The family of Comfort Starr

 Comfort Starr, referred to as Dr. by many, is our first immigrant of the Starr name.  His parents were Thomas and Susan (possibly Moore) Starr.  His parents may or may not have been immigrants.  I have seen trees claiming he died in Ashford, Kent, England and also that he died in Massachusetts Bay Colony.  Thomas's will seems to have been written in England, so for the time being and until someone convinces me otherwise, I'll leave him in England.  

Comfort was born July 6, 1589 and in Ashford, Kent, England. His father or possibly his grandfather was relatively well to do, and Comfort, as a second son, was trained to be a chirurgeon.  There seems to be some dispute about what the job of surgeon entailed in the early 17th century.  Some say a surgeon was not as educated as a doctor, because their primary job was to cut off limbs and stitch up wounds.  Others say he was a physician, and there is some evidence that he at least had some medicines at his disposal.  But would he have had access to these pain killers as a chirurgeon, also?  I am still working on this problem.  Either way, he was probably able to provide for his family above the subsistence, or even working class, label, as indicated by the three servants he brought with him to America, one of whom was his sibling, Truth Shall Prevail.

Comfort married Elizabeth Watts in Sussex, England and they had ten children together, nine of them born at Ashford.  There is some question, actually, about Elizabeth.  I have also seen her referred to as Elizabeth Mitchell, and identified as the daughter of Thomas Hayward Mitchell and his wife Margaret.  I don't know which is correct, or whether Elizabeth Mitchell may have been a widower of a man named Watts.  (For such a well-known family, there are a lot of research questions that are not yet answered properly, I think.)

Comfort and Elizabeth came to America in 1635, with their three oldest children.  It appears that some of the other children came later.  Of the ten children, two did not survive childhood.  

Thomas, named for his father and grandfather, was the first born son, baptized December 31, 1615.  He would have been 19 when he immigrated, and five years later he married Rachel, most often seen as Rachel Harris.  They had 10 children-Thomas, Samuel, Comfort, Elizabeth, Benjamin, Jehosophat, Constant, William, Josiah, and John, and I will write about them in my next post.

Judith was born before January 11, 1617/18 and buried August 25, 1622.  

Mary was baptized April 16, 1620, and married John Maynard in 1640.  They had five children-Mary, Lydia, Hannah, Mary, and Zachariah. Mary died before her father wrote his will in 1659, but he left bequests to the children.

Elizabeth was baptized June 3, 1622 and married John Fernside or Ferniside by July of 1642.  Their children were Hannah, Elizabeth, Sarah, Jacob, Lydia, Ruth, Mary, Abigail, and Sarah (again).  

Comfort was baptized April 11, 1624.  He married first Grace, and later Anne Finch, who was the mother of his three known children-Josiah, John, and George.  He apparently was in Massachusetts for about 15 years and returned to England in 1650, where he lived his life as a pastor.  

John Starr was baptized October 15, 1626 and married Martha Bunker, daughter of George and Judith Major Bunker.  They had at least eight children, many of whose names are now familiar to us-Elizabeth, Judith, Eleazer, Lydia, Comfort, John, and Benjamin.   

Samuel Starr was baptized March 1, 1628/29, and was buried April 16, 1633.

Hannah Starr was baptized July 22, 1632 and married John Cutt.  He became the first president of the providence of New Hampshire, appointed by King Charles II.  They had five children together-John, Elizabeth, Hannah, Samuel, and Mary.  

Lydia was baptized March 22, 1634/5 and married Simon Eyre.  She died in 1653, aged less than 20, leaving just one child, Simon, whose last name was later spelled Ayers.  

Ruth Starr was the last child, born about 1637, in Massachusetts, although there seem to be no contemporary records of her birth.  She married Joseph Moore in 1656, and was already deceased when her father wrote his will in 1659.  The deaths of these last two children may or may not have been related to childbirth, but both women were very of child bearing age when they died.

This gives Comfort and Elizabeth 41 grandchildren, some of whom they would never have seen (son Comfort's children having been born in England).  The children seem to have all been good citizens, who made good lives for themselves and their own children.  We can be proud of the contributions that Dr Comfort and Elizabeth made to their community.