Holbrook line: Samuel Sumner 1638-who knows? Not what I expected to find!

Well, you never know.  You just never know, and that's what makes genealogy so fascinating.  Who would think that a man in his later fifties would just pull up stakes from Dorchester, Massachusetts Bay Colony, and transport himself, his wife, and most of their thirteen children, mostly adults, to Dorchester, South Carolina?  These kinds of surprises just keep me going. 

To start at the beginning, Samuel Sumner was born May 18, 1638 in Dorchester, Massachusetts Bay Colony to William and Mary Swift Sumner.  (Some sites list his mother as Mary West but I don't find evidence for that-yet.)  He was one of at least seven children born to this couple, and he was raised to be a good Puritan. 

Samuel married Rebecca Staples, daughter of John and Rebecca Borrobridge Staple, at Dorchester, Massachusetts Bay Colony, on March 7, 1659.  The couple had thirteen children together, and were apparently faithful members of the church,  There were two men from Dorchester named Samuel Sumner who went on the "Canada" expedition in 1690, under Captain John Worthington.  One was a sergeant and one an ensign.  One returned, one didn't.  This expedition had tried to capture Quebec from the French but were not successful.

As good Puritans, Samuel and Rebecca were among those who went with Rev. Joseph Lord to the settlement they named Dorchester in what was then Berkeley County, South Carolina.  They were dismissed from the church November 1, 1696, to go south.  Assuming they left soon after, that might have been a rough trip, traveling south by ship in early winter.  It's 962 miles by road so would probably have been further than that by boat.  This was still hurricane season, so it is by God's mercy and grace that they made it safely. 

It's not known why the New England church decided to start a daughter church in South Carolina.  Perhaps they were aware that the Anglican church also wanted to develop the area.  Maybe it was population pressure, where they were already running out of land in the New England Dorchester.  It doesn't appear to be a church split at all.  But Samuel, whose parents had pioneered in Dorchester, now became a pioneer and immigrant of sorts in South Carolina. 

I don't know anything about his life in South Carolina, or his death.  I found a tentative, undocumented death date for Rebecca of 1710.  Life along the Ashley River would have been very different from Massachusetts, and there were many illnesses that took the lives of these early settlers, from smallpox to malaria to other southern fevers.  They wouldn't have had much exposure to malaria or the other fevers in the north, so perhaps it was one of these diseases that took one or both of them.

I haven't yet found his will or inventory, nor anything that really states his occupation.  However, whatever his occupation in the north, when he settled in South Carolina, he would have become a farmer first and foremost.  Crops had to be raised, families needed to be fed.  We aren't told, or at least I haven't found, what material assistance they may have been given by the church, to help feed them until the first crops came in.  We do know that the settlement only lasted about 45 years.  When it closed, some of the congregation moved south to Georgia, some stayed in place and some went back "home" to Massachusetts. 

Samuel and Rebecca's daughter, Rebecca, had married Ephraim Wilson and they did not travel south with most of the family.  So our line continued in New England but still, this is intriguing and unexpected 225 year old "news".  You never know what you don't know until you find out you don't know it! 

The line of descent is:

Samuel Sumner-Rebecca Staples
Rebecca Sumner-Ephraim Wilson
Samuel Wilson-Elizabeth Hawes
Rebecca Wilson-Jonathan Wright
Molly Wright-Amariah Holbrook
Nahum Holbrook-Susanna Rockwood
Joseph Holbrook-Mary Elizabeth Whittemore
Fremont Holbrook-Phoebe Brown
Loren Holbrook-Etta Stanard
Gladys Holbrook-Richard Allen
Their descendants

Fun fact:  This South Carolina settlement appears to be within a stone's throw of the home of my brother in law.  Both have a Summerville, SC address now.  We've been there, and didn't know of the family connection at the time.