Riggs and Stanwood

In 1656 Thomas Riggs wrote "Thomas Riggs, his Booke" in a pigskin notebook and filled twelve pages of it with a shorthand no one since has been able to read, with the verse "And if this booke whereon you Looke by Casualty be loste, restor to me, for I am he That knowe best what it Coste." He was very probably the Thomas Rigg, son of Robert Rigg, a husbandman of Hawkshead in Lancashire, who was baptized there in 1633 and at thirteen was bound for nine years to Richard Barlowe, a scrivener of Tower Street, London. By 1658 he was at Gloucester, on Cape Ann, where he married Mary Millett, and from 1665 to 1716 he was the town's clerk, and a selectman "upwards of twenty years." In 1688 he was fined with his neighbours when the town would not assess one of Andros's "odious taxes"; in 1693 he was excused the poll tax, "decrepit in his lims"; and in 1698 the town chose him its schoolmaster, "to have one shilling and six pence a day during the town's pleasure, and the said Riggs's likeing to carry it on." He died in 1721/2, aged about ninety, "town clerk about 50 y." His house at Annisquam, of squared logs, with parts dated to 1661, still stands.

Mary's father, Thomas Millett, came over on the Elizabeth in 1635 with his wife Mary and their son Thomas, two, and Mary was born at Dorchester in 1639. Her mother was a daughter of John Greenaway, a Dorchester millwright, whose deed of 1650 calls his daughter Ursula "obedient, loving, dutifull and faithfull" to "her aged father & mother." In 1655 Thomas Millett bought William Perkins's place at Gloucester and followed him in a lay office of the church, coming "with the rare title of 'Mr.'"; after Mary's marriage, it is said, he paid his son-in-law for his board "at the rate of two days' labor a week." In 1674 he went to Brookfield as its preacher, and he died in the summer of 1675, the summer Brookfield was besieged and burned. Thomas and Mary's son Thomas married Ann Wheeler of Salisbury at Amesbury in 1687, and his brother John, it seems, married her sister Ruth. Ann's grandfather John Wheeler, a barber from Salisbury in Wiltshire, was of Hampton soon after its settlement, then of Salisbury and Newbury, and three of his sons stayed in England; his son David, eleven, crossed in the Confidence in 1638, listed as a servant. Her mother Abigail was a daughter of William Allen, a house-carpenter of Salisbury, and probably of Ann Goodale.

Thomas and Ann's son Joshua married Experience Stanwood in 1735. Her great-grandfather Philip Stanwood had bought Robert Tucker's house in Annisquam in 1654 and was the eldest sergeant of the foot company. Philip's son John, at twenty-two, served in the Lancaster garrison through the first winter of King Philip's War; two weeks after his wages were posted, Lancaster was attacked and the Rowlandson garrison house fell. That spring he and his brother Philip served under Capt. Brocklebank, who was killed near Sudbury, and afterwards Thomas Riggs entered their soldiers' lots at Kettle Cove in the Town Book. In 1680, at Boston, John married Lydia Butler, a widow. She was probably the daughter of Thomas Messer of Sheepscot, in Maine, and had lived "at the house of her father Thos Messer on ye West Side of s[ai]d Sheepscut River ... till she was seventeen years old and married"; when the Sheepscot was abandoned in August 1676 her family very probably fled with the rest, and they were refugees in Boston. Their son James married Mary Davis; in 1769, an old man, he gave half his house to his daughter Mary, the widow of Isaac Davis, who had "supported Supplied & attended" him and her mother. Joshua and Experience had eleven children at Gloucester, and Ann, born on 17 Jan 1747, married Capt. James Ginn there on 3 June 1768. In 1775 they went up the Penobscot to Orrington, and from 1800 they lived at Bucksport, where Ann died, probably, in 1822. She had six sons and six daughters, and Sally Ginn, who married Rowland Tyler in 1804, was perhaps one of them.

The line at a glance

The Riggses: Robert Rigg, husbandman, of Hawkshead > Thomas Riggs (bp. 1633, d. 1721/2), town clerk of Gloucester = Mary Millett (1639-1694/5) > Thomas Riggs Jr. (1666-1756) = Ann Wheeler (1667-1723) > Joshua Riggs (b. 1706/7) = Experience Stanwood (b. 1716) > Ann Riggs (1747-1822) = Capt. James Ginn (1745-1818).

The Milletts: John Greenaway, millwright, of Dorchester = Mary (d. 1658/9) > Mary Greenaway (c. 1606-by 1682) = Thomas Millett (c. 1605-1675), of the Elizabeth > Mary Millett = Thomas Riggs, above.

The Wheelers: John Wheeler (bp. by 1591, d. 1670), barber, of Salisbury, Wiltshire, and Newbury = Agnes Yeoman (d. 1662) > Henry Wheeler (d. bef. 1696) = Abigail Allen (b. 1639/40), daughter of William Allen (d. 1686), house-carpenter, of Salisbury, and Ann Goodale (d. 1678) > Ann Wheeler = Thomas Riggs Jr., above.

The Stanwoods: Philip Stanwood (d. 1672), of Gloucester = Jane (d. 1706) > Sgt. John Stanwood (1652/3-1705/6) = Lydia Messer, daughter of Thomas Messer of Sheepscot > James Stanwood (b. 1689/90) = Mary Davis > Experience Stanwood = Joshua Riggs, above.

The scope walks every ancestor of Ann Riggs. Her husband's side is the Tyler and Ginn line, which stops at her.

How sure it is

The line reaches the family only through Sally Ginn, and that link is the weakest in it: Sally, wife of Rowland Tyler, is a daughter of Capt. James Ginn and Ann Riggs in Mollie Pfeiffer's Ginn chart, in Upton (1963) and on WikiTree, none of them citing a record for her, while Brigham's Tyler Genealogy (1912) calls her the daughter of "William H. Ginn, a shipbuilder of Ellsworth," a man found in no record. Buck's count of Ann's "six sons and six daughters" works only if Sally is one of them, and Porter's list of the children leaves her out (compiled, possible; see the Tyler and Ginn line).

From Ann upward the town records carry it. Her birth, "Ann, d. Joshua and Experience, Jan. 17, 1747" (Gloucester VR 1:578), is printed without a double date, so 1746/7 or 1747/8, and her marriage is "GENN, James [Geen. int.], and Anne Riggs, June 3, 1768." The births at Gloucester, Salisbury and Dorchester name the parents of nearly everyone above her: "Joshua, s. Thomas and Anne" (1706/7), "Experience, d. James and Mary" (1716), "Thomas, s. Thomas and Mary" (1666), "Ann, d. twin, Hen[ry] and Abigail" (1667), "James, s. John and Lidiah" (1689/90), "John, s. Phillip and Jane" (1652/3), "Abigail, d. Willi[am] and Ann" (1639/40) and "Mary the daughter of Thomas Millet & Mary his wife" (1639), whose marriage record also calls her "d. Thomas." Where a parent is named by first name only, who she or he was rests on the parent's marriage, so the mothers of Joshua and Thomas Riggs Jr., James Stanwood's mother, John Stanwood's father and mother, Abigail Allen's father and Mary Millett's mother are documented and probable (the ruling of 6 Oct 2026, Research decisions); the other links named in these records are proven. That the Lidiah of James's birth was Lydia (Messer) Butler is Bolton's (1899). The rest:

• Thomas Riggs as the son of Robert Rigg of Hawkshead (documented, probable): the Hawkshead baptism of 25 Mar 1633 and the Drapers' Company binding of 1646/7 both name Robert, and Smith and Anderson (TAG 82, 2007) call the identification with the Gloucester clerk "very probabl[e]." Y-DNA from two male-line descendants matches descendants of Edward Riggs of Roxbury, so the two immigrants "have a close common ancestor." His own ages fall either side of the baptism: "aged about thirty-two years" in a deposition of 1667, and about 90 at his death in 1721/2.
• Mary Greenaway as John Greenaway's daughter (documented, proven): his deed of gift of 1650 names "Thomas & mary Millett my sonne in Lawe & daughter" (NEHGR 32:56). His wife Mary, who died in 1658/9, is taken to be her mother (inferred, probable).
• Henry Wheeler as John Wheeler's son (documented, probable): Hoyt (1897); John's will of 1668 makes his son Henry sole executor. John Wheeler's wife, Agnes Yeoman, and his parents, Dominick Wheeler and Mercy Jelly (compiled, probable): Davis (1996), seen only as Randy Seaver reports it; Hoyt calls the wife "Anne," surname blank.
• Ann Goodale as Abigail Allen's mother, and Richard Goodale as Ann's father (compiled, probable): Hoyt.
• Lydia Messer as Thomas Messer's daughter (compiled, probable): Bolton's reading of her depositions of 1737 and 1742, which name "her father Thos Messer"; Cushman (1882) agrees. Her Butler husband is unknown.
• Dates: John Stanwood's birth, "Last of Last mo, 1652," is the end of February 1652/3. Bolton gives Experience Stanwood the birth date of her sister Susanna (December 1719), which would make her fifteen at her marriage; the town record's 17 Apr 1716 is used. Ann's death on 19 Sept 1822 at Bucksport is from the Genn family study alone. Thomas Millett died intestate between 3 June and 28 Sept 1675, where is not recorded.

The research is in Tyler and Ginn Line Research: Hannah Read Tyler's ancestry (Part Two: the verdict table, the Riggs, Millett and Greenaway, Wheeler and Allen, and Stanwood sections, and the addendum of 2 Oct 2026); the war years are in King Philip's War: Essex County (and the Eastern war, 1675-78).

Mollie's typescript (pp. 165a-187) first named all these families, and most of its dates match the records. Where it went wrong: Joshua Riggs was born on 26 Feb 1706/7, not the 16th, and several of his children's dates differ, with a son William left out; Thomas Riggs was representative in 1700, not 1760, and selectman "upwards of twenty years," not twenty-nine times, and it was Thomas Jr.'s brother John, not Thomas Jr., who lived on the west side of the Annisquam; Mary (Millett) Riggs died in 1694/5, and the 1682 of the typescript is her mother's; the Thomas Millet fined with Riggs in 1688 was his brother-in-law, not his father-in-law, who was dead; Thomas Millett was not "a certified minister of St. Saviour's," since the passengers "brought Certi. from the Minister of St Saviors Southwark," and his son Thomas was born about 1633, not 1628; John Wheeler was baptized by 1591, not born in 1618, his wife was Agnes Yeoman, not Ann Salisbury, and Henry Wheeler's widow in 1696 was Abigail, not Ann; John Stanwood was born at the end of February 1652/3, not on 31 Dec 1652; and Philip Stanwood left no will for Thomas Riggs to execute: his widow Jane administered the estate. Its descents from the Salusburys of Lleweni, with kinship to Mrs. Piozzi, the Milletts of Marazion and the armigerous Wheelers of Martin Hussingtree have nothing behind them, nor do its Myllets of Chertsey, its Greenaways "of Stains" or its Stanwoods of Stanswood; and Thomas Riggs, of "a family of position" in the typescript, was very probably a husbandman's son. What it says of Lydia (Messer) Butler is probably right (Mollie Frances Holbrook Pfeiffer's typescript: a claim-by-claim review, section 7.4, G8-G17; books/mollie/checked.yaml).

Open questions

• Was Ann the mother of Sally Ginn? The Bucksport intention of 25 Feb 1804, the Orrington births, or a Ginn probate.
• Ann's death (19 Sept 1822): the Castine Eagle and the Bucksport gravestones.
• Ann's birth: 1746/7 or 1747/8?
• Joshua Riggs's death.
• Experience Stanwood's birth: a second scan of Bolton p. 45.
• Mary Davis's parents.
• Lydia Messer's Butler husband, and her depositions of 1737 and 1742, at first hand.
• John Wheeler's parents and wife: Davis, Annis Spear III:604-606; and did he come on the Mary and John in 1634?
• Thomas Millett's and John Greenaway's English origins, and where Millett died.
• Philip Stanwood's origin.
• Thomas Riggs's notebook of 1656, and the original 1688 record of the Andros fines.