middlesex County, Massachusetts → Marlborough, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Born 1648, England
Died 1690
Children include Samuel
He was eight years old when the Speedwell sailed from Gravesend on 30 May 1656, Robert Locke master, and landed him at Boston on 27 June. The passenger list has him among a handful of Sudbury-bound young men, Thomas Barnes at twenty, Shadrack Hapgood at fourteen, the Goodnow brothers, and "John Fay, aged 8 years." Nobody has found who sent him or who met him. He must have had kin at Sudbury, because when a company from that town went out to their new grant at Marlborough he went with them, and by 1669 he was a freeman there with a wife and a child.
His wife was Mary Brigham, the first girl of that family born in New England, whose widowed mother had brought her children to Marlborough. In 1675 he took up fifty acres as a proprietor of Worcester. Then King Philip's War came. On 1 October 1675 twenty six inhabitants of Marlborough met to arrange their defence and he was assigned to William Kerley's house, to hold it if the town were attacked. It was, and burned, and like most of the settlers he left. He took the family to Watertown, and there he buried Mary in 1676 and one of their children, and married Susanna Shattuck. When the war ended he went back to Marlborough and settled in the southern part of the town, on land that is Southborough now. He was a proprietor of the Ockoocangansett plantation bought from the Indians in 1684, and that October the county put him on a committee to lay out highways between Sudbury, Sherborn, Marlborough and Framingham.
He died on 5 May 1690, about fifty. The appraisers took his inventory the following New Year's Day. Five years later his widow told the court that he had disposed of nearly everything by will in providing for his children, and that "two cows, one horse, five sheep, three pairs of sheets are all that remains." No such will is on file. It may have been spoken.
Sources
ORLIN P. FAY, Fay Genealogy: John Fay of Marlborough and his Descendants (Cleveland, 1898), pages 14 to 16 and 173.
SAMUEL FAY, page 173: "He was the 3d son of John 1, the 2d son, David d. young. Samuel was b. in Marlboro, Oct. 11, 1673, d. in Westboro, Nov. 10, 1732, m. May 16, 1699, Tabitha Ward, dau. of Increase & Record Ward, b. May 16, 1675. 7 chil., 6 b. in M." The first of them: "1 REBECCA, b. Feb. 19, 1700, d. June 22, 1776, m. Dec. 12, 1723, Wm. Nurse of Shrewsbury. In 1741 he and his farm were set off to Westboro. 9 chil." and the nine are listed, Daniel fourth, "b. May 11, 1729, m. Sarah Ball." The others: Tabitha 1702, who married William Maurey of Brookfield; Samuel, baptised 6 May 1705; Jeduthan, 7 June 1707; Abigail, 19 January 1709, who married Thomas Converse of Killingly; Ebenezer, 12 April 1713; and Mary, 28 March 1720, who died unmarried before 1746.
The sketch of him: "He settled in that part of Marlboro now Westboro, perhaps in the Southwest part, and was one of the first inhabitants of that new town after it was set off from Marlboro in 1717. He and his wife offered themselves for baptism in the Marlboro church in 1701. His wife is enrolled July 7, 1727, in the First Congregational church in Westboro. He left a will, which was not proved. His estate was settled by the consent of his heirs. He was chosen Surveyor in 1718-1720 and 1721 was Tythingman, which was in those days considered a highly honorable position, and was given to none but men of sober character and good standing in the community. He also filled the office of Town Clerk, succeeding his brother, John, in that position. In 1728, 1729 and 1730 he was Sealer of leather. He owned land in Southboro and purchased a large tract of land in Brookfield."
JOHN FAY, pages 14 to 16: "JOHN FAY, b. in England (?) about 1648, embarked May 30, 1656 at Gravesend, on board the ship Speedwell, Robert Locke, Master, and arrived at Boston on the 27th of June. Among the passengers were Thomas Barnes, aged 20; Shadrack Hapgood, aged 14; Thomas Goodnow, aged 20; Nathan Goodnow, aged 16, and John Fay, aged 8 years." He was at Marlborough by 1669, "when he was made freeman and he had a wife and one child." In 1675 he was a proprietor of Worcester with a fifty acre lot in the eastern squadron; on 1 October 1675, when twenty six inhabitants of Marlborough met for their defence, "John Fay, who was present, was assigned with several others to repair to the house of William Kerley to defend it in case of an attack by the marauding bands of Philip." "While in Watertown, to which place he had retired, he buried his first wife and one of his children, and married again." "After the close of Philip's War he returned to Marlboro and settled in the southerly part of the town, on a lot now included in Southboro." "John Fay's first wife, Mary, was the first Brigham girl born in New England. Her father, Thomas Brigham, was the ancestor of the Brigham family." His second wife was Susanna Shattuck, daughter of William Shattuck of Watertown. "The estate of John Fay was inventoried Jan. 1, 1691 by John Newton, Samuel Brigham and Isaac Amsden. June 6, 1695; his widow, Susanna, administered an inventory with the statement, that her late husband, John Fay, had by will disposed of the rest of his property in providing for his children, and that two cows, one horse, five sheep, three pairs of sheets are all that remains. This will is not on record in the Middlesex files, and it might have been verbal. To each of his sons he seems to have bequeathed extensive tracts of land and to have been for his day a planter of considerable estate."
THE DOCUMENT THAT MAKES MARY A BRIGHAM: "The marriage of John Fay to Mary Brigham (who was a daughter of Thomas Brigham, Sr.) is indicated by a legal document on record in Middlesex Co., Mass., as follows: 'Thomas Brigham, John Brigham, Samuel Brigham, Hannah Ward, John Fay, Samuel Fay, children, and heirs of Thomas Brigham, late of Cambridge, commenced suit to recover certain lands in possession of Samuel Hastings, who purchased the Brigham Homestead.' Hannah Ward was a daughter of Thomas Brigham, Sen. John Fay and Samuel Fay were children of John Fay, Sen., and Mary Brigham, introduced here to prove that the first wife of John Fay, instead of being Mary Shattuck, as it appeared when the record was first traced, was Mary Brigham." The Brigham genealogy of 1907 prints the suit itself, from Middlesex Deeds volume xiii page 527, acknowledged 26 February 1703. W. I. TYLER BRIGHAM, The History of the Brigham Family: a Record of Several Thousand Descendants of Thomas Brigham the Emigrant, 1603-1653 (New York, 1907).
"1 THOMAS BRIGHAM, born probably in England in 1603; died in Cambridge, Mass., 8 Dec., 1653; married, probably in 1637, Mercy Hurd, born probably in England; died in Marlboro, Mass., 23 Dec, 1693." The passenger list: "VIII April 1635. Theis under written are to be transported to New England imbarqued in the Suzan and Ellen, Edward Payne Mr (Master). The p'ties have brought certificates from ye Ministers and Justices of the peace yt they are no subsidy men; and are conformable to ye orders and discipline of the Church of England. Thomas Brigham 32." "Aboard the same ship were Symon Crosby and his wife and infant, future neighbors in Cambridge; Ralph Hudson and Percival Green, who were to be fellow-townsmen there, and also two boys, Benjamin and Daniel, with their father, the learned and reverend Peter Bulkley," who founded Concord that year.
MERCY: "Thomas Brigham married probably in 1637 his wife Mercy, but of this date there is no record. We know she must have been a woman of unusual strength, force and determination. The Rev. Abner Morse says, on the authority of tradition, that her maiden name was Mercy Hurd, that she was 10 or 15 years younger than her husband, and that, persecuted in England for nonconformity, she came to New England with her sister, who married William (?) Cutter. Tradition should be taken as a clue to the truth rather than truth itself." "She married for her second husband, 1 March, 1655, Edmund Rice, then of Sudbury, but who removed in 1660 to Marlboro, where he died 3 May, 1663." "Mercy married, 1664, as her third husband, William Hunt."
MARY, second generation: "2 MARY, daughter of Thomas and Mercy (Hurd) Brigham; born probably in Cambridge, Mass., about 1638; died in Watertown, in 1676; married John Fay, the emigrant, who settled in Marlboro, Mass., and died 5 May, 1690, ae. 50. Mary was the first Brigham born in America, and as such deserves especial mention. Paige, in his History of Cambridge, chronicles that 'Mary went to Sudbury and Marlboro with her mother, brothers and sister, when her father died, where she married John Fay of Marlboro.'" The book prints the 1703 suit from Middlesex Deeds xiii 527, in which "John Fay & Samll Fay children of Mary Faye all of Marlburrough" stand among the heirs of Thomas Brigham against the buyer of the Cambridge homestead.
The surname HURD rests on Abner Morse's tradition and the compiler says so. It is the name she is known by in every printed account. If John Fay is in your family, start your own tree.
Cite: Heirology, "John Fay (1648-1690)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-fay-1648-1690-cbfeeb.