Holbrook line: John Brackett 1637-1686

As I first researched this ancestor of ours, I could find only enough information to perhaps fill out three sentences.  I knew his parents, his birth and death dates (incorrect death date, as it turns out), his siblings and his wife and children.  I knew the town where he lived and died.  I knew that his father was a deacon and a jailer, and I thought maybe our John had gone undercover, so to speak, to escape his father's reputation. 

But as I did a little more research, I found a few more facts, ones that show John standing on his own two feet and becoming his own man.  It's not much, yet, but still, it's more than I knew at the beginning. 

John's parents were Richard and Alice Blower Brackett.  His father had come to Massachusetts in 1632, returned to England to marry in 1633 and then returned to New England in 1634 with his bride.  John had one older sister, Hannah.  He and his brother were baptized the same day, May 7, 1637 in Boston.  It's not clear whether the two were twins, but if not, they were certainly close all their days.  Five more siblings were born after John.  Remarkably, all of the children of Richard and Alice lived to adulthood.

It's not clear how much John would have remembered of his earliest childhood days in Boston, because his parents moved to Braintree about 1641.  John would have been only about 4 years old at the time of the move, and Braintree was probably the equivalent of the old home place, although of course both Richard and Alice could have talked about their own childhoods, in England. 

John, however, looked to the future.  He married Hannah French, daughter of William and Elizabeth French, on September 6, 1661 in Braintree.  Sometime during the next few years, he moved his family 45 miles north, to Billerica.  Billerica had been founded in 1655 on the side of a former native village, and although John didn't get in on the ground floor, he must have had good reason for going there.  Four of his brothers and sisters moved to Billerica, and Hannah's father may have already been there.  These moves took place for the most part in the early 1660's, although exact dates are hard to pin down. 

We do know that John was "rated" in 1669 for 15 shillings to go to the maintenance of Mr. Whiting, the church pastor.  This was a fairly low amount based on the list I found in an 1883 History of Billerica, but at the time John had been married for only about 8 years so is not likely to have had a large estate.  I also found that he was a soldier, at least in the militia, during King Philip's War.  His family, along with those of Daniel Shed Jr, Samuel Trull, and James Kidder Jr. were assigned to Sergeant Kidder's home when the town felt threatened.  Two soldiers were also assigned there, for a total of 7 soldiers, so the implication is that each of the men mentioned were also soldiers.  I also found note that Billerica had been abandoned after an attack, but I am not sure of the chronology of this, whether it was before or after the assignment of the various families to the garrison and strong houses.  John was rated at three shillings in 1679, but again, this is soon after the war ended so it is hard to draw conclusions from this list.

Hannah died on May 9, 1674, the same day that her last daughter was born.  Her father named the last daughter "Marah", which meant "bitter" in the Old Testament.  However, with seven children to raise he needed a new wife, and he married Ruth Morse Ellis, widow, on March 31, 1674.  She had three children of her own and then she and John had four children, three of whom survived.  That was one large family.  And Ruth would have been the one to take her four children, John's seven, and possibly the first of their children together, into Sergeant Kidder's house for what may have been a lengthy period of time during King Philip's War!

John died March 18, 1686 in Billerica, still less than 50 years old.  He apparently didn't leave a will, and his inventory is confusing.  It looks like it says that the first accounting was not complete and the marshal seized some of Ruth's holdings until it was completed to the court's satisfaction, but the final total was a little over 118 pounds.  Ruth would have received 1/3 of that, and the rest divided up among John's children as they reached the age of majority.  So there wasn't much to go around, but something is better than nothing.

I found nothing about John's religious beliefs but as this was still early in colonial history, and as his father had been a deacon, it's probably safe to say he was a Puritan and raised his children in the same beliefs.  His inventory appears to show the tools, animals, and equipment of a farmer, although he may also have had a trade.  I'd like to know more about him, of course.  He was another of the salt of the earth type people who built New England and influenced America down to this day.

The line of descent is

John Brackett-Hannah French
Hannah Brackett-Joseph Stannard
John Stannard-Hannah Jordan
John Stannard-Hannah Hanchett
Libbeus Stanard-Eunice Pomeroy
Libbeus Stanard-Luceba Fay
Hiram Stanard-Susan Eddy
Louis Stanard-Mary Alice Hetrick
Etta Stanard-Loren Holbrook
Gladys Holbrook-Richard Allen
Their descendants