John Spofford
John Spofford was born about 1612. He was "fifty years of age in 1662, hence born in 1612", by Jeremiah Spofford's family genealogy of 1888. His English parents and birthplace are not known.
He came to New England with the Rev. Ezekiel Rogers, who brought "many families from Yorkshire" and settled Rowley, Massachusetts, in April 1639. John's name is "on the record of the first division of lands into homestead lots, in 1643."
He married Elizabeth Scott, the eldest daughter of Thomas Scott of Ipswich, a glover from Rattlesden in Suffolk. Their first child, Elizabeth, was born on 14 December 1646, and the town recorded her birth. Eight more followed: John on 24 October 1648, Thomas in 1650, Samuel in 1653, Hannah in 1654, Mary in 1656, a Sarah who died at two, a second Sarah in 1662 and Francis in 1665.
In the spring of 1669 he moved his family out to a town farm on what is still called Spofford's Hill. Jeremiah Spofford calls him "without doubt the first settler in Georgetown", the part of Rowley that later became its own town. The town leased him the farm for twenty-one years. For the first five years the rent was "three hundred feet of white oak plank" a year.
He made his will in October 1678 and divided the lease of the farm between his sons John and Samuel. The court held at Ipswich proved it on the sixth day of the ninth month, 1678, which is 6 November, so he died within a month of making it. Jeremiah Spofford thought he was "admonished by failing health rather than by the infirmities of age." He was very probably buried at Rowley, but no stone for him has been found.
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Cite: Heirology, "John Spofford (1612-1678)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-spofford-1612-1678-77ab37.