Holdershaw and Cole

Constance Hopkins came over on the Mayflower in 1620 with her father, Stephen Hopkins, who in the first weeks went ashore with Myles Standish's armed party, and later lodged Samoset in his house and went with Edward Winslow to Massasoit. She married Nicholas Snow and made her home at Eastham, on Cape Cod, where by about 1651 she had twelve children, "all of them living." In 1666 Ruth, probably their daughter, married John Cole, the eldest son of Daniel Cole, Eastham's first town clerk; in old age John settled his lands on their son Joseph, who in his own eighty-seventh year gave his land to his sons Gershom and Joseph. Joseph Cole Jr. married Sarah Nickerson of Harwich in 1737. She was a great-granddaughter of William Nickerson, the Norwich weaver who came on the John and Dorothy in 1637 and bought Monomoy, now Chatham, from the sachem Mattaquason without the Court's leave; and through her mother, Sarah Bassett, a granddaughter of Nathaniel Bassett of Yarmouth, son of William Bassett of the Fortune. Nathaniel's daughter Mary is an ancestor of the Holbrooks.

Their daughter Sarah, a twin, was born at Eastham in September 1738, and was probably the Sarah Cole who married John Holdershaw of Eastham in December 1760. He joined the Eastham church in 1773, was a corporal in the Eastham company in 1775 and a sergeant at the camp at Hull in 1776, where he signed the battalion's petition "asking for increase and payment of wages." About 1787-90 he took the family to Bald Hill Cove, Frankfort, on the Penobscot, where they dropped "Holder" and were called Shaw, and two of his daughters married the Ellingwood brothers: Hope married Richard Ellingwood at Orrington on 24 December 1787, and Delilah married Ralph in 1792. Widowed in 1802-3, Hope was the executrix of Richard's will and the guardian of their six children, among them Richard, born in 1790, who took the family west to Indiana.

The line at a glance

The Coles: Stephen Hopkins (d. bef. c. 1651), of the Mayflower > Constance Hopkins (d. 1677) = Nicholas Snow (d. 1676), of Eastham > Ruth Snow (d. 1716/17) = John Cole (b. 1644), son of Daniel Cole (c. 1614-1694) > Joseph Cole (b. 1677) = Mercy Hinckley > Joseph Cole Jr. (1718-1795) = Sarah Nickerson > Sarah Cole (b. 1738) = John Holdershaw (d. bef. 1807), of Eastham and Frankfort > Hope Holdershaw (c. 1768-aft. 1829) = Richard Ellingwood of Frankfort > Richard Ellingwood (1790-1864), of Manchester, Indiana.

The Nickersons and Bassetts: William Nickerson (c. 1604-c. 1690), of Norwich and Chatham = Anne Busby (bp. 1607/8) > Joseph Nickerson (1647-bet. 1725 and 1731), of Harwich = Ruhamah Jones > John Nickerson (d. bef. 1722) = Sarah Bassett, daughter of Nathaniel Bassett (c. 1628-1709/10) and Dorcas Joyce, and granddaughter of William Bassett of the Fortune > Sarah Nickerson (m. 1737) = Joseph Cole Jr., above.

The scope walks every ancestor of Hope Holdershaw. Her husband's side is the Ellingwood line, which stops at her. Her father's family is not known beyond him, so the line's depth comes through her mother, Sarah Cole. Nathaniel Bassett and Dorcas Joyce stand in this line and in the Mayo line, through their daughter Mary (Bassett) Mulford, so Dick Ellingwood and Frances Holbrook were probably seventh cousins, once removed.

How sure it is

• Hope to John Holdershaw (documented, proven): in 1807 "Hope Ellingwood, widow, of Frankfort" sold her rights in the real estate "of which my father John H. Shaw late of Frankfort died seized." His parents are not known.
• Hope to Sarah Cole (compiled, probable), one of the two weakest steps. John Holdershaw married Sarah Cole at Eastham in 1760, and his widow in 1807 was Sarah. That she was the twin born in 1738 to Joseph and Sarah (Nickerson) Cole is Ruth Gray's identification (Maine Families in 1790), borne out by the names of Hope's brother Joseph and sister Mary and by a second Cole and Holdershaw marriage at Orrington in 1790. Joseph Cole Jr.'s probate (Barnstable, 1795) would settle it.
• Sarah Cole to Joseph Cole Jr. and Sarah Nickerson, and Joseph Jr. to Joseph Cole and Mercy Hinckley (documented, proven): the Eastham births, the Harwich marriages of 1715 and 1737, and the deed of 1764 to "my two natural Sons namely, Gersham Cole, and Joseph Cole."
• Joseph Cole (b. 1677) to John Cole and Ruth Snow (documented, probable): his birth to John Cole in 1677 and John's deeds of 1713 and 1714/15 to "my naturall son Joseph Cole of Eastham." That this Joseph is the one who married Mercy Hinckley in 1715, at thirty-eight and for the second time, is the compilers' identification (Paine, 1946; the Nickerson genealogy). John Cole to Daniel Cole is proven by the deed of 1714/15.
• Ruth Snow to Nicholas Snow and Constance Hopkins (compiled, probable): the standard compilations (Paine, 1946; the Mayflower Families volume on Stephen Hopkins, not seen). Nicholas Snow's will leaves the residue to "all my Children" without naming his daughters. Constance as Stephen Hopkins's daughter is proven from Bradford, so the Mayflower descent, and every Hopkins connection that rests on it, is probable (Famous kin through the Deyos and Stephen Hopkins: verification and new lines, 2.1).
• Sarah Nickerson to John Nickerson and Sarah Bassett (compiled, probable), the other weakest step: the Nickerson genealogy (1997) alone, and no birth record has been found. Nathaniel Bassett's will of 1709/10 names his daughter "Sarah Nickerson"; that she was John's wife, and Dorcas Joyce her mother, is the genealogy's. Nathaniel to William Bassett is proven by the deed of 1656.
• John Nickerson to Joseph Nickerson and Ruhamah Jones, and Joseph to William Nickerson and Anne Busby (compiled, probable): the Nickerson genealogy.

The Ancestry tree makes John Holdershaw "Capt. John Holder Shaw Holdershaw," born at Eastham in 1735 to John Shaw and Martha Knowles. That John Shaw's family had moved to Hartford by 1744, and he is very probably Capt. John Shaw of Wilbraham, who died in Ohio about 1802; John Holdershaw was on Cape Cod from 1760 to 1787 and never more than a sergeant. The tree's line, and its route to the Freemans and Gov. Thomas Prence, is very probably wrong. The Nickerson genealogy calls Mercy Hinckley "Mary," where the records read Mercy, and has Joseph Cole selling his land to his sons in 1768, where the deed found is of 1764. The research is in Cape Cod ancestry of Hope Holdershaw and Hannah Brown, section 1a.

Open questions

• John Holdershaw's birth and parents; the Hancock probate papers (docket 2004) may give an age or a kinsman.
• Joseph Cole Jr.'s probate (Barnstable, 1795), which should name his daughter Sarah Holdershaw or Shaw.
• Sarah Nickerson's birth at Harwich, and a probate of John Nickerson or John Rogers naming the children.
• Ruth Snow's parents, in the Mayflower Families volume on Stephen Hopkins.
• Mercy Hinckley's birth and parents.
• Daniel Cole's wife Ruth: Ruth Chester, as Paine has it?
• Hope's death, some time after July 1829.