Boreman

When Margaret Boreman made her will at Ipswich in August 1679, she left "my daughter Loe" all her pewter, a pair of fine sheets and half a dozen napkins, the two cows already in the Lows' hands, and "a black goune and a Red petticot." Her husband, Thomas Boreman, had come to Ipswich about 1634 from Claydon, Oxfordshire, where his family had farmed for three generations before him. The first of the name on record is William Boreman of Banbury, in the Lay Subsidy of 1525; his son, it seems, was Thomas Boreman "the elder" of Claydon, who left his son John "a bedstede I made myself." The elder Thomas's son William, a husbandman, left his son Thomas the cupboard, the table, "the malte myll the furnace" and the rest of his malting and brewing gear, and that Thomas, a yeoman, married Elizabeth Carter, eldest daughter of Felix Carter, who owned his land outright: he was the first of the two men taxed on land at Claydon in 1610. When Thomas died in 1627/8, Elizabeth ran the farm. Through her sister Julian and Julian's husband, Christopher Boreman, the novelist George W. Cable descends from the same family.

Their son Thomas, baptized at Claydon on 18 Oct 1601, was a cooper. He was made a freeman of Massachusetts Bay in March 1634/5 and sat as a deputy at the General Court in September 1636, and in 1637 he signed the Ipswich petition asking that John Winthrop Jr. not be taken from the town. The Ipswich records call him "Mr." and his wife "Mistress." His house lot lay beside Mr. John Winthrop's, and he farmed Boardman's Island, bounded on the west by "the great creek called the Labour in vayne." By 1671/2 he was "a very old man." His will left the farm to his son Thomas after his wife's death, provided "that my Brother Daniell shall abide with my wiue while she lives," and gave "to my daughter Martha the wife of Thomas Loe to her children twenty pounds." He died in May 1673, aged 72, and Margaret on 25 Nov 1679.

Martha, born about 1641/2, married Thomas Low, son of the Chebacco maltster, on 4 July 1660, and they made their home at Chebacco. In 1668 she put her mark to the Chebacco neighbours' petition for Thomas Wells and his wife, and in March 1669, when the Lows' servant John Chub was tried for killing Reynold Foster's horse, she told the court that Chub had said "if he could save himself by telling two or three lies and turn it to anybody else, he was bound in conscience to do so." Her husband was a deacon of the Chebacco church from 1683, and his will of 1708 left her "the new end" of the house and "a horse to ride at her pleasure." She died on 22 Jan 1720, in her 79th year. She was probably the mother of Sgt. David Low (1667-1746), through whom the Low line goes on.

The line at a glance

William Boreman (fl. 1525), of Banbury > Thomas Boreman "the elder" (d. by 1580), of Claydon = Isabel > William Boreman (d. 1612/13) = Annis > Thomas Boreman (c. 1570-1627/8) = Elizabeth Carter (c. 1575-1631), daughter of Felix Carter (d. 1619) and Margaret > Thomas Boreman (1601-1673), of Ipswich = Margaret (d. 1679) > Martha Boreman (c. 1641/2-1720) = Deacon Thomas Low.

The scope walks every ancestor of Martha Boreman. Her husband's side is the Low line, which stops at her and goes on through their son, Sgt. David Low.

How sure it is

Martha's parents are documented: her father's will of 17 Dec 1670 provides "to my daughter Martha the wife of Thomas Loe to her children twenty pounds," and her mother's of 8 Aug 1679 leaves "my daughter Loe" her pewter (Goldthwaite, Boardman Genealogy, 1895, p. 115; Probate Records of Essex County 3:350). That the Ipswich Thomas was the one baptized at Claydon in 1601 is compiled and probable: Goldthwaite matches the provision in his will for "my Brother Daniell" to the one his mother Elizabeth made in her will of 1631 for her son Daniel, and his age at death, 72 years 7 months, fits the baptism. The English generations above him are Goldthwaite's pedigree, built from the Claydon registers and the Cropredy and Banbury wills, and each step, Elizabeth Carter's parentage among them, is compiled and probable. Margaret's death date is Goldthwaite's. Martha as the mother of David Low is inferred, probable: he was born on 14 Aug 1667, seven years into her marriage, and no record names his mother. The research is in Low Line Research: Harriet Phillips Low's father's side (Part One, B2 and section d) and Low Master Research (Part Four).

Mollie's typescript has the English line as Goldthwaite does, and the 1601 baptism, but it has Thomas dying about 1663 and Margaret in 1673, the year he died. The "Mr." and "Mistress" of the Ipswich records mark local standing; the family at Claydon were yeomen, not gentry (Mollie Frances Holbrook Pfeiffer's typescript: a claim-by-claim review, L13-L14; books/mollie/checked.yaml).

Open questions

• Margaret Boreman's maiden name.
• Martha's gravestone, "Jan. 22, 1720": 1719/20 or 1720/21?
• A record that names David Low's mother.
• Isabel's and Annis's maiden names, and whether Isabel was the mother of all the elder Thomas's children.