Ancestors
Thomas Brigham
1603-1653 · London, England → Atlantic Ocean → Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Born 1603, England
Died 1653
Children include Mary
He is on one of the few passenger lists of the 1630s that survive. On 8 April 1635 the clerk at London wrote down the people to be carried to New England in the Susan and Ellen, Edward Payne master, who had brought certificates from their ministers and justices "that they are no subsidy men; and are conformable to the orders and discipline of the Church of England," and among them is "Thomas Brigham, 32." On the same ship were Simon Crosby and his wife and baby, who would be his neighbours at Cambridge, and the Reverend Peter Bulkeley with two of his sons, on his way to found Concord.
He settled in the part of Watertown that was set to Cambridge and held several town offices there. About 1637 he married Mercy, a woman ten or fifteen years younger, and they had five children, Mary the first. He died at Cambridge on 8 December 1653, at fifty. His widow married twice more and carried the children out to Marlborough, and fifty years after his death his sons and grandsons were still in court over the Cambridge homestead.
Sources
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 Thomas Brigham is in your family, start your own tree.
Cite: Heirology, "Thomas Brigham (1603-1653)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/thomas-brigham-1603-1653-5ac826.