Holbrook line: Eltweed Pomeroy, Immigrant

I can't believe that I haven't written about Eltweed Pomeroy yet.  Just the sound of his name has made me smile since the day I found him on our tree.  Plus, there is scads and oodles of information about him, although of course there are still confusing details and missing facts.  There is even a Pomeroy Family Association that honors his name, and a book written about Eltweed and his descendants.  I've found a wonderful collection of riches while writing this post. 

Eltweed Pomeroy was born in Beaminster, Devon, England shortly before he was christened on July 5, 1585.  His father was Richard Pomeroy but the name of his mother is not yet known.  (It is often given as '"Eleanor Coker" but that name is also attached to an earlier Richard Pomeroy, and I'll believe it only when I find documentation.) At any rate, Richard would have have at least one wife, and perhaps Eltweed is a name in her family. 

We don't know anything about Eltweed's early life other than that he was listed as being a :fuller".  The town was famous as a manufacturer of both linens and woolens, so Eltweed worked with woolens, in a manufacturing environment.  He first married Johanna Keech on May 4, 1617 in Beaminster.  They had two daughters, but Johanna and the two young children died of "the plague" by 1621. 

He next married on May 7, 1629 in Sherborne, Dorset, England Margery Rockett (Rockwood), daughter of Thomas Rocket.  The two towns are 17 miles apart, so one wonders how they met.  However, they both must have been good Puritans and that may explain their marriage, as just a few monts later, in February of 1630, they were in attendance at a meeting of Reverend White's group of Puritans in the "New Hospital" at Plymouth.  This was 96 miles from Sherborne, so the Pomeroys would have sacrificed much to get there.

We don't know exactly when the family came to New England but they were part of the Great Migration because Eltweed was made a freeman at Dorchester, Massachusetts Bay Colony, on March 4, 1632.  While in Dorchester, he served as selectman, and constable, and on at least two town committees.  He was referred to as "Mr. Pomeroy", indicating a degree of respect.  The couple had eight children.  Two may have been born in England, one possibly in Dorchester, and the rest were born in Windsor, Connecticut, which is where Eltweed took his family in 1636.   He readily adhered to the teachings of the Reverend Ephraim Huit (Hewitt), another of our ancestors, when he came to Windsor in 1639. In fact, he built onto his own home a room for Isabel, widow of Ephraim Huit, and then bought it from her estate when she died.  Sometime in 1659, there was an Indian raid and Eltweed's mare was stolen.  He requested compensation and eventually (5 years later!) received wampum worth ten pounds.  This was regarded as an acceptable form of money. 

Eltweed owned land in Windsor, including two houses, which he gave to two of his sons.

His background in woolen textiles was valued in Windsor, and he appears to have acted as a sort of consultant, but he was primarily a blacksmith.  Margery died in 1655 and after twelve years of widower status, he married Lydia Brown, the widow of Thomas Parsons on November 30, 1667.  Eltweed  They had no children,   Eltweed was old by then, 82 years old when he married for the third time, and nearly blind. 

Soon after the marriage, they apparently went to Northampton, Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay Colony, where Eltweed's son, Medad, lived.  Eltweed died there on March 4, 1673, when he was 87 years old.  I haven't found a will or an inventory yet, but I'll keep looking.  It is possible that he owned next to nothing at the time of his death, since he had given much to his children, and was living with a son. 

Eltweed is fun because FamousKin.com tells us that he is the ancestor of some pretty famous people-Harriet Beecher Stowe, Franklin D. Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan and son, Gloria Vanderbilt (and hence Anderson Cooper), and Henry Luce, among others.  Some of these people were extremely wealthy, but I don't think we'd be welcome in their homes, except as paying guests.  Still, it's fun to find connections like these.

Our line of descent is:

Eltweed Pomeroy-Margery Rockett
Medad Pomeroy-Experience Woodward
Joseph Pomeroy-Hannah Seymour
Medad Pomeroy-Hannah Trumbull
Medad Pomeroy-Eunice Southwell
Eunice Pomeroy-Libbeus Stanard
Libbeus Stanard-Luceba Fay
Hiram Stanard-Susan Eddy
Louis Stanard-Mary Alice Hetrick
Etta Stanard-Loren Holbrook
Gladys Holbrook-Richard Allen
Their descendants