Ancestors

Thomas Whitman

Thomas Whitman was born in England about 1629, the eldest son of John Whitman, who became the first deacon of Weymouth in Massachusetts. Farnham's family history says Thomas "was about twelve years old when he came with his mother and some others of the children, about 1641, to settle in this country." His father had come ahead of them.

He worked with his father on the farm at Weymouth until he was grown. In 1653, at twenty four, he was made a freeman at Boston, which meant he had taken the oath of the colony and could vote, and which required church membership. On 22 November 1656 he married Abigail Byram, a daughter of Ensign Nicholas Byram, another Weymouth settler. On the same day his sister Mary married John Pratt. Farnham thought the two families had long been close, since Byram seems to have come over with Thomas's father and the two men were made free at the same time.

In 1662 Thomas and his father-in-law both sold their farms at Weymouth and moved to Bridgewater, twelve miles to the south. Bridgewater was then an inland town of Plymouth Colony, with good soil and wide meadows. Each man took up a large tract in the east of the town, still wild land. Thomas's was the piece that has been called Whitman's Neck ever since, about two hundred acres between the Satucket and Matfield rivers, running to a point where they meet.

He lived there fifty years. His first house was a log cabin built about 1663, between the later house of Deacon John Whitman and the Satucket River. In King Philip's War, which began in 1675, Bridgewater was an exposed frontier town. Tradition says that every house that was not garrisoned or stockaded, and that stood away from the village, was burned, except one, and that one was Nicholas Byram's. Thomas's cabin "was burnt by the Indians in 1676", and Farnham says the second house was lost as well. Farnham thought Byram's house was probably where the Whitmans and the other neighbours took refuge. The third house, built in 1680, stood until 1801, and thirty six children were born in it over four generations.

Thomas and Abigail had three sons and four daughters: John, born at Weymouth in 1658, Ebenezer, Nicholas, Susanna, who married Benjamin Willis, Mary, who married Seth Leach, Naomi, who married William Snow, and Hannah. He made his will in 1711, naming his son John executor, and died in 1712, aged eighty three. Abigail outlived him "until very aged".

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Cite: Heirology, "Thomas Whitman (1629-1712)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/thomas-whitman-1629-1712-596d84.