Briscoe

On New Year's Day 1657/8 Joseph Briscoe drowned at Boston. Rev. John Wilson, pastor of Boston's First Church and his father's first cousin, wrote an elegy on him, printed at Cambridge by Samuel Green on a broadside and built on the anagram "Job cries hopes," and gave Joseph the words: "What if I was so soon in Waters drown'd, / And when I cry'd to men, no help I found." His son Joseph was born that August, more than seven months after he drowned. The elder Joseph had been baptized at Watford, Hertfordshire, in 1627, a son of William Briscoe, a tailor, and his wife Jane, who had nine children baptized there and was buried there in 1637. William, baptized at Sundridge, Kent, in 1591, a son of Rev. Guy Briscowe, the rector, and Mary Wilson, married again that August, and in 1639 he brought his family to Boston, where he was allowed "to have a great Lott, for eight heads, at the mount" and kept a house and garden by the Common. Joseph was the second of his sons the water took: in 1642 Winthrop wrote of a young Briscoe who would not help his father, "a godly poor man," but went to load a boat for wages, and "fell into the water and was drowned," it seems William's son Daniel.

Joseph's widow Abigail, the only daughter of John and Susanna Compton of Roxbury and Boston, married Abraham Busby, a Boston baker, in 1659, and Busby brought her son up; his grandmother Compton left her whole estate to "my little grandchild, Joseph Brisco." He became a baker too, the fourth sergeant of the Artillery Company, a constable and a tithingman and measurer of grain. In 1696 he signed the petition asking the General Court to repeal the law that Boston be built of brick or stone, and in 1708 the corner of Washington and Bromfield Streets, where he held land, was called "Briscow's Corner." He held an enslaved man, William Row. He and his wife Rebecca had children from 1679 to 1700, the eldest Rebecca, born on 16 Sept 1679.

Rebecca married Samuel Foster, a goldsmith, son of Hopestill Foster the soap boiler. In 1699/1700, "for love of now wife Rebecca, daughter of my father-in-law Joseph Brisco, and also love of only child Rebecca," he made over all he had to her father in trust; their son Samuel was born in June 1701, and Samuel the goldsmith died in March 1702, aged twenty-five. She married twice more, Thomas Morrise in 1709 and William Scorch, a cooper, in 1718, and as Rebecca Scorch she joined her son Samuel, a periwig-maker, in selling his father's land in 1722 and deeding his father's share of a Boston house in 1726. Through William Briscoe she was a cousin of Rev. John Wilson. Her son's wife, Rachel Kneeland, heads the Kneeland and Hawkins line.

The line at a glance

Rev. Guy Briscowe, rector of Sundridge = Mary Wilson > William Briscoe (bp. 1591, d. by 1667), tailor, of Watford and Boston = Jane (bur. 1637) > Joseph Briscoe (bp. 1627, d. 1657/8) = Abigail Compton, daughter of John and Susanna Compton > Joseph Briscoe (b. 1658), baker = Rebecca > Rebecca Briscoe (b. 1679) = Samuel Foster (1676-1702), goldsmith > Samuel Foster (b. 1701), periwig-maker = Rachel Kneeland.

The scope walks every ancestor of Rebecca Briscoe. Her husband's side is the Thompson and Foster line, which stops at her; her son's wife, Rachel Kneeland, heads the Kneeland and Hawkins line.

How sure it is

Rebecca's birth is documented: "Rebecca of Joseph & Rebecca Brisco born Sept. 16" [1679] (Boston RC 9:148), and she was baptized at the Old South Church on 12 Oct 1680. Her husband's trust deed of 9 Mar 1699/1700 (Suffolk Deeds 21:150) calls her "daughter of Joseph Brisco of Boston, baker," and proves the marriage, though its date has not been found; her later marriages, to Thomas Morrise on 13 Oct 1709 and William Scorch on 25 Dec 1718, are in the Boston marriages as NEHGR 178 cites them (documented, proven). Her father is documented, probable: the deed names him, and that he was Joseph the baker, born in 1658, follows Spencer, Dearborn and Dearborn, "William Briscoe of Boston" (NEHGR 178, 2024). Her mother is documented, probable: her birth record names Joseph and Rebecca, and that this Rebecca is the wife living in 1724 is assumed, no second wife being known. Her place as the periwig-maker's mother is documented, probable: the deed of 1722, in which he joins her and the goldsmith's daughter, Rebecca Best, in selling the goldsmith's land, makes him the goldsmith's son and her the goldsmith's widow, and he was born in 1701, while she was the goldsmith's wife.

Joseph the baker's parents are documented and proven: he was born "of Joseph and Abigail Brisco" on 21 Aug 1658 (Boston RC 9:65) and baptized as "the sone of our sister Abigail Brisco," and his grandmother Compton left her estate to "my little grandchild, Joseph Brisco," which his mother settled on him by deed in 1683. Abigail, the Comptons' only daughter, married Joseph on 30 Jan 1651/2 before William Hibbins ("Abigail Compton dau. of John Compton," RC 9; documented, proven). Above them the links are from NEHGR 178, which prints the Watford and Sundridge registers, and are compiled and probable, Jane's alone documented. Joseph is taken to be the "Joseph, Sonne of William and Jane Briscoe" baptized at Watford on 19 Aug 1627, whose baptism makes Jane his mother (documented, probable). William is the son of Rev. Guy Briscowe and Mary Wilson baptized at Sundridge in 1591; the article's text gives the day as 24 June, its transcript of the register 29 June. That William was a first cousin of Rev. John Wilson, through his mother, rests on NEHGR 178 following Bartlett (NEHGR 61), with Wilson's will leaving 40s "To my cosin Benjamin Briscow," William's son. That Winthrop's drowned Briscoe of 1642, whom he calls Nathaniel, was William's son Daniel is the reading of the Dunn edition and NEHGR 178, Boston having recorded Daniel's death that spring. The research is in Low Line Research: Harriet Phillips Low's father's side (the addendum of 2 Oct 2026) and Famous kin in the Holbrook-Low Colonial Tree (Rev. John Wilson).

Mollie Pfeiffer's typescript has only Rebecca, "daughter of Joseph Brisco," and that she "was married three times," both of which hold (books/mollie/text/151.md); the generations above her come from the 2024 article.

Open questions

• When Rebecca married Samuel Foster, and her death, after 1726.
• The maiden name of Rebecca, wife of Joseph the baker, and her death; the Pipon Bible's "John and Rebecca Brisco."
• William Briscoe's baptism: 24 or 29 June 1591?
• Jane Briscoe's maiden name and baptism.
• Abigail Compton's father: the John Compton who "went from Cranbrook," named in the Bigg wills?