Holbrook line: Stephen Post, Immigrant

Thanks to the hard work of Steve Carter, among others, we have more information about this immigrant ancestor than about many others.  We do have some minor disputes about his life, but considering everything, I'll take this.  Robert Charles Anderson has also done a sketch of Stephen in "The Great Migration 1633-1635",  so much of the material I would ordinarily be looking for is already gathered.  That's great news, for me.  The hard part is going to be keeping this blog post to a reasonable length, I think.

Stephen Post was baptized on June 24, 1604 at Hollingbourne, Kent, England, the son of Abraham and Anne Hurst (or Hunte, apparently the record is hard to read) Post.  He was their second child and only son, so we might guess he was spoiled just a little bit.  Unlike many of our families, this one stayed intact until the youngest of the three surviving children was in her late teens, so Stephen had economic advantages that not every young man had.  Small as Hollingbourne is, his parents were still able to have Stephen trained as a carpenter, assuring Stephen of a means to support himself throughout his life.

Stephen married Eleanor Panton on October 17, 1625, at Langley, Kent, England, which was only about 4 miles away from Hollingbourne.  (Incidentally, both towns appear to be not far from Leeds Castle, which also figures in our family history, but I digress). Their first child was baptized at Hollingbourne but the next three were baptized at Otham, another small village very close to Langley.

There are varying statements as to when Stephen and his family came to New England.  Cutter thought it was by 1631, but Eleanor had children in Otham in 1631 and 1633 so that doesn't appear likely.  (Of course, one child could have been conceived before Stephen left, and the other after Stephen returned to fetch his family, but those are stretches given that Robert Charles Anderson only says he was in Cambridge, Masachusetts Bay Colony, in 1634.  The simpler story is usually the closer to the truth.  While he was in Otham, he was identified as a carpenter when he was a bondsman for the marriage intentions of his sister.  He was also a churchwarden in 1632.  From this, we should not necessarily conclude that he was a Church of England man at heart.  Many times in this time period Puritans were forced into these positions.

In 1636, Stephen moved his family from Cambridge to Hartford, Connecticut.  He is listed on the memorial of the Founders there, and is believed to have traveled with the party of Rev. Thomas Hooker.  Many of the people in this group left the Cambridge area because of their religious beliefs, and Stephen may have been one of them.  Hartford seemed to offer hope, and the right to vote.

Stephen acquired several tracts of land in Hartford, but sold the various plots in 1639 to William Goodwin, Thomas Gridley, and Edward Hopkins, respectively.  These are all dated February 2, 1639, so that presents the possibility that Stephen was already planning a move to Saybrook.  He worked to put clapboard on the meeting house in Hartford in 1640was a constable in Hartford in 1642, however, so this is a little confusing.

We know he was in Saybrook by 1648, when he purchased land there.  He also worked on the fort (he was a carpenter here as well as in England) and undoubtedly other projects also.  The fort was necessary because of the threat of attack from the native Americans, and perhaps also to intimidate the Dutch, who were eager to maintain a foothold in Connecticut.  Stephen was a lieutenant in the militia, so he must have been well liked by his neighbors.   There is an undated inventory of land at Saybrook that shows Stephen as having six parcels of land, including his house and homelot in the town, and other small parcels of pasture and meadow.

Stephen died August 16, 1659 in Saybrook.  His inventory showed a value of 442 pounds, and included carpenter's tools, a great Bible and a small Bible, three guns (fowling piece, musket and one small gun) and two swords, among other items.  Elinor stayed in Saybrook where she died November 13, 1670.  They had four adult children, besides the infant Joseph who had died in England in 1633.

One of the questions I have is why Stephen moved to Saybrook, and what Elinor thought about that.  Was it for religious reasons, or economic, or did he just enjoy pioneering in new areas?  I'd also like to know more about his religious beliefs.  However, considering how little we know of some of our ancestors, I'm happy to be able to tell you this much of his story.

Our line of descent is:

Stephen Post-Elinor Panton
Katherine Post-Alexander Chalker
Katherine Chalker-John Jordan
Hannah Jordan-John Stannard
John Stannard-Hannah Hanchett
Libbeus Stannard-Eunice Pomeroy
Libberus Stnnard-Luceba Fay
Hiram Stanard-Susan Eddy
Louis Stanard-Mary Alice Hetrick
Etta Stanard-Loren Holbrook
Gladys Holbrook-Richard Allen
Their descendants

Holbrook line: Alexander Chalker, Immigrant

Although I tend to think of my ancestry as being mainly in Massachusetts, of course there are a lot of immigrant ancestors who settled elsewhere, up and down the East Coast.  Alexander Chalker was one who apparently went to Connecticut directly, without stopping in Boston or Plymouth.  It's quite possible that he travelled with Reverend Henry Whitfield, who led a group of settlers there.  Alexander's signature is not included in the list of 22 men who signed as original settlers, but he is thought to have been quite young when he arrived there, perhaps not yet 21.  He may have come as a servant to one of the signers, for instance.

The Whitfield group was formed primarily from those in and around Ockley, Suffolk, England, where he was pastor of St Margaret's Church.  He was a Church of England pastor there for twenty years, but eventually was caught up in the Archbishop Laud trouble and was apparently forced to resign. He and many of his congregation came to Connecticut, purchased land from the native Americans, and settled in what became Guilford.  This would have been wilderness, but the men and women worked hard and soon it was home.

Alexander may have come from in or near Ockley but as far as I know no one has pinned down the names of his parents.  We know he became a freeman in 1644, which means he was at least 21 then, and a member of the church.  He probably owned property, too.  This explains why his birth date is given as about 1620, although it could be a couple of years later and certainly could also be earlier. 

The next we know of Alexander is that he married Katherine Post on September 29,1649 in Guildford.  She was the daughter of Stephen Post and Eleanor Panton.  At least eight children were born to the couple, although Samuel has been a bit of a mystery.  I show a birthdate of 1655 for him, although others say he was born in 1649, which would make him either an "early" baby or the son of another woman.

After some years, the family moved to Saybrook, which was not far away, and may have stayed there until Alexander died.  I don't think Alexander was way high up on the social scale because in a 1669 list of treemen several are listed as "Mr.", a term of some respect, and Alexander has no such title attached.  So he was a plain vanilla kind of man, likely the kind of hard worker who did the real work of building America. 

As far as I can tell, no one knows when Alexander died.  Many websites say 1659 but their were children born as late as 1666, so it must have been 1665 or later.  Some say it was before fall of 1673, when either his wife or his daughter married a John Hills.  If it was his daughter, as seems likely, that date is irrelevant and he could have lived on after that.  I've checked several of my "usual sources" and am unable to find a will or death records. 

This is as much as I can tell you about Alexander Chalker at the moment.  Oh, there's one more thing...He is an ancestor of Mitt Romney, so we are distant cousins to Mr. Romney.  If he ever hires a genealogist in England to try to find Alexander's roots, I hope he will share the information with his less wealthy cousins!

The line of descent is:

Alexander Chalker-Katherine Post
Katherine Chalker-John Jordan
Hannah Jordan-John Stannard
John Stannard-Hannah Hatchett
Libbeus Stannard-Eunice Pomeroy
Libbeus Stannard Jr-Luceba Fay
Hiram Stanard-Susan Eddy
Louis Stanard-Mary Alice Hetrick
Etta Stanard-Loren Holbrook
Gladys Holbrook-Richard Allen
Their descendants